Money making balance

[LuckyOne]

I can't say I agree with the above. Transports should be transports. Slow, unarmed and sitting ducks. Battletransports maybe could get a buff, so you trade off cargo space for better protection (Stegodon is a good example)

Big transports should organise in convoys for protection. They are supposed to be used by factions focusing on trading anyway...

I'd do the opposite in fact. Make 5kers have even more cargo 6-6.5k and generally less guns (the ones with 1-5 turrets are fine I guess), reduce speed a bit, and buff hull points significantly. Make them big, fat, juicy magnets for pirates. Sort of like the Spanish Gold convoys.

Then solo traders would use battletransports and min-maxing trade would include hiring escorts or running the "safer" routes.

The only problem are that "safer" routes don't exist in-game currently. Sure there are gunboat/cruiser NPC spawns around capital planets... but most of those routes are frankly trash.

In an ideal trading world you'd have

• local routes - common commodities, smaller profits, but big chance of friendly NPCs spawning to save you. Good prices for pirates to truck off goods to their main bases, but very risky to pirate
  
  
• inter-house routes. Basically what we have now with ores. Piracy should be encouraged on the fringes of lawful space with lawful NPC patrols almost non-existent, but medium chance of unfriendly NPCs that could act as a force multiplier for the pirate (you could have them equipped with good deshielders and CDs so they help pirates pirate without really weakening the pirated trader)
  
  
• alternative routes. These should have "special" cargo, like perishable commodities or freighter only dock points. Unlawful NPCs are common and can really hurt you.
  Min-maxing these would require knowing the right jump holes to use and the right ships that don't make your cargo perish before delivering it. You could basically have them balanced by making it impossible for slower transports to make it in time.
  

I feel this system would make the trade much more interesting and interactive. AFK traders would choose local routes, team oriented people convoy trading and solo traders would try their luck in battle-transports or time-strained alternative routes.

Basically, a trade style for every flavour of trader.