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[HQ]

For the sweet, profitable reward of like 50,000c, you're up against:
- Always a heavily defended planet belonging to a major faction, possibly inside a system full of other planets of that faction.
- Patrols always aware of your coming for some reasons and always seeking you out, even with Transponder on.
- Having to go into the market undetected.

That means you have to do all sort of hassle like preparing a stealth fleet, hack some comms, or a combination of those and some more baiting maneuvers. It's time consuming and the daily supply of maintaining your expensive stealth fleet that could sneak into the Hegemony's military worlds undetected for that excess amount of time should cost more than the quest reward  ever amount to. There's a good chance you'll get caught once or twice even with all that investment, so that's a potential loss of some relation and 1 story point, too.

You're really better off just sell the dinky 30 units of drugs they give you to some independent market on the way, even without a mark-up because it's simply isn't worth it to even try to find a market in need of 30 units of things. If and when a revenge fleet comes for you, the freaking salvage from them will costs more than the quest ever give.

Now compare that to just regular player-decided smuggling. As long as your freighter is bigger than a frigate, you'll probably make more than 100,000 credits per trips. And for that profit, you'd be up against:
- Toilet-like stations like where Kanta lives, or undefended planets in the middle of nowhere.
- No patrols and no need to be undetected. You can have your transponder on, be refused entry, then turn it off and be granted entry like nothing ever happened.

You can even smuggle to heavily defended planets belonging to core factions with Transponder on. There's no need to sneak. It's fast, it's convenient like stopping for a resupply, and the consequences? Nothing outside of some slight penalty to relation because patrols take a few seconds to realize you have been doing illegal things with Transponder on and by that time, your Substain Burn have already reached Burn 20 and you are already 80 years ahead of them toward the nearest jump point.
Even if you are caught, as long as you were selling instead of buying, they have nothing to find and can only punch your ship, giving you a slight CR reduction that costs like 3000c to fix.

Right now the only use I have for smuggling quest. When I want to *** off factions on purpose. I don't want to be the one who declare war, but I WANT their planets, so I take smuggling quests, gets detected, and have them declare war on me. That's it. It's literally useless.

I think the old trading quests should be brought back. They're more fun than endless smuggling and can range from wildly profitable to losing you large amount of money. I don't know why they were remove but I think they are not as profitable as endless smuggling, but way more fun, that's what I wanted from the game.

[Siffrin]

Yeah just selling the drugs somewhere else or at the market you got the bar mission feels like the actual way you're supposed to do the bar mission.

[Thaago]

If you happen to have a tiny fleet and the perfect mission comes along they are free money, but otherwise pretty much. Player-directed smuggling is just insanely profitable and doesn't even require turning the transponder off for most runs. Just take the rep hit/minor supply cost (and jump out right after buying).

Here's a semi-recent topic about this; there was some good discussion about what would be good for the smuggling minigame experience: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=30486.0

[Pizzarugi]

I think it's safe to say some bar quests need to be revisited as far as rewards go. Some are simply not worth doing compared to others. What I would like to see is a difficulty/reward scaling similar to how bounty hunting missions have it. The more smuggling jobs you do, for example, the larger the product you need to sneak in and the bigger the payout.

It's one of the reasons I like the "More Military Missions" mod. One of the jobs it offers has an infinitely scaling difficulty system with matching rewards to keep the payout relevant at all stages of gameplay.

That said, don't forget to employ distractions to get the mission done. If the planet you're supposed to be smuggling to is heavily guarded, hit up a nearby sensor array and insert false readings to pull the guards off. If the sensor is guarded as well, raid a nearby planet if you don't mind the relation hit which will force all of the guards to come protect it.

[ceem0]

I mean, it's already a bit trivial to make some dosh in the game, and the only real risk-reward proposition comes in under Iron Man mode with larger fleets (but then I'll be back on my hobby-horse about wanting the Hangar to give us loadout slots for different types of fleets e.g. "Here's my stealth fleet by pressing Slot 1, here's my all-capital ships fleet by pressing Slot 2...").  If anything, it could stand to be more difficult all around.

I do like the aesthetic of smuggling, though, and that's something I'm still mulling: the *feeling* of doing the smuggling is still alluring for the first few times in a new game, just to get that buildup with minimal ships and being a sneaky ***.

[Phenir]

Smuggling missions can't have big pay reward because they are trivial to do and are possible to do without combat, same as scan missions. It doesn't matter how much you are asked to smuggle, you can always get your sensor profile down to <200 (even with 5+ atlas you can get 375 profile base with insulated engines and militarized, half that with go dark, and then phase field and sensors can lower it even further) which makes them no risk missions.
Just view them as "easy" missions to get back on your feet in case of big losses or if you are just starting out. Just like how there's always some easy bounties that give like 70k credits even when you can find bounties that give 500k+.

