There is a problem with the gamedesign and the logical structure, and the problem is the balance in tradeskills between Engineers and Traders.
The problem is that, in my opinion, that Traders never should be better than Engineers to build a-graded guns, but be good at logistic and trading (that's why they have comp.lit buffs to get better prices, and still have titles like Salesman and CEO)...
Today can Traders raise their tradeskills 5 points each level as the Engineers can, and they also have the huge tradeskill buff (up to 120 points)
So there is a huge imbalance between the Engineers and Traders, and there is many way to fix this (not nerfing), and this need to be fixed to really make an Engineer an engineer and a Trader a trader.
Way to fix the imbalance:
1. This is not an option, but it should be like this before the beta. Traders should only be able to raise their tradeskills (where they have buff) only 4 points each level since they have tradeskills buff to balance this.
3. This is also a nerf, so it isn't an option. Make the tradeskills buff line others only...
2. Give Engineers a tradeskills buffline that stack with the traders buff and is selfonly. This will also balance the skillpoints between the Engineers and Traders. The buff can be half of the traders buff, for example +20, +40 and +60
The most attractive option is point 3, the third option will do as same as the first option (I really think point 1 was intended from the start, but I guess FC was rushing before going through the all this)
Please take a look at the description of Engineers and the description of Traders in the online manual. Do you find any sentence that says Traders are master of weapon, armor, crystal creation??? If you think about this in a logical way, Engineers should be the master of this (they have all the education)
What do you think? And is it possible to get an offical response from Cosmik or Cz - you have never comment this problem...