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Smuggling love

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Nexus Day
Lustrevik Trade and Travel Bureau
#101 - 2013-08-21 16:47:27 UTC
Demica Diaz wrote:
Ash Katara wrote:
In another thread dealing with changes to how Concord and system security work, I proposed the idea that Concord patrols systems, meaning that they would have a limited number of active groups bouncing around the system in predictable patterns. There would never be enough patrol groups to maintain a constant presence at any one gate or station. This would open up one possible way to move illegal goods around, by learning these patrol patterns or using the D-Scan to track their movements and perhaps a scout, it would become possible to completely avoid the long arm of the law and smuggle goods around.


I would rather give players to work with Concord and hunt down smugglers, instead of NPCs doing the job.

For example, player scans cargo of smugglers ship and notices illegal stuff, he contacts Concord and gets "OK" to shoot down the ship.

Or if you have illegal stuff in cargo you are attackable by anyone without Concord destroying attacker. But trick is if you have illegal stuff in cargo you are not flashy, not flagged by anything, you are just neutral as "normal" players. Except when fired upon you get killed and killer wont get Concorded. That will bring up some PvP and also new profession to hunt down smugglers. Best of all its all players running the show not some NPC.

I think EVE future should be by players for players and NPCs have less and less role.

I agree and disagree. There needs to be a healthy level of NPC interaction to accommodate different play styles. Note, much of the talk is about NPCs having the ability to flag and in some ways enforce but not kill. But I definitely see your point.
RoAnnon
Republic University
Minmatar Republic
#102 - 2013-08-21 16:52:17 UTC
Danika Princip wrote:
I want to smuggle love. CCP, let me smuggle love!


Smuggle or Snuggle? :)

Make Smuggling a profession!! Smuggling missions and stuff.. yeah!

+1

So, you're a bounty hunter. No, that ain't it at all. Then what are you? I'm a bounty hunter.

Broadcast4Reps

Eve Vegas 2015 Pub Crawl Group 9

Houston EVE Meet
Whitehound
#103 - 2013-08-21 17:01:53 UTC
Try smuggling yourself through null-sec.

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.
Mole Guy
Bob's Bait and Tackle
#104 - 2013-08-21 20:25:53 UTC
smuggling missions would rawk!
i havent read this whole thread, but here is an idea.

there should be a new rig that would give you the ability to run a secret cargo expander.
the expander gives xxx of storage. it is not detectable, nor scannable. so if you had it on a mastadon which carries 20k normally, with 1 of these expanders, you would have 20k normal and 2k (only 10% increase) hidden cargo. if you put 2.1k, you get 100% chance of being detected and the "feds" go through your ship and confiscate everything.
it doesnt matter what you run in it, whether it be bp's you bought in jita or drugs to high sec again...

it could also be made into a smuggling skill and the smuggling rig skill. each give you a certain % to not be scanned. some folks with high scanning *might* be able to pick them up on a skill vs skill thing and local navies would have a set 75% or something of detecting hidden cargo and fine you for it if its illegal. block aide runners cant be scanned, but i think the navies can still bust em..which isnt right.

then, we could actually have smuggler agents.
one would be tasked to run drugs or whatever into high sec, or even into npc low or null sec.
this would bring block aide runners into the game BIG time. a whole carrier could be devoted to doing this.
of course, smuggler agent would be very few and far in between. there would be maybe 3-4 per faction/empire.
a minie agent could ask you to go to amarr space and get some military plans they just stole from an amarrian general and bring them back to minie space for a counter offensive.
of manufacturing runs where they ask you to smuggle in stolen blue prints from sansha militants or whatever which would result in you gaining a bpc as a mission reward.

