Forcing drone control on us if we want to trade would be a bad design choice. Whilst it could be handy like you said in infinite runs, it doesn't really warrant it in normal runs. We'd seldom get the chance to make high profits out of it, and we'd be stuck with a drone control not knowing if we'll be able to get it to a state in which it won't be a waste of a system slot by the end.
Not without removing the other downsides of trading such as fleet advancement and what not. On the other hand, it does give ships starting with drone control an quick boost. For now, the ships starting with drone control (other than Mantis B) have nothing special to them. By that I mean the special options given to us through augments such as mantis pheromones, rock plating and slug gel.
Problem is, these augments are to some extent already a balancing factor to "nerf" trading on them a bit as those three augments, well... take up an augment slot as well.
Seems like this whole trading business is a lot deeper then we thought....
Bonnie Lass wrote:Okay so apparently quests CAN be cross-sector, so why not just make it so trade-goods give you a quest that stores can check for?
What good would that do? (Legit question since I might be missing.) Every store can be considered a quest marker if you're looking to get rid of the trade good. It doesn't change the fact that blue options (again, probably) can't be used if the item that gives it is in your cargo hold. That combined with the fact that events can't take away your equipment means that after doing the trade, you're still stuck with the augment/drone/weapon if there isn't a store straight after it, this could result in having like 6 stores in a single sector. If you thought the quest marker could serve as a shining beacon saying : "There's a shop here, put your trade goods in the slot." then you're right, but a normal store marker is just as effective at that, as long as you pay attention to whether you're fighting a ship or not.