Ideas for more smuggling in space.

CatoNovus said:

Here's a brief rundown of some ideas I had back in the SOE days. Please bear with me, I'm doing this by memory.

The Lockup​

The Lockup is either an Imperial or planetary security force facility. To keep things simple, I'd recommend a building resembling a cross (+), with each wing holding a different type of contraband. I'd recommend splitting the categories into: Arms(Weapons and Armor), Spices, Illicit Cargo, TBD. The last is an obvious placeholder, many things could fit here(), but would need to be declared as illegal to possess. This could lead to resource spawns being illegal, which would be an interesting idea. Think of it, crafters go out and discover there's a spawn of, say high grade aluminum. Resource spawns above a certain level would be considered "high priority for the Imperial War effort", useful for crafting just about everything at a high level of quality.

This would require a change to the resource system, but would introduce a new level of risk to the crafting part of the game. Not only would there the be the risk of surveying resources in the wild, but the ultra high quality resources would be a risk themselves. You don't want to be caught carrying them around. This would also give droids with storage compartments a use, but reducing the likelihood of being caught(think of Luke's lightsaber hidden in R2D2), rather than avoiding it. I do see the potential problem of storing things in droids and then storing the droids. My best advice is the restriction that only one thing(or a single stack of one type of thing) that is contraband be inside a single droid at a time, otherwise, drop this ability.

Smugglers will be needed to access the Lockup for the individuals looking to recover their contraband. By necessity, this must be instanced due to the personal items within the lockup. Players will have 30 real world days to enter this instance and reclaim their contraband before it gets destroyed(in the case of sliced equipment and spice), used by the Imperial War Machine(resources), or kept by corrupt officials for their own ends.

Smugglers should also have an increased chance to get things by contraband scan. The simplest way I can see it is every box in Smuggler granting a +5% chance of getting by, seeing as there are 18 boxes in Smuggler, that's a 90% chance at Master, which sounds about right. Even for a Master there should be a chance to fail. I can see an argument to make it a total of 95%, in which case, either make Novice or Master have a 10% chance, the rest remaining at 5%. The arguments for both sides that I see are to have the larger boost as a Novice so you see more benefit immediately upon becoming a Smuggler; and to have the bigger boost as a Master to avoid people templating Smuggler to gain advantages in what they really want to do(remember Feign Death Jedi bringing a halt to Bounty Hunters completing their missions?)

Entering and Exiting the Lockup​

As mentioned previously, this needs to require a Smuggler with at least Underworld 4 and Slicing 1. Underworld 4 because that is the tier called "Connections". There will need to be at least one Underworld Agent on every planet the Smuggler can go to that grants access to not only lockups(if there are any on those worlds, as some world's are less lawful than others), but also Smuggler missions, but we can deal with that later as implementing this can provide the framework for other things later on.

Dealing with the Agent for this purpose would do two things, it locks in who's confiscated equipment will be in the instance(those who have things to retrieve will need to be present), and will give a transponder that would be used at a starport to enter the instance. Everyone in the group with the Smuggler gets an invite upon using the transponder. This transponder calls a transport ship which takes you to the Lockup. It gets you in, and is your exit route.

Now is where the minimum of "Slicing 1: Terminals" comes in, doors will need to be sliced to get through, containers will need to be opened for the confiscated items. Some chance of finding randomly generated illicit goods, but the containers with their things will need to be labeled "<Player Name>'s Weapons", if they wish to look for more stuff to profit from(ran gen loot) they can, but the longer they take, the more guards spawn in, increasing the risk of death/failure. This is a point where it could be advantageous to have multiple Smugglers in the group. Splitting up to hit multiple wings at once should be a viable option, but risky, because NPC CL scaling. That said, having one Smuggler access the North Wing to grab weapons while another hits the West to grab Spices can make things go faster.

