Trade Route Balance and coloring up traders

[Tenacity]

an other problem with smuggling is that you dont really have acceptable contiuation routes which are supposed be "off-streat". all you can do is to take some cheap cr** to your next target, once you delivered the cardi/sm. and thats what IMO really hurts about smuggling =(

If one takes the jump hole route through kusari to omicron alpha (goes something like new york -> colorado -> galileo -> shikoku -> honshu -> tau something -> tau something -> omicron alpha), you can haul sidearms from detroit munitions in new york to malta and then cardamine back to rochester or manhattan.

The sidearms buy for like 120 a unit and sell for over 1000 each. It's possible to make like 7 million going to malta, and 9 million coming back - and you keep off the trade lanes.

oh come on man! it already feels like flying a bloody sponge sad.gif . wouldnt it be better to ... you know ... just weaken the shields of the big ones? so escorts would generaly become an obligation?

No, it wouldnt. Believe it or not, as a 'freelancer' / 'merc' of sorts - I DO occasionally have to use my firefly transport for combat.

Right now i've got the thing set up with MkVIII armor, advanced grav shields, and level 4 turrets... and it's still tough fighting in her.


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Anyways, on the topic of 'escorts' - there's one main reason why most traders dont bother with them: ineffectiveness.

A pirate can still choose to attack the trader rather than the escort - out of spite - and will still usually be able to take down the transport before dying himself, if the escort is even capable of killing the pirate. On top of that, the trader is paying the escort per-trip when there's a high chance that you wont even be attacked by pirates - meaning money down the drain for what, a conversation partner?

Perhaps some rule should be put in that a pirate must attack escorts before transports if the escorts are present.

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