i think it would be more fun if there were more mining missions besides of the 1 per sector and more large ammounts of mining especially at mining stations.

Ah, my good friend mining!
The murderer of trading, and probably the single most destructive thing ever done by the devs! Of course, it's too late to turn back the clock and get rid of it now, the newbies would panic and rise up in rebellion. Fortunately, I think the situation can be salvaged. Yey.

First off, why is mining ebil?
Why, because it killed trade, silly! By giving all those boring, yet essential, people that would normally make their millions by ferrying cargo from one sector to another an even duller and less involved way of making moneys the game eliminated all the traders except for nostalgic vets and a few non-zombie newbs. This fun state of everyone sitting in one place for hours for couple of pointless millions means that the best part of the game, the community, starts to fall apart, seeing as how no-one ever sees anyone else anymore. Not much to talk about if you've never even seen the guy you're talking to. Not to mention the fact that piracy is even deader than trading thanks to this loverly system.

Now then, what to do about it?
Well, with the idea of killing it outright dismissed as unrealistic, I'd have to say that some very serious nerfing is in order. In my utopian fantasy the only reason people would mine would be for the levels needed to get the beemer and maybe the whole crafting thingy. That'd mean that the highest price an ore should ever fetch is around ten, fifteen credits. As in, the best ore you'd ever mine with the best of mining beams ever would only make you maybe as much as fifteen credits per chunk, or maybe only ten, depending on the station. And thereyago! A lot of the problems I consider to be problems in the game are solved right there! Party!

Not quite my utopia yet, but a good second step would be making all the trade missions give off a minimum of moneys, so as to encourage the good'ole "looking for the best bargain with the help of various thingies" trade system, as opposed to "ferry cargo as told to, using as little of my brain as possible and being a crappy target for pirates" system in place today. Yey poirats.

yeah i kno mining killed trade and i agree something should be done like rare ore only found in bot infested areas that would fix some of it and the only reason i mine is for the the lisence for the moth and ships like that. and it would make it hard for noobs to get the moth which fixes other problems.

You can still trade old-school style, of exploring to find the most lucrative route. Nothing's forcing you to take trade missions. Do it like in the old days: write down some cargo prices, explore til you find a good route, and then buy/fly/sell!

Some trade routs are even posted in the news

most people just prefer roid cooking i guess

oh well more profitable trade routs for me

Personally, I enjoy mining way more then I enjoy trading. If mining had not been introduced I probably would not be playing anymore, simply because flying back and forth to make a few credits is not my idea of fun. Nor is simply sitting still and mining, which is why I personally go out of my way to look for more difficult sectors to mine in, which DO have larger more worthwhile targets to mine, as long as you can handle the bots.

I will agree however that for the most part mining can be very boring if the miner does not make the effort to make it more challenging. And IMO the making of money is only a means to an end, which is to be able to buy new ships and weapons so that you can participate in the combat wether it be in defence of your nations space, pirating or simply duel/pvp action.

Plus, you still have to ship your mined ore to far off systems if you want to make any kind of profit anyway so there still are ships making trade runs. Sure not as many as if they were trading, but most people that I know that trade, stay in monitored nation space anyway, where most pirates won't hunt.

Some ideas to make mining less of a drain on trading, and have more of a purpose, combine trade and mining missions together. Make the stations that give the mining missions simply be the point of contract and the delivery point be whereever the ore is most needed in the universe, as if the delivery station made the purchase, yet the station did not have the stocked or at the time and you need to fill the order.

Also, make mining more useful by adding a crafting system, which would completely change the game. Making everything constructable by gathering the base element necessary to construct them, then ferry them to the appropriate stations for construction. Make missions where you have to ferry stuff to many stations to finally complete them, not simply a point A to point B missions, which get old fast, ie. trade missions. ick!!!

None of this is new of course, and it will all take years to implement.

Mining's drain on trading is self correcting. As more players enter the game, ore prices will be driven down. Trading will be come relatively more lucrative than mining, and folks will be driven back to trading.

If you know where to trade, trading is much more lucrative than mining.