what class/specialty do you plan on playing for first match?

[ColfaxJones]

think i'll be going with trader, and maybe role play a bit, be an obnoxious salesmen type character. You need ore? I got ya ore! best prices in the galaxy!

[zarkwizard]

Researcher... I just love the jumping techs, and collapsing stars..

Everyone can always use a trader.. I'll be on the lookout for a trader to work with so I can get a good stash of RO. That way I won't have to invest in the Skill to mine the stuff.

[lordxorn]

Can the trader obtain technology through trading?

[zarkwizard]

Can the trader obtain technology through trading?

We have plans for other specialties in the future, and one of them might be along that route...

You can't trade technology.. at least not yet.. The system will allow for it, but for the time being we wanted to scale the game back a little to see what works best. Some of the abilities were held back because we felt it really caused an imbalance to introduce it at this time.

The main thing that traders are designed to do is build faster, and acquire RO natively. They can start mining RO right from the start, and they get a 10% increase for every level in the skill vs the 3% increase other specialties get. This allows the trader the ability to quickly build ships, and defenses. They are also desirable to the other classes because they can provide people with more RO via trading than they can gather on their own. I would think of the trader as the colonizing class. They have more reason to colonize planets for trading / gathering purposes than other classes.

I would imagine the gas giants will be the most contested planets for the traders, since their RO production can be quite high.

[ravenzachary]

We had some entertaining gas giant battles in the last game.

[Cheerio]

fleet! i mean.. combat? whichever gets me there easier :p
i'm too much of a nice guy to actually ruin other peoples days, therefor i'll just take my anger (or lack there of) out on some harmless aliens