Universe "dead" after 20+ hours?

[AkiraR]

So I am a bit over 20 hours in and space feels pretty boring and safe now. There are lots of trading and mining vessels going about, but I almost never see any pirates anymore, very very rarely will I see the occasional random Xenon ship. Things are just so safe, my trading and mining ships go about their business completely un-bothered, even in border sectors where I would assume there would be much more pirate/xenon activity... Maybe it's because I mostly hang out in Argon space and they just have the best defenses and no undesirables get in? Do the pirates just choose not to bother the Argon and instead prey upon the Teladi and Paranid systems? It seams like this is resulting in a stagnation of the economy in the Argon sectors as no ships are being destroyed so nothing is being built so there is almost no demand for the high end refined components in Argon space.

While on the one hand this does suggest there is some kind of dynamic economy/simulation going on it also suggests a need for significant balance passes, although I can't imagine balancing such things to be easy, tweak things one way and suddenly the pirates have taken over the galaxy, tweak it the other way and they are wiped out in a matter of days.

What are other peoples experiences so far? Did I make a mistake in basing my operations in Argon space since they aren't in any kind of conflict? I know there is some kind of civil war going on among the Paranid, should I be fueling that by exporting wares out of Argon space to the Paranid? Is the explanation that I am just bad at this game and don't know what I am doing? FIND OUT on the next episode of... wait...

[Kadatherion]

You perfectly described the issue many (most, I dare say) of us are experiencing, what's most likely its cause and why it's hard to balance in a way that is consistent and doesn't break in the opposite direction. So not much to add, if not the fact there indeed is a need to have more ship getting destroyed: which both means a more thrilling universe to travel in (for obvious reasons) and the economy running as intended without getting to a halt so soon after the game start.

They probably also toned down how far and wide "wars" could go on, and how many ships can factions build, not only to preserve perfomance, but also because there probably isn't any true and tested "real" conquest system. It's the kind of thing that requires months of testing from a lot of people playing extensively, while they obviously didn't have the time to test much quicker and easier things. This is the sort of thing both the devs and the community will keep balancing and refining for much of this game's lifespan (as it was - due differences notwithstanding - for previous Xs, after all).

[AkiraR]

Well, "good" to know it's not just me experiencing this. Rather unfortunate things like this couldn't have been addressed during development. This combined with the fact that their are so many bugged out missions, I have yet to be able to complete a single set of 'war' missions from the Argon as every time at least one of the sub-missions is bugged out and can't be completed, suggests a complete lack of comprehensive play-testing/QA. I understand that Egosoft is a small studio, and what they have achieved here is pretty great, but I also don't appreciate being used as an unwitting QA tester. At least inform me before hand by making the game Early Access or something to indicate it's still unfinished nature.