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16

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 16, 2019, 11:43:55 PM »

@bobucles True, the sector would still be volatile. True, the sector would have a problem with trust. True, the sector would be weary, tired and in the midst of a sector wide reconstruction. But that's not the original argument you originally made, now is it?

@DatonKallandor BS mate, B effing S. I have mentioned that trade is intentionally broken several times already, and I have mentioned what I think about that game design wide. (hint: I think it's BAD game design) As for your "we are nobodies" claim, I read that before in a different thread on the topic but I didn't preempt that argument here so allow me to address it. By late game we own the largest, most well armed, most dangerous fleet in game. We also can have over half a dozen colonies to our name. By late game we aren't just some no named nobody, we are a minor power. Similar to how the game already reacts to us playing with the market so there is no excuse that Alex is a mostly one man band that doesn't have the resources CCP has for their EVE online; or how the fact that we can acquire, man and supply a fleet of comparable size to the in game AI trade fleets indicates we are not hauling cargo in our trunk and hope to make a profit as some have stated in other thread on the trade and tariffs topic; so too your argument crumbles in front of what the game actually is. The ONLY reason trade is not profitable is because Alex was lazy the day he realized as a game designer that going from point A to point B and back again wasn't fun and decided to just cripple the legal trading system by adding a 30% universal tariff in place of making it more engaging. TRADE IS BROKEN, it's broken by design, but it is still broken.

And just so you realize what I mean: http://fractalsoftworks.com/2019/07/08/skills-and-story-points/ Here Alex shows that he can be competent and considerate when designing the game, he shows that as a game designer he can see the potential pitfalls of his decisions and anticipate the players actions. No such considerations were given to the tariff solution. Tariffs are a patchwork solution thrown on top of a working trade system that was too easy to abuse. Players can abuse the system? then make the system itself useless in game - bad game design. Trade is broken, intentionally so, but it its still broken.

17

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 16, 2019, 08:30:51 AM »

Trade is broken

I dunno about that. I can make millions off the market just fine. It's by no means an excellent or optimal play style, but there is good money to be had if you play the cards right. The profit does taper off, but at that point you're better off making your own market.

My claim is that Trade is broken, your is that it's not because you can make money. Ok, let's put that to the test, are we talking trade as in you buy good on one open market and sell them on another? or are we talking trade missions? because that's more related to the RPG side of SS then to the trading side. or smuggling? because again, that's a form of trade but not the trade referenced here. or piracy (destroying trade convoys)? Because up till this point I've only see one other person on the forums claim trade was doable, and they said it took them around two in game years to make 2 million credits with just legal trading. Pretty much everybody else points you towards missions, bounties, smuggling and piracy(ie attacking known trade convoys, causing artificial scarcity and profiting) All of which are profitable, significantly more so then the tariff gimped trade we get in game.

The game takes place in a post-collapse society, with a bunch of antagonizing factions who all hate each other. The sector is unstable and "safe comfy trade" is something that simply doesn't exist. You can't rake in millions on trade while staying 100% outside all the local sector drama, and that's exactly as intended. The moment you introduce pure safe comfy infinite trade money, the whole point of the sector being unstable and dangerous becomes moot.

It is MY understanding that the game takes place not just in the wake of the collapse of society but two centuries after it: http://fractalsoftworks.com/2017/08/16/a-true-and-accurate-history-of-the-persean-sector/

I'm sorry but if that blog post is still acurate and true then your excuse is nothing more than another point in the SF authors have no sense of scale column for Alex. They might not have gates any longer, but they still have FTL travel and communication. Even in the wake of two AI wars civilizations would have either collapsed as a result of the lack of resources to support terraformin project or it would have continued to thrive. And since we can established multiple colonies ourselves... yeah, that's not really a valid excuse.

If you want to claim the sector is in a state of cold war, sure, I'll buy that, but 200 years after collapse? Especially since Tri-Tachyon seems to actually be one of those big corporations that used to have patents over all the blueprints.... Let's just focus on trade in this thread, let's not bring in the schlock that serves as lore.

That being said, as I've already said before in this thread, I agree with SCC's suggestion regarding pirates raiding us if we try to make large scale trades. Hell, have them always raid us if we try to make just a civilian hulls fleet made just for trade.

18

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 16, 2019, 07:28:46 AM »

the game already has a basic market simulation that balances itself out.

"Kinda..."

