As soon as you put a weapon on a civilian ship, it can no longer be called as such. By convention, civilians cannot participate directly in combat, otherwise they are unprivileged combatants and are not to be considered prisoners of war in the event of capture.

i really dont see the need for weapons to be added to civilian ships. They have no place on the battlefield, but just like in real life, they get caught up in the cross fire or are targetted because of their role that supports their opponents.

a fully upgraded TEC trade n ref ships (repelon + CSSA) gives 10 armor.thats pretty hard u know

and how is flak going to do anything? they arent even capable of being utilized they go where they damn well want to. And flak wont stop a light frig or bigger smash it. It might get lucky once and awhile and heavily damage a single SC but it surely wont stop it from being destroyed.

yeah, its called assign a LF to a trade ship.

this would be a waste of military ships witch could otherwise be of  use in farflung battles elsware.

that is why you would need the the civilan fleet to have wepons fore deffencive perposes.

tru

 Adding a weapon is pretty much making it a armed warship therefore its not a civillian. the only remedy it'd need is increase the armor more and possibly add shielding. Maybe the EMP, but adding a flak cannon doesn't really help.

heres why civilian ships wouldnt fair well with weapons. Pirates. They are the ones usually going after tradeships and const. frigs. not SC (except in Sun GWs) so flak would only become instrumental in particular cases. Not all around. And like I said before it wont accomplish anything. Theyll still die. More then likely before even getting a shot off considering the amount of combat oriented units attacking it. 1 LF might not get the job done, but really theres not much you can do. any weapon you add to a civilian ship will be soo weak against a combat oriented unit that it wont even count as stalling. Im pretty sure the Devs would never add a strong weapon to a civilian unit considering its primary role, and its size. Not to mention the fact that no matter how many tradeships or const frigs are destroyed their automatically replaced without your attention deviating from the bigger picture. Plain and simple. its a nice idea if this game was alot more vast and detailed. But when it comes down to it. Its unneccessary. And a waste of effort to change something that isnt in a position that needs an emergency change. You wanna be a Tradership Captain....your gonna have to risk your life with nothing but the hull and your phase engines to protect you.

always, it is part on the streamlined effect of Sins, though it does cost ya, (like 5 credits or something)

ah true, thanks for the correction

omg, i lost the ability to buy LUNCH because my trade ship was destroyed!!!

holy cow is it really 5 credits? because thats pitiful...

if you really felt a pinch when trade ships were destroyed or trade routes interrupted, then id talk about defending them, but as it is?

From Mr. Wiki:

"The base income rate for a trade port is 1 credit per second. 0.075 credits per second are added to the income for each of your trade ports for each jump in the longest trade route you have. For example, if you have a continuous trade route 4 jumps long, you would earn 1.3 credits per second at each of your ports.".

The problem with armed merchants is their potential use as essentialy extra protection in larger games, since they would have to be strong enough to make a diffrence. I think maybe a mini-flak turrent, deployed from ships, would work better.