For every commodity, there should always be a small handful (less than five) of systems where it can be sold for a really amazing price. Galnet should publish a "super-boom" report with at least one system for each commodity. These can get refreshed once a week.
What this accomplishes:
* Makes piracy better by concentrating the action to fewer systems, increasing the odds of finding victims.
* Adds a proper risk/reward factor back to player piracy: sure, you can sell in the hot system, but is it worth the extra risk? (If someone really doesn't find that risk fun, they just stay out of open or accept smaller but safer profits).
* Reduces the dependency on external tools for finding hotspot systems.
Why this is better than what we have now:
The list of "hotspot" systems is currently too long for a given commodity. e.g. Void Opals have dozens of locations selling at about the same maxed-out price. The trader-pirate-bountyhunter ecosystem in Elite has only ever worked properly when the action is concentrated to a very small number of systems, such as when the Void Opal rush first started or back in the days of the New Caribbean when rare goods traders (and pirates and bounty hunters) all flocked to the Lave cluster.
It would also be great for players to not have to use external tools in order to get the most from the game. This wouldn't solve that entirely, but having a short published list of hotspots for the very best profits would reduce the dependence.
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Original credit for this idea goes to Bigmaec: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-worth-while?p=7416184&viewfull=1#post7416184
What this accomplishes:
* Makes piracy better by concentrating the action to fewer systems, increasing the odds of finding victims.
* Adds a proper risk/reward factor back to player piracy: sure, you can sell in the hot system, but is it worth the extra risk? (If someone really doesn't find that risk fun, they just stay out of open or accept smaller but safer profits).
* Reduces the dependency on external tools for finding hotspot systems.
Why this is better than what we have now:
The list of "hotspot" systems is currently too long for a given commodity. e.g. Void Opals have dozens of locations selling at about the same maxed-out price. The trader-pirate-bountyhunter ecosystem in Elite has only ever worked properly when the action is concentrated to a very small number of systems, such as when the Void Opal rush first started or back in the days of the New Caribbean when rare goods traders (and pirates and bounty hunters) all flocked to the Lave cluster.
It would also be great for players to not have to use external tools in order to get the most from the game. This wouldn't solve that entirely, but having a short published list of hotspots for the very best profits would reduce the dependence.
-------------------------
Original credit for this idea goes to Bigmaec: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-worth-while?p=7416184&viewfull=1#post7416184
