I think the repair and refuel costs are much too low. Perhaps they were too high before the adjustment, but now they just feel trivial.
I'm not sure about credit sinks as I've seen others argue that they are not needed, but I personally feel it's too easy to accumulate credits once you're out of the smaller ships.
I get that the bigger ships like freighters should provide you with more easier credits faster, but I got a lot of enjoyment during my "early game" out of managing my scarce credit balance. It doesn't feel like there's anything which scales up that feeling of achievement from managing scarcity later on.
I feel the same with fuel. When I flew my Python last time (pre-modification) I had 70.000+ fuel costs which made me think twice about where to go and what cargo to take.
I needed to use the following features in the game (for an armed trader setup):
- route planning: economical
- fuel scoop
- more detailed profit calculation
- reconsidered equipment upgrade with more startegic approach
Now 3-4 months later when I fired up ED I was shocked how insignificant the fuel prices became: it needs 1500-ish credits to fill up the ship at the same place.
What valid gameplay functions did I loose (as an armed trader again)?
- route planning: economical ---> now it's the fastest and stays that way, the economical option lost it's function completely
- fuel scoop ---> no need for that module at all
- more detailed profit calculations ---> now it's a one-dimensional "let's see what brings the most and go"-type of reflex
- reconsidered equipment upgrade ---> take whatever I feel as I don't have to consider fuel costs and fuel efficiency
And that's just on fuel!
Getting fuel now is a fingertip action and the only challenge is not to forget to press the button. Any further calculations are completely unnecessary, nor the price makes any hole on my pocket. So just another meaningless button pressing act.
I agree with the OP, without diverse credit sink options ED is populated with all-the-same kind of commanders with the facade of uniqueness.