OlFart

Right, so after a few play throughs I decided to try trading on for size - and went from just a drone to 179 million in three hours - 99% of which I made in the last 20 minutes. I'd go so far as to say trading is completely broken, and by far the most overpowered profession you could possibly get into. I've seen the same issue on numerous games, and it all comes down to the profit margins and the population of goods. I'd like to present my view on how to make it a more balanced profession, with progression, an incentive to build bigger and better ships, and not end up with players earning hundreds of million per hour. First and foremost it's an issue of the volumes in which goods is available. It's fine to have a hundred thousand tons of grain available to purchase, and have a profit margin of a few credits per ton - a large ship will still be able to earn a small fortune on a trip. The problem appears when there's ten thousand units of processors available at a profit margin of 6000 credits per unit, and their volume is 0.1 tons. In a 1000 cargo ship, which is frankly quite small for a cargo vessel, you could carry all ten thousand units, for a profit of 60 million in a matter of minutes. This is where it all breaks. So here's my solution: 1) Expensive luxury goods should mostly be the domain of young budding traders. They should have a pretty hefty profit margin, hundreds or thousands of credits per ton, but be available in very low volumes. Diamonds, platinum, gold, processors, etc would fit in here. This is quite frankly the one place where a high profit margin is desirable, so it is nice and affordable to get in on trading without a massive investment of capital. These luxury goods give new players a way to make maybe 50,000 credits of profits on a trade run if they clean a factory/mine out of goods. 2) As you progress to bigger and bigger ships, you will have to switch to more and more mundane trade goods, from platinum, to gold, to aluminium, to proteins, that while having a lower profit per ton, is available in larger and larger volumes. It'll raise your profits, but not so much as to ever end up game breaking. It's important to get the math right here, balancing available tonnage with per-ton-profits on a trade. I'll provide an example table of goods, with comments. Hopefully it'll illustrate what I'm suggesting. (Before anyone starts, there's no point arguing the numbers in there, it's just an example to illustrate a mechanic intended to achieve a smooth progression, not an attempt to dictate specifics on how profitable trading should or shouldn't be.) Good Buy/t Sell/t Margin Profit /t Factory max Max profits Comments Platinum 500 1000 100% 500 100 tons 50,000 Newbie goods. Extreme return on investment, 100 ton ship can clean out a factory for 50,000 credits Gold 400 600 50% 200 500 tons 100,000 Intermediate goods. More expensive, requires a 500 ton ship and 200,000 credits to clean out a factory Silver 350 467 33% 117 1500 tons 175,000 ... Lead 200 273 37% 73 3000 tons 220,000 ... Steel 100 135 35% 35 10000 tons 350,000 Approaching the end game, 10,000 cargo hold required, 1 million investment to buy a cargo Protein 50 60 20% 10 50000 tons 500,000 End-game bulk cargo. 2.5 million investment, modest profit, massive freighter required. Simple really. As the available tonnage goes up, the profit per ton drops. Even though the prices drop for the more mundane goods, the investment goes up due to the increasing bulk that needs to be traded. I realise this is a rather massive undertaking. Getting all the prices, volumes and all sorted out is a big job. Just making this little table took a good long while - and that's just an example... I do however feel this needs to be done, to fix the trading mechanics in the game. Thanks for your time.

Hibiki Maru Battleship, WW2 style With all the sleek spaceships around, as well as the brutally functional blockier models, I decided I wanted to enter the core on my server with a bit more flair. Starting with a simple picture of the IJN Fuso for inspiration, I went full manga, installing a hangar bay midships and strapped a few thrusters and fins on the hull. I considered mounting 2 cannons in place of each turret and engage exclusively with broadside, but I let eventually decided on a more sensible (albeit less traditional) approach: I decided to simply skip the turrets, and instead replace the two front turrets with large slopes for mounting guns with a 180 degree forward arc, and using the rest of the ship's deck for more crew convenience and cargo storage. I kept the rudder and the smoke stack though; I couldn't strip the old girl of all her pride. Not too happy with the stern. I may extend it into a longer and sleaker shape to match the battleships of old, and use the extra room for additional shielding generators. All in all though, very pleased. She's definitely an eye-opener, coaxing giggles and lols from even the most hardened captains. Materials: Approximately 400,000 xanion for the guts, and some trinium for the exterior. (Xanium hull has gold patches. Unacceptable.) Health: 125,000hp, 250,000 shield (before module chips) Energy: 0.34TW (1TJ battery) Cargo: 3600 Hangar: 43-350 Block Count: A bit under 700. Gate Capable: Nope. Weapon of choice: Cannons. Obviously cannons. Built in creative: Pffft.... no. Live on The Holy Checksum. Core Survivability Rating: 5/10 "I'm not dead yet, gaijin."

Ahhh! No problems. I guess my defiance got under his skin if he felt the need to impersonate me. I feel kind of proud actually. :D

I was playing for a bit here over the last two days. Nice people, and server seemed stable. Well, I just tried to join to continue playing for a bit, and received a kick-ban with no explanation. I'd like to suggest that if you don't want the server open to more members of the public, you may want to let the public know and stop advertising the server. I didn't exactly have a lot of time invested yet, but... still. Bit of a waste. Now I'll have to find another server and start all over again.