Sheepshooter

So an alliance of small two men companies has ten people and more when the big bad mega with 15-20 people shows up to wipe them all... Ever heard of strenght in numbers? High alliance numbers are good for the small guys to protect them against the big fish... right now the small one are limited and easy targets... Also you are not able to stop huge groups organising outside of the game... the megas and alliance will always be as big as they want, while the small guys get limited by your ideas... Changes nothing, just makes it worst...

- As I said from the beginning, people leave because they loose ships not even using them when offline... - As I said planks take damage but way slower than crews... so they more like not sink, so make it easier to raid them, capture... If you not repair your ship before next battle, it might leak, it more likely could sink... - Famous last stand is valid tactic, already in use. - Well if you give up in battle the enemy has to leave for you to continue, and after that you need to be quick about it, catch up, get close within time begore timer runs out and you can be killed/sunk/captured... Also if you ram, you make damage, so your protection is gone... And as easy fix, either combine it with you other company boats, or have a buff on you after you surendered before that there will be no next time to surrender as you broke the gentlemen agreement to be out of the fight... - well you can only surrender to a fellow human, not to a soul eating demon spawn. SOTD will kill your crew and sink your ship, while sinking will take longer... - well if they know whats in your cargo, let them follow you for a few hours until they can attack you again if they like...

Cool, I want Crosswhatever then, more players, less Realists... Funny how the faction guys also want to have the playerbase separated into factions as well, because they fear the competion and know they are not good at it... 'Cant compete with my toy against PCs... keep PC away from me...!' 'Cant compete alone against company or alliances, get everyone else stuck with me in factions...!' 'Cant have PVP around me, keep it away from me at the edge of the server where I need not go anyway'

Yeah great ideas, lets get rid of all this claim owner bs and replace it with goverment claim owners, same thing by another name... Because who wants free association in an MMO if we can just force it on everyone...? Then we don't need alliances, because we call them factions... and because it is automatic we cannot just leave when we no longer like what our automatic alliance, errr faction i mean, does... And lets play PVP, because that is were all the cool kids are, but make it so that there is no PVP happening, only arena style... lets not fix PVP though, because now no one cares anymore... Also it will be more social, because everyone will be sticking and stucking on the faction sectors just to be “save“... it will be like now when we play on PVE, only with 1/4 the space available... Damn it, get yourself a single player or non dedi... where you can play as you like = without interaction, your own little save space... that is what they are there for, and leave us MMO guys “alone“... You guys dont play this game, you do not know why it is broken and loosing people, because you avoid the content which is broken for the majority of players... Has nothing to do with company sizes, which you only need one, or alliances which you need zero, or claims which you not use anyway as owner or settler... But yeah, if only no one would be able to play together freely and be forced together with you, then you would no longer have the bad feeling that you are the only one missing out... because then everyone would be like you... missing out... of the MMO...

so we can shut down PVE and divide their pop to PVP and unofficial... every PVE problem solved... excellent !

Resulting in you login in with your ship gone, just not sunk... giving you the option to 1)start again building a ship that gets lost again or 2) quit... I am more concerned about the quit part currently... because if everyone quits, because he never can use a ship for long (or the other similar problems like in land PVP, etc.) there will be no ships left to sink or claim, because no-one is making anymore to do that... someone will have to not forget to switch the light out when he leaves... and my suggestion is actually not that complicated to implement. Just some form of AOE buff with timers... Hell the are about to implement something no one wants - cats... just so you have a AOE attack weapon that gives you some kind of negative health buff, which you also AOE to other players around you... I just play with the idea of a timer triggered by a event already known to the server, but add a button that allows for a strategic decision of the player, with which he has some decision in loosing his ship... If you make the wrong decision and loose the ship, well that is on you. If you are not a little child you will not quit, but try again better... Currently you cannot do nothing about loosing the ship. If you are an adult thinking about it, there comes the point where you think another try is a waste of time and quit...

well it works for me... in the beginning I had to adjust it in the gameusersetting (especially if you want FOV "on 11" for eyes on your back...) file. Currently it works fine from in-game options. There will be only one or two resolutions where it is not messed up...

