Smuggler trade office

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Albatross
Posts: 97
Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2018 11:22 pm

Smuggler trade office

Post by Albatross »

This is a suggestion to add some more fun to CE:

new trade office: Smuggler,"knock twice at the back door". this is in parallel with Ashar and Wesbec and the alien one: take a cargo to a destination, needs cargo hold space.

Smuggler trade office pays more, but has high chance of negative event (Alliance?)
event could either confiscate all cargo, all trade office cargo, or just smuggler office cargo
and of course there would be a fine.

Interesting addition: give it a time limit like the CAMP misisons, and allow player destinations.

Let player settlements have Smuggler additions: Still, drug lab, black market. Maybe a settlement must have at least one of these in order to have a smuggler office. But any destination is allowed.

And, Smuggler standing is not affected by any other, unlike pirate and con-fed.

Thanks to Mark3430 and jforjesse3 for fleshing out the idea.
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Akkamaddi
CE Official Supporter
Posts: 364
Joined: Sun Jul 20, 2014 5:47 pm

Re: Smuggler trade office

Post by Akkamaddi »

Still and Drug Lab could either be a parallel idea to factories, but I think a more interesting idea would be a sort of cargo expander / VP Replicator / factory hybrid. It would have a small cargo expansion, but would consume certain goods to make other goods each hour.

For the Still, it could make a couple kinds of Moonshine. You would need Refined Chemicals, Rice, and Oats in your hold. Every hour, you consume 20 refined chemicals, 10 oats, and 10 rice, and produce 10 units of Moonshine. If docked, at your own settlement, or a settlement with a Smuggler NPC, your Still or Lab could connect to the local commercial stores and draw input from the settlement storage.

While equipped, your chance of negative events jumps dramatically. This would make PA accounts very valuable (which can be acquired for free, giving free advertising to the game), and would even make that dusty Wraith reactor everyone has sitting in a corner finally useful.

The NPC's could also offer "Protection Money". Each NPC would be tied to the governance of their system (Gal Fed, Con Fed, VP, Alliance). You could pay 100 credits for one day, or 1000 credits for 14 days, to have your chance of negative events cut in half. (This alone could make some Smuggler standing valuable, just to get this perk.)

Alternatively, labs and stills could be set up in asteroid belts. That seems like a good Core Exiles alternative to "remote trailer park". That could even give the fun mining event "You found a narcotics lab!".

And, if "Drug Lab" wouldn't fit into the theme of the game (it is supposed to be "family friendly"), swap that out with "hacking and information exchange". I think a moonshine still would definitely be safe. You can already make beer and wine, and you can find narcotics and get raided.
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SpaceBucks
Posts: 221
Joined: Sun Jul 20, 2014 5:37 pm
Location: greater Boston area, New England, U.S.A.

Re: Smuggler trade office

Post by SpaceBucks »

This is a really cool idea, especially since most players ask, "what do we do with narcotics besides NPC missions?"

It would be a big project for Coops, but would add a nice venue for folks who would like to be rebellious without being full-fledged outlaws.

This could open up even more possibilities for contested space systems where the real "wild west" could be allowed with every faction gunning for you.
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