One thing that has come to my attention recently and across time is the Black Market screen.
*We have the Diplomacy Screen, Useful, helps us forge pacts and treaties with eachother.
*We have the new Relations Screen, Useful, helps us see what our allies think of us and others. With Diplomacy this is very useful.
*We have the Research Screen, very useful, It helps us advance and do much much more. It is probably the most important screen.
*Then here comes the issue, the Black Market Screen, We do NOTHING with this, the minibox in the corner of our screen lets us buy and raise bounty.
So here is what I am saying-
With Diplomacy perhaps this will change slightly with Pirate Missions or such, The Black Market screen is useless practically. It has about 2 purposes, pirates, and exchange, both of which can be easily accomplished with the mini-bar.
It is useless and I never open it, though this may change slightly with diplomacys "Pirate Missions". I proclaim we buff up the Black Market Screen. Isn't the Black Market a great thing to go deeper into? With Diplomacy even more so!
Here are some ideas on how to "buff up" the Black Market screen-
1. You know how all the other screens have mini categories? (Ex, Research has Military, Civilian, Defense, Diplomacy, Fleet, Artifacts. Diplomacy has all the Players.) The Black Market only has 2. Pirates and Exchange. I suggest more would be added perhaps like Informants from a past post of mine (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372344) or some other great Black Market Ideas. There are so many things to a Black Market, Pirates, Bounty, Exchange, Think of what else could be added! I have some ideas as to what other categories of "Black Market" could be added but I will leave them up to you for now.
2. Removal. This is the worst idea but a legitimate option since we have the little mini-bar. The Black Market screen since it's useless is just taking up space on the top of our screen. I do not want this idea to happen though.
3. Perhaps forging secret deals with other players or pirates. Like giving a percentage of your income to Player X in exchange for Permanent good relations until you decide to revoke the deal. Or Making alliances without other Players knowing about them.
4. Selling to Pirates! We could give pirates ships, starbases, Capitol Ships, Perhaps even Planets in exchange for resources or not being attacked for a set amount of time. This would make the pirates harder because they would have more variety in ships and It would give you an advantage from whatever they offered you in return!