Anders Offwidth
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Posted - 2008.03.12 00:42:00 -
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Excellent ideas in this thread, thanks to everyone for a great discussion.
Supply and demand are necessary for smuggling to be profitable, and this thread assigns LP store offers/costs to the roles of source and sink. This is how it used to work, the code is there, so just tweak it as suggested. I'd like to offer a few more suggestions, too.
High-sec supply: Rare small NPC drops of contraband closer to the Empire agent consumers would spice things up for the high-sec ratter: "How can I unload this 100k ISK of Crash before customs catches me?" Check local for your neighborhood drug smuggler, meet him at a planet, and make the exchange. Evil  smugglers could even tell the unsuspecting bag-man to meet them at the nearest customs checkpoint, hoping to steal the loot when it gets jettisoned in a panic (or an explosion).
High-sec demand: Juna Gu's idea for pockets of high-sec demand ("parliamentary ministers on nerve sticks", or governors with high-priced hookers  ) ties in nicely with the idea of a black market and could fit within existing exploration mechanics.
Example: Say our parliamentary minister's buyer needs to top off his client's stash. He creates an exploration site in high-sec that contains an agent in space (both existing mechanics). The agent's mission is simple: bring me 500 Nerve Sticks, I give you iskies. The agent despawns after a few different sellers visit him, so you can alert your smuggler buddies to share in the new-found high-sec NPC buy order--or just sell the bookmark. This kind of exploration site would be unique to high-sec (a first!).
Faction warfare could drive illicit trade, as well. You could win LP for your side by destroying the enemy's moral foundation through sales of drugs, slaves, exotic dancers, etc. into their markets. Exploration or mission buy-sites could again provide the demand. Buy slaves in Amarr and sell them to a corrupt media mogul in Gallente space, winning points for Amarr, as well as big bucks.
Low-sec trade could also benefit from increased traffic by tweaking NPC buy/sell orders. (This is where my understanding of the current state of the game gets fuzzy, so tell me to STFU if needed.) I'm assuming that there are some places where some goods are illegal in a faction's higher-sec, but legal in their low-sec or in another faction's space. If the market feature could support filtering allowed items by their contraband status and the system's security status, NPC buy orders could exist in those low-sec systems where they're legal, and could be satisfied with goods bought from NPC sell orders in another faction's space. This could work with the less shady end of the contraband goods lineup, but the margins should be inferior to the exploration- and agent-based trade in scarier stuff. Of course, anyone with the balls to haul a freighter full of "low-end" contraband into low-sec would still be rewarded nicely.
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