This post is to create an easier to find record of my response to a running discussion on the Sins2 discord thread.

Echo pretty much answered with everything I would say or better but I'll take one more spin at it.

Its always an interesting observation to see which elements of any game players are willing to suspend disbelief over or not. I would think WW2 fighter maneuvers, sound in space, AOE's only affecting enemy units and not your own, and an endless number of other things would garner more attention. Nonetheless, they all warrant our attention as its valuable feedback.

The economic systems of Sins1 and 2 are very much abstracted with "Pervasive Economy" probably being the worst offender. Nonetheless, like everything we put in the game, we try to come up with some sort of explanation that fits the lore and supports the mechanic. Some are better than others.

Let's start with the TEC lore bit and then dive into the details:

"The TEC have the capability and expertise to setup a massive trading empire on their home turf that gives them a powerful and flexible economy and helps them compete against technologically superior foreign invaders."

I'm not going to argue one way or the other what 'trade' is, I'll just note the definition we went with, the lore behind it, and how it supports us getting the mechanic and gameplay we are looking for:

We went with this paraphrased idea from google:

"Trade benefits are ultimately generated because it allows people to specialize in activities in which they have a comparative advantage."

Trade existed before money existed. Village A made good flint, Village B made good wheat. By trading those goods Village A could focus on flint better and Village B could focus on wheat better. Net increase of flint and wheat for everyone. No money is involved and the guys transporting the flint and wheat probably got a bonus bag of wheat and flint proportional to their risk, distance, etc but the real value generated is the net gain from specialization and comparative advantage of the Villages. Everyone gets more flint and wheat.

The idea we are asking players to believe is that when a trade port is built at a planet it can send and receive trade ships. When those trade ships arrive they are bringing in goods/materials/widgets that allow the host planet to focus on their specialization increasing the net benefit to the empire. Asteroid receives food, people working in the inefficient asteroid greenhouse can now work in the mines. How the game reflects this idea is described in detail above so I won't repeat it here.

I may be misinterpreting your phrasing but I disagree that `sins2 should be a literal (physical) improvement over sins1`. That is not our objective, the goal is to make it better which doesn't necessarily mean a "physical" improvement over Sins1 where I take the assumption that by "physical" you mean "simulation realism". In some areas we improve the simulation realism (e.g. moving turrets, physical missiles, orbiting planets etc) but in some areas we go in the other direction. A good example would be 3d movement control. Realistic and technically possible but didn't serve the game - more appropriate for a smaller scale tactical game. We do whatever we think serves the game better.

Sins1 trade is very abstract with the realistic concepts that long trade routes make more money and killing trade ships can affect your income but in practice doesn't. Sins2 loses those but gains realism in other areas. We think that by expanding the trade system to account for multiple resource types, introducing new decisions around when and where to build trade ports, making decisions around how to allocate your trade capacity, and better reflecting how certain planets are valued is more realistic. There are also a number of other realism arguments to be made but they are relative to the lore so I won't argue on that basis.

Aside from realism, and this isn't the focus of the discussion, these trade changes result in a host of other gameplay improvements and new strategies even in areas that are not directly part of the trade system. I may dive into those at another time.

Finally, Sins2 and the trade system are always evolving and we listen to everyone's comments (hence the change from the early Sins2 trade system). In the last update we actually added two new "simulation realism" mechanics:

1. Killing trade ships now grants the killer a reward for killing it.
2. Trade Escorts were added to give the player who is losing trade ships some additional agency against enriching his enemies. Once researched, escorts will automatically spawn to follow and defend your trade ships.

As always, we'll explore and welcome suggestions for ways to improve trade further.