Smuggler Archive

Is there any thought being given to introduce a deep trade system that can be influenced by players? Does anyone remember Elite (WAY back in the day, before I was even around)? Also, even though it was fairly monotonous, Earth and Beyond had a trade system for pilots to move goods from system to system (I know, it would need to wait for JTL, but the point still stands.)

I'd like to see some form of supply and demand for each of the planets that corresponds with a population number for each of the planets (Shouldn't be too hard to just make up some relevant numbers.) Have basic goods(building supplies, foodstuffs, clothing,various regional luxury items)that could be moved between systems to allow a different type of merchant: the Merchant Pilot.This supply and demand could be used to form classes within the population that require different amounts of these goods. This would also allow the corresponding craftsmen to craft Generic "goods" crates of their profession i.e. Clothing crates for Tailors, food crates for Chefs(which, for the basic foodstuffs, could just be groups of resources put into a crate)

Obviously, overproduction would cause supply to exceed demand, which would cause prices to plummet. Players would have to either undercut their opponents to sell their wares, or keep production down to make prices go back up (e.g. OPEC)

Now, you're probably asking "WTH is this doing in the smuggler forum?" Well, along with these regular trade goods comes the 'not-so-regular' trade goods: spices, illegal weapons, fugitives, dangerous animals, POW's of the GCW, certain goods and luxuries that local governments decide to ban. That's where the smuggler makes his money in any game besides this one: Why shouldn't it be included here? It fits in with the contraband scans that were implemented, allows for piracy, smuggling, anti-piracy/smuggling, faction privateering, and even bounty hunting on smugglers/pirates/anti-smuggler/anti-pirates/privateers!

What do you guys think?