There are no ships, because they have to be hidden behind multi 10.000 part walls to be save. If they are not, the people that are looking for ships to sink, rather sink the one not in protection, obviously. And if you say, that you not get on claimed island because no-one is answering, this might be, because the island owner has left the game, only his gold for the flag has not run out yet... on any medium sized island with still active owner you will get a positive response... no island owner wants to face the end of the universe (server pop reaches zero) alone. And even if you not join the owner company, they still want you around... As I can see from reading the 'claims failed' people, it is obvious that it is not the claims that failed, but that there is no meaningful protection from PVP and especially that the defender is in the end unable to defend against even one lonely cannon bear, putting every progress made in jeopardy. That is what the complainers are complaining about - as the people like me that not blame it on the claim system - there is no safety nowhere, therefore everyone comes to the point in playing 'why should I continue and rebuild anything if I loose it anyway'... Same idea is with the stupid faction thing, from people that not even play the game... Read what the say... they don't want factions, they want a save space, which they hide in 'we need faction area that is protected'... It is not the faction that is the solution, nor the claim system that is the problem. It is the imbalance in defense and the situation that every ship has to be always sunk, every base to be pop-corned... there is nothing else... Although many suggestion have been made for meaningful change to the combat meta... nothing changes... except the lowering pop numbers, to the point where people are leaving because of too few people... And just so that we understand what stupid idea factions would be... it would cut the server space exactly where the line is between PVE and PVP... you do not think that the megas will build anything in PVP, as everyone else they are too scared and will rather stay in 'save space'... and the space between faction areas will be dead, because everyone building there will still get raided, pop-corned and sunk... so no-one will... so no meaningful PVP will happen... so game dies... This might be ok, for current almost dead server population, which is killing the game all by itself right now... but if the numbers go up again, think about playing PVE with 1/4 of the available space... and if you look at the PVE guys, they still now complain about not enough space to build even with them being all alone in their sector... And again, the claim system was mainly put in to give moderation, where Devs cannot practically moderate... free building like in lawless or PVE is a mess and also killing the game for those type of players

Problems... only PVE can have...

because of no appropriate option available, i took 'weapon mechanics' - BALANCE THE DAMN LAND PVP !!!

Nope, they leave the game, because when they build a ship, the next day they come online it is sunken already. So they don't like, that they cannot even have a shipfight in the first place... Good idea, but if anyone can sail any ship (without enemy crew on it) when does the chnage happen in ownership? Will the ship just disappear for the original owner when someone else takes the wheel? Or will ships no longer show on the map at all? Would be more realistic obviously. That was the point, surrender fast, keep most of your stuff and ship, while giving the pirate players something to do. Contrary to 'loose the ship and all your stuff', while the pirate players do what they want to do anyway, while you might not want to build another ship and waste your time outside of this game. Well after 6 minutes max (with damage dealed making it much faster) you are back to loosing and sinking. This is not intended to change something in war situations. Yes ships in a fleet could just give up fast. But than there ships will be out of combat for some time, while the enemy keeps pounding at their base unopposed. It currently results in ships only been sunken all the time, most in harbor, killing player population, as does the land PVP wipe problem does, therefore killing the game. Also as listed initially the always sinking of the ship does destroy the initial development ideas for the game, like ships changing owners and getting hunted back and so on (because of which we are still not able to change names of ships, because the idea was you could find your ship back by name and reclaim it). I think I have said nothing about actual changes to combat. And because realism in a game is not so important, therefore the proposed idea is valid. Yeah it is a different world where pirates have to 100% work by the 'unwriten rules of piracy'. Also that is the problem I try to announce with this idea of changes. The problem that the realistic option, of people can just sink ships whenever they want to and no rules stop them from it, is part of killing the game right now. So we want a realistic game, where the player has final game killing decision or a game with some restrictions but still actual player playing...? I think I said you can retreat - by not giving up at your own risk. By the way the same risk while retreating you have now... And thanks for the feedback and concerns!