So, basically you dont like 30% tariff, you can fix it, but you wanna occupy other's time instead, complaining about things which are fine for 99% players. Great...

Modding the game isn't fixing it, it's modding the game. And yes, this is a post made in the suggestion section of the oficial SS forum, I have a problem with a core mechanics found in game and I offered a suggestion to fix it. If you don't like the suggestion, say so, but if you don't like me pointing out the problem in the first place because 99% of players are ok with it, then that's your problem.

19

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 16, 2019, 07:04:11 AM »

On the other hand: basic logics and market laws. All in the world aims toward balance, regardless of whether it's realistic game or not. Good math imitation will balance itself. If you will change something - there will be another points of equilibrium. It will not be worse or better. It will be just different. The problem is: it is not MMO like EVE, or at least Time Zero. And there is no neural network to replace thousands of players. So, dont demand miracles from it.

Have you even played Starsector? the game already has a basic market simulation that balances itself out. No need for server farms and neural networks. The only thing the game doesn't have is a way for the player to interact with the open market in a meaningful and legal way.

You're comment reminded me of another post I read in a related thread on here about tariffs. The poster was claiming that what we as the player do when it comes to trade is the equivalent of filling out car's trunk and then going to another country and selling the content. He was wrong. We can attack convoys and see exactly what ship composition they have. We can acquire said ships on the open market. We can man and supply said ships. The only thing that we as the player can't do is make a profit on the open market. Why? because Alex was lazy and when he realized just faring cargo from one location to another could turn into a grind and be boring he just slapped a universal 30% tariff on all open market transactions to disincentive us from trading.

Similar to how Mass Effect isn't just an FPS game, so too Starsector isn't just a combat game. We know there is an open market. We can see prices go up as we buy ever increasing units of cargo. We can see prices go down as we sell ever increasing units of cargo. We can see trade fleets move across the map. We can attack said trade fleets and see exactly what kind of ships they're made off. We can reclaim some such ships and we can buy such ships from the open market. For all intents and purpose Starsector has an inbuilt trading system that self corrects and a trade minigame the player is designed to play with. And then Alex realized that like every single other space game with a trading system that came before, the trading system in Starsector can be abused by just faring goods between just two places so he slapped a 30% tariff on all transactions to disincentive us from interacting with the system in the first place. AND because the black market was already there players just moved to the black market like nothing happened.

Trade is broken in this game. Making money isn't. TRADE IS. This is one thing most people don't want to admit on here. We say trade they counter we smugling, we say trade they counter with missions, we say trade they counter with piracy, we say trade they counter with bounties to make money. The game has a trade mechanic that has been intentionally gimped so as to disincentive it's usage.

@Histidine I actually added the idea of punitive tariffs for when prices go to low or too high so as to disincentive players from trading too much and from making trade too profitable. Basically, I took into account Alex's initial objection in regards to trading, faring cargo between two points in boring and repetitive, but trading onto itself can be fun and entertaining - there are entire games built around the idea of trade after all. (some even set in space) When a game tries to do too much we end up with No man's ... Spore, when a game tries to do too much we end up with Spore. With the exception of the first stage that to my knowledge only has one counterpart in Flow, all other stages have had multiple games set in just that one stage that outclass spore in every way. I don't think Starsectors trade system should compete with Elite, X, The Guild or The Patrician series, but Alex can give us at least the same level of trade as Port Royale, Sid Mayers Pirates or the old EV games. And considering going to economy.json and editing the "defaultTariff":0.3, to "defaultTariff":0.0, is all it takes to make trade as engaging as it was in those latter games... That's why I made the proposals I have, I don't just want the artificial limit on trade removed, I can do that myself, I apreciate Alex and agree with the thoughts behind tariffs. Trade can be boring, if all you do is hold the mouse bottom to get to your next location it is boring, I just don't agree with his solution, at all.

As for AI, the way I see it, If I buy weapons I'm probably going with the ship inside a military base/hangar to get the ship retrofitted, the chance of having an AI core found under such conditions should be grater then 0%. Maybe not 100%, but still, greater then 0%, similarly for other illegal goods like organs and drugs maybe... even if they're high value, think of it as the relative of a patrol inspection. They're not actually inspecting my hold, but if the people retrofitting my ship happen to stumble over a few crates of illegal narcotics, or organs, or ai cores... 

