Why are illegal wares illegal?

[Falcrack]

Space weed, space fuel, maja dust, etc. Right now they are illegal "just because". But what if there were a gameplay reason for them to be illegal? One interesting possible gameplay effect would be to make it so that in sectors where these illegal narcotics are sold, there is a decrease in production efficiency at stations. There would thus be a real reason to want to eliminate narcotic consumption in friendly sectors, especially those with your stations, while actively trying to sell it for a high profit in enemy sectors.

It could work like this:

Narcotics are sold to hidden pirate bases in sectors, that are way out in the middle of nowhere so as to be hard to find. Civilian ships, the ones that spawn from stations as mass traffic, would emerge from stations in the sector, travel to the pirate bases, purchase some (using their own money, not station account), and bring it back to the station. The station would start to get a supply of the narcotics, which would be consumed over time (can't be ejected into space), and the more that is present on the station, the more production efficiency goes down. You could of course kill civilian ships carrying the narcotics back to the station, kill trade ships supplying the pirate bases with narcotics, kill the pirate bases, or kill the narcotics producers. Or, you could sell the stuff and make a tidy profit and not care about the consequences.

Really, the idea of illegal goods could be given so much more depth than simply declaring them illegal.

[arragon0815]

That it is illegal is not the problem.
The problem is that you can not acquire the licenses like in Rebirth ...

[Socratatus]

Space weed, space fuel, maja dust, etc. Right now they are illegal "just because". But what if there were a gameplay reason for them to be illegal? One interesting possible gameplay effect would be to make it so that in sectors where these illegal narcotics are sold, there is a decrease in production efficiency at stations. There would thus be a real reason to want to eliminate narcotic consumption in friendly sectors, especially those with your stations, while actively trying to sell it for a high profit in enemy sectors.

It could work like this:

Narcotics are sold to hidden pirate bases in sectors, that are way out in the middle of nowhere so as to be hard to find. Civilian ships, the ones that spawn from stations as mass traffic, would emerge from stations in the sector, travel to the pirate bases, purchase some (using their own money, not station account), and bring it back to the station. The station would start to get a supply of the narcotics, which would be consumed over time (can't be ejected into space), and the more that is present on the station, the more production efficiency goes down. You could of course kill civilian ships carrying the narcotics back to the station, kill trade ships supplying the pirate bases with narcotics, kill the pirate bases, or kill the narcotics producers. Or, you could sell the stuff and make a tidy profit and not care about the consequences.

Really, the idea of illegal goods could be given so much more depth than simply declaring them illegal.

You make a pretty good point.

[Imperial Good]

Space weed, space fuel, maja dust, etc. Right now they are illegal "just because". But what if there were a gameplay reason for them to be illegal? One interesting possible gameplay effect would be to make it so that in sectors where these illegal narcotics are sold, there is a decrease in production efficiency at stations. There would thus be a real reason to want to eliminate narcotic consumption in friendly sectors, especially those with your stations, while actively trying to sell it for a high profit in enemy sectors.

There are lore reasons already...

Space Fuel has enhanced effects on races other than Argon, likely because such races had limited exposure to alcohol when evolving. Especially with Split it is known to make them quite violent due to their nature. However generally races do not have an issue with this, after all it only effects bars and other such institutes. The only reason it is illegal in Argon space is because they "licence" its sale in a way players cannot partake (illegal to them), allowing the operation of a select few distilleries and institutions which sell Space Fuel within their space which likely pay a premium for the right to do so.

Spaceweed has addiction issues with some of the races. It is a traditional and national recreational substance for the Teladi which have limited to no side effects from it. It is sourced from "Swamp Plant" which Teladi traditionally used in food and medicine as well. Most of the sales outside of Teladi space are to Teladi working in such space, who view it as their right to consume the substance and think it is unfair that they cannot ship it around freely.

Maja Dust is harmless to most if not all races from what I can tell. The only reason the Paranid restrict its sale is because it is made from sacred Maja Snails for sinful purposes such as recreation. The reason it is manufactured by pirates is because the Paranid are the only source of the knowledge and Maja Snails to make it with but they cannot make it legally in their space or in a way supported by their government.

As such none of these substances cause any real social problems... They are not representing many of the substances available in real life which do, even if there are some similarities.

That it is illegal is not the problem.
The problem is that you can not acquire the licenses like in Rebirth ...

This only applies to Space Fuel in Argon space. That is the only illegal which is licenced. Only the Argon have issues with Space Fuel for this reason.

Only the Paranid have issues with Maja Dust. They do not offer a licence to produce it since the reason for its ban is religious based.

Only the Teladi allow the trade of Spaceweed. The other factions do not want anything to do with the substance because it can be addictive to them. As such neither of them would offer licences for the substance. Additionally most of its consumption is by Teladi, which do not suffer problems from it. It also is in theory harmless if taken in moderation and if the consumer does not get addicted to it.

X Rebirth was Argon and Terran focused. As such Space Fuel being licenced made sense. Narcotics being licenced also made sense due to the resident Teladi populations which demand it. The "Narcotics" of XR are the "Spaceweed" of X4 with the Spaceweed of XR being the Swamp Plant of X4.

[memxcom]

I personally feel they should give you the option to buy the licence even if it's a high price. I'm quite happy with my faction going 29-30-29-30 etc and even the issue of losing your cargo wares, that is not a problem when you have billions of credits like I have, but the game is all about trade etc so there should be a licence period.

They could always say well you have the licence so you can keep your faction rating but lose your wares in sectors that don't allow it, it gets round losing both faction rating and wares as the game stands now.

[Ramokthan]

I had a game where i tired to make a drug magnate, but its not worth.

Reasons:
Especially on argon you get caught almost all the time, your reputation will drop like falling from moon until they are hostile.
I set up my traders with tater trader, where i was able to configure which sectors they are allowed to trade, so they only trade the wares where they are legal to avoid reputation loss.
But after all the Profit you can get out of it is not even close to other legal ways to make money.
In fact the profit if you are just trade it is almost non existant, even if you opt out the cargo losses by being caught.
There is just no profitable reason to take that risks.

As said there are multiple other ways in X4 to make money like printing paper without risking reputation or anything.

So there is in fact no rational reason to trade Drugs or produce them in a large amount (it is profitable if you produce drugs in low amounts, dont get me wrong) because the risk/profit curve is almost non existant.
Of course u can do it if you like to, but if you are a rational businessman like me, its not worth the risk and trouble at all and you just don't do it.

[Imperial Good]

One needs to unlock a lot of black market dealers. They have to be at almost every station as their number determine how much can be in transit at any given time. After that one just needs to make a separate station for each sort of illegal. This is so that one can blacklist sectors where the ware is illegal to avoid reputation loss. Also use the fast S traders since minimizing transit time increases profits.

The issue with this is that it requires a lot of micro management as each station needs to be manually visited, possibly many times and a lot of annoying fetch ware missions done. The profits will be pretty insane, likely in the hundreds of millions per hour, however one can achieve similar if not better profit just by plonking a Warf down almost anywhere and buying HOP blueprints.

[phrozen1]

I think egosoft doesn't want logical gameplay or interesting mechanics.
Only random half-baked features without any deep connection to each other.

[radcapricorn]

I think egosoft doesn't want logical gameplay or interesting mechanics.
Only random half-baked features without any deep connection to each other.

That, or they legitimately don't see a problem in what they've created; and I don't know which is worse.