1) Trade factions which only trade die when their members have money. Increased profits = Bad.
2) Trade factions which have a secondary purpose, usually one involving pulling the trigger, in addition to actively seeking obstacles to overcome generally thrive.
I have spent a lot of time in a transport. When I have simply been trading the long term fun is only there with good company. When I have been flying about in trade ships with secondary combat roles, such as D: pirating when we cooled on hauling ore, knocking over cardamine traders with my Cryer or flying about with a group of, again D:, looking for Hessians to kill the fun was extremely abundant in a more traditional sense.
If you want trade factions to be fun Cannon you'll want to consider that the trade factions should do one of two things.
A) Get their S together and make their own fun.
B) Ask for the tools they think they need to have fun.
Most will ask for something which lets them make more money. That's not more fun, that's more money, more money is less trading.
Escort defenses sounds cool on paper. In practice I dunno. Kinda hard to kill a fighter escort before your target can fly 30k. Kinda hard to deal with a nearly invulnerable perch that's shooting you in the face because he's pirating you while his escort shoots you in the ass.
' Wrote:Funny how trading activity was higher in 4.84 with a route that provided higher credits and the general cost of things being lower.