I have always liked the old way the game was balanced in general. As someone who exclusively played single player, the way the game used to be was very fun, albeit a bit broken due to being in alpha. There was always a general flow to the game, where I would make a new save, build a ship > mine for money > build better ship > truck resources between shops for money / start mining planets/stations > make huge ship > fight pirates > get insanely rich and powerful > build massive station and massive ship > dominate galaxy and build new ships.
I understand of course, that in multiplayer this form of economy was completely terrible, because as soon as a new server went up, people would get insanely rich and powerful within only a few hours, and as a result, new people coming into servers would just get dominated instead of really doing anything fun, so of course something needed to change. However, despite multiplayer improving massively over the years, single player has been left in shambles and is no longer a good game. The flow of the game is now roughly: Build a small ship > start mining asteroids > make bigger ship > tediously mine planets for expensive minerals > build medium sized ship after hours of grinding > start building factories > grind out blocks for hours and hours > build big ship after way too much grinding of the same materials over and over > fight pirates > normal end game scenario.
After about 12 hours it is about the same as it has always been, but the barrier to fun gameplay is WAY too large now. What used to take maybe 3 or 4 hours of constant progression to bigger and better objectives until you were satisfied enough to fight with the big boys, is now 12 hours of the same extremely stagnant and boring grinding over and over again until you are ready to do something bigger or just quit the game because it is extremely boring.
The problem here is that multiplayer becomes more fun the better it is balanced, because that usually means the more skilled or dedicated players are more likely to come out on top, and keeps things fair and reasonable. In single player it is the exact opposite, with the exception of the old stations which were broken and way too easy and boring to mine away at for hours, it is almost always more fun to have an unbalanced, more fast paced game with no consideration for what it might be like with other players involved.
Solution: Just balance them seperately. Restore shops so that things aren't the exact same price everywhere, restore cacti and ice crystals so that there is actually a good reason to mine planets instead of just meticulously searching for those l4 and l5 minerals. Make the current stations easier to reclaim than they are now (not like they were though, oh god that was broken,) just make things more fun. Right now single player straight up is not worth playing, it isn't fun, it isn't rewarding, it is just an extremely slow extremely boring grindfest.
I understand of course, that in multiplayer this form of economy was completely terrible, because as soon as a new server went up, people would get insanely rich and powerful within only a few hours, and as a result, new people coming into servers would just get dominated instead of really doing anything fun, so of course something needed to change. However, despite multiplayer improving massively over the years, single player has been left in shambles and is no longer a good game. The flow of the game is now roughly: Build a small ship > start mining asteroids > make bigger ship > tediously mine planets for expensive minerals > build medium sized ship after hours of grinding > start building factories > grind out blocks for hours and hours > build big ship after way too much grinding of the same materials over and over > fight pirates > normal end game scenario.
After about 12 hours it is about the same as it has always been, but the barrier to fun gameplay is WAY too large now. What used to take maybe 3 or 4 hours of constant progression to bigger and better objectives until you were satisfied enough to fight with the big boys, is now 12 hours of the same extremely stagnant and boring grinding over and over again until you are ready to do something bigger or just quit the game because it is extremely boring.
The problem here is that multiplayer becomes more fun the better it is balanced, because that usually means the more skilled or dedicated players are more likely to come out on top, and keeps things fair and reasonable. In single player it is the exact opposite, with the exception of the old stations which were broken and way too easy and boring to mine away at for hours, it is almost always more fun to have an unbalanced, more fast paced game with no consideration for what it might be like with other players involved.
Solution: Just balance them seperately. Restore shops so that things aren't the exact same price everywhere, restore cacti and ice crystals so that there is actually a good reason to mine planets instead of just meticulously searching for those l4 and l5 minerals. Make the current stations easier to reclaim than they are now (not like they were though, oh god that was broken,) just make things more fun. Right now single player straight up is not worth playing, it isn't fun, it isn't rewarding, it is just an extremely slow extremely boring grindfest.
