First thing, this is my first post here, even though I have been playing this game since TB made a video about it a million years ago. I love this update, and the game is now at its best. The universe feels great, and I love the direction where everything is going.
BUT, there is something that, in my opinion, could be improved.
I have been a fan of economic simulators since I have memory. I loved Railroad Tycoon 2 when I was a kid, I fell in love with the Patrician series as soon as I tried it, and I have spent more time playing moded OTTD than I am comfortable with. So take my opinion as the opinion of someone with that background.
I understand the point of the 60% taxes is to not make the trade part too grindy, and let the player experience the whole game more freely. That is a great conceept, in theory, but what that means is that THE ONLY way to make profit when trading is by taking advantage of the events.
This translates into two things:
A) The only "role" that you can play as is an opportunistic bastard who takes advantage of people's problems in order to make a ton of money. Kind of like those guys/goverments who sell weapons to african countries. Or those who exchange food and medicines for diamonds. Sure, they make more money than anybody else, but... you know, morals and stuff. Being forced to behave this way is not something I enjoy.
B) And more important, talking about gameplay... if you want to play as a trader (avoiding fights as much as possible, focusing on just making money in a peaceful way), the only gameplay option that you have is "wait till an event happens". I am not even kidding. Most of what I have done has been buying when an event appears, storing massive quantities of random things, and then waiting again till another event appears, and moving those things to where the game tells me I have to go. Most of the time in between is me being close to a huge fleet orbiting a planet, waiting, and waiting till the game "lets me" keep playing.
Now, since I know this game is heavily in development, I said to myself.. hey, maybe you can fix "the problem" by yourself... So I started looking at the files, and when I found a way to change the tariffs, I changed them, to 12% (I started with 10, but that seemed to "cheap". Even 12 could go a little higher)
What do I have now? A game where you have to pay A LOT of attention to where to buy, where to sell, and how much it costs you to move things. Now I am much more involved with the game. I even have charts written by me in a paper while I play. Now I FEEL like a trader, instead of an opportunistic bastard. Of course, I house ruled out the events (since I would get MASSIVE ammounts of money if I used them), and I never "take advantage" of any planet. I simply buy where things are produced, and sell where things are needed.
Now the game feels a lot more like I am a part of this amazing universe instead of a player.
I understand that the system was created this way for specific reasons, and I am in no way saying that my way is better than the official way. But I thought I could share my opinion, in case someone felt the same way I did.