[Philosfr]

Expanded on similar ideas... smuggling / blockade running.

It provides a much more interesting experience on the econ side of things. One of the more common things I see is a perfectly happy civ tow flying through enemy space to stock an enemy station... while the PvP combatants for both sides are shooting it up in the next sector.

It doesn't make any sense that there be free trade between waring factions. One of the first steps towards war is usually trade sanctions. I certainly wouldn't expect the Quant government to sit by while Quant traders hauled weaponry and defenses up to the Octs, that the Octs than use to shoot down Quant military pilots.

Factions at war should not allow normal trading. However, there should certainly be black market smuggling going on. This requires faster smaller ships to dodge patrols and hide in asteroid fields, which means the amount of cargo would be much smaller per run. However, since the goods are all restricted and unavailable, the profits would be much much higher per unit.

Not only does this provide for another aspect of playstyle (the econ guys who enjoy the danger of PvP), but it gives factional equipment more meaning. Knowing you lose your supply of Alpaa shields when you go to war with the Solrain would make it a choice.

This also could be expanded to espionage. Instead of relying on the black market, it's possible the Octs would send in smugglers to steal plans for the Alpaa and be able to produce them in limited quantities, at least until the Solrain black ops squad hit the Oct production facility and blew it up to stop the Alpaa production.

[Wild_Bill]

While adding realism, it certainly detracts from game play. If you are going to bar civ traders from docking at hostile stations, then you need to add more neutral stations (and possibly NPC traders) to take up the slack. To make a three-cornered trade between hostile factions. Traditionally smugglers are dealing in light weight, high value commodities. Alternately, you have to have government agents with lax security procedures for smuggling to work at all. How are you going to bribe the factional station tenders / operators? I just don't see how barring trade by civs will work in game.

[Etouffee]

I think your on target or at least in the ball park Philo. With having Pirates in the game you really have 4 factions and who knows the new version of the game might even have more.

They have also said they will have NPCs in the new game so more netural stations would be possible. I would think that with NPCs and Netrual stations that some would be more Good Netural and some more Evil Netural so you have some play with that system. You could pull goods from one faction.. Take it to a Netural station and deal with a NPC blackmarket broker.

Really lots of ways that it could play out but you have to be willing to accept that things will be different in the new Jumpgate.. I expect space might be larger and with the NPCs more interactive. I hope they stear clear of trying to make WOW in space but if they it right it will make the choice to go to war with someone more involved and have bigger implications.

[Pyrophred]

IT wouldalso have interesting implications for multifactional squads and hauling squads like -=MACK=- or -=G-O-D=-

[Aphelion]

I think it would be awesome and give me a reason to fly a FAST Transport for a change...

As the NPC "cops" are patrolling the space lanes, I come in with my ecm'd FT ready to snag some Alpaa's for my Monsoon back home at 3pt. Maybe there's a point in the space lanes where "foreign" haulers have to stop for NPC inspections. Maybe I can try to sneak around them. Maybe they spot me and I have to run for the station so I can buy some black-market goods. Then they're waiting outside for me and I have to run the blockade again and make it safely back to Quant space while I'm loaded with 10 heavy Alpaa... oh man, this is gonna be really hard...

[DLinkOZ]

I've been away from the game for a long time, did anything ever come of the squad warfare system? I ask, because a quant squad and an oct squad fighting doesn't equate to warring nations. Now, if there were a proper way to formally announce a declaration of war, then the factions could become involved to place embargos upon only the insurging squad alone.