1. New crew member: Diplomat. Each diplomat gives you +10 cr per hour. This would give another way to make an income that didn't rely on mining. Missions are great and all but not much of a source of income. A persistent income would help at low to mid levels most, giving deminishing returns as colonization gets more expensive. Unless somebody wanted to specialize, of course - in which case they could become a galactic tycoon, investing in diplomats. It would also allow some income for those who don't play as often. (Maybe "diplomat" is the wrong word to use - but you gt the idea!)

2. Storage! If we didn't rely on selling resources for money, we could stash them - minus 10% course, since we all know how Irixiom has a habit of falling off the back of the freighter. This would keep them safe from raids, and we could stockpile them to use later or bargain with other players. We have all these planets, seems a little odd that we can't stash a few crates here and there. This could either be a generic "bank" or, even better we could store resources on a planet (making them vulnerable to planet raids.)

3. Banking. Not much need to bank our cash right now. But if PvP combat rewards (or hacking!) were to include winning some of another player's cash (as discussed in other threads), then a galactic bank would be the next logical step. With that 10% handling fee, of course.

1) ok i really think the diplomat is a waste of creating..... since the way that crew members works is about to be changed there is not point really.... the ONLY reason i could see in creating a diplomat is IF bank were introduced and then have the diplomat increase hourly what is in the bank.. like interest

2) a store option does sound like a good thought... but on the other hand... that would defeat the purpose of raiding much, and we need more pvp stuff.... and it would defeat the purpose of even BUYING cargo holds or the max that you can hold in minerals, artifacts or research.... and honestly... there really is allready a store option in place.. that's in the trade section where it says recieve minerals every hour... it would just be like DOUBLE storage in the game and defeat even putting points into cargo holds.

3) If something in PVP does get instated where we CAN win someone else's money.. then a bank might be a good idea... but i think the game is pretty balanced right now... i mean most of the money you actually earn, by the time you can colonize another planet, you kinda have to spend and if you conquer that's even more money.. so there's not a WHOLE lot of extra income anyway... and if you DO have extra income... your basically hurting yourself.. this game is about balancing your income to just a little bit over what you need and putting the rest in research... if you are making ALOT over what you need in income then i think you need to drop some mining planets and get some more research.. it'll do ya better in the long run.. so banks IMO just aren't to needed right now unless there is going to be a PVP idea where you can get cash raiding