Planetform, left behind.

[Benjamin]

All the niche corps need a boost. Planetform, ALG, DSE, Cryer, Ageira, Synth Foods.

You think your options are limited? Cryer has two bases and makes only two commodities (Pharmaceuticals and Synth Pot), one of which is terrible for trading, and the other of which is illegal in every place that has laws. Most of our routes involve Zoner bases and commodities that zoners make (normally better than us too) like alien organisms and human organs, so we basically have to fly zoner routes (how ironic, since they're obviously off running corp routes), or smuggling routes. Often both at once.

These niche corps don't have the licence to take just anything, and a lot of the commodities they do get are terrible (lol terraforming gases). Using Cryer as an example again, since I obviously know it best, I've really been pushing the limits a bit to make full trade routes. Pharms, AOs, HOs, synth pot, gaian wildlife. That stuffs all fine. Found out from a bar rumour that drugs are made from polymers and hydrocarbons (yummy!) so they're in too, thanks bar rumour! Sadly hydrocarbons are useless for trading, and i've only found the one good cryer route for polymers. Atka for some reason buys counterfeit software (why would a really rich company be pirating their copies of Excel?) so that's in too. Denver is basically the third Cryer base. It sells Superconductors, which is Ageira tech. But it sells well at the place where i buy Polymers, and down on Cambridge, which is obviously next to Cambridge Research Station, so Superconductors are in too. The one decent pharmaceutical run in the game goes to Shasta, which sells only pineal amulets, which go to the hawaii, which is right by Atka, so we take pineal amulets too. Right. Often my route will run out of steam in Kusari and I'll end up taking Optical Chips somewhere. They have something to do with computers. Cryer uses computers right? I think?
It can get pretty threadbare. Gets pretty far removed pretty quickly.
I think it can be solved without pumping in new commodities, though. I mean, admittedly, with the boundary-pushing described above, and a few dips into the edge worlds via jumpholes (eat it, naysayers), Cryer actually has a bunch of servicable routes that will give most circuits a run for their money. But Cryer have it better than Planetform or Synth Foods.
I think the first thing to do to help stuff, would be to fix 'useless' commodities. Fertilizers, terraforming gases, synth paste, hydrocarbons, there's millions. These commodities are terrible. Why? What is the point? Synth paste is supposed to be such a huge deal that it has caused the birth of TWO factions. No other commodity can claim that. But only TWICE in my entire time playing discovery have I actually seen people trading it. Boosting something like Synth Paste in to the realm of good commodities (you know, a route hovering in the 170-180 area and a few more a little below, that lead to bases that make RP sense and lead somewhere else themselves) could only help server roleplay. There's three factions based more or less around synth paste, and the commodity and its industry have a massive impact on Rheinland and Kusari and Bretonia in different ways; Rheinland's fallen to it, Kusari is falling, and if Bretonia can't get Harris sorted out, they'll be next. Everyone has an opinion about it. Planets should be buying it by the billion. If a company, a huge, incredibly powerful company, exists entirely 100% on the basis of making and selling synth paste, shouldn't it, you know, not totally suck? But, it does suck, and no one trades it, and we miss out on a huge area of potential roleplay for essentially no reason at all.
Synth Paste is the poster child for this stuff, but there's no need for any of it to suck. I just do not see the point in bad commodities. Ones that are medium profit but allow you to 'switch routes' or travel in-system or in-house, that's fine in moderation, but ones that are just terrible turd? Why?
Fertilizers and Terraforming gases. Those two, and Synth Paste, are the only three things the LWB are really supposed to pirate. I've spent I don't know how many hours staring at the sides of tradelanes on my LWB, and to date, have seen one transport carrying synth paste, zero carrying fertilizers and zero carrying terraforming gases. Why would the LWB even exist if it couldn't hijack the goods funding and assisting in the ruin of Stuttgart? Hulls the whole faction, so we just get to go shoot Rheinland battleships all day, even though we're supposed to be sympathised with a lot by basically all Rheinlanders.
I'm just talking about the stuff I know, but I'm sure it's rife everywhere. Like you said, Gaians and Planetform have a symbiotic relationship. Planetforms routes sucking stamps all over not just planetform, but the gaians goo.

So yeah, to conclude, while there is a lot of stuff that is not excellent re: economy, the easiest way to help it out would just be to make the commodities which suck and are pointless in to good commodities which you can actually make decent money trading. Secondly would be to sort out commodities that come from multiple places. MOX got two commodities and it works great. How about 3 each for Luxury Food (Stuttgart, Junyo, Cambridge...does anywhere else make it?) and Pharmaceuticals (Atka, Denver, CRS), and any more where that would make sense?
Of course, new commodities and such would be sweet too. I understand that it is much work, and as far as I am aware, Xoria was in charge of all that and he has now left. I'm willing to help out if effort is the only thing stopping this from occurring.

Also I've been up all day, so apologies for the really inconsistent use of capital letters with regards to commodities in this post. Also sorry for how god damn long it is.

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