ERR Temporarily out of stock

[McNeo]

I somewhat agree. I wouldn't say "ruined" all the forms of trading, but certainly detracted from them, yes. I found trading in a really big route enjoyable in 4.84. It included all of the best one-way routes and still made 60~ million credits an hour, trading in slaves, artifacts, luxury food, engine components, boron and so on. I visited every sector of Sirius (every house, each cluster region except the independant words between Kusari and Liberty). It was a risky circular run across Sirius, but it was really fun because I met every single kind of person there was to meet. Finding a good escort was easy too (and this made it even more fun to trade, though the agreed amount detracted a lot from my profits).

So, I numbercrunch a new route for 4.85 and test it out. 30~ million credits an hour, 40 if you pay attention and concentrate, which I never do when I trade. Added to that, it went to Gallia (and of course, we can't really trade there yet), but also, there were no illegal goods to ship in that route, and I blockade ran twice (Rheinland to Liberty, then back to Rheinland). (15~ stop route.)

Then the new beta came out. I numbercrunched a quick route for Elgato, which is probably even less than 30 million an hour.

The thing is, I try to find the best continuous trade route (meaning no going empty anywhere). I have to sacrifice some of the highest paying routes for this, but the efficiency gained for not going empty is more than worth it. Even then, I keep finding some small routes (three stops). I find it impossible to trade on a two/three stop run, so this isn't an option.

Good thing I built up my wealth during 4.84... but even now, I'm running out of cash.

What I'm really concerned about though, is that it's no longer profitable to hire an escort, unless the guy is in a gunboat and supplements his own income by carrying extra cargo along your trade route. This relies on the guy not having armour, either.

Suggestion: Increase the efficiency of all the runs by 15% (shorter ones), 25% (blockade running) and 40% (illegal goods).