20

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 15, 2019, 05:00:20 PM »

Fix the player expectations by calling the tariff a bribe. The market mechanics don't change, but suddenly the conflicts are resolved. Players won't get suddenly surprised when bribing every trade deal kills their profits. They'll be looking for ways to avoid paying the bribe instead, and get naturally drawn into the anticipated conflicts of ticking off local port authorities. 

I have two points of contention here. Firstly, that his is a space combat game. I see this as an open world sandbox game with exploration, combat and trading/smuggling mechanics - and soon colonization (I don't think it's worth talking about that mechanic yet). I see Freespace, Homeworld and Nexus as space combat games. And secondly,I take umbrage at the bribe renaming thing, that's also not how bribes work. And a universal 30% bribe is probably the only thing more ridiculous then a 30% universal tariff. Calling it a sales tax would be better, but that would only eliminate the logical inconsistency in regards to the mechanics being called tariffs.

The real problem comes from the fact that the open market system has no depth and as such would end up as a move x units from point A to point B and y units from point B to point A which would indeed risk getting repetitive and boring. Ok, it has some depth, just not enough for that not to happen sooner or later. Personally I'm partial to SCC's suggestion of having pirates attack our merchant convoys should we chose to go that way. Go freighter and tanker only and get wiped by pirates.

@Mordodrukow, I agree with your first part. As for the AI cores, look, if you go to the military market you are probably going through tougher checks then if you were going to the regular open market. The open market if probably just a computer terminal, the military market would probably need some papers and would probably do periodic checks. Ok, maybe automatically is a bit too harsh, but you should probably have to pass the same check you would have if a patrol stopped you, and without the right to resist or attack them afterwords since you're already in port. Hell, without even the right to turn away since that would be even more suspicious. If you get caught with contraband out in space it gets confiscated but nobody checks you or your ships when you buys stuff from the military market, or worse when you sell stuff there?

@Megas ... technically true, but still, it's... you know what? no. I'm blaming the fact that nobody uses nukes on that. we shouldn't have to make our own WMD's, this is supposed to ne a high tec SF world, they should have WMD's for sale at the local grocery store. It sells right about everything else.

As for the Starliner... I refuse to even engage, if tariffs annoy me, the Starliner class outright angers me. Then again, SF authors have no sense of scale, why should Alex be any different?

21

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 15, 2019, 03:35:57 PM »

@Mages I think the Prometheus should go for the same reason most aircraft carrier battle groups in real life don't have petrol supertankers in their supply fleet. You don't put all your eggs in one basket. You have multiple smaller tankers at enough of a distance from one another and from the main battle group so as too keep them safe from an attack. The Prometheus is realistic as a ship that would exist in game, unrealistic as a ship a fleet would ever make use of.

@Mordodrukow Realism doesn't equal good game play, but having a game mechanic intentionally crippled is also frustrating game play. That's why I repeat again, the trading economy needs to be fixed, or just removed. Except it's needed in colony management and setting up so it can't. As it stands it's way too predominant and visible to just be ignored, and yet it's too crippled by tariffs to be of any real use. Which is why everybody keeps bringing up the black market as if that's a solution, when all that it is is bad game design.

You want to complain about a lot of money in late game? that's not a complain about the economy, that's a complain about the late game. SS is a game and as such it's a power fantasy. Late game you can afford to make a fleet that's impossibly strong. You, an independent party that can't even make a trade fleet successful have successfully build, and are successfully maintaining, a fleet so powerful you can "clear" out any one system in the game at a time. Reducing profits won't make the game more interesting, removing your ability to maintain a death fleet won't make the game more "fun", but both those things might make the late game more engaging. You don't want to feel like you're grinding, and you don't want to feel like there is anything you can't achieve in game. But those two things do tend to lead you to being a typical RPG max level hero that can single shot anything that moves.

Also, I find it funny that you complain about games like Minecraft and Factorio (don't have enough experience with Terraria to comment on that one) having emergent gameplay while Starsector is somewhat lacking in that department; while at the same time berating me for wanting the games economy to allow for a more engaging and complex trading system. Alex saw the simple trading model one finds in games like Escape Velocity and it's many clones and decided they were too simple, boring and non-engaging. His solution though was to hit the player with a hammer every time they tried any type of legal trade. Sorry, I've played way too many games with good, engaging trade simulations to be anything but put off by his attempt to fix the problem. As long as the open market is in game, and as long as tariffs remain the way they are there will be people complaining about the depth of the economical simulation in game. Alex is dangling trading in front of us in the form of the open market, and he's then chastising us for even daring to consider it as a viable option in the form of universal 30% tariffs. So yes, yes I care about tariffs.