Colonies has not failed... What failed was that the large groups are so few and don't want to play alone (in a MMO none the less), therefore everyone but Talono joined Colonies... Colonies also was a success as it gave island claim flags, compared to company claim flags which failed spectacular, like any 'claiming' in PVE/lawless still fails toxically. The whole afair of Empire and Colonies was just that the Devs wanted not to enforce the Colony system on the player base, knowing how that would result in spoiled rage-quits. But to give players the subjective option to choose and than get the Empire servers shut down, because of low population, as was know would happen before that change... It is called 'to nudge', happens to you every day... otherwise there would be a revolution... The island claim system is important, as it is not as toxic as lawless and the company system before, which was unable to moderate by game mechanic or admins. The moderation was given to the island owner and it was for the better. Any problems still existing are in PVE (which is a problem of Atlas PVE unsolveable), Lawless and in the mind of the people that "don't want to be a slave" and/or are not able to be a "slaver", therefore resign to lawless which does not work for them even more... And could we please give up the idea that you could somehow control company or alliance member numbers, while there is an outside world with multiple options to organize large groups? It is technically not possible and please don't think that somehow moderation can enforce numbers in the real world. Also, as already said in this thread, limiting the number of alliance members is more a problem for the mass of small companies which in-game cannot organize to strenght in numbers. Or to organize a 'neutral' alliance for each company where they put the companies which they are not allied with, but want to be neutral to, for better organized community living therefore reducing the problem of either you are allied or a vaild target. What has failed this game is PVE. People demand to build anything everywhere and can't, or make toxic use of it. Damn those neighbors, so unexpected in a MMO...! What has failed is land PVP. Totally makes ship PVP useless, as ships sink in harbor than in combat. Nothing is save and therefore not worth doing in the first place - or for the third time. Currently it seems like if someone gets wiped half the players leave the game, the other halfs joins the half of another wiped comapny... And what has failed is the willing missunderstanding by the single-players and non-dedicateds that do not understand how the claim system is there for protecting them from the big guys, and which was not intented for them to own an island of their own, nor the need to do. Hell, there are so many islands available for claiming now, because even when they can, the small guys can't and should not do it. But complaining they can, still not understanding it... Oh and by the way... when you next also complain about the bad game performance, give thank to the island claim system, moderating the mass of useless stuff build. Without it it would be way worst, as this game cannot handle that amount of stuff, especially if everyone wants to have a giant base, just because and damn the torpedos...!

If you mean by non-existent that there are not enough players left to actually have ship combat with... Which is the very real problem we have, which I kinda like to get solved, while also making the make little bit more realistic. People are leaving the game fast. Unfortuantly we are at the point that people leave because there are not enough people left. Before that it was the problem of being wiped and/or sunk without being able to do something about it. Again the idea I am working on here should solve multiple problems that were complained about and that more or less people leave the game. - make loosing ships less likely - make the loosing of a ship more of a decision of the owner and not just some random offline encounter with basically no protection against - make ships expensive again, as was intended - make boarding and capturing ships possible/more likely, as was intended - make ships more unique, because they get more often captured and not sunk, as was intended - and all that within most of the mechanics of the game already existing aka buffs and de-buffs

