Black Market, CSC Medical

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ravenkwill
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How do I build up a reputation with the black market? Is there a value to meeting with the boss?

Also, some of the CSC ships have a medical officer asking for supplies. I've tried selling and donating medical supplies, to no effect. Is there any eventual payoff to this?

Thanks!
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Xephyr
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You can build Black Market rank by purchasing lots of items from their stations. Gaining rank will lower the cost of items, and at higher ranks you can talk to the boss to ask for better weapons or shields.

If you sell or donate large amounts of medical supplies to the CSC infirmary, the doctor will give you various rewards. Normally they're high-level shields, like the Mammoth 50 or Invincible-class. Donating smaller amounts will get you stuff like bottles of wine. If you talk to the captain of the CSC after a large donation, he might give you a promotion.
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ravenkwill
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Thank you. That's very useful information. I've just been way too parsimonious with my giving and my buying!
JohnBWatson
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Yeah, there are thresholds for donating and an item that you get at each threshold. This is a per donation thing, though, so multiple small donations will just get you a bunch of wine bottles, and donating a lot of items twice will get you two mammoth deflectors.

It's not the best system, but the code for CSCs haven't been updated in a while. Here are the tables.

Code: Select all

               <arcticaGiftTable>
				(	; donation	item						count	unique
					(10000		&itPlasmaShieldGenerator;	1		'Gift1)
					(5000		&itInvincibleDeflector;		1		'Gift2)
					(2500		&itR5Deflector;				1		'Gift3)
					(1250		&itEMPImmuneCoating;		4		'Gift4)
					(0			&itKobeWater;				1		Nil)
					)
			</arcticaGiftTable>

			<saharaGiftTable>
				(	; donation	item						count	unique
					(10000		&itMammoth100Deflector;		1		'Gift1)
					(5000		&itBlueEtheriumCrystal;		1		'Gift2)
					(2500		&itPatchSpider;				1		'Gift3)
					(1250		&itR1Deflector;				1		'Gift4)
					(0			&itEuropanIceVodka;			1		Nil)
					)
			</saharaGiftTable>
		</StaticData>
JohnBWatson
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[Double post]
Last edited by JohnBWatson on Sat Jul 15, 2017 7:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
NMS
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Black market: Specifically, buying illegal items is what raises your rank. The ones that aren't equipment or slaves can be resold for a profit at Startons with the smuggler's cargo hold, so you might as well do this unless you need a bigger hold. At a certain rank, you can get a simple mission that also contributes to gaining the next rank. At a higher rank, the price of their military items is reduced from 200% to 125%, but this is still more expensive than other stations, so only buy these if you have military ID and can't find anything similarly good elsewhere.

Medical CSCs: You can only get each reward once, except the cheapest one.
PM
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Note that the Ice Vodka is a luxury food. Something to consider if you cannot find enough to feed the fabricator.
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Derakon
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I find the best thing to do with Black Markets is to get a smuggler's hold, then blow up every Black Market or illegal drugs (I forget the name) station you find. You get a bunch of free illegal goods to sell to the Startons. It's like getting paid to fight crime! Plus the Molotoks are pretty fun to fight in the early game.
PM
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I would not destroy Black Market stations unless I could not dock with them (due to hotel bust and no source of ID). The shipyards are useful for dock services, especially when installing a waste cannon or overleveled devices sooner than others. Black Markets are also a good place to sell some military items.
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Derakon
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PM wrote:
Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:10 pm
I would not destroy Black Market stations unless I could not dock with them (due to hotel bust and no source of ID). The shipyards are useful for dock services, especially when installing a waste cannon or overleveled devices sooner than others. Black Markets are also a good place to sell some military items.
I don't generally install illegal equipment, and hadn't realized that Black Markets are higher-level than other stations. That's a decent point. I guess really what I'm saying though is that if you do piss off the Black Market factions, there's plenty of profit to be had, so long as you have a smuggler's hold or easy access to Corporate stations. Illegal goods tend to have great "profit density" (credits per ton).
PM
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The main usefulness of waste cannon is the following:
* Irradiate wrecks you do not want NPCs (like Salvagers) to loot.
* Irradiate Ferian miners - be far away from the Ferians when they die (and camping near friendly guards when warriors spawn and come after you), and ships that die by radiation always leave wrecks behind.
* Irradiate Dwarg Masters - they are fast and run away from you (and spam EMP). One hit, and they can flee as much as they want - they will die!

