I like that the Approved versions of this commodity can now be sold in London - but will it be possible to try and give players some incentives to try and smuggle it in by making the regular variety sellable at a better price?
Doesn’t the Iron Republic buy them? And Port Carnelian? I don’t know what the prices are on that, though.
they do - but the point of this is to make smuggling stuff to London, the only place where smuggling is so risky, more profitable
Wait, smuggling in Sunlight (for 400e each - box guaranteed to be returned), Red Honey (999e each) and whatever the Blind Bruiser wants you to carry isn’t lucrative enough? ;)
EDIT: Also, stuff in the Empire of Hands & London suggest you’ll be able to become a Spirifer (collector of souls) at some point. (Thank you WormApotheote for correction)
EDIT2: Further experience with the Empire of Hands suggests that will not in fact be the case there. Though given my experiences with the Soul Trade of Fallen London, I would not be surprised if it became possible in the future elsewhere.
edited by Zee! on 1/29/2015
[quote=Zee! ]Wait, smuggling in Sunlight (for 400e each - box guaranteed to be returned), Red Honey (999e each) and whatever the Blind Bruiser wants you to carry isn’t lucrative enough? ;)
EDIT: Also, stuff in the Empire of Hands & London suggest you’ll be able to become a Spirifage (collector of souls) at some point.
edited by Zee! on 1/29/2015[/quote]
Mild nitpick: Spirifage is the collecting/selling of souls, a spirifer is the person :P
edited by WormApotheote on 1/29/2015
the smuggling ship costs the least out all of the available ones, and yet due to storage limitations it has the shortest range out of all of them. In addition, all of the high cost smuggling options you mentioned can only be obtained at a considerable distance from London. So I’d like for there to be a shorter range option for smuggling that would still make sense for new players and encourage the use of the Cutter.
I can’t speak to your playstyle (I went straight for the Caligo and never looked back), but I’m curious all the same why Romantic Literature (for example) would appeal to you as a smuggler’s option?
It seems you brought up an excellent point about the Cutter - it has a very small hold, smaller even than the Tramp Steamer you start with. Which means that any cargo it carries must have a very high return / cargo space.
I’m a merchant with a big ship. I use as much hold space just on supplies and fuel as the Cutter has in total, but that still leaves me with 90 units of space I can fill with cargo that gets me 20 or 30 echoes in profit. And that works great in the Caligo, because you have so much space you can fill with profitable cargo.
The Cutter though, doesn’t have that much space. I don’t have experience in using it personally, but I can’t imagine that you can squeeze more than maybe 10 units of "profitable" cargo in, even with tight island hopping. You’re certainly not carrying Sphinxstone in there. So what can you carry that’ll pay well? Smuggled goods obviously - ones that pay back hundreds of echos / cargo unit. Sunlight and Red Honey are primary choices.
Romantic Literature … doesn’t work in that equation. If you made it so I could sell Romantic Literature for 100 echo profit in FL by smuggling it in, I’d load up the Caligo with 90 units of the smuttiest books that the Khanate has to offer, roll up to London, and either through Admirality’s Favor or burning out my "SAY", I’d bypass the excise and make an absolute KILLING on the market. It’s a strategy that overly rewards merchants (like me) disproportionately to smugglers (like you).
Smuggling needs to be high-reward on goods that a Merchant will have a hard time coming by honestly if it’s to remain a unique and interesting playstyle. You can only buy 1 Red Honey with your SAY. Filling a Mirrorcatch Box at Aestival has a chance of wounding you, so while you can fill a couple at once, trying to do more than 2 or 3 risks death. The Blind Bruiser only wants a single unit of cargo each time. I feel like this is a system that’s good so far, and I hope they expand on it with more smuggling options (though Veils also lets you run Spy Networks much better than the money sinks I create). Maybe I’ll give a Veils character a shot next time. :)
… that was a long-winded version of my 2 echoes.
edited by Zee! on 1/29/2015
I think that captains using the Cutter should either automatically pass the customs checks in London and/or they should have access to a special "black market" store that gives better prices for regular goods - that would make smuggling using the Cutter worth the trade
edited by IHNIWTR on 1/29/2015
[quote=IHNIWTR]I think that captains using the Cutter should either automatically pass the customs checks in London and/or they should have access to a special "black market" store that gives better prices for regular goods - that would make smuggling using the Cutter worth the trade
edited by IHNIWTR on 1/29/2015[/quote]
With a fast engine, you can sneak past Excise/Customs entirely by burning out your "SAY" at a nearby port and gunning your engine for London. If your SAY isn’t up, your ship won’t get searched. You also pointed out how much more affordable the Cutter is versus the other vessels, and it is giving you at least +10 Veils (relative to the Tramp Steamer) which goes a long way towards helping out sneaky activities.
I personally think restricting a black market to "the Cutter" isn’t a great plan. Restricting it to a high Veils would be a good idea though (it might already be there for all I know … my Veils is sub-30 for the entire game). Then you could be sneaky even in a larger vessel, but it’s easier to be sneaky in the Cutter :)
edited by Zee! on 1/29/2015
that sounds like a great idea