@Goumindong Firstly, Alex decided to use the ward tariff and not tax. Sales taxes and VAT aren't tariffs. I know this and you know this so let's not pretend that's any sort of a valid argument. You might be an economist and I just a lowly certified accountant but we both know what a tariff is and what it bloody well isn't. Secondly, even if that were the case, we'd be talking double taxation, made worse by the fact that in many cases the planet we buy stuff from is likely to be part of the same greater sector power as the one we sell our good to. And thirdly, they are called tariffs and are applied universally, even to goods a planet desperately needs. How many planets need to reach 0 stability and go "barbarous" before the other worlds learn that it's a bad idea to have a flat 30% tariff on all imported food when your people are starving?

That being said, I am from Europe, here final prices do tend to include VAT and any other tax applicable, while in the US they don't. At least when I bought his game the tax wasn't part of the 15$ price. But even then, here in Europe were we do use VAT there is the secondary problem of  VAT being collected at every stage of the chain and refunded to everybody but the end seller. So, if anything we should get our 30% back.

22

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 15, 2019, 01:33:44 PM »

Opportunity is present in the game, and it comes in the form of smuggling legal goods for profit, smuggling illegal goods for huge profit, killing trade fleets and selling their goods at their destination and trade missions.

The issue with making trading really appealing is that you need to spend loads of effort on it, when you don't even know if it's going to end up working out. Alex decided that, instead of making a risky move of making brilliant mechanics for everything, he settled on making exceptional combat and having the entire game revolve around it.

1. all those things have to do with either the the black market, piracy, or privateering for another power. They don't deal with the core issue being discuses here, that the PC can't legally interact with the legal economy in any meaningful way. Saying that there are other ways to make money doesn't solve the problem that the open market is fundamentally and intentionally might I add broken with the express purpose of discouraging trading. If I can suport a massive military fleet that can take out the fleets protecting several capital worlds then maybe, just maybe me not being able to create and support a massive trading fleet when we know for a fact such trading fleets exists and are regular is just bad game design. At least it's bad game design for as long as we can acquire supertankers and freighters.

2. as I've already stated, if Alex's intention is to just turn this into a combat game he should just go ahead and do that, it would be more honest then to string along anybody interested in more. All he has to do is make it just missions or play Nexus the Jupiter incident to see how to do a military only space game and then just eliminate the open market and all civilian ships and planetary resources from the players control and purview. Make the game either be just missions or make us just be mercs living contract to contract in an open world sandbox. No more trading, no more pseudo economy. But again, that's clearly not what he intends this game to be, otherwise we'd already be playing nexus in 2D. I'm not saying this game should just be Patrician  or the Guild in space either, we have the X series for that, especially now that X4 is out. But if your best argument for the current economic system is that it's ok because we can smuggle and pirate our selves to profit? well, that's not an argument for the open market, now is it? that's an argument for the black market and for playing as a pirate, not one for trade and the open market. And that's what my post is about. (As well as several other posts I've read before I wrote mine)

As I've already stated, apologists for the current system keep bringing the black market up as some sort of solution. It's not. You are literally using the black market like you would use the normal market in any other game. And you've grown so used to using it you don't even realize what the problem is. Your literal answer to "the economy is broken" is "the black market economy works just fine". Imagine is someone was talking about a hybrid car and said the engine was broken and you replied with "the battery works just fine". That's what you and other people that keep bringing up the black market are doing.

The black market shouldn't be the main market of the game, it should be a paralel market to the normal market, it should offer a completely different set of opportunities and challenges then the regular market does, it doesn't. The regular market is gimped by a 30% universal tariff so you end up using the black market instead because, as many apologists have said in multiple other threads "you're not supposed to make money on the open market". That is simply not acceptable in a game that has any kind of economic simulation as part of the core gameplay loop - thus my repeated mentioning of the potential elimination of the current "open market" system from the game. Nobody uses it because it would be a loosing proposition to do so. The Black market has basically no penalties and cost to it's use once you learn how to approach it. The player economy in game revolves around the black market just because the open market is artificially gimped. Under these conditions I truly do not see a reason for why we as the player should even have the option to interact with the open market? Leave the trade fleets in game, just remove the freighters and the Prometheus tanker from our stores.

