Do these cargo things have a buy-in?asked by Vengeance Is Mine
TL;DRThe new cargo missions have no buy-in, so players can start without capital; the boxes are real commodities owned by the corporation, so keeping them makes them stolen cargo that fences pay less for.
No, because originally the design for the cargo missions was: how are we going to make sure that players don't just decide this is a perfect opportunity to take a cargo grid of stuff for themselves? So they need a buy-in. But of course that feels just the same as commodity trading, where you have to have the money in order to do the thing. And that didn't feel inclusive enough. And also at a very large scale, you want to be able to use your large ship to do long, complex logistical exercises. If you also have to risk a huge amount of money to do that at the same time, and you fail once, that doesn't feel good either. So the whole design ethos changed to allow this to be an environment that people could play and thrive in if they follow the rules. But if they didn't want to follow the rules, then, because it's a sandbox, people will do whatever they will do. And the interesting thing is that these are not mission boxes. These are real commodity boxes that are being transported. And so if you were to misappropriate those boxes and do something else with them, they would be considered stolen cargo, and they are marked as owned by the corporation that has given you them to transport. So you would have to sell them at a fence, and you wouldn't be getting full market value for them.
Even fences consider these cargo containers to be high risk. Everybody knows that they are originating from a reputable source. These major corporations of Stanton are basically trading above our heads, and really, whenever they need you, they'll just hire you as a space trucker. Which means a fence location that gets their hands on these, chances are they'll probably give you a significant portion less.