Windamere

First and foremost, The persecutors that are in the Beta 16.1, Bad move...right idea, wrong implementation...Persecutors should be used for ships that are too large going to the outer rim preying on people just starting out...not destroying players working toward the center... Now for the Fix for those zooming straight to the core: Crew skills and crew cards. Each crew member would start at the lowest skill for that area (IE +400 from core level 1, +350 from core level 3, +300 from core level 6 and so on) Cards have to be found in the area the skill level is for...skill levels 1-3 found in the +400 from core to outer rim.. Mining skill cards found from mining, combat cards found from destroying pirates, salvaging cards from salvaging......(For future, can add skill cards for being Traders, pirates or whatever) Each card once installed takes time to skill up....IE mining cards only skill up when mining..Salvaging skill when salvaging...however mechanic, engineer and sergeant cards can skill up just sitting idle in game(because those skills are running operating the ship). The amount of time the skill takes depends on the skill and the crew members(Future can add different rarity of crew members that can gain skill faster) Ships will not be able to advance past the area where the skill cards are located until the skills are gained. One plausible reason is the radiation and gases cause more wear and tear(engineers, mechanics) the enemy is stronger so require better skilled gunners(gunners, Officers) already have materials tougher so require higher skills to operate the required equipment to mine those materials. Putting persecutors in the game and REQUIRING people to have stupid huge ships just to advance is just wrong...Some of the best ships in science fiction were small with minimum crew(Firefly). Use the persecutors to persecute those whom would prey on weaker vessels, not persecute weaker vessels trying to advance.