So what's the plan with the colony system? Nerf it to the point that it's no longer worth the hefty financial investment? Why completely remove the colony skills? We can't just ad a new skill tree that's all about colonies?
Seriously, it already takes a ton of cash to invest and grow a colony... which already takes forever to grow.... and we get all sorts of caps to what we can build... so why the nerf to commerce and removal of skills? How does nerfing one building make any of the others more viable?
Colonies are only big money makers late. Early on, they are money pits. The base 50% is not a big deal given the -3 stability. Commerce gets crazy after player boosts it with SP and items. Rather see the boosters nerfed (like SP improvement and alpha core improving stability instead of income, and dealmaker removing tariffs) instead of the core industry nerfed, unless the -3 stability penalty is nerfed too. Probably a good idea to tone down the stability penalty anyway for the sake of NPC core worlds that cannot absorb stability penalties from pirates and raids without decivilizing. If Commerce adds less income, then the stability should be less, like -1.
Also, the admin cap will be raised from two to three, so player will get half of Colony Management for free.
Well, that's not all (Atropi buffs would also be good) but it would be pretty nice.
Alex buffed them by making them cost less OP. Also, single Harpoons will cost more since they carry two missiles instead of one (and get long reload delay).
That's not entirely accurate - they double nerfed it by removing all skills. AND then doubled down by removing skills on the administrators.
Why would I bother with paying a salary when they literally don't buff my colonies at all?
Im sorry, but this move is an extremely one dimensional solution - there are those of use who don't want to spend weeks getting the resources to set up planets. By the time I have them up and running, my fleets are expensive. By killing the income, they're killing the incentive for the late game. The point is that planets are supposed to make this easier once developed - it shouldn't be a pointless grindfest for mediocre results.
So essentially you're forced to play the markets now for money so you HAVE to be a trader and switch out fleets for cargo carrying.