Seriously, they're an inconvenience to experienced players, and killer to newbs and less experienced players in grey space. With such a huge universe I don't think we need anymore mechanics slowing down travel. My suggestion: Lose them.

I like ion storms. If they were removed, I would be a very unhappy individual.

You suggest we turn off weather in the real world too?

maybe have a way to detect the areas they are in. Have something in each factions space that would keep up with where the ion storms are going an witch way they are moveing. The players of these factions would have to keep this system up an running. Their would be one station in every system that was some type of "space weather station". The station would have requirments that have to be met to keep it up an running. It might need so much ore to brun an give it enegery. It might need so much water to stay working. Players would have to buy, or mine ore an deleiver to this station (not sell to the staton) to keep their own weather network up an going. You would dock with this station to see what it needs then deliver it. Maybe you could get trade an commerce points for doing this. If a faction doesn't keep the station supplyed then it starts giveing iffy reports, updates slower, and finly stops working all together untill members of the faction resupply the station. The station should be able to hold a sirplus of what it needs to run but not so much that it could be stocked so highly that it would run for the next month with out anything deliverd to it. Maybe enough to run it for 3 full days before it starts loseing its 100% abilty.

Putting one of these in each system would give players another gole to work for in each faction. Also base the ammout of what the stations need on an avg. of how many players loggs on for a faction in a given time. So the requirments for a red faction station that has a avg. of 150 players in 2 days time wouldn't be as high as a yellow faction that has an avg. of 300 players in 2 day time.

Another idea I had was to have radio stations that pilots could lisen to that could do any number of things. Some could be different types of music, some could be news, some could be weather reports. Some could be a funny talk show or something. Some would give reports of different stations that need certian items. So players that do alot of trade an comurse runs could lissen to this station an hear that station Dao L11 is in need of "xxx" item. An they can find an deliver it. These radio stations would be based out of the same station that keeps up with the weather reports. Call it a BNW network, (Bussines, News, Weather) and if these BNW network stations lose power an go off line the their functions are no longer deliverd to their faction.

Sorry if I kind of rambled, its something I had been toying around with for a wile about posting but just got to it =p

{FRG} TyGeR

Tyger: please read the in progress page before making posts; a lot of your suggestions are things the devs have made clear they want to do eventually.

New players and inexperienced players should not be in grey space, and if they are, they should realize it is much more dangerous than nation space. The bots are harder, and there are several people who will gladly kill you.

I know this is very redundant to those who know, but how can so many people not realize that storms are 100% avoidable? Seriously, just take the extra 10 seconds to plot a course to an empty sector, going around any occupied sectors, then immediately jump again to your destination. It's not that hard or annoying.

Even in gray space, it's still possible to avoid storms, by going around sectors with "asteroid belt" or "ice field" in their descriptions.

I wouldn't be opposed to a way of manually marking sectors (or automatically after you hit a storm, or someone in your group does), but we don't need detectors or probes or whatever. That is one role you can play in the game. Scout out storm sectors (with a fast ship) and report them to your friends. Could even be enough of a reason to start a storm-chaser guild.

And I think tyger has been playing a little too much GTA. =) It would be cool, but ultimately too hard to make dynamic without sounding like the phone-prompt systems. Although a cheesy TTS feature might be kinda neat (for the first 2 minutes).

The fact that they are avoidable makes them an inconvenience, a time sink; if you can jump around them, why can't you plot a course that avoids them in your nav computer? From there why can't your computer just automatically jump you around them so you don't have to worry about them. They just feel like unnecessary tripwires to me.

Lowguppy, I can see how you would feel that way, they seem like a big annoyance to me also. But to be honest, without them trading is a lot more tedious, at least now you have to put a little strategy into how you plot your course.

I think the key phrase in your post is: "why can't you plot a course that avoids them in your nav computer?"

What I would like to see is the ability to shift-click in your nav screen to plot an additional waypoint in your course.

ion storms aren't that bad. I like finding them and hunting there. The effects are just cool. I think we should have different types of ion storms that don't effect your travel but just look cool :)

/givemoney Devs 2c