A LOT could go into this and it would be a riot. you might have to have escourt to get through into enemy space (lev 5 group missions)..
it would be fun. it sure would beat just grabbing a bunch of holoreels and bringin them to amarr.
once you get the stolen death star plans (avatar), all of the empire (ammarian) would be after you. every jump would be an escape..an adventure. warp stabs, flying cloaky, persuit ships chasing you through amarr and beyond trying to get them back.
you could be scrammed and asked to give them up, or just KOS. it would depend on if they were Retribution blue prints or avatar bpc's.
the higher the pay, the more the risk, the more fun it should be.
on top of that, you become flagged once u are detected by the navy so it would bring in pvpers to take you out.
this could break into faction warfare stuff EASILY...i really could see some bad ass missions around getting plans out or taking drugs in. ESPECIALLY if we have to go deep into npc null sec like deep into blood raiders territory.
Nexus Day
Lustrevik Trade and Travel Bureau
#105 - 2013-10-24 00:31:29 UTC
I have noticed that once a month or more a new thread opens up about smuggling. I think it is about time smuggling get a sticky and planned for a future expansion. How about it CCP? What other new professions are getting this type of support? Most ideas are just variations on a theme, not a new profession like smuggling could and needs to be!
Altered Ego
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#106 - 2013-10-24 03:40:41 UTC
I like the idea of a small-time/big-time smuggling markets, with fairly low risk of crossing a local gate but a very high risk of crossing a regional gate. The penalty for getting caught should be a standings loss so eventually the Minmatar will get sick of you running slaves and shoot you on sight .. or ... just flag you and rely on capsuleers to hunt you down.

But crashing gates is what small time smugglers do .. there has been talk from CCP about player owned gates .. maybe a big time smuggling operation would set up a clandestine jump gate network to bypass the dangerous gates that the faction cops patrol.
Quintessen
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#107 - 2013-10-24 04:17:03 UTC
Ok, I've seen a lot of good ideas here. I'd like to take those and add some of my own:

1) Two new flags on items... taxable and illegal. Taxable items get taxed when changing regions. Illegal items cause a fine and forfeiture of the goods. The taxes and fines would need to be fairly high to make people want to avoid them.
2) Players can attack players who have illegal items in their hold with no reaction from CONCORD. There may be something here about jettisoning cargo.
3) Ships can fit a rig that adds a special smuggler's cargo hold. These cargo holds make it less likely that you will be detected with cargo scans (potentially skill based, distance based and/or chance based). Smuggler's holds show up as Expanded Cargo Holds on ship scanners. The benefit of making it a rig is that freighters get left out making it about smuggling small amounts of illegal goods rather than giant freighters and one-time costs.
4) Players can flag other players as having illegal goods/taxable goods. This flag lasts a certain amount of time. If the pilot then goes through a gate they will be fined and the player who flagged them will get a cut of the fine.
5) In each region there is a moving black market hub. If you scan it down you gain access to trade contraband on the market for X period of time (say 30 days). After found, a timer starts and the site de-spawns (basically the black market guys warping off). Finding it again extends restarts your access timer.
6) New charisma-based skills can be added to reduce fines when caught with illegal goods.
7) Ammo/charge bays should be introduced on ships. Items in ammo bays and drone bays do not get taxed because they are for personal use, but that opens up taxation on other items including ammo and charges.

Just some thoughts.
Sahriah BloodStone
State War Academy
Caldari State
#108 - 2013-10-24 05:14:48 UTC
So..i just read this entire thread with the word snuggling instead of smuggling until my fiancee informed me otherwise..It still sounded like a good idea

Sahriah Bloodstone

No.Mercy // Triumvirate

"Never underestimate your enemy or disrespect its abilities. If you do, you shall become the hunted "
Yummy Chocolate
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#109 - 2013-10-24 07:01:49 UTC
Sahriah BloodStone wrote:
So..i just read this entire thread with the word snuggling instead of smuggling until my fiancee informed me otherwise..It still sounded like a good idea

this character will smuggle snuggle love to you any day Lol

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Felicity Love >... was thinking "moar popcorn"... but now, seeing the truly awesome contribution this thread is going to make to the Greater Glory Of EVE.... imagonnamakkadapizza....
Altered Ego
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#110 - 2013-10-24 21:21:50 UTC
Yummy Chocolate wrote:
Sahriah BloodStone wrote:
So..i just read this entire thread with the word snuggling instead of smuggling until my fiancee informed me otherwise..It still sounded like a good idea

this character will smuggle snuggle love to you any day Lol


-1 concord snuggle tax!
Altered Ego
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#111 - 2013-10-24 21:43:52 UTC
Quintessen wrote:

5) In each region there is a moving black market hub. If you scan it down you gain access to trade contraband on the market for X period of time (say 30 days). After found, a timer starts and the site de-spawns (basically the black market guys warping off). Finding it again extends restarts your access timer.


Some pretty good ideas. I think there is a better alternative to a moving market hub.