While the game continues it's voyage into Davi Jones' Locker, though about some possibilities to make ship battle more interesting, more piratety but less fatal. Wanted to share this maybe not yet consistent ideas for feedback. I put it here in PVP forum, as obviously there is not much discussion under Suggestions... Currently ship battle – if it ever happens – is ending in someone running away or getting sunk. Boarding does happen, but only to sink the ship. In a war setting sinking the other ship is the only way to get it out of the way. But it is also the best way to raid a ship – after it sunk, and unfortuantly the game makes it possible to dive to it all the way to the deepest bottom of Davi Jones Locker. As most players interested in ship battle have complained, boarding and taking over a ship is not possible, as the claim timer is stupid long and popcorning of the cargo before or when it sinks by the owner is modus operandi, so no looting... As ships are always sunk for their resources and cargo or 'just because', the Devs made them cheap enough so you can build new ones very fast. This tries to mitigate the problem of them getting lost so fast, mainly while offline. In the age of sailing ships, ship combat rarely resulted in the sinking of the ship. As the cannons would not make much damage below the waterline ships would not sink so easy – cannon balls would loose terminal energy fast when hitting water or bounce of the water like a stone flipped flat over water and hit the enemy hull above waterline. Ship to ship combat would be determined by whos ship will loose the ability to continue fighting because of loss of crew, which get wounded and killed by enemy fire, loss of maneuverability like rudder and sails/masts, or fire breaking out uncontrolable. Small arms fire and boarding was a valid option to overpower a ships crew. After a ship was defeated it was looted, taken over or sunk, depending of the state of the ship and value of the ship itself. The idea I want to develop here is that sinking ships in Atlas should be not the go to only solution, but the least likely. As obviously the game allows for very toxic behaviour which would continue to result in ships get sunk, just because, it unfortunately would need some game restrictions prohibiting this. But as this is still a game, rules define it anyway, so it not have to be realistic with everything possible at all time. Main concern here is, that a sailing game needs people sailing and somewhat willing to risk ship combat. Otherwise what is the point? Therefore my idea involves some fixed piracy rules of engagement. For this the Devs need to add some piracy things in the game for ships = flags and colors. If two ships meet in the game and one wants to attack the other it raises The Black. This happens automatic when it makes damage to the other ship or by captain choice. In the later case any ship within some radius will get the notification that they are being persued by a pirate. Ships hit get the same notification on receiving damage. The defender now has the option to raise the White flag at any time. This will result in the defender cutting sails stopping the ship automatically and stop making any damage to the attacker. On the other hand the attacker can no longer make damage to the defender aswell. The attacker now can board the defender and loot an amount of its cargo and gold depending on how soon the defender raised the White. Lets say within 2 minutes of raising the Black the loot is 25%. Every minute after that it is 25% more. So the defender has an option to decide what it is worth for him. Please do understand this as World of Atlas agreed Rules for Gentlemen of Fortune automatically enforced. Also the ship weapons of the defender gets 'spiked' making them useless for some time, maybe 1 hr or more. Optionally the defender could be protected from looting for some more time after it got looted, unless he makes damage to anyone in the meantime. Only if the attacker goes away from the other ship – out of range of the Black flag, the defender gets control back and can continue. If the engagement continues without the other ship giving up, raising the White, for some time, say 5 mins, which already equals 100% loot, the attacker can raise the Jolly Roger – the Red. This means that if the defender is defeated the attacker has the option to kill all crew and take over the ship, if it is still floating. Upon getting the Red the defender has one more minute to give up before he can be sunk or claimed. His decision again. By the way, the attacker always has the Red flag upon him, if he starts the attack – pirates can not expect quarter. Maybe that could stay on him for some time after a fight? Please note that at this point there not need to be any shots fired at all. If the defender just gives up early he will get treated better by the victor, until the time he must expect no quarters given. There would an option that the loot % and time to raise the flag get shortend the more damage the defender does to the attack, meaning that he resists more. Next up the looting. As it is now, looting can be made impossible because of the defender popcorning everything. This cannot be allowed under the above idea for the attacker. Therefore I propose that the moment the Black starts everything in the ships resource box cannot be taken out other by the current automatic use = repair hammer. Same for the ammo box and any other storage box, like bookshelf. The only box that can now be used by the defender is the new ship locker which only holds things like weapons, armor and ship tools. The moment the defender raises the White he also can no longer use the ship locker. The defender can again use the storage when the attacker leaves him. Next up the actual combat. As it should be the case ships should be defeated more often before they sink, damage to ships should be handled differently. Mainly damage is against ship speed, manouverability, cannon reload time. Or combined into damage to the crew, which looses abilities the more damage it gets. This makes the hit ship slower so it cannot run away, less manouverable. Loosing cannon crew / reload speed makes resistance less useful. This is all used to get the defender to submit. Again the attacker does not need to raise the Red, still leaving the defender to surrender and not loose the ship, just the loot. If the game could handle crew damage this way, crew will stop working if they get damaged enough but not yet die. More damage will kill them ofcourse. So even if the ship gets damaged that the crew does not work anymore (partly or all) they are not lost=dead. Therefore high level crew can be rescued by surrender. Also high level crew with more health is obviously better and good to acquire. Ship resistance per plank gets lower by damage, allowing more damage to the crew behind