That's why two of the points in my original post revolved around the military market and the black market, if one makes the black market a hassle to engage with on bigger planets, and if one removes weapons and military hull ships from the civilian market then even apologists like you would end up seeing how bad the open market is. The only reason you don't think the open market is broken is because you don't use it. The only reason you don't use it is because it's broken and that's something you learn in your first hour with the game. Worst is the fact the open market is intentionally broken.

23

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 15, 2019, 11:06:45 AM »

As an economist the current situation makes sense and i do not understand any* of your proposed solutions.

Similarly, the game needs a few cargo delivery mission. I have x units of cargo that needs to be delivered to A type of missions. These can be a cargo space dependent, can be as large as we can handle and most importantly, can be a fun way to make us explore the map.

This already exists. You can find these missions in the bar

*ok i might understand them, they just aren't cromulent, you will have to excuse the slight hyperbole.

If 30% universal tariffs make sense to you I don't want to know where you got your degree from. Though, do tell why you think they aren't legitimate solutions.

Also, just my luck I never got any such mission then... no, wait, now that you mention it I did get a few such missions and I had to turn them down because they weren't profitable at the time. Oops.

24

Suggestions / Re: Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 15, 2019, 10:35:27 AM »

The only big mistake in the economy system is calling tariffs legal and black market illegal. If tariffs were more explicitly the act of bribing your way to avoid inspection, it would make more sense to know when to pay up and when to dodge it, and it would explain why the tax is so high.

Keep in mind there is also an additional ~5% tax on trade, which you can see when buying an item costs slightly more than selling it.

Bribes you would pay to acces the market or the port, not on a per transaction basis. As for that ~5%, I don't think that's a tax as much as your typical gamified shopkeep that always buys cheaper then he sells... unless you're in an RPG with personality, speech, mercantilism or the like where you can convince them to sell cheaper then 1 unit of currency and buy trash for all their gold.

25

Suggestions / Yet another economy suggestion (long)

« on: October 15, 2019, 06:32:19 AM »

After playing the game for enough time to get a hang of it, and after trying some non faction mods I have to say I have mixed feelings about the game. Most of them stem from the games lacking economy.

In the words of another user that thinks Starsector is a combat game: you're not supposed to use the open market to trade. (Deshara - in another thread discussing the economy and high tariffs) Well, if that's true then f%&^ me.

Here's the thing, this game either wants to be a military space combat simulator, in which case the dev should probably have another look at games like Nexus the Jupiter Incident and Freespace 1&2 and actually eliminate the current economical simulation from the game and make us just space mercs, or it wants to be an open world 2D space sandbox game, in which case the economy needs to be revamped.

The problem with the first suggestion is that making this just a combat game will actually alienate more people then it will bring it - and is probably not what the dev wants since this game is quite a few years old by now and that would have happened a long time ago - while the second suggestion is easier said then done.

The reason why improving the economy is hard is the reason why we have 30% universal tarrifs in the game, just moving stuff from point A to point B repeatably can be tedious and boring... and the alternatives are... well, there are no easy alternatives, in EVE Online there's an entire group of people like Deshara that go out of their way to make life miserable for people who want to trade or mine, and look at trading and mining down like some sort of grind. In games like Elite: Dangerous things are a little better, but that's mostly because of how large the galaxy is. In games like EV Nova, NAEV, Endless sky and the like the problem was never solved, and in games like the X series the problem was solved so well it became the main attractor for people playing that game series: why waste time in a fighter, or a miner or a simple freighter when you can actual run a bona fide mining or trade empire?

So, how can the problem be solved for SS? well, either the economy gets removed as it stands and we become exclusively mercenaries only making money from contracts and never being able to do any trading, or trading as it stands gets revamped in such a way as to both indicate it's only profitable on the relatively small scale and that we don't want to keep doing it mid to late game. The game tries to do this with a heavy handed 30% universal tariff that makes anyone that known anything about economy and tariffs look at the games economy as if they were looking at modern art.

