I'm reserving my complaints for 0.9.1, because this is clearly a first-pass on the economy...
It's like the 5th pass of the economy.
He pretty clearly meant this is a first pass on the economic system. Any work to balance/improve the previous economic systems doesn't apply to the current one because this system is so different.
As I've said many times, trade isn't any more or less monotonous than other game-play like combat. It just appeals to a different set of pathologies than the ones combat appeals to.
I disagree that trade is as monotonous as combat. Monotony is about lack of variety and repetition. There is much more variety in combat because there are so many decisions to be made in order to be successful at combat. Out-fitting your ship and fleet, deploying and ordering ships around, choosing fights to take and avoid, actually piloting a ship which requires constant decision making and lots of skill-based interactions, all of these things require the player to be making decisions and performing skilled actions. There's many different ways to approach all of those decisions meaning you don't have to approach combat in the same way each time and there's so many different ways all the variables can be combined (using different weapons and ships vs the same enemy fleet will result in a different experience and vice versa, piloting your ship differently will result in a different experience). There's just much less nuance/variety in trade. Look where the goods are sold cheaply. Go there and buy as much as you can. Look at where the goods are in demand. Go there and sell all the goods. Rinse and Repeat. There's very little decision making and no skill based actions. You just repeat the same sequence of 4-5 simple actions and profit. Sure you have to avoid threats on your way between planets, but you have to do that no matter what actions you are taking, that's not inherent to trade.
I have no issues with people who enjoy that sort of gameplay, and I would like trade to be more viable in the game, but claiming that combat is as monotonous doesn't make sense to me.
I also agree that the group of people play testing are not representative of a broader audience, and that needs to be taken into account.
Every hegemonic power encounters this problem. I applaud Alex for (perhaps accidentally) making a game for adults with some kind of realistic power dynamics that deflates the ridiculous utopian individualist fantasies. You cannot just build something big and be left alone. If you have something good, people will want it and take it if you can't defend it. If you can defend it, you'll have to do some dubious things in the name of stability, and people will resent it and scheme against you.
I agree this is kind of cool but I think the game either needs to double down on the idea that the player faction is superpower, or prevent the player from becoming that powerful, at least so easily. If the player outproduces every other faction in the sector, they should have the diplomatic status and options of a superpower. If alex doesn't want to give the player that sort of power, he should prevent them from becoming powerful enough that that would make sense, probably by making the AI factions insurmountably powerful (so the player never reaches a level where they feel like they are more powerful that the AI and deserve to be recognized). As long as the players treatment in game is consistent with their status in the economy, I am happy.