It's still inherrantly better than the npc pirates who either scan or just open fire, won't stop shooting until you've dropped 10x more than they can carry and then don't scoop afterwards if you do drop.
That's the biggest problem and players don't practice what they preach. When I was trading I knew that 20t of cargo was better than my entire rebuy and cargo but then I was a numbers guy and more of a rper.
The problem is that traders have a ton of things at their disposal, shield cells, boosters, turrets etc. Whilst they might not be the best they would work if it wasn't for the massive downside and that's the jump range and the effectiveness of said counter measures.
I know from experience that even if I did max out a T9 with boosters and cells I wouldn't be able to jump anywhere due to weight. The trading ships need a pass on fsd distances to encourage traders to use counter measures. I expect this would put us back to square one though as traders would still min/max on jump range and profits although it would give less excuses to dying.
The other problem is things like mines and missiles which are pretty much designed for traders (torpedoes for example) were nerfed against shields making them useless.
Regarding bounty hunters there are no tools except the wake scanner which is useless due to high wakes. You can't use them in supercruise so you can't effectively follow a player. Regarding piracy tools, limpets are awful and noone uses them. Shoot out a ship's drives (npc or player) and then attempt to attach a limpet, extra points if your victim has a point defense. There's no encouragement from the game mechanics to use them.
There's no easy solution and it's a combination of game mechanics that bring the problems for traders, bounty hunters and pirates.
Trading ships need a serious buff in terms of jump range and survival.
first off just like combat centric ships trading ships are designed to do one thing trade.
The type 6 is outdone by the asp
The type 7 by the clipper and the python
the type 9 in most cases by the conda
and all of these ships have to outfit to their bare minimum to compete on any scale to these other ships.
the argument that those other ships are more expensive should not apply just as the vulture is both better and cheaper than an asp and arguably many other ships.
there isn't any margin in those ships for more powerful shields, thrusters, or countermeasures of any kind.
Trading ships can't sacrifice any weight or they would be further antiquated than their multi role counterparts.
trading ships need to be harder to kill than they are now the only way I see doing that is allow them the early buy in as they have now but allow them to earn their buff by equipping a larger FSD and have more slots for boosters.
I do not think that multi roles need to be nerfed, no I'm a firm believer in buffs rather than nerfs. Traders need more margin in their loadouts and ships designed for trading need to be better at the one thing they do.
people tend to think I'm crazy for running around in a type 9 without shields but the fact of the matter is if I kept them I'd be better off in a conda and what good are they going to do anyway? Maybe one or two seconds of extra defense? They aren't worth it, throttle down and haggle if you can. If you get interdicted in a type 9 you're caught end of story.
Challenging prey I feel is worth more for the fun of piracy than making money. Piracy now is nothing but a one sided fight, it's easy to see why people log out when that's the only option they have to get out without losing anything. Not that I think it's a valid tactic mind you, but I can see the reasoning behind it.
i also agree that interdictions need to have a longer cool down there's just not enough time to communicate your intentions or for the trader to recognize their position before action has to be taken.
