Has anyone figured out what the new "Smuggling" mechanics entail?

[Baklavah]

Like... is it proper smuggling? What is it? There's no information anywhere.

[Dirak2012]

You get some items in a pirate controlled space station, and you sell them in a normal space station.

[Baklavah]

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

You get some items in a pirate controlled space station, and you sell them in a normal space station.

So no actual "running from the authorities" style smuggling. Must be why the Scan Deflector exists too. Hmm...

[davidb11]

The scan deflector also has a decent chance to fail apparently.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

All I know at this point was I was scanned by the sentinels for smuggled goods and passed the check. I was not smuggling so the system worked.

I am guessing you either fight them off and make a run for it, or pay with a grave in space. There may be some kind of bribe or fine option before the shooting begins. Based on how the pirate scan operates.

[SumGumption]

On my first run, the sentinels stopped me and wanted either my items or my pass but I had the third option to run. I ran, fought some off, ran some more, finally got to the space station and entered my pass into the console. No more trouble. But it won't be my last effort either. With a fully upgraded ship, it isn't that hard to get away. I haven't add the Scan Deflector yet but it does state that it isn't 100% effective.

[Aurumworks]

Best money from illegal goods is made by simply shooting up freighters in outlaw systems and once you're gorged with loot, sell it off in a normal system.

[wkitty42]

Originally posted by Baklavah:

Originally posted by Dirak2012:

You get some items in a pirate controlled space station, and you sell them in a normal space station.

So no actual "running from the authorities" style smuggling. Must be why the Scan Deflector exists too. Hmm...

you could play tag with the gendarmes if you want... just keep the cargo on you or in your ship and fly that from place to place... i found i could hide it in my freighter and move the contraband faster via teleport, though...

[fatherjimbo]

Originally posted by wkitty42:

Originally posted by Baklavah:

So no actual "running from the authorities" style smuggling. Must be why the Scan Deflector exists too. Hmm...

you could play tag with the gendarmes if you want... just keep the cargo on you or in your ship and fly that from place to place... i found i could hide it in my freighter and move the contraband faster via teleport, though...

This is the way. They money you make is incidental however so it's relatively pointless and since there are no consequences to play around with it's a useless feature IMO.

[Bored Peon]

You buy illegal goods from pirate stations, black market trading posts, settlement markets, and galactic terminals (buggy.)

There is like 7-8 illegal goods, each trading point only carries three of them. These trading places also sell misc stuff like hexite, larva cores, hadal cores, slime, mould, etc.

Also as with normal trading planet and station prices differ. The markup %s shown are wrong. Not sure if it is the buying % or the selling % that is wrong, but they are definitely off.

The scan deflector is about useless in my opinion. Pirates will still attack you even if the scan fails. Scans will detect your exosuit cargo items. There is also an activation thingy for the scan deflector. However it is all pointless because you can just store the illegal goods in your freighter and avoid all the scans.

Each pirate station has a NPC that gives missions.
1. Smuggling goods
You are given cargo to run to a nearby non-pirate system, which means can not use station portal. You jump to the system and meet a NPC on the surface.

2. Attack traders
You intercept a group of 6-8 ships and take their cargo. Each ship destroyed gives reputation damage.

3. Raid freighters
Intercept a freighter and shoot and loot all the cargo containers (no reputation damage.) However shooting the six fighters will give reputation damage. You can swoop in destroy the pods and then escape without taking reputation damage. This missions are a good source extra illegal goods.

4. Hunt bounties.
Same as usual hunt pirate mission.

Pirate systems will not have any response from System Authorities.

The random generated freighter fleets in pirate systems work like this. All the fleets are the race that owns the system, as before. So all reputation damage for raiding those fleets will be done to that race. However the defense for those fleets are a joke because it is the half dozen fighters and that is it. So you can raid mass amounts of goods provided you are willing to accept the reputation loss. So if you decide to hate Korvax you can raid their pirate frieghters easily compared to raiding Korvax fleets in normal space.

[Tatwi]

Originally posted by Aurumworks:

Best money from illegal goods is made by simply shooting up freighters in outlaw systems and once you're gorged with loot, sell it off in a normal system.

Yeah, this feels like an exploit. I mean sure, you can do the same thing in any system while simply ignoring the two sentinels that shoot at you, but it's a whole other ball game when no one at all shoots at you while doing it.

The cannons on the freighters themselves don't count, as they can be destroyed in 2 seconds and they never repair themselves.

[gNg]

Buy banned goods from a pirate station, teleport from there to one of your bases, then teleport to a normal station and sell it to the first pilot that lands.
You can make a moderate profit, I suppose, but with no risk and no consequences, it hardly seems worth the bother.

[Bored Peon]

This was from buying out of my black market in my settlement and selling in a normal station. Probably higher had I gone down to a planet.

First Spawn Relics
Buy 111k
Sell 250k

Counterfeit Circuits
Buy 73k
Sell 176k

Banned Weapons
Buy 88k
Sell 216k

You pretty much double your money. The limitation is how many goods are available to buy.

If you run missions out of a pirate station and buy after each mission and let it accumulate on your freighter then make one trip it is a hefty profit.