[Pizzarugi]

Smuggling missions can't have big pay reward because they are trivial to do and are possible to do without combat, same as scan missions. It doesn't matter how much you are asked to smuggle, you can always get your sensor profile down to <200 (even with 5+ atlas you can get 375 profile base with insulated engines and militarized, half that with go dark, and then phase field and sensors can lower it even further) which makes them no risk missions.
Just view them as "easy" missions to get back on your feet in case of big losses or if you are just starting out. Just like how there's always some easy bounties that give like 70k credits even when you can find bounties that give 500k+.

I mean that's fair and all, but OP did also point out the difference between a mission and non-mission smuggling job, with the latter giving a bigger payout. Stop by Kanta's, pick up some drugs, pawn them off on a world with the highest demand. Bonus points if you go the extra mile and create demand by raiding, something you can't do to improve the bar mission equivalent.

[Killer of Fate]

this is all happening cuz the entire economy is broken.
The benefit of this mission is that you need no ships to perform it, and ships are supposed to be expensive. There is also supposed to be a minimal intelligent cost of goods. But there often isn't, cause certain planets have to have really *** accessibility for world-building reasons.
This leads to a situation in which nothing matters... In which the entire system does not work...
I have fixed this... But whatever...


[linking settings.zip with proposed fix. May contain plenty of other irrelevant aspects]

[Nick9]

"Toilet-like stations" XD WHYYYY

[Siffrin]

I have fixed this... But whatever...

How on earth is this fixed? You've just randomly changed some numbers in the settings file.

[Phenir]

Smuggling missions can't have big pay reward because they are trivial to do and are possible to do without combat, same as scan missions. It doesn't matter how much you are asked to smuggle, you can always get your sensor profile down to <200 (even with 5+ atlas you can get 375 profile base with insulated engines and militarized, half that with go dark, and then phase field and sensors can lower it even further) which makes them no risk missions.
Just view them as "easy" missions to get back on your feet in case of big losses or if you are just starting out. Just like how there's always some easy bounties that give like 70k credits even when you can find bounties that give 500k+.

I mean that's fair and all, but OP did also point out the difference between a mission and non-mission smuggling job, with the latter giving a bigger payout. Stop by Kanta's, pick up some drugs, pawn them off on a world with the highest demand. Bonus points if you go the extra mile and create demand by raiding, something you can't do to improve the bar mission equivalent.

Yeah but non mission smuggling doesn't give you rep (costs rep even depending on where you drop them off) and has initial investment (cost of buying the drugs or raiding them). You also have to find a market, or multiple markets if you don't want to cut into profits from satisfying demand, to drop them off which can take time if you have a lot of drugs or cost marines if you decide to create shortage, while the mission is guaranteed payment right now.
If we're basing off the OP as well, then his three first points don't even matter so this thread shouldn't exist in the first place. Literally, if you get asked to smuggle 30 drugs, you can do that in a single stealth frigate with cargo hullmod lol. Undetectable, uncatchable. The mission pays for the frigate and any future missions are just bonus.

[Killer of Fate]

I have fixed this... But whatever...

How on earth is this fixed? You've just randomly changed some numbers in the settings file.

ur whole life is a bunch of numbers in a settings file

(no offense intended, will elaborate further)

edit:

Spoiler

smuggling missions make perfect sense, the reason they don't is cause the economy is broken. But if you fix the economy, it makes sense again.
The reason the economy is broken is cause of permanent shortages. Imo, shortages for planets should not be caused by them having low accessibility but by operations of pirates. Pirates should have far more bases, Luddic Path as well, so that their acts of terrorism against planets have meaningful gameplay implications. In that smuggling is actually dangerous, as planets and systems that have shortages you can exploit are permanently swarmed with enemies...
Hence increase to pirate and Luddic Path bases.

This also encourages the player to rob more convoys... Without permanent shortages, making a profit with items is far more difficult...
Having more Luddic Path bases may also even potentially encourage the player to place colony items on Core World planets... To encourage them being sabotaged. I think I tried lowering the Pather threshold to encourage this more. But it's convoluted... I guess... This isn't as important.

Bla bla bla... Secondary aspect is the fact that with more pirate and Pather bases... The economy also gets harder cause you might walk into unpredictable combat more often, and perish more easily. Some strategically placed buffs for example for the Hound (increased armour by 150 and health by 1.25k)... Prometheus MKII (lowered DP to 25), Buffalo MK II (increased armour by 200, health by 2k). Etc. Are meant to ensure the player's life is more difficult. Which is fine, cause that's the point of the game. This isn't in the file however...

There is also a crew salary increase and officer salary increase. This is done to make it more rapid for the player's funds to deplete if they are running a very large fleet. Note the crew salary increase is no way near as gigantic as the officer salary increase. Cause most of the fleet's strength is controlled by the number officers they posses. There is also an increased merc spawn chance, but their cost increase paired with general officer cost increase makes them hellish to maintain in great numbers.

These changes intend to make running a gigantic fleet more difficult... To add to that... I have also changed how the profile scaling works... So that it rewards small fleets further. Making it so that stealth missions are a very simple... Somewhat... Mission that can be completed with low expenses... And that paired with the fact that money cannot be earned as easily due to permanent shortages not rewarding complacency makes it so that the mission has some sense to be completed.