Waste cannon is mainly useful for Ferian farming.

I do not know if it is still true, but traditionally, Black Market shipyards can install anything up to level 9. Player would need to get visit CSCs, Taikon, and Ringers for that, and they spawn later than when Black Market shipyards first appear. Also, if military ID gets lost permanently (happened to George in his Eternity Port playthrough once - accidentally destroyed a CW station, CW Fleet revoked ID!), you want some place to install military equipment without military ID. That leaves Black Market or Ringers.

But sure, if you do not need (or cannot dock at) the Black Market, then destroying and looting their stations is an option.
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NMS
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Destroying Black Market stations and selling the illegal consumer goods to a Victorian nightclub gets you 150% of the value of 30% of the items, for 45% of the total value. Plus, you get some of whatever other items they had. Buying them from Stations and Shipyards and selling them gets you (150 - 110)% of the value of 100% of the items, for 40% of the total value. But buying them from Tempus Labs gets you (150 - 75)% = 75% of the total value, so you might want to do that before making them hostile, if you're going to. Also, you can get a few reasonably valuable and/or useful pieces of equipment as rewards for buying their illegal items.
Derakon
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NMS wrote:
Tue Jul 18, 2017 10:08 pm
Destroying Black Market stations and selling the illegal consumer goods to a Victorian nightclub gets you 150% of the value of 30% of the items, for 45% of the total value. Plus, you get some of whatever other items they had. Buying them from Stations and Shipyards and selling them gets you (150 - 110)% of the value of 100% of the items, for 40% of the total value. But buying them from Tempus Labs gets you (150 - 75)% = 75% of the total value, so you might want to do that before making them hostile, if you're going to. Also, you can get a few reasonably valuable and/or useful pieces of equipment as rewards for buying their illegal items.
The problem with this approach is that it involves giving money to criminals, rather than blowing them up and taking their stuff. ;)
shanejfilomena
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PM wrote:
Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:10 pm
I would not destroy Black Market stations unless I could not dock with them (due to hotel bust and no source of ID). The shipyards are useful for dock services, especially when installing a waste cannon or overleveled devices sooner than others. Black Markets are also a good place to sell some military items.


The Independent Traders convoys ( the T-33 w/ Zulu escorts ) can & often does give me Black Market I.D. cards ( if you kill enough of them you'll usually get at least one ).
In my current game I have 3.

Derakon wrote:
Wed Jul 19, 2017 4:10 am
NMS wrote:
Tue Jul 18, 2017 10:08 pm
Destroying Black Market stations and selling the illegal consumer goods to a Victorian nightclub gets you 150% of the value of 30% of the items, for 45% of the total value. Plus, you get some of whatever other items they had. Buying them from Stations and Shipyards and selling them gets you (150 - 110)% of the value of 100% of the items, for 40% of the total value. But buying them from Tempus Labs gets you (150 - 75)% = 75% of the total value, so you might want to do that before making them hostile, if you're going to. Also, you can get a few reasonably valuable and/or useful pieces of equipment as rewards for buying their illegal items.
The problem with this approach is that it involves giving money to criminals, rather than blowing them up and taking their stuff. ;)
While I am sure many pilots agree that the Black Market should be the "Enemy" of the Commonwealth Fleet & Commonwealth itself ( since they deal in illegal trade ),
They are an un-official Pal to the Corporation - even if they are cutting in on the Corporation's territory.

However, for the Player to address the issue outside of a mission is in itself illegal and the Commonwealth should penalize the Player if they go all Judge Dredd on the BM.

But, that's my opinion...
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