Elite has a robust economy and a huge universe to trade in. The biggest issue with this is the limited tools within game to support traders in their careers. To solve this, third party tools are grasping to fill the niche. While doing a moderately fair job, they rely on spotty data and due to being external to the game provide no real in-game growth that an internal mechanic could.
The proposition is simple.
First, introduce a trade module of varied class and cost. Each module allows connecting to the trade network of stations at various LY distances.
Second, in order for these modules to work a trader must pay a station a re-occurring service fee for access to the trade data. The broader the view of your surrounding market the more stations you need to pay and the bigger the module you need. If a station is outside the range of the module it is not reported in the query.
All that is left to add is a market query tool with searches and filters to help players in finding good trade runs and even things like station services and such.
This is just a rough idea but I think it brings the trader back into the game, creates diversity in tools for a career type as well as a money sink.
What is certainly up for debate is whether or not to have the market tool actually find a trade for you or just show you the raw data for you to sift through. I am more inclined to the latter, increasing personal reward for effort invested.
The proposition is simple.
First, introduce a trade module of varied class and cost. Each module allows connecting to the trade network of stations at various LY distances.
Second, in order for these modules to work a trader must pay a station a re-occurring service fee for access to the trade data. The broader the view of your surrounding market the more stations you need to pay and the bigger the module you need. If a station is outside the range of the module it is not reported in the query.
All that is left to add is a market query tool with searches and filters to help players in finding good trade runs and even things like station services and such.
This is just a rough idea but I think it brings the trader back into the game, creates diversity in tools for a career type as well as a money sink.
What is certainly up for debate is whether or not to have the market tool actually find a trade for you or just show you the raw data for you to sift through. I am more inclined to the latter, increasing personal reward for effort invested.
