no one has any idea what you are talking about, why not bump your other thread instead of this nonsense

Was that character bought on the bazaar? I'd think anyone who's played EVE prior to 2011 would know what the OP is talking about. He wants CCP to follow up on its promise of making smuggling a real profession.

I want to smuggle love. CCP, let me smuggle love!

Yeah, just like they did with hacking. Maybe add some kind of minigame to it, hmm?

...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...

So what is actually done beside tiercide?

Uh, aren't covert ops transport ships unable to be scanned? That's smuggling right there. Hop to it.

You could probably introduce high paying smuggling missions from the pirate factions that bring you into high sec.

You get hit with fines and standing losses as soon as you warp to 0 and jump through any gate in highsec, covops doesnt help in this situation.

I thought this thread was going to be about smuggling prostitutes.

There is no love in the cold, dark depths of space. The uncaring stars look on as we, demigods and the successors to humanity, litter the cosmos with the smoldering wreckage of each others' hopes and dreams. Everything we turn our gaze upon will submit to our whims and wills or face obliteration. There is no love in the cold, dark depths of space.

Maybe it's because CCP won't allow you to smuggle any in for us.

Uh, aren't covert ops transport ships unable to be scanned? That's smuggling right there. Hop to it.

You could probably introduce high paying smuggling missions from the pirate factions that bring you into high sec.

By adding a skill to help vs scanning and low slot items to do the same, you get a boost to invention, industry, etc. Having a chance of getting caught with your hold full of contraband adds to the excitement. Having other players along with customs being able to flag you adds that extra layer of connectivity.

Missions would be nice and the content would create itself (take X Y number of jumps to Z). But imagine if the only way you could get an Amarr faction item into Minmatar space (or vice versa) would be to smuggle it. Damn that would be sweet.

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.

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.

1) Making faction modules/goods/ammunition 'illegal' to the extent that it is disliked by the local faction.

This part ... maybe not. There are lots of players who min/max, like to play with faction toys. Players buy rat ships, etc.

Where I think the illegality can come in is the need for some illegal items to be traded in at the LP stores. The Minmitar like to free slaves right? So, turn in 100 slaves for X whatevers from republic fleet. The ISK sink remains since slaves, the majority of them, would come from NPC sellers.

What I would not do, at first anyway, is change the LP store so that slaves are 100% required to cash in at the LP shop. So you could pay 100 slaves or 87,000 ISK ... assuming memory serves correctly and slaves are about 870 ISK from Amarr NPCs.


Your idea "faction hauling licenses" is quite a good idea.

Where I think the illegality can come in is the need for some illegal items to be traded in at the LP stores. The Minmitar like to free slaves right? So, turn in 100 slaves for X whatevers from republic fleet. The ISK sink remains since slaves, the majority of them, would come from NPC sellers.

Id say the best way to make smuggling a profession would be to make more things illegal throughout the 4 empires. Or have the empires customs enforce taxes on incoming materials and things to sell that are coming from outside their space. This would cause a Freighter pilot from Amarr to pay X % money of his goods upon entering Caldari space to sell the stuff at Jita but only if they are caught and Scrammed by the customs ships *Pretty much a freighter would end up paying every time* . Id almost say that Customs will only stop in systems with a Certain Sec status to be determined. Your smugglers intent is to avoid paying the taxes in space will be fast ships or cloak ships fitted with warp core stabs and what not in order to run away from these customs agents and make it to the Hubs to sell the goods. And by not paying the Tax for Importing goods they are able to make enough of a profit to be Viable.

This is just an idea no set numbers but just saying if there was import taxes for things coming through the eve universe or more illegal things then smuggling would become an easier profession to create

The customs would be doing the stops in trade hubs is what im thinking not each system along the way. This is just a basic idea that still needs some work

Also have certain Skills in the Trade tree that reduce the amount you pay on the taxes

... import taxes ...

Its less fun for the freighter pilots who passively move through space. The smuggler would be the person to use to avoid having to pay the taxes. And i know you mentioned more illegal stuff that's why I did not go much into it

The history of smuggling is the history of taxation and government enforced monopoly more than it is the history of something being "illegal". Might be a useful perspective for CCP, and could make things like faction standing have more worth and be used as an increased mechanism for creating an uneven economic landscape.

However it still does not address the mechanics of the situation, but could certainly provide some more depth.

