Smuggler Guide

## Intro

This is a guide aimed at understanding the black market for Star Traders: Frontiers. This will also dive into the Rare Trade Goods market (as it is the most efficient use of your time and money) and Spying. Smuggling Rare Trade Goods is a difficult thing to set up correctly, but monumentally profitable. Notably, this is *not* a guide for playing a Captain starting with a single point in Smuggler purely for its amazing defensive trait in Ship Combat.

## Template Creation

### The Map

* This guide assumes/requires that your starting quadrant has Rare Trade Goods. (abbreviated RTG from now on) If you want to use the Default Map v2, you will have to start De Valtos Syndicate or Clan Moklumnue. De Valtos is recommended of the two factions.

### Attributes A

* 30 Charisma/Wisdom/Resilience
* 18 Fortitude
* 14 Other (minimum allowed when attributes are at priority A)

### Contacts B

#### Group A the RTG Sellers

Select Group A contacts first to ensure they are in your home quadrant.

* Spice Trader
* Merchant
* Smuggler -- Black Market contact **and** RTG contact

#### Group B the Black Market Buyers

* Fixer
* Blackheart -- Place Smuggler here if you lack the weapon smuggler or blackheart unlocks
* Weapon Smuggler

### Ship C

* Juror 160/260k - Gives you an extra 20k to start with

### Experience E

* Smuggler - 10% Bonus at Black Markets

Selecting Attributes at priority A is important because character creation time is the only chance you ever get to change them outside of Gear and lucky Trait Mutation. The Juror is a lousy ship with a small cargo hold but with the high price of RTG goods you are unlikely to fill even its limited space with your starting funds. That being said, the extra 20k credits gained by choosing a ship below the priority selected will give a quick head start into the learning process. Consider swapping Ship and Skills on future playthroughs to allow you to bring your all-important negotiate skill from 4 to 8.

## Contacts

This is the meat and potatoes of the smuggler's world. Without contacts you cannot have a steady source of RTG nor a way into the black market. A trickle of RTG will come your way through exploration, scavenging, and piracy but the Smuggler's clients need a more steady supply than this! If you are brand new and have not unlocked some of the starting contacts (via unlocks) you may need to move the smuggler contact around to make sure you have 2 Sellers and 2 buyers. All of the 6 selected contacts also buy intel; the type of contact that this guide value most buy intel on the side as well. It is important to place group A in your home territory by making sure they are in slots 1,2 and 3. The black market dealers should be placed in the back half of the list to have them start in systems outside the home. If the planet your BM dealers land on do not typically buy the goods you are selling, or worse fall *inside* your home system but with an enemy fraction, do not feel obliged to continue that playthrough. Reroll (restart captain creation) until there is a clear pipeline of seller A to buyer B. The best places to have a black market dealer is on Orbitals, Tradeways, High Tech and Lux Pop Zones. At minimum one BM on an Orbital and one on a Lux Pop will allow you to sell every RTG. As for your sellers, only the system matters not the zone\planet they sell from.

## A note about RTG and Contacts

The king of Rare Trade goods is Iridlaentine. Always legal, only requiring a quick two step hop up the permit ladder, and second only to Travor Spice Wax. Sadly, not every map will have it. Default map v2 has it one system over from the De Valtos start (another point in the faction's favor.) Every map is guaranteed to start with Bexian Spice Tea, but you are also guaranteed to never start in that system as well. If you are the type to reroll until you are satisfied, get a map with a start of Cadavost Plating, Kloxian Medical Bays, Travor Spice Wax or the aforementioned Iridlaentine.

Unlike when you buy from the market the price will not vary from planet to planet or even from contact to contact; the goods will always be the same price. After stuffing your ship with what you can carry (or afford) the contact's access to RTGs will go on cooldown; you will always have to wait to buy more from them. Make sure you are finished with activities that raise influence and reputation with the contact before you purchase RTGs from them (i.e. you have sold intel and/or finished any missions before you buy). The more the contact likes you, the faster he/she will come off cooldown. This also has the effect of buying *all* that you can buy. There is no limit to how much the contact can sell to you at one time, save the limitations of your cargo hold and wallet. Midgame, spending 500k in one swoop and selling for over 1m is just how you handle your business.

## The Black Market

Succeeding with the Black Market doesn't take much. Stealth and Intimidate are the two Skill Pools you will need (albeit not much of either.) Charisma is the relevant attribute and you have 30 with your Captain. You can generally avoid focusing too much on the skill pools just by having really high reputation with the contact. The card you are after is the +3 Market Access card. Your actual permit access level is determined by the client, however. You have a smuggler talent for that. Illicit Notoriety gives you one level higher access. Remember how Iridlaentine is the king of RTG? Illicit Notoriety means if you can reach the market in any way, shape, or form, you can sell Iridlaentine.

