None of what has been said in this thread is new to me.
Experienced players have made their money, so unless they want another battleship, they're not going to trade. Leaving new players on their own a lot.
Escorts need people to protect. I've tried getting RepEx to go pi-ratting in Liberty, but unless you go at peak times, there aren't many transports you can rob, mostly because you can only rob traders that have a Liberty Corp ID (IC/Ageria/Universal/DSE). And if you go at peak times, Liberty is the capital of LNS's and pi-rats, both of which shoot us on sight.
I tried to build relationships with Daumann and Kruger for hauling/mining sharing, but those both kinda fell through.
Furthermore, lawful trade factions are supposed to use gates and lanes, which, contrary to lore, are more problematic for trading then using JumpHoles.