it.Also personal armor would help. Option: by the way only ship structures (deck and planks, maybe some new form of optional compartments) should work as protection. Any other structures (walls, ceiling, ramps) give no protection. No armoring. Also to promote gun ports, guns on deck would have no protection for that matter. There should be different typ of ammo. Ball for plank penetration, Chain for sail damage, Shot for unprotected (low plank health) crew. Optional boarding party. The game right now allows the ship crew to dismount cannons etc. and aggressively engage enemy on the ship. What we need would be the option for the attacker to send his Marines to 'spawn' from his ship to the other ship within certain range. I think the problem right now is, if one would order their crew onto another ships they would never reach the other ship while it is moving. Thats why the easiest option is them be able to just 'spawn' on the other ship for now. Also I think that ship crew under attack, as well as the attack should just spawn on the main deck, so noone gets stuck somewhere below causing frustration. Obviously we need the option now to have more crew on ship to allow for Marines. Therefore get rid of the crew limit. They have weight and that should be enough, especially if they are armed and armored. Maybe raise food consumption. Spawning. If a ship engages in combat the beds on each should be locked, so that every bed only can be used once more. This allows some allies to spawn in and help, but not unlimited. Also makes more beds on ship more valueable. This is somewhat like the bed timers with the kraken going to 1 hr disallowing respawn while the fight goes on. Oh and by the way, if the PC crew all die the NPC crew will raise the White automatically. Ship damage, fire, sinking. As the crew = function of the ship takes damage faster than the ship itself it should usually not sink most of the time, before the crew is incapacitated. There should be some random option for fires and maybe ammo explosions making lots of damage. This if not controlled could sink a ship on it's own. Other than that sinking a ship should most of the time be an option for the owner, meaning either the defender sinks it before capture or the attacker after he raised the Red, captures it and becomes the owner. Capturing ships. A ship can be taken over when the attacker was able to raise the Red for atleast one minute and then gets to control the other ship, defeating the other crew atleast to incapacity, killing the PC crew. There could be the option that surviving NPC crew joins the attacker. This could be determined by crew level and maybe a pirate skill of the attacker. Oh and maybe just for fun, the PC crew of the defender can be put on the guiotine for punishment for not giving up fast enough. Recapturing ships. If a ship gets captured this way, it still keeps his name for some time and stays shown on the defenders map. So Captain Jack Sparrow has an option to get his Pearl back. This could be like that if the original owner gets on the ship within the next 48 hr (?) and gets rid of the NPC crew (or maybe even using his pirate covincing skill) he can just steal it back and get away. After this reclaim timer runs out the new owner can change the name to his liking and the old owner looses the map marker. This would be in line with the Devs idea that ships should have a history and should change owners. Ship repairs. Ships should be more time consuming to repair. This is because if a ship is damaged in war for example it should take some time before it can return to the front. If it not gets repaired between engagement it obviously engages with lower health and therefore starts with lower values in speed and so on, and also the crew is not as well protected by it. Ship repairs not anchored should be only stopping leaks and fires. Full ship repair should only be possible while fully anchored. Parts repair points over time after the resources are invested. PC repair (skill and mini game) could give bonuses to the time, as would captain skills. Using a shipyard of correct size should be faster. Ship cost. As ships would now not always sink, there is no need to make them cheap to build = easy to replace. Building a ship should now be a bigger 'time' investment for players, meaning more resources to farm, taking more time. Also repair would cost correspondingly more. Also if they are more expensive to make their captains would be more willing to raise the White before they loose them. If they stay cheap they will just be suicided. Optional, because ships become more time valueable and finaly better able to capture it should finally become possible to redesign them in shipyards and also to respec their skills (for a cost). So what could that look like in game? If you are just going from A to B for say discoveries or tames and you get attacked you surrender and loose some resources and be on your way. If you haul resources you loose more resources as a % of the total. If you decide to fight, because you think you will win or run away, it is your risk decision. This counts for the attacker also. If you are in war type engagements, your ship could be lost with the Red. Or atleast taken out of combat by spiking the ship weapons for some time after you gave up. As ships would become more valueable, but less likely to sink (per decisions of her captain) griefing by outright sinking everything is more controlable by the owner. Meaning loosing the ship is less likely for the little guy, promoting that he builds a ship and uses it more. Because there would be more ships actually that are on the sea, more pirate action for everyone. And maybe you find the big fat price. There should be a system, where the spyglass would allow (like the pirate skill) seeing some or all what is in the ship cargo. Maybe just how heavy a ship is loaded, as can be seen how deep it is in the water. Therefore not needing to stop every ship you come by. There could be an option for a war token to allow to raise the Red from the beginning on the designated war enemy, so you can sink or capture any of their ships. But what about anchored ships? Well I am still advocating to have a change to the island protection system. My favorit would be a full PVP radius around the flag and PVE protection everywhere else until the island gets declaimed. This would include anchored ships. But if that separate issue does stay the same the described system above still works. Because as said if there is no PC on the ship, the NPC crew gives up. In the case of the Player being offline or not close to the ship, it means immediately = minimum loot taken and loot protection for some time, maybe until next login of the player. So either take any valuables of the ship before going offline or loose some, your ship will very likely be there tomorrow. Thoughts?