SMUGGLE

As for the game itself, Electronic Techs and Smugglers have level 1 talents that let you eliminate bad cards or replace bad cards with market access; both jobs are guaranteed on your starting ship. Saboteur oddly enough has a level 5 talent that removes a bad card, and Wing Commando can duplicate the smugglers in replacing bad draws with good ones. But what you need a smuggler for, in fact the entire reason we are doing **ALL** of this setup is to get the maximum value out of the smuggler talent Bootleg Profits. And yes, it stacks with the Exploiter trait and the naturally better prices on the black market. It is for this reason that you do NOT want to take any of the other talents that might activate such as Criminal Connections or Insider Trading. You could be missing out on a quarter million or more if you fail to get your Bootleg Profits talent on the right sale.

SMUGGLE

As far as the risks, BM has a card that represents more danger then any other card. [ - 2 ] Illegal Goods Confiscated, also known as profit-be-gone.

All other cards are welcome compared to this, and it comes in two flavors. Take one Illegal good or take ALL illegal goods, but for you this will likely amount to the same thing. The law of the planet (very often 9 or 10) will deem all goods of legality lower then this to be illegal and they will take it right out of your hold. Of note: Iridlaentine is never illegal. (It is a shame that Hideout does nothing to prevent this, however, Ritualized Retreat from your blade dancer does. It will also stop a fight which carries damage to your rep and the influence of the contact even if you win and profit-be-gone if you lose or surrender.)

## Intel Generation

Spies are vital here, even if you don't do very much spying itself. Scouring Search and Unauthorized Access both come quickly and are good active tools to gather Intel. Far better is Secrets Unbound, a talent that will help you passively gather Intel while you go about your normal activities. It is for this reason I recommend having 3 spies among your crew once you move up to a larger ship. Their electronics and stealth skill pool will always be useful to you -- electronics helping in ship combat AND the spying card game. High Stealth pools helps with the black market.

A single level dip in Zealot on one of your officers can get you a reliable source of intel made from winning ship combat. If you excel in boarding enemies and having your spys milk the hostile ship's data memory for all the intel you can glean with the above mentioned Unauthorized Access, absolutely double dip with the zealot's Rough Interrogation for even more. The enemy ship must be captured intact for there to be a crew alive enough to talk, however. Another downside is the reputation hit, which segues nicely into the next topic.

## Everybody's Second Best Friend

Star traders is a hell of a lot easier if you have few to no factions out for your blood. By the design of this guide you will be visiting your home system often and the starting storyline of Calagan Faen vs Aetaan Char will net you a faction that will happily seize your cargo or blow up your ship. For this reason a smuggler might want to keep his hands out of family politics and instead move directly to Arbiter Brokstrom's storyline. (It will give you something to do while your cooldowns come back online.)

A diplomat is a must on your ship and because diplomat dovetails so nicely with smuggler on the negotiation synergy; this is why it is suggested to make Diplomat your captain's second job choice. Magnanimous Victory is vital to keeping ship combat from damaging your reputation after you take all the intel you can from the enemy captain. Winning Compromise\Upstaged Success is bread-and-butter mission running, and if you ignored earlier advice and got the Char Fraction really steamed at you Vindication Pact is your way out.

## First Turns

If your Spice Trader is at the planet you started at, land after you assign a pilot sure landfall. Immediately try and get two missions to deliver a data cube. Go to the planet your Merchant is on. Try and get proving missions as well. Pick up the arbiter if you haven't already. Shake hands with Calagan and agree to deliver the arbiter. Immediately finish the missions for the Merchant and the Spice Trader, and if they have more easily finishable missions do them. Look for missions that either are in the home quadrant or are in the same system as the Char orbital Mission. Return and watch the fireworks and if you want to take this guide's above advice never deal with the Faen family again. The arbiter's mission will remain in your mission log but right now with the wealth you've acquired visit the spice merchant and buy RTGs until you have a little less then 2000 credits. Keep just enough to pay for gas, and maybe the crew. Visit your best placed Black market contact and save your game. Unless your goods are taken roll with the punches and keep going at it. If you do lose the farm, reload. Return to the Merchant and buy his RTGs and sell them as well. Buy a *slightly* bigger hold, you don't want to invest too much in this ship. Do some missions while you wait for the cooldown to end, leveling up your crew as you fly around. Spying right now is a great time sink and a great way to generate intel that you will need to build up new contacts that you will find later.

## Ship Encounters

First, check the Hostility wiki page. As a smuggler you are going to want to avoid any combat unless you are intel hunting. Your spys are going to take a moment to level up, your combat crew has not even had a chance to get their hands on any good gear and it is recommended to wait until at least your mid-game ship to install a weapon locker 5. Talents that let you flatly end the encounter are going to be the best choice early on, but do not neglect talents that raise the encountered captain's Hostility level. A bribe in order to leave is always acceptable, but a bribe and a word in the ear can turn a captain from a foe into a messenger singing your praises. Look for cost efficient uses of your time. Skip off the Void is the ultimate get out of jail free card, even with xeno, but it comes at a literal cost in credits and time. Jettison Cargo is rarely an option, but if you are hauling anything other then RTGs in your hold it might be worth it to eat the loss rather then run the risk of expensive wasted port time.

## In Closing

And there you have it, a guide to get you started with that time honored tradition of avoiding authorities and making credits hand over fist.