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[Megas]

Mining Blaster is already a flux hog and the most inefficient medium energy weapon - it does not need to cost more flux to use.  It only needs a minor buff.  Most obvious is +50 damage to get its +25% DPS over pre-0.65 stats, but there are other ways to make it better besides damage if that is not desirable.

[Wyvern]

Oh, and on the topic of beam range standardization: having gravitons and HIL have the same range does make a beam-attack Sunder feel a bit better to fly... even though it's objectively worse, due to loss of bonus damage from high flux, and loss of range on the HIL.  (Before, you'd put the HIL in one group, control that, and leave 2x graviton on autofire.)

(For reference: I use a beam attack Sunder as a specialist in killing fighters, frigates, and (low or mid tech) destroyers.  It avoids larger ships, retreats when it's done it's job... and that's when I bring in a Dominator to mop up larger ships.  Yes, I'm actually using a Dominator now; the combination of removing ammo limits and making the mjolnir usable have made it worth using for certain sorts of fights.)

[Megas]

I occasionally use HIL thanks to lowered OP cost.  At 12 OP with Optimized Assembly, it is effectively an alternative medium weapon for the Sunder.  I use it mainly to force the enemy AI to keep its shields up.  Before 0.65, I would never use HIL because Autopulse Laser outperformed it in every way for the same OP cost (and Tachyon Lance is much more effective than HIL if I needed long range).  That said, the only thing going for HIL now is its 1000 range.  Phase Lance outperforms both HIL and Tachyon Lance.  Come to think of it, the best medium energy weapons are competitive with heavy energy weapons.  I only use Plasma Cannon over Heavy Blaster for the extra range (700 plus generous fade distance).  Otherwise, I prefer Heavy Blaster because it is 16 or 18 OP cheaper than Plasma Cannon for nearly as much DPS and better flux efficiency.

Mjolnir and Storm Needler have switched places.  Now, Mjolnir is the good-at-everything weapon while Storm Needler is the flux hog that is barely worth mounting.  Even with 60 vents, Dominator struggles to use Storm Needler effectively.  800 range is not enough for Conquest to use Storm Needlers without getting shot back and squished by enemy capitals.  Onslaught can use Storm Needlers effectively, if built for it, and kill things before they generate too much flux.

Dominator is probably my favorite cruiser now, thanks to unlimited ammo.  It has the firepower to kill almost anything, and it can kite if it needs to.  Meanwhile, the high-tech cruisers are packing firepower comparable to the Medusa and other destroyers, if missiles are ignored.  Aurora is only good for Reaper spam, and Apogee is effectively a high-tech combat freighter.

[DJ Die]

Onslaught can use Storm Needlers effectively, if built for it, and kill things before they generate too much flux.

I can confirm this As long as whatever youre shooting it stupid enough to use its shields its toast....anything below heavy cruiser will just get overwhelmed and overloaded in seconds and everything else might be able to lower shields but will have high flux and wont be able to fire effectively

[Unfolder]

Trading needs to be nerfed, with a limit on how long trade imbalances/disruptions can last. Basically if you catch an imbalance between asharu and jangala you can make a billion credits by just chaos dumping supplies/food/fuel from jangala to asharu as fast as you can. There seems to be a set limit on how long imbalances last, rather than having them...actually be affected by market conditions. Basically you can dump the entire fuel supply of jangala on asharu if the orbits of the two are very close, and still have a fuel shortage on asharu, at least until whatever internal measure of asharu's market's decides to run its check.

Also there needs to be a limit on how much you can store in each base, its ridiculous than you can have 1000 food squirreled away on jangala when they are having a food shortage, the first thing the authorities would do is crack your vault locks during the crisis and raid the pantry, and maybe string you up for hoarding for good measure...

[Schwartz]

Imposing artificial limits is not the way to go. If you want to nerf trading, make the interplanetary market less prone to these extreme and easily exploited shortages. Think: What would the inhabitants of the sector do to fix it? After years of living there, why can a certain planet still fall into starvation within days? Why do planets even offer their hard-earned reserves of food to you, if it means they'll have a famine soon afterwards?

All planets should implement a 'reserve', and smaller traders should be way more responsive to fixing food shortages (and making a profit) than these big relief fleets. Traders want money - this is how you make money. Taking this one step further, traders should by now be in-tune with which planets regularly need a product and make regular runs to supply it.

Event-based trading is nice and all, but at some point we should consider that margin-based trading is not evil and it isn't boring either. It's just another way to make a buck.

[Megas]

I would like combat to be more rewarding in terms of XP.  I exploit shortages primarily for massive XP gains, though big money as a by-product is nice too.  Most of my endgame XP gains comes from trade.  I kill every bounty fleet I see, and they make up about 20-25% of my XP income.

