Traders and Fair Play

[Athenian]

The underlying problem is the exact purpose of trade and piracy in game. Trade serves two purposes for players.

A. It is the quickest means by which to generate cash to acquire bigger trade ships or to create or supply other characters.
B. As a role-playing device.

The trading system we have now favours B. With trading now more relevant as a role-play device, with all its inherent risks, it may be that many players have abandoned it and are using piracy as A. If you plonk yourself on a well-used trade route and make a few large demands, you could quite easily make as much as if you were trading, while being in a position of power, facing less risks

In the past, when trade could generate a lot of money very quickly, piracy was far less lucrative, unless you pirated on the most ridiculous and abused routes in the game. Now, trade is far more demanding, in the sense that you need to go a longer way to earn less.

The advantage that came with changes to the trading system is that trade is more believable now, cargoes and routes are more appropriate to particular ID's. But, as always, it's a question of how players function within the structures of the game. A poorly played pirate is as bad as a poorly played trader.

If trading was a little more lucrative, it might be able to fulfill both A. and B. and we might see less of the gunboat gangs looking for what players might regard as an unreasonable amount of credits. Plus if cargo actually cost more, we might see more demands for cargo rather than credits. But then, pirates who were well organised could easily demand both cargo and credits....

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Former member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
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