I was looking for words besides illegal. But that was one of my beginning points, that one person's smuggler, is another person's life-saving-medical-savior. I would guess that most stuff hauled via freighters are not illegal anyway. A day's worth of sales of faction missiles can fit in a t1 hauler, freighter pilots shouldn't be concerned with 'restricted cargo'.

Got ya. Tarrifed, excised, taxed, tolled, levied ... perhaps.

Not sure how well it will go over though with regards to faction items. Might go over well though with regards to things like boosters.

Lots of players wander all over high sec, from War decers to cosmos runners and incursion folks with faction things and ammo and what not. I suspect many of them would not be happy for being taxed on what amounts to "day to day" items. I do understand your perspective and do see it would add some depth, just not sure it is depth in the right area.

Grandma wanting to take some candy home for the kiddies vrs Pablo Escabar's 'Girl friend' with a balloon full of coke up her whoohaa.

Not sure we want them to be quite the same thing.

1) Making faction ammo illegal in non-race space is a BAD idea. An OUTRAGEOUSLY bad idea.

Faction ammo is a standard ammo of PvP. Almost every ship I fly, and everyone I know flies, in PvP uses some form of faction ammo.

However, PIRATE faction ammo is not a standard ammo of PvP and is currently underused because it is outrageously expensive even though it is superior. If it were to be reduced in price and then made illegal, that would make more sense without completely ******* the market up.

2) Messing too much with the nature of Navy LP is a BAD IDEA....exporting pvp stuff to highesec....blah...

Please give me a realistic example of your perceived inconvenience and I bet I can give a response as to why at least, I don't see it as being as inconvenient as you might think.

I think Gorgoth did a pretty good job. It is just going to get a lot of resistance from the community and it will be very unpopular.

I still think the best route would be setting up some sort of Import taxes in the empire space and work from there to make smuggling into a profession. Smugglers bring the stuff in to avoid the taxes imposed on the goods. And or legality of it. This would make diplomacy/trade skills important to freighter pilots to lower their tax rates when they deal with customs. While the Smuggler does what they can to avoid the taxes. Difference between the 2 is that the freighter is going to be able to haul more goods than the smuggler but have to pay customs for the importation

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.

While being a trader who is a criminal may not be something that is planned, why not be a trader evading criminals?

I think the link in my signature is something that could partly fulfill what players want from smuggling.

My idea would create an uneven economic landscape, the ability for players to influence the outcome, and a obstacle to be evaded when transporting materials.

1) You're killling my Han Solo fantasies here.

2) This still wouldn't avoid smuggling being an alt profession. Zero activity, emergent gameplay, grouplay, etc. here. You're just creating a bigger pipeline for smartbombing BSs.

Re: Oldgrimey...
I think you're missing a huge component here. Making smuggling a profession that way means little interactivity, risk, emergent gameplay, or group play which is something CCP has spoken about avoiding many, many times. Introducing smuggling by making an increased overhead on freighter pilots won't affect them, just create a small bump in prices. And the idea of smuggling will still be an alt occupation, making the "profession" consigned to oblivion.

I think you're missing a huge component here. Making smuggling a profession that way means little interactivity, risk, emergent gameplay, or group play which is something CCP has spoken about avoiding many, many times. Introducing smuggling by making an increased overhead on freighter pilots won't affect them, just create a small bump in prices. And the idea of smuggling will still be an alt occupation, making the "profession" consigned to oblivion.

As a drug smuggler, I'd want drugs removed from highsec station listings (if they are illegal, why can we sell them on the public markets in highsec?!?!)

Dust would open up a fairly decent additional market for boosters too.

Smuggling is already fairly decent in PvP sense.

But for black markets to form, or to allow drug deals to be done more player to player (with a dealer) which is how we operate you really need to pull illegal narcotics off the highsec markets.

Our corp has posted several times over the years with good ideas on highsec smuggling. But its such a niche area. To be honest it doesnt work if everyone is doing it and its a massive primary feature. The entire alure and appeal of smuggling and drugs is its niche, unknown and rare.

I remember the smuggling profession was going to be part of Incarna. The reasoning being you had to buy and sell items "off the grid", that is not via either the contracts system or the normal station market. You would meet in person in establishments run by players. Then in space players would be the enforcers. Of the new items to be smuggled, Quafe Zero was a prototype.

But due to statue shooting we lost the development of Incarna, and thus the smuggling profession got canned too.

While you would not be a smuggler I think your other analysis is completely and utterly wrong in every assumption.