I do not think trade XP needs to be nerfed, if combat XP gains remain as they are.  Obtaining level 60+ or 70+ is fun.  I get some freedom to get fun skills, after getting skills I deem must-have by the upper-40's, and this is only with a fraction of the skills the final game will get.

[DatonKallandor]

Event-based trading is nice and all, but at some point we should consider that margin-based trading is not evil and it isn't boring either. It's just another way to make a buck.

But margin based trading is boring. It's by it's very definition a rote repetitive action without challenge. You look where there's a profit margin. You trade goods back and forth between those two points for the same money for as long as your patience holds out.

With the event based system at least you have to look for profit and react to it before the relief fleets do.

[Megas]

Only if you want maximum XP from trade.  If player only cares about money, he is better off stockpiling commodities at a victim market, and when the event occurs, take all out of storage and sell.  It is no different or less grinding than normal trading except the player waits for the event rather than sell anytime.

After years of living there, why can a certain planet still fall into starvation within days? Why do planets even offer their hard-earned reserves of food to you, if it means they'll have a famine soon afterwards?

Buying food should not cause a shortage.  If it does, that food should not be in the open market (unless faction is corrupt, perhaps)!

The following happens somewhat frequently when I try it.

• I buy all of Jangala's food from open market, and put it into storage.
• Jangala gets a shortage.
• I ignore the shortage, as I did not have enough food to end it, and was busying chasing bounties and other commodities elsewhere.
• Shortage eventually ends.
• I get investigated.
• (Sometimes) I get busted for -5 reputation, and I had max reputation previously.

This smacks of government corruption; they want to shakedown as many entrepreneurs as they can catch.

[Unfolder]

Trading XP versus combat XP is bad imbalanced, but money is worse. It is very, very hard to make money fighting, once supply costs and fuel costs are factored in. If you want to be a mogul you have to move a lot of trading.

One way to think of this problem is this: it is possible for a trader to make a billion, level up completely, and then construct a fleet out of nothing from "the ground up." Basically like a mogul buying a private army, sowing dragon's teeth that he bought. Not only is this fleet fully pimped out and awesome, but your fleet is 100% experienced without ever firing a shot. If you managed to pick up expert crew along the way, you even don't have to worry about training them.

Basically it is possible to become the baddest, most viciously powerful fleet in starsector trading 1 billion units of toilet paper. that is wrong, wrong wrong. Perhaps it should not be possible to gain combat experience from trading.

Maybe experience should be divided into channels somehow. Like, trading only counts toward industrial/logistical experience, while combat only counts toward combat and technology. Something like that

Basically it is possible to become the baddest, most viciously powerful fleet in starsector trading 1 billion units of toilet paper.

^really, that's ridiculous

edit: Another way to think of it, could boeing, Northrup, raytheon band together and kill a battalion of marines armed with small arms? No, they could not, because ultimately despite their wealth, logistics and experience the nerds that work for those corporations wouldn't know the first thing about hunting down and killing the marines, whereas the marines would very quickly destroy all the infrastructure that gives war corps their force projection. If that's too out there, how about this: could five East India Company galleons defeat a Man of War? Probably not.   

[Pushover]

I don't think that making eleventy billion credits through trading is a problem.

I think gaining rep to factions doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You are simply using supply/demand, if you weren't making money, you wouldn't be hauling goods around. It might make a little sense to give you access to frigates and outdated destroyers, and maybe some cargo ships, but a 'civilian' trader probably doesn't need access to military destroyers for escort purposes. So if trading does give you rep, it probably shouldn't go past Favorable/Welcoming. That way, once you have traded your 1 billion units of TP, you don't just go 'hey Tri-Tachyon, mind selling me that Paragon, that Astral those 2 Medusas, and those fighter wings. Yeah, I'm totally going to use them for escort purposes.'

The only skill that trading doesn't really make sense for is Combat. Logistics and Industry are obvious, and there are a number of skills within Technology has some skills that 'make sense' on a trading ship.

[JT]

Also there needs to be a limit on how much you can store in each base, its ridiculous than you can have 1000 food squirreled away on jangala when they are having a food shortage, the first thing the authorities would do is crack your vault locks during the crisis and raid the pantry, and maybe string you up for hoarding for good measure...

I agree with this to an extent.  Anyone who has a vast warehouse of food and yet doesn't sell it during a famine would certainly have their reputation be hurt -- but only if you're in the system to be able to do something about it and you didn't bother.  Deliberately withholding supply is one thing, but being halfway across the galaxy and returning home only to discover that everyone hates you because you had food that you had forgotten about on some world that suddenly got hit by a famine would be very unfun.