This also makes it so that the player can easily adapt the pace of the game. Firing officers and using up crew and ships is an intended mechanic in this redesign. Same as hiring large amounts of officers only to lose all your money later when completing high danger tasks such as exterminating Remnant bounties, or in this new model buffed Derelict (increased speed and durability, reduced Guardian strength to not make it stand out too much) bounties... Or even completing mercenary ones... (Made some important balancing changes to some ships so that the gameplay with them is as risky as rivalling any other ship [namely Harbinger... Pegasus, Invictus, carriers, etc. whatever).

There are also some other things there that were meant to act in conjunction with a reworked procgen system... Or whatever...

And yes, I know Invictus with increased crew costs is hellish, so I reduced its min and max crew by half. It still is pretty high.

[close]

[UlyssesASL]

snip

I've only read over your summary so no idea if in campaign I will change my mind on these changes.

On paper I like the pirate changes, however I'm not sure if in practice different aspects mesh well with each other, or with intended effects. For one, the accessibility issue itself is a abstraction of different faction's warring status with surrounding neighbors, which translates to them having difficulties sourcing materials. This could be pirate raiding or other conflicts, but tuning up pirate's power will only make the origin of shortages more pirate-based, rather than more general-faction-based. This by itself doesn't seem to change the issue with smuggling missions at all.

Second, since pirate starts at war with basically everyone, and I believe in vanilla there's no way for AI faction to even be at peace with pirates (unless modify default relation), doesn't more pirate bases / operations, translate to more shortage everywhere? And if shortages happen often enough and lasts long enough, isn't this equivalent to more permanent shortages?

Third, given pirate's favorite style of building bases (sprinkling bases in uninhabited systems, or lone station in a already inhabited system), pirate bases pretty much has build-in self-accessibility issues. Hell, 1 of the most common trade route I use is between Kanta's den & whatever market having goods shortage, which really doesn't matter on who's causing that shortage to begin with. This then become a cycling problem: pirate build (or already have) bases in poor accessibility areas (owing to war with everyone else on top of that), result in some pirate bases over-produce drastically with insufficient in-faction demands (and no between-faction trading to start with), then result in basically permanent market to buy low / sell high at.

I have some thoughts on changing pirate, but that's a serious digression.

[Fenrir]

All bar missions are pointless with a wrong fleet

[Killer of Fate]

snip

I've only read over your summary so no idea if in campaign I will change my mind on these changes.

On paper I like the pirate changes, however I'm not sure if in practice different aspects mesh well with each other, or with intended effects. For one, the accessibility issue itself is a abstraction of different faction's warring status with surrounding neighbors, which translates to them having difficulties sourcing materials. This could be pirate raiding or other conflicts, but tuning up pirate's power will only make the origin of shortages more pirate-based, rather than more general-faction-based. This by itself doesn't seem to change the issue with smuggling missions at all.

Second, since pirate starts at war with basically everyone, and I believe in vanilla there's no way for AI faction to even be at peace with pirates (unless modify default relation), doesn't more pirate bases / operations, translate to more shortage everywhere? And if shortages happen often enough and lasts long enough, isn't this equivalent to more permanent shortages?

Third, given pirate's favorite style of building bases (sprinkling bases in uninhabited systems, or lone station in a already inhabited system), pirate bases pretty much has build-in self-accessibility issues. Hell, 1 of the most common trade route I use is between Kanta's den & whatever market having goods shortage, which really doesn't matter on who's causing that shortage to begin with. This then become a cycling problem: pirate build (or already have) bases in poor accessibility areas (owing to war with everyone else on top of that), result in some pirate bases over-produce drastically with insufficient in-faction demands (and no between-faction trading to start with), then result in basically permanent market to buy low / sell high at.

I have some thoughts on changing pirate, but that's a serious digression.

pirate bases cannot have shortages, even if you raid them multiple times in a row... They will always gain enough supplies to fill their quota from "raiding".
the most shortages in the game come from pirate and LP worlds, these are permanent shortages worlds that the players can nearly always go to and sell *** to. Without them... They can only be created naturally...
Having shortages available in worlds raided by pirates is the only way for them to occur except when for example they are intercepted by a fleet from a faction they are at hostilities with.
I forgot to mention I increases salary on officers and crew, therefore stacking an infinite fleet is more difficult. And I gave some buffs to pirates (Wait, maybe I did mention this). So, even if you want to exploit shortages, having pirates be there will at least prevent you from just stacking Atlases and dumping drugs on a random planet. Cause you will be robbed by a sudden swarm.
I think I also lowered the raid cooldown to make it more common for players to just randomly walk into a gigantic pirate fleet that just annihilates them on accident. But the new scripting added into the game causes that to happen anyway... Which I could argue is a bad thing, but whatever... I guess it helps in this case. Somewhat... It could make the encounter too unfair. But pirates already fair enough with their freaking Mudskippers.

This means... That if you have shortages, they're there for a reason. And you might be screwed if you go there without a spare pair of kidneys. Contrary to how it is in vanilla. Where we pretend sanctions work in a space society where everyone is poor and ready to stab each other in the back.