What neutral station? Actually, it'll probably be around for the next release, but I wouldn't count on that sticking around forever.
I eliminated it from Vacuum and most people weren't all that unhappy to see it go, but that's because there aren't any serious issues with choice anxiety in the mod, other than "what pew-pew shall I use to blow things away with".
I think that the concept of off-board storage is super-important in RPGs where scarcity of things to buy / loot is a given; if there's nowhere to put that Ion Cannon you've looted and don't want to sell, it can create a bit of choice anxiety for players and that's generally not a good thing.
I mainly skirted that issue in Vacuum by making sure that there was very little choice anxiety- pretty much anything you want, you can find it- but if I rein in the amount of goods available, then it's going to promptly rear its head again. Anyhow, just my $0.02 on that; choice anxiety is always present in a RPG to one extent or another but this is one of the kinds that is usually more trouble than it's worth.
Also: buying 80% of a system's much-needed resources is going to cost a LOT of money, more than selling it back would gain you. And they're not going to sell you their last supplies etc. You can probably still find a way to set things up well for yourself, but if "buy stuff, sell it back" actually netted any profit at all, that'd be a broken system.
First off, I think we have a bit of confusion here; I'm not actually saying that cornering markets will be profitable or useful. I think that's one thing that this system won't really allow for or it'll be pretty pointless, in terms of reward.
Sitting on the kinds of resources that will suddenly become quite valuable during Events, on the other hand, rather than wasting one's time trying to find a supply of said resource, buying it and then heading to the Event, all within the time limit... that is quite attractive as a strategy, under the system as proposed.
However, by the time players can afford to sit on things in sufficient amounts that they can make money that way, they're doing pretty well... and if some of these things are perishable (which I think is a great idea, and it covers food, clothing, electronics and a lot of other things), that keeps it from being too easy or mega-profitable.
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On the relationship thing; I think it should matter, but I agree it's not simple; that said, there are ways to
make it matter while telling the player what's going to happen diplomatically:
Spoiler
Tri-Tachyon Space Bazaar 'Dollar King' Blockaded by Hegemony Military
The "Dollar King" Space Bazaar in the Shale Nebula system of Hiawatha is being blockaded by the local Hegemony forces as part of an anti-piracy campaign. Hegemony sources indicate that the "Dollar King" has been a favorite re-supply and money-laundering spot for local pirates, a charge Tri-Tachyon officials have firmly denied. Until this crisis is over, the station's supplies of Food, Oxygen, and Military Circuitry are dwindling quickly.
Local Pirate "Red-Hand" George has said that his "brotherhood" will be attempting to smuggle goods into the station in defiance of Hegemony actions "to save this station's inhabitants from Hegemony tyranny", but has stated that "my boys will make all the deliveries; if you want to help out the station, bring the goods to us for proper processing. People crossing the Hegemony line without our permission will be treated as hostile".
The Independent Merchant's Association has stated that it is neutral in this dispute, but will not be delivering to the area until it is resolved.
This action is not likely to result in war between the Hegemony and the Tri-Tachyon Corporation, according to sources within both camps, but it has raised the level of tension between them. Meanwhile, the local Hegemony commander has stated that 'we will be confiscating Military Circuitry shipments and prosecuting smugglers attempting to do so with maximum force to restore order, but Food and Oxygen supplies are a low priority of our enforcement efforts'.
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Here we have:
1. Another local Station owned by an enemy of the Hegemony offering to buy up these Supplies, at a profitable but lower price point, which will raise rep with both them and the Station effected by the Event a small amount per unit delivered. Bucking them to sell direct to Tri-Tach will lower reputation, however.
2. A Faction declaring its neutrality to the Event. You cannot irk the Indies here by selling to either party.
3. A graduated response from the Hegemony; selling the high-priority items to the Station will result in far more Reputation hit than the low-priority items.
4. Selling to the Tri-Tachyons should result in better reputation with them but lowered relations with the Pirates, while selling to the Pirates will gain less profit but won't increase reputation with Tri-Tach.
Yeah, it's complicated-ish to implement, but it's a lot cooler than "planet X needs Rice Cakes", lol, even if a lot of it is repetitive, which it's inevitably going to be, simply because it's layered and presents players with meaningful choices, even if we leave out the possibility of helping the Hegemony enforce the blockade.
One of the things that comes out of this theoretical is that if anything but "disaster aid" type scenarios are in place, the AI fleets should be "scanning" the player's cargo if they can get close enough and acting appropriately. Actual reputation hit should be based on activity rather than action, however; if the player has good reputation with a Faction but is carrying a proscribed resource to an Event, they might even be given the chance to bribe their way out of encounters.
Lastly, the worry about "being on bad side of Hegemony because of something done at the beginning of the game" is probably a bit over-blown; for one thing, the player can help out Hegemony later, if they haven't made them utterly hostile, fixing the reputation, and all of it should scale with units moved; i.e., a starting player can't move the bar with this stuff very far, unlike engaging in combat, which should always have pretty strong effects.
I think a lot of the issue there is that the "anything below zero Reputation is totally hostile" system needs to get fleshed out; it really should have more gray area, where players can do things like bribe people or agree to surrender their cargos or whatnot to avoid violence.
