Firs off I want to say that I like the leveling system and that it's looking good.

I suggest an evolution to it, rather than a change.

I'm a trader. I'll probably be a trader/miner once mining is implemeted (tomorrow?).

Why then do I require a higher level heavy weapons lisence to buy myself a cargo hauler?
I suggest the system evolves in this direction:

With a levels 0/0/0/5 I should be able to get a fast charge battery and a Centaur.
I would not be able to arm it well, and only the "Long range cargo hauler" version of the Centaur would be available.

It would be talor-made for trading: Huge cargo space, low manuverability, mid-range hull thickness and a fast engine.

If this game is truly to become "do as you wish"-style then the need to level up in all four levels should be abolished.
I'm not here to blow stuff up, I'm here to run from pirates and make profits. Maybe take down one or two pirates while I'm at it.

In order to stand more of a chance against pirates I'd level up to 2 or 3 on heavy weapons to get some nice missiles, but that would be based on me WANTING to do so, not HAVING to do so to get the cargo hauler I want.

Also, in relation to this, I want to suggest "Trader weapons".

- Chaff pod, small port, diverts missiles away from me with a 50% chance the missile will follow the chaff and not me.
Level: -/-/-/3
Higher chance with cheap missiles.
Ammo: 20 pods at 500c per pod.
The idea here is to make it possible, but not easy, to evade homers.

- Blocker mines, large port, creates a huge shockwave to confuse bots and push away pirates.
Level: -/-/-/4
Similar to the ...i forgot what they're called... mines allready in the game, except theese are timed, not proximity triggered.
[edit]Range of the shockwave should be very large, but do little or no damage.[/edit]
5 second fuse, maybe available in 10 and 2 second models aswell.
How about going into a roid field and letting one go in there... Goodbye pirates!
Ammo: 10 mines at 300c per mine.

- Automated turret, large port, aims a weapon at the targeted object.
Level: -/-/-/5
The turret itself cannot be fired, it'll just track the current target with the lead needed to (somewhat) accurately fire the weapon assosiated with it.
Weapon assosiation is done by placing them in the same group.
The turret will move rather slowly and based on the mass of the weapon being moved. The turning should be 360 degrees horisontaly and 180 degrees vertically, creating a semi-sphere of operation. This opens for the heavy mountpoints on the ship to be up, down, left, right, forward or downward facing according to what best suits the ship model. On the current Centaur I think this would be up or down.
While a target it selected it draws 5 points per second from the battery.

Placing multiple turrets on a single ship should be possible, but if a weapon is grouped with several turrets the one with the lowest mountpoint number (furthest up in the list) should be the one actually used.

Ofcourse, all this requires a lot of ironing out, so please feel free to comment.

//Zathras

I like your ideas of having chaff pods and other missle blockers that are less offensive and more defencive, especially for what you are referring too (purely a cargo vessel). There already are mines that you can lay down and there are some really nice weapons that track quite well in the higher level licences, you just need to the the licences. I agree though that for those that wish to purely be cargo oriented there should be some less offences weapons that are available for you to use.