Dodging Customs

The easier we make wingmen control and handling the easier it is to get them to fly past pirates and customs without paying tolls. This post is to capture a discussion of the topic.

There are a few easy methods to avoid tolls. One is to just race past them. Racing past is very easy when leaving an lpoint. NPC's cannot chase past our new routes. It is also easy to just leave the wingmen outside the cost calculation distance and call them in after the toll has finished the dialog.

I can think of a whole slew of solutions that don't involve making the control of wingmen harder.

Have customs and pirates patrolling stations. While a player can dodge an lpoint, they must load/unload at a station.

Change the toll code to trigger on the arrival of a ship with pods, not the arrival of the player.

Give the player a minus reputation penalty for blowing past a toll. This would work well for pirates, because they tend to break bones for messing with them.

For customs, we could add a "customs paid" marker to each cargo pod. If a cargo pod does not have the marker, it cannot be sold as legal cargo. Each government charges customs on each pod. Once paid, you can sell a pod anywhere in that governments area. If you move to another governments area, you must pay customs again (just like real life). Systems without governments would not charge customs.

A smuggler is a trader running goods around customs to fences. Getting caught by a police patrol with smuggled cargo (or stolen cargo) would start a fight.

Another option is to have the pirates/customs shake down the wingmen directly. They give a halt order to the wingmen, not the player. Legal wingmen will follow police halt orders (making fleeing impossible). Hired criminals will run for it,if the player orders them to flee. This would be coded as the wingman halting near the toll and prompting the player with a request of what they should do "Pay? Run?"

Wow, grandpatrout, you are a regular font of ideas of late. Can I just pick and choose from your suggestions?

Having customs and pirates patrolling stations occasionally would be nice. Makes sense, and would work well with your idea of tagging pods with 'customs paid'

The 'customs paid' idea is also really cool. Seems to match a little better with the world we are trying to create. The current system's is more akin to a medieval customs toll. A couple of ruffians crouched at the border. Having 'customs paid' tags could also lead into some 'hacking' of some kind in the future. We also could make some stations accept 'untagged' pods in a semi-blackmarket fashion (turning a blind eye) depending on the players standing with them. This would leave the door open for smuggling, and for a further incentitive to establish strong relations with certain factions.

We might also have customs or pirate tolls hug the lpoint a little tighter. Assume a formation around it, and attack anyone who just tries to storm it (not unlike what a real guard or guards would do)

We could also utilize the 'jump accelerator' model, to serve as a kind of 'security screener', preventing free access to the Lpoint (something like this could only be done at a few key lpoints however)

Approaching players could be ordered to halt a certain distance from the lpoint, or be attacked, to prevent the quick break for the lpoint that some traders might exploit/utilize.

Just some thoughts. My favorite though is the tagged cargo. It seems to open up the most possiblities for action/adventure/intrigue etc.

Tagged cargo is an excellent idea, although I think the unsellability of untagged cargo should be downplayed. Most stations wouldn't have any clue that you didn't pay customs, and you could probably get away with dodging customs to legitimate stations -- of course, police patrols would be checking out legitimate stations, and you never know when they'll subject you to a random scan.

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JT raises a good point. Having untagged pods totally unsellable would be too strict. There would have to be ways around it. And we could use those 'ways' to help guide player behaviour.