Colonists / Crew
Simply put, I think these two resources should be separated.
Why?
1. It'd streamline the economy a bit. Some things should produce / need Crew, but not Colonists, and vice-versa. It's a bit silly to need the economy to produce huge amounts of Crew all the time to make sure players can build Colonies.
2. It's 'realistic'; Colonists aren't ship specialists, they're "just cargo".
3. It'd provide a fun resource to capture for pirate / privateer players. Raids could collect Colonists to be "ransomed off".
Ransoms / Captures
I think it'd be cool if we captured enemy Officers and could ransom them back to their Factions or return them for free after capturing their escape pods. Or just free them, Mount and Blade style, with a little, "thanks for freeing me" dialog and a +Rep for that individual.
It'd provide a little opening for reaching -100 and it'd provide a more-reasonable buffer for that whole, "this invasion fleet isn't authorized so engaging them won't hurt your Rep much" mechanic.
I also still think we should be getting escape-pods full of enemy Crew at the end of battles, for flavor, if nothing else.