So you know how to build cannons and puckles with NPCs that have atleast as much range as their PC counterparts...? Great! Please let the Devs know about it, so they can finally implement it in the game... Then your wish will come true...

as of this writing online on PVP: 777 online on PVE: 538 hopefully someone in PVE will still be there waiting when PVP reaches Zero...

If you could please make it happen, that PVP defenses would finally work against attacker... we that need to protect our stuff from your attacks would happily stop stuffing structures in the hope to be somewhat save from the broken PVP...if some cannons at sea and some puckles on land can actually protect anything we would rather build that, than building up to the structure limits... also please note that your complain about the shipyard spam seems to show that this works to protect against attacks... ergo good option to put down even more of those for protection... thank you...!

so full PVE on all islands..?!?! Just Sailing PVP? So PVE ler cannot risk leaving their island... Or some islands PVP some PVE...? Well, were then will everyone try to build...? And as double the amount of players are on the server while only maybe halve the islands are save, means 4x more people will compete in PVE and all the toxic behaviour that comes with that... that would be 4x "more fun" as PVE is now... Maybe promote living in PVP...? - yeah until the Just-Us PVE warriors will complain they demand the same in PVE as in PVP... again everyone stays in PVE... Combination of PVE and PVP cannot work, as adaption will negate the hoped for solution...

The Social Justice PVEler eating their own... wunderbar... You do realize that both of your sides are not right and both destroy the PVE game even more with your demands...? "But we must destroy PVE to save it !" Either get on SinglePlayer or on PVP... otherwise please live stream your civil war for social just-us... the peace loving community on PVP likes to watch... makes us more happy about our choice...

Well the obstruction radius would help if it would be lower not higher in that case. The larger it is the sooner you 'crash' into one another leaving large areas unable to build on, which would be perfectly fine for both sides to use otherwise without hindering each other... because when someone comes close to your radius it also means that you are close to his, so you cannot expand, even though the other cannot use that area... There can never be a good solution to this... if the radius is small someone can build you in easy for grieifng... if it is large, most of the area cannot be build on, leaving not enough total game space for "40K players"... In the end it only determines how much one needs to spam the area to "own" it all... That is one reason the claim system was designed and later fixed to only one island owner. The only working option would be to give the land owner the needed administrative rights to raze parts or all structures on his island to keep it fair and clean - this could be done with the least amount of griefing by design... in the end someone has to move, or people will leave the game... But I still can hear the crying from that from one last week... So... I can only advocate for PVEer to go PVP, and for the Devs to finally fix land PVP and protection, for the later to be meaningful... As in real life, so in Atlas PVE, the 'safe space' ideology does not work... does only produce spoiled brats (of all ages)... At least is Atlas I think it is not the intended purpose...

Well it is therefore broken... Because if it is possible for them to do it with the current game mechanic, while it is toxic griefing, which forces more and more players to leave the game, which obviously is not the intended goal of the game, then it is broken... Otherwise, if you say it is not broken, you have no right to complain about this 'perfect' game mechanic which is therefore fair to use against you... As Heinlein said: "An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life" This is the reason people are lacking respect everywhere... they don't have to fear any response, apart from crying by the helpless victims. And that is the reason I went from PVE straight to PVP after the wipe... PVP is the more respectful and polite PVE experience... because if you would do such things there, you pay for it with available game mechanics... therefore you avoid it, and live and let live...

That is why PVE is broken and gets toxic... Atlas PVE does not work without minimal PVP... it cannot be fixed, only made worst... more people leave...

Should have gone to a claimed island with a good owner and live as a settler... as intended...

now it is official... WC/GS is worst company ever... for 'producing' Realist...

Says the guy from the "top 5 warring company", that wipes anyone else as the last remaining fun in the game, with high end gear and PVP specific character skills...? And of all people you think the others left because of missing shops and skins...? while you party over the latest company you wipes 'of the map' and the small company ship you sunk in port, just because...? Let me guess, you want a better player economy so the small guy can get some higher stuff, before you loot it from him with the no skill cannon bear... This game is dying, because most people learn the hard way, that the balancing is not in favor of accumulating stuff and build things that last longer then the time they log off... And that is because the system is made this way (hopefully no for long) and people like us use it 'as intended' with the unintended consequences... "Hey, please come back and play again with us! We have no one else to wipe anymore... You get a cute skin for it you can trade for in the freeports! It will be worth it! - for us..." Also now makes more sense why you want trade ships auto-cruising... because even the "Top 5" companies lost most their people and now they are stuck with their giant empire and not enough Bobs to make the menial labor to sustain it...