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I'll put my two cents in here. For reference, I fall under the "a single player (with enough time on their hands) can perform every task in the manufacturing chain by themselves and doesn't require the help of anyone else" category for the most part. It took a long time to finally amass enough refineries and autofactories of all types, a freighter and a superhauler to launch an in-game "floating department store" that supports bulk manufacturing of all shipping supplies. In order to maximize profit, I mostly did my own gathering, refining, and manufacturing, and outsourced some to meet product demand. Within one in-game year, I've sold a bit over 3000 manufactured products with roughly 20k tons of manufactured products and refined materials in my cargo holds at the moment.

With that being said, my experience of doing this for the past game year has been nothing but tedium. (My freighter's name is also "TDM XII" ). It hasn't been the most fun experience, and although the business has been successful and the roleplaying opportunities that come with having a shipping supply delivery service has been neat, it really has had the feeling of "OMG, my experience of this game feels like just another job." Plus, the amount of profit generated from sales pales in comparison to the amount of effort I feel that I've put forth to make this work. It supports the statement "we feel there is very little room for profit and growth for players in the manufacturing sector" in the announcement post. What's kept me going is the thought of what would happen if all manufactures said "screw it" and decided to go on strike. It would effectively halt any growth of ship/space anything (particularly if all shipforge supplies went away), and that's scary. I came to Starmourn because of piloting and ships. It's really unique to Starmourn, and I want to see the game succeed.

With all that being said, I like the potential that's found in having to specialize in gathering, refining, or manufacturing. It helps focus the economic experience from an individual standpoint, and hopefully it promotes a much more vibrant interchange between players in each part of the manufacturing chain. I'm also all for trying out new things. Manufacturing as it is right now takes a lot of effort and time, while the reward for such activities doesn't come close to the effort put forth.

As far as specializing is concerned, I hope that we have a detailed explanation of the benefits of each specialization, so that we can make educated decisions on what to specialize in, or at least the possibility of changing manufacturing specializations down the road, should we find the need to do so. I don't think this will happen, but if everyone ironically decided to specialize is the same exact thing without any way of changing specs, the economy won't work.

I'd also like clarification of "planets we can visit" in planet exploration. Does this mean only the planets that can you can access from an existing station, or does it also include planets like "RS-4554-(insert planet name here)" that you can technically "visit" while in a ship, but doesn't have a dock?

  

<pre>From: Ilyos, the Arbiter
Subject: Development updates - Upcoming economy changes!

Greetings Starmourners!

We have talked, discussed and planned and we have a solid overview on what's to happen with the economy in our next update. So let's talk about it! There is some heavy stuff here!


First up, while commodity generation feels way better right now, we still believe we can improve the returns on how much time you spend seeking comms versus what (and IF) you actually find something. Combining that with a suggestion from players that we loved very much, we're going to introduce the first "Planetary Exploration" mechanic in the game. Here's an overview of what you might expect there:
- On specific planets that you can already visit, there will be a place where you will be able to begin your EXPLORATION. This will put you in a randomly generated mini areas, full of danger and excitement. Your goal there will be to set up triangulation equipment in certain spots around the area and initiate an area scan that will determine if there are exploitable resources in the area and what they are.
- Once everything is set up you might find something, a lot of something, or nothing at all. If you find something, you mark the spot and send a broadcast into space which allows anyone to come pick up the commodities found with their ships (you can't very well haul hundreds of kilograms of titanium in your backpack). Alternatively, you can outright sell your discovery to a NPC org.
- There is a small chance you might find a huge cache of commodities. If that happens, the area will be flagged as open PK for a few minutes, as a discovery so important becomes up for grabs. (details will come at a later date)
- There will be a cooldown per planet per player

Next on our list is the manufacturing chain. Now this one is VERY IMPORTANT, so please read on! We feel there is very little room for profit and growth for players in the manufacturing sector and close to no reason for a new player to join the manufacturing chain unless they want to do have some facilities for themselves. Also, a single player (with enough time on their hands) can perform every task in the manufacturing chain by themselves and doesn't require the help of anyone else. Additionally, a single wealthy player can completely fulfill the sector's refining needs and doesn't even need to be around for this to happen. This is not what we had in mind when we set out to create a balanced economy. As such, there will be some major revamps to the system.

Among them, we have the following:
- Players will be able to specialize in Mining, Refining or Processing. While performing tasks in all three areas will still be possible, you will have some bonuses while doing your specialization's activity and/or some maluses while doing things from another type of activity.
- You will only be able to own a fixed amount of refineries and autofactories spanning a VERY narrow spectrum of types. If you specialize in Refining or Processing, this cap will increase slightly
- Autofactories will be open to everyone, just like refineries
- If you go inactive and don't log on for a number of days, your refineries and factories become inactive and will be delisted from public service
- Based on your specialization, you will have special missions that will pay a great deal more than the average order/mission, hoping to narrow the gap a little between how profitable it is to be someone in the manufacturing industry and a hunter

There will be a few more changes, but these are the important ones so far. However, in order to make this possible, we will need to start anew with everything in manufacturing. Since there will now be many limitations to the system, it is required that you are all given the option to choose what you want to do and specialize in regarding the manufacturing chain. So, that means the following: WHEN THESE CHANGES WILL GO LIVE, ALL EXISTING FACTORIES AND REFINERIES IN THE GAME WILL BE DELETED AND PLAYERS WILL BE REIMBURSED.

This is not a decision taken lightly and we understand that it might be hard to swallow, but we feel it is for the best.

Alongside these changes, we will also be doing some more modding work and improvements to the CAC system (most notably increasing the duration of the rewards). We can discuss about those later, for now we believe that the information above is enough to mull over. It will still be some time until everything is implemented, so please, let us know your thoughts and comments on the above!</pre>

At the end of the day I think this is the wisest priority for the health of the game. Well done, us! Good luck, dev team!