Right now pirating as a means of undermining is not worth the effort, and there have been suggestions of defending one's own control systems give some merits. This seems to be overall heavily favoring combat over the hauling and trading playstyle. Fortification is already a largely repetitive boring task without even the nice part of watching ships blow up in pretty fireballs.
My suggestion is to allow hauling as a means of undermining same major faction powers (and maybe to a lesser extent enemy powers). Just as minor factions with same government types go through an Election as opposed to Civil War event, PP powers can compete "peacefully" through non-combat means. This can be imagined through the spread of propaganda, bribes, and other incentives to persuade system inhabitants to stop supporting a power. This ratio could be 1 ton = 1 merit for same major faction, and 1 ton = 0.5 merit for different major faction. The average Federation citizen might less likely to change his beliefs based on what some Imperial propaganda says and vice versa, while the Independents would be wary of both the Federation and Empire. This way combat still remains the preferred means of undermining enemy powers with minor defensive ability by protecting control systems, but haulers can at least play a small role if they get tired of purely defensive fortification play. Hauling then becomes the preferred defensive method, but with some limited offensive ability.
This then allows for competition between the Empire powers and between the Federation powers. Of course this may skew the offensive/defensive balance towards too much offensive action and undermining period and not enough towards defensive fortification, so this is just an idea and food for thought.
My suggestion is to allow hauling as a means of undermining same major faction powers (and maybe to a lesser extent enemy powers). Just as minor factions with same government types go through an Election as opposed to Civil War event, PP powers can compete "peacefully" through non-combat means. This can be imagined through the spread of propaganda, bribes, and other incentives to persuade system inhabitants to stop supporting a power. This ratio could be 1 ton = 1 merit for same major faction, and 1 ton = 0.5 merit for different major faction. The average Federation citizen might less likely to change his beliefs based on what some Imperial propaganda says and vice versa, while the Independents would be wary of both the Federation and Empire. This way combat still remains the preferred means of undermining enemy powers with minor defensive ability by protecting control systems, but haulers can at least play a small role if they get tired of purely defensive fortification play. Hauling then becomes the preferred defensive method, but with some limited offensive ability.
This then allows for competition between the Empire powers and between the Federation powers. Of course this may skew the offensive/defensive balance towards too much offensive action and undermining period and not enough towards defensive fortification, so this is just an idea and food for thought.
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