Trading routes balance

[Friday]

1) Forget the distance thing, demand is demand regardless of distance.
I would love to see more trains bouncing between shorter distances.. it would be pirate heavan, thus lawful heavan, thus RP heavan...
Keep the focus on RP and gameplay value. In this case, player control and Rp are mutually exclusive. You will damage one by focusing in the other.

/signed.

I think that the development team needs to reassess the purpose of trading.

They need to put out of their minds trading not as a means of making money - but as a means of population control.

Developers should ask themselves "Where do we want players to be?" and tweak pricing until traders start to drift to the appropriate routes.

It just like the argument over weapon and ship stats - everyone gets cought up in the numbers - they forget to ask about the purpose or outcome desired.

Then the pirates will follow, then the lawfuls will follow them.

In terms of profitability of routes, the powertraders will always use the best route - even if its only 1cr/s more profit.

So there doesnt need to be a lot of profit difference between routes between House planets, and RP runs from primary production facilities such as mining bases.

So look at it from the other end - dont ask 'how much should this run be worth' - but ask 'where do we want this commodity to go, and how many players do we want hauling it there?'.

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