Each wing should have a Wing Captain, who is in charge of all that wing's contraband, and without getting him, they can't gain access to the bonus loot. Also, if you go to the Wing Captain first(rather than looking and looting), you can loot that wing's access codes and the spawns within that wing will stop, but you will still need to slice doors to get to him, this simply means that you don't have to Slice every last lock along the way, such as the containers which hold the confiscated loot. To use the previous example, the guards in the West Wing would all be labeled <Faction> Narcotics Guards while guards in the North Wing would be <Faction> Munitions Guards or something similar.

The "final boss" of the instance, should be both tough and optional, possibly to implement JTL gameplay at this point, or accurately, after this point. The final boss is found in the tower at the center between the wings. <Faction> Lockup Commandant, will have the ability to summon general factional backup as well as backup from all wings, unless you kill the Wing Captains. Killing the Commandant does one important thing. It stops him from sending ships after you on the automated transport.

Once the party has everything they've come for, or everything they're willing to fight for, they have to make it back to the transport to get out. Its an automated ship that has been modified to follow the limited commands of the transponder, which is why it hasn't left. They get back to the transport, activate the transponder, and that starts their escape. Remember the Commandant? Did you kill him? If this isn't done, the players will spawn in the transport as it flies away, and will have to occupy turrets to defend the ship until it makes it to hyperspace. This risk can be mitigated someone by having someone who was not in the instance come in the planetary space and fly escort for the transport. Hell, this could even be a mission that is issued by the planetary space stations.

Success or Failure​

Obviously, if everyone dies, they've failed. But, I think there should also be a timed function to the instance. Say, thirty to forty-five minutes for the Lockup itself, and another ten to fifteen for the transport escape(assuming they didn't kill the Commandant). For the first phase, the Lockup, the timer is because once they start wandering around, an alarm gets tripped and reinforcements have been called. If they can't do their work and get out in time, the Lockup goes on Lockdown. Nobody is getting out when outnumbered like that. That can be tweaked, possibly change it so that Lockdown starts at the beginning and perhaps the Commandant is required to be killed to lift the Lockdown and escape, but if they don't get out before a certain point, then they'll have to deal with the faction assault on the transport.

How does this use JTL for more than just an escort mission?​

Well, remember the third contraband category above? Illicit Cargo, was labeled that way for Smuggler Missions. When a Smuggler has a load of contraband that gets seized, that's where it ends up. The Smuggler needs to get it back and deliver it to the intended recipient in space. This also means that there have to be inspection patrols in lawful space, and that they can disable/confiscate the contraband. There should also be pirates who just want to take it. A similar situation to the Lockup can be made for the less lawful areas in which the pirates put their ill-gotten goods in their storehouses.

Smuggling(oversimplified) in JTL should be: #1(PvE) Speak with Smuggler Contact, set up a meet, speak with NPC on ground, who loads contraband into whichever ship you designate that has a cargo hold, you launch, travel out of immediate range of the landing station(say, five or six klicks away), then hyper to the delivery system. Land in location, speak with planetary contact or mission generated NPC to have them go pick up cargo.

#2(PvP possible) Speak with Smuggler Contact, set up a meet, speak with NPC on ground, who gives you a location to meet in space, you launch travel to location, dock and receive cargo, travel away from meetup location(again, five or six klicks away), then hyper to the delivery system. Meet in space with delivery contact and dock to transfer goods. The reason this is marked as PvP possible, is that you will be given a TEF to be attacked by whichever GCW faction is in charge of the planet(Imperials wouldn't want Sliced guns all over the place, Rebels wouldn't want their soldiers high on Spice all the time, et cetera) as well as the local security forces.

On both of these, failure to deliver the smuggled cargo will put a bounty on the Smuggler's head. Type one generates NPC bounty hunters until the Smuggler appeases the crime boss who hired him, by either retrieving the cargo or paying for it. Type two puts Smugglers on Bounty Hunter terminals, with similar solutions.

That's all I got for now. Started recreating this old work last night, but kids get needy at times.

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Narmy said:

At this moment in time its pointless looking for additions to the space game that would require a large amount of dev time and effort. This kind of thing is earmarked for 3.0 and as such should wait until then to be discussed... Yet another example of why Jinx is not appropriate for the space senator

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Narmy said:

spoken like the fraud you are because you know you dont actually have a logical answer back.

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