Smartbomb camps are easily evaded in any ship, and if there were a limited number of choke point gate camps would be completely avoidable.

Secondly there are multiple avenues of group play, Scouting through cargo ships, using a cloaked ship to do it solo, hiring other people to move your freight, pvp battles for control of gate camps, and using wormholes to move your goods.

The new price gaps that would form because everything isn't coming from Jita would be a massive opportunity for profit and it could easily be a full time profession, especially if my idea made the four empires equal in their market share.

We obviously disagree rather extremely here. I would submit that a smartbombing BS isn't easily avoided, you just have to wait for it to go away. Jump in a buzzard to scout? Smartbombed, and there goes a shiny ship. Try and go through it solo in your hauler? Smartbombed, and there goes a shiny ship. Try and kill the smartbombing BS? Cloaks/warps off. No kill. I know some of the guys, like Dirty Looks, who smartbomb for a living. And even if they lose a ship or two, the smartbombing pays for itself.

It's besides the point though. This thread is about smuggling, not dividing up the empires

This is exactly how most combat boosters are traded now.

Player to play, negotiating and delivering.


A cool thing to add to highsec would be if your faction or corp standings (when hgih enough) might let you "bribe" or "sweet talk" a customs agent if caught.


IE, i jump into amarr space with drugs but i'v got 7.0 standings. They scan and catch me on the gate (easy to avoid tbh) and due to my high standing I can chose to "bribe" the guard for a small price. But with a chance to fail and be attacked. Higher standing = better success rate.

Just spitballing here.

Commander Ted is saying "make dangerous territory with lowsec bottlenecks

I'm saying "make more precious demanded cargo, and make it restricted and enforced by NPCs in highsec, with the possibility of pvp emergence on gates and off stations.

Gorgoth is suggesting a new service of smuggling through gate-hacking minigames and new demand for better/new drug/booster applications.

fly the opposite direction to the battleship smartbombing.... tried that? works a charm.

your problem is you're jumping gate to gate without bouncing safes etc. The smartbomb ships are aligned perfectly to apply maximum damage to you as you come out of warp.

Why has no one made the distinction between regular and regional gates? Countries don't stop and check you routinely on every highway, they stop and check you at the border.

This is very true. But I'm trying to focus on a system that could rival Missioning/Mining/Exploration as a true "Profession" instead of just creating markets for shady people.

In terms of license supply, they could A) be bought from that faction's LP store at a high price, B) be bought off the market from convoy drops, C) gotten from much cheaper and ubiquitous 'forged' versions from rats (1% of regular cost) or D) bought in stacks of forged copies from pirate LP stores.

:( Damn, I thought I'd laid the golden egg

I think you perhaps misunderstood? It was asked why making faction mods/ammo taxed would be bad.

It seems I did. It wouldn't encourage interactivity, group play, emergent gameplay, etc.

Commander Ted is saying "make dangerous territory with lowsec bottlenecks

I'm saying "make more precious demanded cargo, and make it restricted and enforced by NPCs in highsec, with the possibility of pvp emergence on gates and off stations.

Gorgoth is suggesting a new service of smuggling through gate-hacking minigames and new demand for better/new drug/booster applications.

Smuggling should certainly be very profittable. But that profit should also come with a high degree of risk.

Risk from all quarters, both player (catching smugglers can have numerous benefits) and NPC (such as, if not direct assault by faction or empire, then at least by faction standing and/or security status loss, if caught. Perhaps even NPC placed bounties).

Then there is the risk of failing the faction/agent you are smuggling for (there should be consequences there to, like status loss, underworld-bounties placed, loss of collateral, or even specialized NPC pirates that will specifically try to hunt you down and take you out - Hey the underworld is dangerous, you don't want to fail the boss - Even if "you get boarded sometimes").

Now if only they had a way to have you frozen in carbonite....

Smuggling should certainly be very profittable. But that profit should also come with a high degree of risk.

Risk from all quarters, both player (catching smugglers can have numerous benefits) and NPC (such as, if not direct assault by faction or empire, then at least by faction standing and/or security status loss, if caught. Perhaps even NPC placed bounties).

Then there is the risk of failing the faction/agent you are smuggling for (there should be consequences there to, like status loss, underworld-bounties placed, loss of collateral, or even specialized NPC pirates that will specifically try to hunt you down and take you out - Hey the underworld is dangerous, you don't want to fail the boss - Even if "you get boarded sometimes").

