[digitCruncher]

What a game with such... potential. And yet... it fails so miserably.

If you go anywhere with even a smidgen of unstability (Corporate Police, IMO, is the second most stable system in the galaxy, second only to Federation Rule)... and you WILL be attacked at LEAST 20 times... often with entire fleets. As a result you are limited to 5 (Count them... 5. I did...) systems that you can go in with a mediocre combat ship without getting swamped with 6 or 9 combat ships in a WAVE... I can do 1 on 1 (and OCCASIONALLY 1 on 2), but try taking on 6 ships when you are in a worse ship than all 6 other ships -.-

Cargo scoops are impossible. Literally... it takes about 20 minutes to pick up a resource. 1 thing that should be in any game where things 'drop' things... the things that should be dropped should NOT require you to be within 10 meters of the ship... especially if it takes 5 minutes just to get within 100 meters -.- Traction Beam Cargo Scoops are marginally better (Read: The Automatic pilot can get them in about 4 runs, after about 8 minutes) 10 meters, is literally impossible to get to. In comparison, you only need to be within 1km to get pulled into an orbital station -.-

So... considering that you can only go through 4 systems, you are grinding away, doing trades for over 10 hours, from Sol -> Bernards Star and back (and later, you can go to that farming place, if you are willing to take out 10 waves of lone pirates, for some variety).

After getting bored, I decided to do some military quests. First quest: Blank Disks to Bernard Star. No problem. I deliver, and get $300... which is worth the profit of 0.7 robots -.-

Next mission, $500 for another delivery quest. No problem. I dive into the system... get swamped by 7 elite ships. No problem... reload... and try again.

After 30 minutes, I give up. Black mark #1 for me... So I try and get another quest. Delivery quest to Proxima Centauri. GREAT!! A simple quest, that should take no distance, as I am at Sol anyway...

Warp into Proxima... and look for Eden (the base). I look some more. Use the navigation computer, and ...

1000 freaking AU away is Eden. I have 10 days, to travel over 10 times the distance that I have ever travelled. I use no less than *4tonnes* of Hydrogen fuel, and it takes me *2 months* to get there. (From March 1st, to April 22nd). I get a second black mark, and decide to quit the game, as slow trading (and I mean SLOW) doesn't interest me.

My question is this: Why do systems in Federation control have piracy problems in all but 5 systems, and how do regular ships survive and trade in such situations? The other two groups are even WORSE (There ARE no safe systems -.-). There is no difficulty settings, and some worlds, especially Binary Systems, have insane layouts. Why warp to the largest star, if the smaller star is where all the other planets are?? Why must I travel 120 AU to the nearest colony (or 1000 -.-), when it is orbiting another star...

This game is FULL of balance, gameplay, and design issues, which otherwise could be a great game. I am surprised this game didn't kill the entire "Explore and Trade and Fight in Space" theme, with its endless grinding, poor balanced combat, and negligable leveling system (I think that if I got a decent craft, I could go anywhere, and fight anything... up from 5 systems -.-)