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[Wyvern]

I knew this existed, but it took me forever to find it.  I'd suggest making this more visible than buried at the bottom of a tooltip - perhaps when it's non-zero it puts nice orange letters right above the market tab?

[Alex]

Yeah, this was a last-minute addition that I didn't want (or, rather, have time) to disturb the UI too much for. Still not entirely sure how to best display it.

[Thaago]

Ehhhh? I had no idea about this! Could you describe its location, please?

[Alex]

Some text at the bottom of black market tooltip.

[Megas]

Some questions about the tooltip:

* It mentions enemies of the faction do not notice as much.  What does that mean?  For example, if I trade at an enemy Tri-Tachyon Black Market, does that mean my Hegemony allies or other factions will start investigating me?

* Does suspicion level decay over time?

* Is it safe to trade at Black Markets of enemy stations?  If I am a permanent enemy of the faction, what do I care if they find me guilty - they already hate me and want me dead!  As long as I do not get investigations from my ally faction or Independents (provided I am not dumb enough to use their Black Markets), I should be fine, right?

[Alex]

* It mentions enemies of the faction do not notice as much.  What does that mean?  For example, if I trade at an enemy Tri-Tachyon Black Market, does that mean my Hegemony allies or other factions will start investigating me?

They may if they're in the same system, but it's less likely than if you made the trade on the open market.

* Does suspicion level decay over time?

"Suspicion level" is directly based on investigation probability, and yes, it decays over time. IIRC halved ever "event interval", which is set to 30 days.

* Is it safe to trade at Black Markets of enemy stations?  If I am a permanent enemy of the faction, what do I care if they find me guilty - they already hate me and want me dead!  As long as I do not get investigations from my ally faction or Independents (provided I am not dumb enough to use their Black Markets), I should be fine, right?

It's safe unless there are allied market in-system, in which case you may get a relatively small reputation hit, but there's no risk of investigation by anyone other than the enemy faction, which, as you say, you don't care about. It's on my TODO list to abort the investigations in this case.

[Megas]

Thanks for the answers.  I can eat some reputation hit (unless I try 0.65-style mass trade).  I just do not want to be haunted by smuggling investigation by Hegemony or Independents if I use Black Market of Tri-Tachyon, Pirates, or other enemies' stations, then lose -130 reputation.  The tooltip sort of implied investigations by any faction.

[Gothars]

Still not entirely sure how to best display it.

The right part of the black market button seems invitingly empty, yes? Something round and blinking there and the text in the tooltip would be nice.

[SneakyGunz]

Sorry for the necro post here. I literally just bought this game and I want to buy a ship from the starting station's black market ultimately.

My questions:
*What are the dangers of buying from a neutral/friendly station's black market?
*Will I be attacked by them, or other unattractive things, if I buy a ship or weapons etc?

Thanks for any advice!

[Cik]

black market trading can incur reputation hits in proportion to stability drops / volume of the trade.

buy some stuff from the open market at the same time and the chance of this happening drops.

also, small black market trades are rarely investigated.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Sorry for the necro post here. I literally just bought this game and I want to buy a ship from the starting station's black market ultimately.

My questions:
*What are the dangers of buying from a neutral/friendly station's black market?
*Will I be attacked by them, or other unattractive things, if I buy a ship or weapons etc?

Thanks for any advice!

Hey there, welcome to the forum!
As for your questions, you basically get a small rep hit, about 5 points, and you can be "pulled over" by that market's owners in the system and they can look for contraband. But unless you go hostile with them, you should not get attacked. Also be sure to keep an eye on the suspicion level which is shown on mouse over of the black market tab

[Vayra]

I know the OP is from 2015, but this is actually still an issue imo: right now you can't see how much suspicion selling/buying something will raise (or how much suspicion doing 'cover trading' on the open/military market will allay) until after you've done it. Which is realistic, maybe, but also isn't very clear and encourages figuring out the formula, looking up spoilers etc which generally doesn't seem to be the spirit of the game.

It'd be cool if we could get a little bar graphic showing the impact of the current trade, not sure where the ideal placement would be (I think either where i show it in the mockup or above/below the market window, like above the "all", "commodities" etc tabs or below the "open market", "military market", etc buttons) but I mocked up something in mspaint as a proof of concept:

[Wyvern]

As long as we're suggesting helpful UI, here, it'd also be nice to know "how much of a difference would it make if I managed to come back with my transponder off?"

@SneakyGunz
I'd also note that buying from / selling to the black market in large amounts will reduce the stability of that market.  Which in turn reduces commodity prices.  So, if there's a planet that you regularly sell stuff at - i.e. Chicomoztoc for metal - it's generally good practice to avoid large black market transactions there.

...Of course, what constitutes "large" depends a great deal on market size.  There are plenty of places where buying a single large weapon or any ship worth having will push you straight to the maximum suspicion level, and once you're there, you might as well buy everything interesting you can.

[n1Z0]

Sorry to necro the thread, but I think it's still relevant, there is so much more that could be done with this.

The indicator (which is a small tooltip that I found after numerous playthroughs) is still really obscured and kind of lifeless. I thought it might be nice to have some sort of audio warning, ie: "Illegal activity detected, security to mobilize at docking bay C"

This idea could be expanded on to relate to your current docking bay, or even any docking bay that the AI is currently using. The idea could also be expanded to make it a (new)skill/chance based detection where the player skill/level offsets the quality of security/current activity implemented on the actual station.

It could make a nice little minigame and increase the quality of the smuggler experience in any playthrough.

[Timid]

Just do this with the mini-map to display suspicion easy.