Economy in 5.2+

[Catto]

While, admittedly, Disco is only a pseudorp server, and as such number go up is a viable personal goal for people, I think the economy sucks because it caters to very specific and limited playstyles. As it currently stands all trading is power trading, and power trading is more often smuggling than not. It's more viable with large transports, which as a shipclass shouldn't exist outside of escorted or NPC vessels. The game design doesn't make engaging with traders through neither piracy, nor any other interaction meaningful, because they are power trading as fast as possible.

I believe an automated trade bounty system should be implemented, whereby bulk commodities of one or more types in specific quotas yield massive profit, instead of using credits per unit. The reason I believe so, is because Freelancer fundamentally is a game that operated on doing missions instead of freighter trade as its primary revenue source. Trading commodities in vanilla was only ever designed for what we call bridge commodities, and was much more niche. Because the original developer intent when building the game was for a player to be a bigger part of Sirius than just a space trucker, I think building a trade system designed around themes in specific areas, the lore needs of a specific planet or station, and most of all, on wasting less time. A trader mission system would be building more flavor for both any trader and everybody else involved, and can solve a lot of problems.

These problems would namely be how to make more credits when you need them, how a trader can be useful for roleplaying with others and what a trader's role is in pvp. While inRP traders have a lot of freedom in what to play, the game doesn't reflect that in a fun way. If trading made more credits faster with a lot more flavor, it'd be a bigger banger, and enable/engage a lot more people.