My suggestions to achieve this effect of "trade is profitable but only on the really small scale, try smuggling and privateering instead" are as follows:

1. Situation a: a planets supply of a good equals it's demand - universal tariff for both buying and selling on the open market of 5%

2. Situation b: a planet has higher supply of a certain good then demand: - if the player buys on that market there is no tariff
                                                                                                                          - if the player sells on that market there is a 10% tariff for every 100/200 units that planet has a surplus of

3. Situation c: a planet has a higher demand for a good then it produces locally: - if the player buys on that market he gets a 10% tariff on his transactions for every 100/200 units the planet has a deficit of
                                                                                                                                     - if the players sells on that planet there is no tariff

4. Indifferent of the above situation, every world will have a maximum and minimum price for every good, sometime related to the market price of the good, say 50% of average price as minimum, say x2/3 times of average as maximum. If the price falls bellow that because of high volume sold by PC on market, or goes above that because of high demand and low supply then the government starts adding punitive tariffs to disincentive selling at those prices. Say 10% for every 1% under the planetary minimum and 10% for every 1% over the planetary maximum.

5. AI cores can't be sold on the open market AND are confiscated automatically if you enter the military market with one in your hold - assuming the market belongs to anyone that doesn't allow the free trade of AI cores.

6. You can no longer buy weapons, marines and military blueprints on the open market - you might be able to buy a tank in the US, in the real world, but they're an exception, military grade weaponry isn't something that's usually sold on the open market. these things should only be available on the Black Market and the Military Market.

7. You can no longer buy military vessels on the open ships market. I don't know about the dev, but as far as I know buying an aircraft carrier tends to not be something you can do indifferent of the amount of money you have. Also, you should not be able to buy carriers and capital ships from the Black Market - I know weapons smuggling is a thing, but some of those Capital ships are space station sized. Maybe they could be available on the Black Market of a Pirate station, but otherwise they really, really shouldn't be for sale. If your space ship is so large you can see it with the naked eye from the planet orbiting then you probably shouldn't be able to sell it on the black market.

8. You shouldn't be able to access the black market if you accessed port with your transponder on. The main problem with trade apologists on this forum is that they use the Black Market as a substitute and claim there is no problem with that. Either the open market goes, or it's made at least as useful as the black market. Also, remember how I described all those protectionist schemes before? if tariffs don't apply to the black market that means the price on the black market can be a lot lower or higher then on the open market. A good way to incentivize people to go from the open market to the black market would be if in the tutorial we were given our first procurement mission from the pirates who would tell us planets put punitive tariffs on goods when they're in a pinch and that they need certain goods only we can get for them from Ancyra and that we will only be making money on this mission if we buy from Ancyra's Black Market. Also, that we should have our transponder off when entering port, the port authorities are tired, overworked and under payed, they usually look away in such cases, patrolling fleets usually don't so we should be careful. - two birds, one stone. New players are both taught trade isn't profitable above a certain point and that smuggling can be a lot more profitable.

9. Blueprints, if we buy them we always pay tariffs since everybody wants them, we never pay tariffs if we sells them for the same reason. Alternatively there is always a flat tariff on blueprints because they're a luxury good. But that would mean the game should add an always on tariff for certain other good that are considered luxuries. (not a bad idea but that would make implementing this a lot more difficult)

10. Missions need to change, procurement missions should be limited to just the stuff you can get in a few nearby planets. Indifferent of the size of your fleet, you should never, ever get a procurement mission that asks you to buy all the stock every planet in a 30ly radius has to offer. Similarly, the game needs a few cargo delivery mission. I have x units of cargo that needs to be delivered to A type of missions. These can be a cargo space dependent, can be as large as we can handle and most importantly, can be a fun way to make us explore the map. Especially fi pirates are informed of us being basically a cargo fleet and coming for us. Unlike the pirate bounties that move us around the map, these are a lot more welcoming to new players and if at larger sized pirate raids become a fact of life the player can still be pushed into combat, just not as much as the current 30% universal tariff is.

11. This one is relating to both the previous and to large fleet management in general. The way fleets work right not is... problematic. In the real world you'd never see an aircraft carrier group ever be accompanied by a massive oil tanker for fuel. Why? because if that was to be damaged the entire fleet would end up stranded. So, why not have certain pirate attacks were if we have civilian ships with us and we are the ones being attacked the civilian ships are automatically "deployed" and deployed in the center of the battle field while our fleet and the pirate fleet start at the edges of the map. This way we'd have to  willingly chose to use civilian ships, hell, maybe make it so the really lucrative procurement and transport contracts are only available for for fleets that are mostly civilian, or are so large you need civilian ships to be able to fulfill them but if you have civilian ships you risk getting attacked by pirated and loosing the cargo.

IF the above were to be implemented I think the game would be better. On the one hand the player would be forced to experience the intricate and entertaining combat system the game has to offer, on the other trade and smuggling would both be made more interesting and in depth.