Yes, I’m not saying faction missions aren’t a good thing overall, I’m just saying I don’t think they’ll make much difference to the kind of player who leaves a negative Steam review saying “this game is too slow”.
Maybe not. Time will tell. But it could be a step into the right direction provided it is implemented and balanced well. Honestly I have some concerns about the latter.
I think the problem with early game is starter ships are way too big. Fuel difference running empty is about 4-5%, so if you’re not sending a full load to the CX, then you’re being inefficient and your cost of shipping go up more than established players. This means the optimal move is to wait for a full load, which takes weeks.
Tiny ships could be given to players to make it faster to produce a full load, but that leads to another problem, which is current large cargo ships are more efficient than small ones. A tiny ship helps new players save on fuel early on compared to a 500t ship, but it doesn’t give them any advantage to get them started because their cost per ton is higher. That would require large ships to be less efficient per ton, but then who would build them? Since we don’t have overhead costs that go up with the size of our company, infinite tiny ships would be the optimal setup.
It means a limit must be added on the number of active ships, like bases, to lower ROI per ship and make the inefficient larger ships more profitable than an equivalent amount of tiny ships. HQ upgrades and licenses seems easy enough, but there might be other mechanics that could work as long as they create a limit.
Considering FTL is typically done by creating a bubble around a ship, FTL costs could go up to the cube of the size of the ship. That would make tiny ships much cheaper when moving cargo across sectors and give new players a wider market than established players. Big players would be going the shortest hops possible to save on FF while new players could arbitrage between regions because their shipping cost are much lower and they have shipping capacity to spare. This both increases new player profitability and reduces long term profitability to slow down the insane growth rate.
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The issue there is that ship building doesn’t get unlocked until many months into the game, so if everyone started off with smaller ships, trading and shipping would be hamstrung for those first months. The way things are currently set up, the devs have no choice but to give everyone two large ships at the start.
If the game moves to a mechanism whereby it’s easier to build and trade ships, then starting new players off with only a single much smaller ship would become viable.
That would be my preference. Sorry, Yang_Mills. 
Yeah it wouldn’t work in the current settings. I’m talking the kind of relationships that need to exist between various progression levels. After that it’s all about crunching numbers to make them fit and if these relationships are respected, the outcome should be what is expected.
For example, food would be perfectly fine with tiny ships, but not metallurgy. That probably means ores and metals should be lighter for the value they provide. Instead of 1 FE being 7.8t and 1m3, it could be 0.78t and 0.1m3. It would create a giant mess in the current economy and would need a reset for sure.
the game’s starting system is fine - though maybe 2 bases with the same level of resources might be a better choice.
However, I think the biggest problem really is the cost - €8 a month for a game that you don’t really play at all except for a few minutes here and there. That’s a big issue, and that will drive players away, even the ones who start and like this type of game will soon see that you have to start paying (P2W?) and they lose interest at that point.
So reduce the price a lot. 100 players at €8 is not as good as 500 at €2 or 1000 at €1, both for the game and for the revenue. It also unlocks the LM which adds a lot to the game that new players do not see until they start paying - there’s not even a 30-day trial to get them involved.
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That’s not really the case though. The only thing that paying for pro really helps new players with is the ability to run large shipping ads with their spare ship for a 1-2 thousand in profit every day. Or to join a corp and then receive large donations of free materials to boost you up. Otherwise you can get around all of the benefits of pro with good planning until you get a few bases. That’s months into a run.
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There is no need to pay to play and the trial doesn’t end. There a few features that are locked for the trial players like the local market and building ships but you can play without those if all you want to spend is a few minutes here and there.
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