I am frankly a bit perplexed at some of the posts in this thread. They are very different from my way of thinking
Of COURSE one person does not have that much influence in a nation. But then again, of COURSE I am not playing a person.
When I play Aurora, I AM my nation. From the highest official, to the lowliest gunner aboard a warship. I am the entire population of the race I'm playing.
How else would I instantly know what is happening to every ship, even when they all alone in a system far away? Because I impersonate and roleplay the entire civilization. As such there is no thing as too much control, because I am every single fictional person of the entire race.
Which is why, by the way, I dislike civilians, period. I can understand how they fit into some possible roleplays of a nation, I just don't like them all that much, because I can control them way too little.
I do agree however that civilians need to be developed a lot better, if they are to stay. Steve's latest changes to civilian trade and movements of installations are a step in the right direction, but in my opinion they are not enough.
IF one plays with the civilians, I do not have that much of a problem with "Phantom fuel and minerals" that the civilians seem to be able to obtain. I too have always roleplayed it as the civilians getting their hands of low-grade TN minerals that the state dos not see as pure enough to use. Although I don't like it, as stated above, it's the least "offensive" way to think of the situation.
Specifically however, I think the following capabilities should be added, in order to flesh out the civilians more:
- The ability to ship everything the nation asks for. Minerals, installations, trade goods, ship parts.
- The ability to prioritize a cargo transfer request, if the nation pays more. In that case a civilian ship should ignore other possible routes, and just go and ship that one thing
- The ability to interdict civilians from certain places. If I don't want civilians to go into a system for whatever reason, I should be able to block them. If not, I'll blow them up. Because I refuse to lose my civilization because idiot civilians went into a system with an
invader wormhole while I'm trying to lay low. Roleplay is everything.
- The ability to subsidize a planet's production of certain trade goods, if I want to do so, or to avoid the production of certain trade goods. Because when I roleplay an autocratic nation, I should definitely be able to do so.
- A more proportionate civilian fleet, based on the size of the nation / of the number of colonies / of the size of those colonies. Because no matter how rich a shipping line is, it makes no sense for them to create many ships if all I have is a 2 million colony on the Moon. I am unsure if Steve already added something along these lines.
- The existence of "shipping line shipyards". Because it makes no sense that shipping lines can create ships from nothingness. They need to have their own "company shipyard", which can also be blown up. It should cost wealth and time for them to rebuild it if it gets blown up.
I think all these would definitely be steps in the right direction.