You may be right, I'm just bringing up the potential problems I see. From an RP/realisim perspective, I'm all for p2p ship trading, I'm just worried it'll result in a big increase in the use of the top tier ships to the exclusion of the rest.

We already see a large number of SCP/X1's in B-8. I'd rather see more lower tier ship use is all.
Hell, I personally think weapon trading should still follow license requirements. Maybe it does (EMS frequently mention the UC/MP's they sell to newbies have no license requirments, and I've never bought weapons from a player I didn't have licenses to equip, though I've not always had the standing at the right faction to buy them).

I would like to see p2p trading of player built ships (Cent SL).

Dent.

There is a good reason people don't use low-end ships much: they're low-end. What is the point of the license system and gradually more expensive ships if people aren't allowed to use them?

And there are other high-tier ships besides the valk and the prom. For example, I prefer the corvult when it comes to dueling. It has a higher non-turbo velocity. The rev-c is also extremely dangerous in the right hands - very nimble.

And I don't see an excessive number of valks or proms in B8.

most of the people who use valks/proms in grey are people who don't die often, and like you said they are going to be using valks/proms whether or not there is p2p ship trading. The only thing this would really affect is things like NWs, as it will be easier to get a valk/IBG all around. Most of the people that you suggest would use valks/proms die a LOT in pvp interactions (the ones that currently use valk mk iii, revs) and couldn't afford to pay 700k per ship, or are like rin and too lazy to ship over valks/think they are inferior/whatever and so won't use them anyways. To put it in economic terms, the market for valks/proms in sedina is already saturated, and is not likely to change much if such an expensive and time consuming way of getting valks/proms were implemented, with a market barrier of a CAPSHIP for gods sake. There are, what, 7 of those now? At least thats what I counted at the event.

So to get back on topic, making ships tradeable shouldn't be a problem for the OP.

Well, as long as you couldn't fly a ship you lack the licenses* for (there are still "laws" in grey, the fact that grey stations still use the license system shows that, even if they're only enforced in station sectors), I guess p2p ship trading wouldn't be that big of an issue. I don't know Crusader in game, but I know Pizza has more game experience than me, and as you both make the same-ish points, so I'm going to concede to the greater experience here, except regarding the license bypass.

*Maybe Corvus stations would let you "activate" some ships at lower levels, but I feel it should stick to base-line ships as it does now. With the license bypass in grey, it'd be a breeze to fly your new trial alt to grey, kit it out with top tier stuff from another alt/account and wreak havok from a "disposable" account. Given the ease of starting up a new trial account, bypassing license requirements (even only in grey) basically grants us anonymous, disposable accounts, which in turn means no accountability.

Dent.

Grey stations enforce licenses when it comes to buying stuff from the station. I'm pretty sure that if you do manage to obtain an item (e.g. from wreckage) that you don't have the licenses for, Corvus will let you equip it. I could be wrong about that though. It's been a while since that was relevant for me.

The no-license weapons EMS distributes are useful for newbs because they can be equipped even in nation space, which where newbs mostly hang out.

If you don't' have the CORVUS license reqs for a weapon, u cant equip it there. Given, corvus license reqs are lower but still u need like 6 heavy for chaos, etc. Its nonneglible for some items and has given me much grief in the past. However, most of the best weapons in the game (lenb,aap,hive posi, megaposi,avalons I think) have littel to no license requirement, making it simple for me to get a great setup in about 2 minutes in (ultra cell, cent, hive posi) even outside of corvus. Note that in this ship and in ships like a dual neut vult, there is NEXT TO NO DIFFERENCE in my combat affectiveness vs something like a corvult with dual lenb etc, if I was gonna loose to that pilot I woulda lost anyways in 95% of cases. Even with me in a corvult dual lenb and rin in a mk i vult with mk i neuts (2/2/-/-/- req at corvus, takes 40 min to get on trials and is imo worse than the cent setup mentioned earlier), rin would EASILY kick my ass. This is all without rockets, because for low levels rockets are hard to get, and heavy 2 is the easiest req in that respect.
Although I suck with rockets so rin would beat me if I used those anyways, they make a difference in some cases.

So as you can see there is no motivation to get a better ship or weps except in rare cases where people are good enough to survive long enough to give a crap (rin, nahin, fbp, etc). Or if that person is incredibly stupid and likes to show off by destroying a ship it took them 700k c worth to get every ~10 minutes if they do constant pvp with anyone decent.

Anyway I still believe this is off the topic of the main OP as we kinda took an offshoot lets move it back ok.