What if illegal wares had negative effects?

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Falcrack
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What if illegal wares had negative effects?

Post by Falcrack » Thu, 25. Nov 21, 02:24

Some items are illegal in the game (like spaceweed, spacefuel, maja dust, and stimulants), but there is no real gameplay reason for them to be illegal. They are illegal "just because".

What if, on the other hand, there was an actual gameplay reason for them to be illegal? For instance, if they were secretly sold on your stations, the station would suffer a productivity decrease. Sell them to NPC stations, and you make a tidy profit, while hampering their own production capabilities. If sold to black market dealers at a station, the items would not show up or take space in the storage listing for the station (since it is distributed secretly among the station residents), but the greater the amount of these illegal substances, the greater the production penalty. The only way you could prevent these from being sold at your stations is using police forces to scan for these goods and get rid of the drug dealers.

Perhaps the different illegal substances could affect different species. Space Fuel may give penalties to Argon, Space Weed may give penalties to Teladi, Maja Dust may give penalties to Paranid, Stimulants may give penalties to Terrans. I don't know what would affect Split, maybe they would be immune to the negative effects from any of these.

I think it would be a good addition to improve the "pirate" activities of the game.

(Please spare me bogus arguments about how drugs aren't harmful in real life!)

LameFox
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Re: What if illegal wares had negative effects?

Post by LameFox » Thu, 25. Nov 21, 03:17

Are illegal goods even worth producing in X4? I think the last time I looked into it, the profit from a station making things like spacefuel was pretty mediocre. I could just as well produce perfectly legal goods, and not have to tediously unlock markets for them one-by-one, or sell them with ships that can outrun police patrols. The markets are another thing, because they make it scale terribly in player effort.

I don't think giving them negative effects would make up for either of those. I could already hack stations if I wanted to interfere with them (and pirates do this to yours unless you scan them) so these kinds of penalties exist now in a way, but I have not found them worth interacting with.
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Imperial Good
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Re: What if illegal wares had negative effects?

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 25. Nov 21, 08:16

Falcrack wrote:
Thu, 25. Nov 21, 02:24
Some items are illegal in the game (like spaceweed, spacefuel, maja dust, and stimulants), but there is no real gameplay reason for them to be illegal. They are illegal "just because".
There are lore reasons why they are illegal. Spacefuel is not illegal to consume in Argon and Terran space, but is illegal to produce and trade due to traditional licencing agreements and social issues it causes. Spaceweed is illegal in Argon space as it causes social problems in Argons if consumed excessively. Maja Dust is illegal in Paranid space purely because it is an unholy usage of sacred Maja Snails. Stimulants are illegal in Terran space because the Terran federation controls all creation and administration of stimulants to their personal and do not want their designer stimulants to be traded away, or bad stimulants to affect the performance of their personal.
LameFox wrote:
Thu, 25. Nov 21, 03:17
Are illegal goods even worth producing in X4?
You can get a good 10M/h reliably selling Stimulants around PIO space to PIO and SCA, where it is legal. The PIO trade stations burn through a lot. Might want to blacklist Terran space as sometimes my ships go there to sell for some reason, and TER does not like it.
LameFox wrote:
Thu, 25. Nov 21, 03:17
and not have to tediously unlock markets for them one-by-one
This is the biggest problem with the business model. Not only that but each black market dealer has effectively infinite demand so once you unlock enough to keep enough in transit you will, in theory, make big money. They really need to unlock more easily, possibly in bulk, and do need a finite demand that replenishes over time like normal trade stations.
LameFox wrote:
Thu, 25. Nov 21, 03:17
or sell them with ships that can outrun police patrols.
Main issue is the instant 10% chance to fail a customs check when trying to sell them in space that is illegal. Even the fastest ship will still fail those from time to time making scaling not practical. The customs check should really be removed and your higher tier trader pilots should be more resistant to police (such as jettisoning the goods before the police finish scanning them, talking their way out without rep loss or even having scan resistant that cause the police to not see the illegals).

LameFox
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Re: What if illegal wares had negative effects?

Post by LameFox » Thu, 25. Nov 21, 09:16

That's made me think of another issue: what happens then in case like PIO where it's not illegal? Their economy would be in trouble if selling it had negative effects lol.

If anything I'd rather the opposite: give it a positive effect to (crewed) stations, so that you're incentivised to smuggle it into your own or build in your own territory.
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