Character balance?

[Leedot]

GeeWhiz - The prices wound up going up because I was trying to keep the costs internally consistent so high end ships don't have a disproportionately high cost. Also, at the old costs RO was proportionately cheaper than CO considering the generation rates so they're now more balanced / consistent.

As you say without a way to meet the trader's production it doesn't really matter what the costs are since regardless of what they are the trader will always have more. For the this specific problem we're focused more on getting the costs of the ships to be internally balanced / consistent along with reworking the combat system itself to be more balanced while offering greater strategic depth.

After we have that problem sorted out I think we'll have a better foundation from which to address the greater balance issues with the specialties.

[JetJaguar2000]

If you put those prices in to the game before balancing the specialties, there will be no point in playing anything other than Trader. Cruisers and battleships are the only thing non-Traders can produce in quantities large enough to be effective. With these prices you take that away.

I'm not sure you have actually played the game as a non-Trader. If you cannot capture and hold a number of Jovian planets (and you can't if there's a Trader around who wants them), a non trader will have sub 1000 RO until deep in to the game. At a time when you need stacks of dozens of ships, you'll only be able to make a handful. These costs are the exact opposite of what is needed.