For years there has been a lot of people asking for a trading module deployed independently or from a pos. This module would set up a market where there otherwise wasn't one (w-space/empty systems, esp. in nullsec) or set up an alternate market where access is impossible (restricted outposts or opposing FW space).

Having these modules would help those people as well as smugglers; anyone could set up a pos with a market anchored outside of it, say in jita or amarr or W-space. But a black marketeer could sell what ever he wanted to ... but he had better be prepared to defend it against the competition!
Kagura Nikon
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#112 - 2013-10-24 22:47:00 UTC
CCP Fear wrote:
There have been multiple designs made for smuggling. It's something we are very fascinated by and keep talking about again and again. We just haven't been able to set on a good design yet.

It obviously needs a lot of content to be viable and some introduction of heavily used items (preferably consumed) which are illegal and require you to smuggle it and sell it on some black market. I think that would be a basic premise.

But currently, there are no short-term plans to introduce smuggling as a profession.

Keep bringing it up and propose ideas as that can spark our enthusiasm and get it back in the foreground.



That is easy.. reduce drug booster drawback to a level where they become really interesting. Voilá.. you have your stuff to smuggle.


Also make that you are not likely to be detected in 0.5 systems, this way there will be places wher eyou can use the stuff in high sec.

"If brute force does not solve your problem....  then you are  surely not using enough!"
Phoenix Jones
Small-Arms Fire
#113 - 2013-10-24 23:48:45 UTC
Yea there needs to be more in order to smuggle. Currently it's just a handful of drugs.

Yaay!!!!
Nexus Day
Lustrevik Trade and Travel Bureau
#114 - 2013-10-25 00:37:41 UTC
Phoenix Jones wrote:
Yea there needs to be more in order to smuggle. Currently it's just a handful of drugs.

Agreed. I will bring up the idea to make rival faction items illegal for transport in rival factions. Imagine if the only way you could get Caldari missles in Amarr was to have them smuggled in. And not just charges, any item available through FW with the exception of implants. But you could make black market implants too.

The PvE and the PvP activities suggested in this thread are pretty substantial. Along with the ship mods and equipment, new pirate haulers, etc. Having a reason to introduce Pirate industrials is reason enough alone to do this.
Antoine Arnoux
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#115 - 2013-10-25 00:41:36 UTC
Why not something as simple as if a player cargo scans a ship moving contraband (and detects that contraband), the smuggler is flagged with a limited engagement timer that allows the scanner to attack. If the scanner destroys the smuggler's ship he or she gets a small number of CONCORD LP in proportion to the value of the destroyed cargo, similar to the way FW LP are awarded for kills. I agree there would need to be more items to smuggle to make this interesting.
Nexus Day
Lustrevik Trade and Travel Bureau
#116 - 2013-10-25 00:46:25 UTC
Antoine Arnoux wrote:
Why not something as simple as if a player cargo scans a ship moving contraband (and detects that contraband), the smuggler is flagged with a limited engagement timer that allows the scanner to attack. If the scanner destroys the smuggler's ship he or she gets a small number of CONCORD LP in proportion to the value of the destroyed cargo, similar to the way FW LP are awarded for kills. I agree there would need to be more items to smuggle to make this interesting.

Agreed. Similar ideas are presented throughout this thread because the mechanic makes sense. Really excited about the number of cool mechanics and gameplay mechanisms being suggested.

How about CCP? Are we getting warmer or are we still missing something?
Shivanthar
#117 - 2013-10-25 07:19:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Shivanthar
Schmata Bastanold wrote:
CCP Fear wrote:
...multiple designs made for smuggling... we are very fascinated... keep talking about again and again... currently, there are no short-term plans to introduce smuggling as a profession...


I would really love to see at some point what is on any of those mythical to-do lists of yours. Because it seems that none of them contains anything even remotely close to what players would like to see done.

I understand legacy code problems, huge system to maintain, processes, meetings, costs, marketing, physical limitations of teams - I have it all on daily basis in my corner of hell - but all devs just seem be doing UI fluff and shifting attributes values to balance things out because everything else is kokblocked by twisted dependencies in ancient code. So how come you have like one dev fixing internals of backend code madness (CCP Veritas if I'm not mistaken) ?