I could also see them raiding your stockpile, but that doesn't feel particularly "fair" in a game context: perfectly realistic (as in "unfair") in reality, but this is a game where we expect our storage areas to be secure.  Unless, of course, potentially losing any of your stockpiled supplies to any other circumstance also becomes a thing... which I wouldn't be against, so long as the mechanic was fairly hands-off and easy to circumvent, e.g., marines in the stockpile could help prevent theft, and so on.

Basically, Patrician III.

[Wyvern]

On stockpiles: Personally, I'd love if I could just leave orders saying, "And if there's a food shortage, sell off enough to end it; don't bother to wait for me to show up with the key to the vault."  I mean, that's why it's there!

As for governments seizing it - as long as I still get my XP as if I'd sold it, I don't have a problem with that.  Let them take it.  If I'm stockpiling food on a famine-prone world, it's for the XP, not the money.

[Histidine]

Quick thoughts:

• Agree that small traders in the vicinity should logically be all over the shortage as soon as it occurs (although if it's a sufficiently major shortage it'll still be worth your while to do the Tartessus run ofc).
• Also agree that trade disruptions should end when the affected demand has been met. On the other hand, I've already been annoyed several times by trade disruptions that ended before I could get there (I think one came and went within a week), so it'd be helpful if the player had more information on this.
• In a previous thread there was already a suggestion for storage confiscation, which would be thematically appropriate for certain factions, e.g. Sindrian Diktat. Standing sell orders sound nice too...
  
• ...but predictable shortages on predictable planets needs to go, as others have already discussed.

After years of living there, why can a certain planet still fall into starvation within days? Why do planets even offer their hard-earned reserves of food to you, if it means they'll have a famine soon afterwards?

Buying food should not cause a shortage.  If it does, that food should not be in the open market (unless faction is corrupt, perhaps)!

Sort of. During the Great Famine in Ireland, food exports to England actually continued even from the worst-hit areas, because the English buyers could pay more for it than the locals could.
Of course this doesn't quite map to the food shortage event as implemented in SS. In particular, the amount of people able to pay the exorbitant prices you get for selling food into the market in the game should be very, very low, and prices should already be rising sharply even before the event actually occurs.

[Thaago]

Trading XP versus combat XP is bad imbalanced, but money is worse. It is very, very hard to make money fighting, once supply costs and fuel costs are factored in. If you want to be a mogul you have to move a lot of trading.

One way to think of this problem is this: it is possible for a trader to make a billion, level up completely, and then construct a fleet out of nothing from "the ground up." Basically like a mogul buying a private army, sowing dragon's teeth that he bought. Not only is this fleet fully pimped out and awesome, but your fleet is 100% experienced without ever firing a shot. If you managed to pick up expert crew along the way, you even don't have to worry about training them.

Basically it is possible to become the baddest, most viciously powerful fleet in starsector trading 1 billion units of toilet paper. that is wrong, wrong wrong. Perhaps it should not be possible to gain combat experience from trading.

Maybe experience should be divided into channels somehow. Like, trading only counts toward industrial/logistical experience, while combat only counts toward combat and technology. Something like that

Basically it is possible to become the baddest, most viciously powerful fleet in starsector trading 1 billion units of toilet paper.

^really, that's ridiculous

edit: Another way to think of it, could boeing, Northrup, raytheon band together and kill a battalion of marines armed with small arms? No, they could not, because ultimately despite their wealth, logistics and experience the nerds that work for those corporations wouldn't know the first thing about hunting down and killing the marines, whereas the marines would very quickly destroy all the infrastructure that gives war corps their force projection. If that's too out there, how about this: could five East India Company galleons defeat a Man of War? Probably not.   

I disagree with you completely here. History is absolutely full of examples of commercial empires kicking the ever loving crap out of their impoverished military brethren. And if there was piracy and lawlessness in the US on the same scale as in Starsector, you bet the paper companies would buy standing mercenary forces to defend their fluffy, fluffy toilet paper!

To answer your question about boeing et al: absolutely they could, because they have enough money to hire a thousand battalions of mercenaries (Not kidding here - those companies combined have more money than most countries)! And those mercenaries have the skills to defeat the marines, even if the companies don't. Which, when you think about it, is exactly what you do in Starsector. You hire elite crew to man your ships - the crew you've had since forever won't have leveled up from trading. With regards to East India Company Ships: you're entire argument is backwards. The British Navy was as powerful as it was only because the East India Company made the country stinking rich in the first place.

What I do think is odd is that by trading you can suddenly become a master of technology and combat tactics. But then again, thats the price we pay for RPG elements that are not just 'level what you use', which have their own set of problems. Officers would be a fix: money can hire people who have skills, even if the boss doesn't have them.