Been playing off and on since the Premium Beta so I've seen all the major iterations of the game's economy and personally believe we've hit the worst point of trading's balance. I have no problems with the recent change to make supply actually matter (in fact I applaud that it's finally working correctly) but the loss of Luxuries being dependable/lasting long enough to be worth it, Rares arguably not being worth it anymore and standard trading all pile on to hauling being a rather immense repetitive grind.
With that said I don't envy the task of coming up with what income per tonne/income per hour is acceptable. Can't be easy. This thread is meant to be a community effort where specifically traders come in and offer thoughts on how to improve the current system. What do you like? What don't you like? What could be added or changed?
Personally I loved the gameplay behind the Rare Commods. Got to visit parts of the galaxy I didn't see before and it made sense that these items would be worth more in a part of the galaxy they're not usually seen in. Then of course everyone and their mother got wind of how lucrative it was and it was nerfed into the ground. That's the problem with the economy in this game, the methods of making money are so dismal that a new beacon of profitability is immediately latched onto and "abused". My argument is that these methods are absolutely fine, there just needs to be more of them and a player reinforced way to balance them.
My suggestion is that permits be issued for Trading purposes. Permits based on vessel size and cargo capacity (having to upgrade the permit or purchase a new one with certain cargo hold size milestones) and based on government. Have a permit to operate a Type 7 with 200 tonne capacity in Federation space? You're good to go. Enter Empire space and it's invalid. That invalid or missing permit makes you vulnerable to interdiction via government and player craft. This reinforces the role of players enforcing it (maybe players can accept a contract from governments to find these illegal traders and issue fines via some new equipment or just destroy the vessel) and smugglers attempting to operate outside the law. Have an additional permit level that specifies what type of commodity they're clear to trade. Get caught without a rare commodity trade permit? You dun goofed.
Obviously these permits need to be relatively expensive and my thinking is that they last for a specified time, maybe a week at a time. Players need to work within that time to make it worth it. An additional level could be that they need to run some very basic missions to gain enough rep with the governments to be able to buy these trading permits or have them linked to trade ranks.
With this plan comes the need for an increase of trade profitability across the board. No more punishing lucrative trading opportunities, give the people multiple avenues to go down and a single one won't be abused.
Thoughts?
With that said I don't envy the task of coming up with what income per tonne/income per hour is acceptable. Can't be easy. This thread is meant to be a community effort where specifically traders come in and offer thoughts on how to improve the current system. What do you like? What don't you like? What could be added or changed?
Personally I loved the gameplay behind the Rare Commods. Got to visit parts of the galaxy I didn't see before and it made sense that these items would be worth more in a part of the galaxy they're not usually seen in. Then of course everyone and their mother got wind of how lucrative it was and it was nerfed into the ground. That's the problem with the economy in this game, the methods of making money are so dismal that a new beacon of profitability is immediately latched onto and "abused". My argument is that these methods are absolutely fine, there just needs to be more of them and a player reinforced way to balance them.
My suggestion is that permits be issued for Trading purposes. Permits based on vessel size and cargo capacity (having to upgrade the permit or purchase a new one with certain cargo hold size milestones) and based on government. Have a permit to operate a Type 7 with 200 tonne capacity in Federation space? You're good to go. Enter Empire space and it's invalid. That invalid or missing permit makes you vulnerable to interdiction via government and player craft. This reinforces the role of players enforcing it (maybe players can accept a contract from governments to find these illegal traders and issue fines via some new equipment or just destroy the vessel) and smugglers attempting to operate outside the law. Have an additional permit level that specifies what type of commodity they're clear to trade. Get caught without a rare commodity trade permit? You dun goofed.
Obviously these permits need to be relatively expensive and my thinking is that they last for a specified time, maybe a week at a time. Players need to work within that time to make it worth it. An additional level could be that they need to run some very basic missions to gain enough rep with the governments to be able to buy these trading permits or have them linked to trade ranks.
With this plan comes the need for an increase of trade profitability across the board. No more punishing lucrative trading opportunities, give the people multiple avenues to go down and a single one won't be abused.
Thoughts?
