Should independents have it harder?

[Markus_Janus]

I'd like somebody to explain how only an extremely limited number of people being allowed to trade a commodity improves the roleplay situation for pirate factions which depend on the trading of a commodity for a substantial portion of their roleplay. How does it benefit LWB and the Farmer's Alliance if Synth Paste is barely traded? How does it benefit the Lane Hackers if Gate Lane Parts are barely traded? How does it benefit Gaians if Gaian Wildlife is barely traded? How would it benefit the Red Hessians if trade with Daumann stations was limited to Daumann ID's (keeping out Independent Trader IDs)?

The fact is that nobody benefits from restricting trade by restricting access to commodities. Traders don't benefit from it. Pirates who prey on trade don't benefit from it. Police and military who have fewer traders to escort or protect don't benefit from it. Even the people doing the restricting don't benefit from it. There is no practical or tangible benefit to anyone when trade is restricted.

But you know what? There is a lot of harm done by restricting trade. Just ask the Alster Union how much fun it's been to pirate in Bering and Hudson over the past 6 months while the LN and RM were doing everything they could to stop any traders from going into those systems. Creating a "dead zone" of no activity in a system or in the trading of a commodity benefits nobody, but it does harm to the other people who depend on a "live zone" for the their roleplay-reasons-to-exist.

I certainly support corporate trading, but doing anything to harm non-corporate trading along the same routes or in the same commodities is the wrong way to go about it. Doing harm to people only creates resentment and hostility, and an absence of the very thing you want to encourage. Why would anyone want to join an Ageira faction or use an Ageira ID when they've just gotten blown up as a result of Ageira's bounty against transporting Gate Lane Parts? That is completely contrary to human nature. You cannot coerce people into joining your version of fun. The only effective thing you can do to attract people is to make your way more fun by adding positives to the situation. Adding negatives to the other guy's situation just makes them upset and LESS likely to join you.

Traders have enough problems from pirates robbing them and lawfuls demanding licenses and taxes out the yin yang (over a dozen licenses in Bretonia alone, not counting contraband) without corporations hiring mercenaries to blow them up because they are transporting something that some corporate faction has territorial issues over. If that is going to be the case, then my solution is very simple : I'll make sure that those commodities are not profitable enough to transport to attract interest from people who don't have a dedicated interest in transporting it. So you get a simple tradeoff here. Restrict trade in "your" commodity for everyone else, and you can rely on your faction dedication to motivate you to trade in that commodity, because it will be stripped of the financial motivation for trading in it so that no one else is tempted to get themselves into a situation where your hired goons can harass them for doing so. I noticed someone wondering if plutonium could get improved profits by enforcing a Kishiro/GMG contract for it's transport. I just laughed.

I don't know why the constant tendency around here is to try to solve every perceived problem or improve every situation by clamping down more negatives on everybody else instead of making the "preferred" activity actually preferable through positive improvements. I suppose it's just easier to harm everybody else and make the "preferred" option look better by comparison, but that is simplistic and an ultimately counterproductive mindset due to the hostility and contempt created in the people who are being nerfed. If you want people to join your corporate faction then make it more fun for them to join, but don't try to impose harms on them for not joining.

Trading needs more support primarily by getting all of these oppressive goons off of traders' backs, not by adding even more restrictions to make their life more difficult.

I'm not going to argue with you here since you are an Admin and have put so much work in designing this wonderful economy, but I just have to ask for the sake of understanding.
Does this mean that you will be lowering the profits on gate parts since Ageira has placed a monopoly on this product even though this is supported by their ID?

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Samura Omotai Zaibatsu.