Now if only they had a way to have you frozen in carbonite....

To a lesser extent PvP can be exerted through the licenses and forcing them to get "stuck" on gates/flagged as suspect by customs (as already discussed). And interactions with customs officials and faction have already been discussed to some extent. Any ideas for specifics?

Previous thread the idea was presented as:

Customs Detection Chance= ((Sec status of system x 100%) +(Random % Based on level of Official)) - (Player Skill x 10%) - (Equipment Mods)- (Rig Mods)

Consequences of detection by NPCs dependent on sec status with Customs for that faction:
5 to 10: Asked to eject cargo and pay fine. If you refuse you are flagged as suspect and sec status loss.
-5 to 5: Asked to eject from ship and ship impounded unless heavy fine paid. Impounded then ship will be transported to nearest station and remain there until fine paid. Sec status loss. If you refuse flagged as suspect and heavier sec status loss.
-10 to -5: if detected asked to forfeit ship. Sec status loss. If you refuse then flagged as criminal, very heavy sec status loss.

Sec status can be repaired by flagging smuggler players and by running Customs missions. Intercept convoy here or stop illegal manufacturing there (with the option of taking the drops and smuggling them).

If detected by another player the player has the option to flag. Also opens auto dialog box allowing players to negotiate.

Just some ideas.

I think the equation should have something to do with the amount of illegal cargo as well, to encourage many independent smuggles instead of one big one

But I really like the idea of allowing players to try and detect cargo as well. Give people sitting around Jita gate something to do, ya know?

I was thinking that this could fix the 'day to day' objection to making faction ammo restricted. But if payloads of illegal goods totalling uner 5 million isk or something wouldn't be fined or confiscated, then you could be safe with just the stuff used for missioning or pvp.

Let's see ... a couple points that are new ... market visibility of illegal items, boosters primarily.

This stuff should absolutely be on the market. It may not make 100% "role play" sense but until there is some fat bastard of an NPC surrounded by body guards in some dank comer of a station for us to walk around in, we're kinda screwed.

"Hey yo, you want some bostahs?"
"Yeah, got some?"
"You got some money, punk?"
"fugetabotit"
*pew*pew*pew*

Why should it be on the market?

The market isnt the only tool to make something visible. People don't buy supers on the market. Researched BPOs?

Also, again as i said before, remove it from HIGH SEC markets. This way Lowsec markets will form for drugs (much like the capital ship trade)


it does make sense for smuggling. If you want the item in highsec, you'll have to arrange for someone to smuggle it in. As for lowsec/null anything goes so its fine to put them on market there.

There is no help for you mate, regardless of whether you agree with me or not ;)

There is no help for you mate, regardless of whether you agree with me or not ;)

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.

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.

A strong smuggling profession by requires that the stuff has to be produced in null/low (preferably low because it needs the love) and in high demand in highsec.

1. Remove learning implants from the game. They need to go anyway to encourage PvP.

2. Introduce Learning Boosters that last a week/fortnight/month (or whatever balance you choose).

3. Learning Boosters can only be produced in lowsec. Or, a critical component is only found/produced in lowsec and is also contraband.

4. Allow contracts to include contraband but stick a whopping warning on it and a popup for publics. They can be sold on the market so why can't I contract a smuggler? Or maybe create a new contract type (Public Courier, Contraband).

Benefits:

- Exorcise the curse of learning implants. Seriously, these things are a horrible mechanic that either make the pilot risk averse or not want to PvP because of training time loss.

- Increase activity and traffic in lowsec.

- Create an actual profession by allowing formal, accountable contracts.

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 want to smuggle love. CCP, let me smuggle love!

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

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.

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.

Yea there needs to be more in order to smuggle. Currently it's just a handful of drugs.

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.

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?

Just flat out NO.

Smuggling is one of the few things in EvE that take genuine ingenuity and team work to pull off. It doesn't need to be dumbed down so every dip that can train a skill can do it.

It's an underground career path, like espionage and others it shouldn't have skills to make it simpler. There are already enough ways to get in and out of hisec with drugs while avoiding customs. Figure it out!

The only smuggling love i'd like to see is possibly new contraband items introduced.

But making it easier to smuggle? No please don't dumb it down CCP. Leave some things in game that require creative thinking skills please. We should have to figure out creative ways to deal with our NPC overlords, not skills and modules to bypass them...

I want to smuggle love. CCP, let me smuggle love!