hopefully there will be a system put in place where you can type in a players name, bring up their ship screen and send them minerals and artifacts.

when (and if) this system is put in place, i propose we be able to send artifacts that penalize the player that affect them until they scrap the artifact themselves. this isnt a problem for people that play regularly, but can be devestating for people who only get on once every couple days. i know this has been suggested before, but i would like to propose a more thought out method of doing this.

Say youre in a conflict with someone, but they seriously outrank you. well, you could send them an Android Hacker, an Android Spy, or an Android Saboteur.

Android hackers target the research of their vessel. For each android sent over, the player would be 'hacked' every hour until it is destroyed. the sending player would not recieve the research points, they would just be prevented from recieving them until they scrapped the android.

Android saboteurs do roughly the same thing, except it would be like raiding. every hour that they are not destroyed they 'raid' the player. again, the sender does not recieve these points, they are just prevented from getting them.

Android spys are potentially the most dangerous to the player. for every day (24 hour period) that the android is on the ship, the modules will take one level of damage. This isnt a big deal if the player plays every day, or even every 2-3 days, but for players who get on once a week or so they might come back to a completely destroyed ship.

Or say you are trying to disable someone, and they have too much shield for you to get through. You can send them a time bomb. The longer you set the timer, the more damage it would do to the ship. so if you send em one for 15 seconds, it could do maybe 150 damage. but if you set the timer for a day, it would do 864000 damage. (10 damage per second). This artifact would affect hull directly.

Or you can send them a Drannik Worm. it has the chance to randomly remove an ability whenever a new effect is placed on the ship. so if you have 3 attack buffs, and you then put up a calming amp, the worm has a chance to remove any of those buffs until its destroyed. If no effects are added on the ship, it will automatically remove any effect that is used on the ship until after it is removed.

Sent offensive artifacts DO NOT send a message to the recipient when they are recieved. however, a message is recieved when you are affected by them. For example, say i sent an android to a player. they would not be notified when i first sent it. however, when they miss part of a resource shipment they will be notified that an 'unknown intruder interfered with the shipment'. Offensive artifacts DO NOT show up in the search bar after they are sent (so if you search for 'android' you wont see the offensive artifacts that have been sent. you actually have to look for them in your cargo. these offensive artifacts DO take up cargo space, and can be sent if the player is at their cargo limit. they will just show up as having an overflow cargo. The offensive artifacts do not match a specific order in the cargo and show up in a random order. so if you sort alphabetically, then the androids may show up around the 'M's or 'Q's.

i have some other ideas of offensive artifacts, but this is just a starter idea.

+1 its different and i like were it is going. would be nice if you also had one that would drain energy. but you would have to limit the efect to no more than 3 active robots at one time or have a limit on how long they can stay on ones ship.

+1 as to principal tho not sure if agree w/layout entirely. i do like the idea of a distractor to those who continually vist since calming amps are no good anymore

-1 when trading is implemented it needs to be just that ... peaceful trading

why? why just have peaceful negotiations when you can send bombs and saboteurs to your enemies?

I agree with Vekno. If this were real life, people would take advantage of everything they can to overtake their enemy/competition.