So this is something I've been pondering for a while.
Money has taken more and more time to get (I ranted about this before too, but more specifically on the economy)
While this might seem as a great way to buffer people from trading out battleships in a day or two, it causes a few problems.
First, the people who are not long-time veterans with massive bank accounts tend to avoid hostile interactions, both with their ordinary craft, and their transports. They don't want to lose more money, because it's taken them THIS long to get how much they have now.
With the increased drain on ones free time, people are worried about losing one thing even more than money. Their time.
What am I trying to say?
People get upset when their time is wasted. Mad, even. Despite the sandwich rule, people tend to lose it when hours, days, or even weeks of their time are lost. No one wants to lose a base. No one wants to lose expensive ammo on a ship.
So traders avoid pirates like the plague, and a lot of us avoid having stupid fun (such as throwing ourselves at the huge fleets that've been appearing in New York recently) No one wants to spend more time trading.
I don't know about the rest of you, but in 4.84, and even 4.85, money was almost never a concern for me. It came by fairly easily, and I could fund most of what I needed in a reasonable amount of time. Now, not so much. Even I'm finding myself doing EVERYTHING to avoid pirates when I'm trading. It's not healthy for the pirate playerbase, and it's not healthy for the server in general.
But I digress.
What do you think the connections are? Am I right? Am I stupid to think they're related?