When will we have anything serious done like POSes, brain in the box, more player world shaping tools and all those marvelous things devs gasped about at fanfests?


While they are dreaming of it, somebody else has already finished implementing smuggling...
Pirate

http://goo.gl/62UqMl

People kept talking about it for a very very long time already. It is time for some work eh?

_Half _the lies they tell about me **aren't **true.
epicurus ataraxia
Illusion of Solitude.
Illusion of Solitude
#118 - 2013-10-25 11:02:45 UTC  |  Edited by: epicurus ataraxia
Tl;dr read all the posts, but smuggling is an opportunity to use the existing mechanics,with some minor changes.
Great effort is expended to increase faction standings, make use of this.
In it's simplest form exporting note NOT IMPORTING all goods from a racial region are taxed according to standings. Once moved out of racial area into another area they become flagged tax exempt.
Goods taxed when crossing between races boundaries, notification before jumping with large gates to prevent insanely over the top hisec ganking.Do not remove all risk/opportunity however, keep it sensible.
Gates to and from null, losec and wormholes do not have customs agents.
Smugglers can be noobs with low standings or highly skilled characters with standings in one race but sneak back with a full cargo hold from destination where they hold corresponding reduced standings.
Reduce choke points between hisec and losec but do not remove them.does not discorage noobs from day one, farm and harvest smugglers not "cut down the saplings then complain no firewood!"
Limit gate-camp ambushes to so many per hour by imposing 150km "lurk" limit until kill time timer expires, or triggering invulnerability timer on gate visitors, either would work.
Forces losec dwellers to manage their visitors, by picking worthwhile targets, rather than killing them all. Kill too early or a worthless noob, and they miss out on juicy killmail and loot from next visitor.
There will be a lot more visitors than currently. so merely means that value judgements need to be made by campers.
Fixes smuggling, fixes lowsec, fixes noobs only visiting once and never again.
I can imagine that convoys of smugglers will use this mechanic, stupid gate campers will get a noob ship and curse themselves when a convoy sails through invulnerable, smart ones may get the freighter.. Or not... Skill and intelligence/tactics win.
Job done

There is one EvE. Many people. Many lifestyles. WE are EvE
Solkara Starlock
Circle of Mystery
#119 - 2013-10-25 11:07:52 UTC
Some very nice suggestions in this thread. Read up on them CCP!

Just my 2cents.

For smuggling to become a real profession, you need a big market of usefullbut illegal things. Just boosters will not suffice.
Making faction stuff illegal in other empires is clumsy! Right now there are stations of every empire in the other empires. (eg. Minmatar and Gallente NPC factions operate freely in Amarr space now). Should those stations also become illegal? Not going to happen.
Smuggling should be taken place in a seperate black market, away from normal market trading in stations (perhaps something WiS can provide??). Like the regular market in EVE, this market should contain mostly player made items. Boosters, pirate faction ammo, smuggling related mods,...
Maybe introduce some NPC smuggling corps that give missions and with their LP's you can buy BPC's and smuggler related skillbooks.

Transporting these items should be risky, also in high sec! Custom agents or star gates could scan you and deny you passage until you either
1) use hacking to 'fix' the records
2) eject cargo and pay a fine
3) try to bribe the custom officer.
Failure will result in a criminal flag. That will surely spark some PVP!
Of course there should be skills or mods to influence your chances or reduce the losses.

Production of illegal items can take place in low or null sec. or maybe even in high sec. The new deployables come to mind: a mobile illegal production plant that can be shot down or hacked into to steal some of the production.

Whatever it will be, I think it will be implemeted as something additional to the existing features without changing much of the existing situation.
Nexus Day
Lustrevik Trade and Travel Bureau
#120 - 2013-10-25 23:20:55 UTC
Interesting point about the rival station in an enemy factions system. Another reason why it doesn't feel like the sides are at war. Why aren't there NPC space battles going on that players can join in on, incursion style. But yes I would remove the offending stations.

How about this for an angle. In retaliation for capsuleers setting up their own stations the Empire factions agree to place an embargo on T2 construction components, ship mods and equipment. The Empire navies do not use T2, they use faction so the act would be punitive against capsuleers. Make them illegal to be put on the market at Empire stations and those POS' in hi sec become pivotal.

One question, if smuggling was made a profession would Red Frog get involved? Anyone in touch with them to get them to weigh in?