Illegal goods and smuggling

[Amos.37]

I know this just depends on the factions setting their own rules, but has there been any mention of certain goods, tech or products that could be considered illegal?
So far I haven't seen any items, objects or resources that look like they could be considered overly dangerous/illegal, with maybe the exception of heavy weapons and explosive components.

And expanding on whether illegal goods will exist, how do players plan on smuggling items?
Would simply carrying them in your player inventory be the safest, or will ships need to be designed with hidden compartments and spaces between the inner and outer hull to hide items?

Admittedly, this does seem like the kind of gameplay feature that will probably be considered at some point, but not really exist at launch.

 

[AlexiyOne]

This would all depend on a faction and what they would consider what would be considered dangerous/illegal

 

[Vexus]

I highly doubt there will be anything 'illegal' in game that would warrant players to seek out these things. Then again, a lot of MMOs have buffs, and maybe some sort of robot-buff consumable (as much as I think consumables are kinda bad) could be introduced. Robot performance-enhancing drugs as it were. Illegal means a government is imposing restrictions, and space is huge, so there's not really a theme for it. Weapons for example are something everyone is likely to carry, so illegal weapons won't make sense. I could see it being possible for gameplay, however I dislike having one team win over another because they took the time to get and consume those consumables and the other team didn't, so I hope to not see that kind of thing.

As alexking600 pointed out, the most I could see is role-playing factions saying certain things are illegal and role-playing the enforcing of such things.

The prison system might lure the devs into adding some arbitrary logic that tags a player as carrying illegal stuff depending on certain rules... but again I hope not. It adds width to gameplay, but not depth. The excitement is in being caught, not in being caught and then also being found to be carrying something illegal. So make the chase more exciting, not the getting caught part more nuanced. An example of this would be if two factions are at war and one sends out a broadcast requesting missiles at a higher-than-market price - they're at war, after all. You, a trader, see opportunity to go supply them with those missiles and make a profit, so you load up a ship and make your way to their station. On the way, you have the opposing faction patrolling the area because they overheard/can see the broadcast, and they pursue knowing you're likely trying to supply their enemy with supplies. This would lead to interesting gameplay, compared to some random faction stopping you and role-playing declaring everything you're carrying is illegal (I'm guilty of this in other games, because gameplay was not good enough, and we got bored).

 

[WolfiAUT]

There are illegal objects already. Cat ears.

 

[Amos.37]

There are illegal objects already. Cat ears.

I so want this to be a real thing in the game, just so the situation can occur where someone gets caught with them and has to explain what they are doing with a haul of cat ears.

 

[WolfiAUT]

I so want this to be a real thing in the game, just so the situation can occur where someone gets caught with them and has to explain what they are doing with a haul of cat ears.

There is no time to explain that. Immediate execution will be the outcome.

 

[Burnside]

The only other kind of smuggling is shipping goods through a battlefront, but that requires two companies as large as factions (or large alliance of them) to be able to create an interdicted front. And even then the offense would be shipping through the front without having permission, so your goods/ships/weapons could be seized under the justification that they might be sold to or be seized by enemy forces. It's basically just piracy under a different name and for a preventative rather than exploitative reasons- though plenty of companies could use the same justification to permit their piracy but claim necessity because of the war.

Welcome to politics, where shitty people do shitty things for shitty reasons and good people do shitty things for questionable reasons.

 

[Engineering machine No.1]

For my political considerations, I rely on the law and the police in this regard to deal with violations. The factions rely on agreements to combat illegal acts. You can check out the latest news on our wiki, we have an agreement on the establishment of Interpol.
https://wiki.starbasegame.com/index.php/Helios

 

[Otac]

I know this just depends on the factions setting their own rules, but has there been any mention of certain goods, tech or products that could be considered illegal?
So far I haven't seen any items, objects or resources that look like they could be considered overly dangerous/illegal, with maybe the exception of heavy weapons and explosive components.

And expanding on whether illegal goods will exist, how do players plan on smuggling items?
Would simply carrying them in your player inventory be the safest, or will ships need to be designed with hidden compartments and spaces between the inner and outer hull to hide items?

Admittedly, this does seem like the kind of gameplay feature that will probably be considered at some point, but not really exist at launch.

I don't think for the time being, because the power in the game won't be available in a short time, no one will be able to make such a rule unless it's required by the vast majority of players

 

[Otac]

It can be that players in the faction illegally provide some materials to players outside the faction, so I think it can be illegal goods and smuggling within the faction

 

[Engineering machine No.1]

It can be that players in the faction illegally provide some materials to players outside the faction, so I think it can be illegal goods and smuggling within the faction

This may involve underground trading of commodities of special value.

 

[Otac]

This may involve underground trading of commodities of special value.

that's what i mean