[1] Curiosity levels and expedition levels need to be more clearly displayed. Curiosity levels of 4+ and expedition level 3+ needs to be more clearly correlated to epoch 4/epoch 5 strategic resources. 

[2] Curiosity distribution could be more refined.

[3] Strategic resources should have alternative means of production to prevent long periods of market failure.

[4] Market trades should not be real-time but turn-based according to priority determined by researched market technologies (for instance relativistic economics).

[5] Epoch 5 strategic resources require more effort to obtain.


Visual Association between Expedition/Curiosity Levels and Strategic Resources Lacking:

It seems seldom in mid/late game to stumble on enough planets with available level 4 curiosities or level 3 expeditions to trigger the generation of an epoch 4 strategic/luxury resource. Expedition curiosity level 3 is uncovered with the level 3 research evaporative inhibitors.  Unlocking the ability to uncover expedition level 4 (and corresponding epoch 5 strategic resources) is a epoch 5 science research (deep epoch scanners). The player's decision to obtain evaporative inhibitors depends very much on that player's knowledge of the distribution of level 4 curiosities or level 3 expeditions. It also isn't immediately obvious that level 4 curiosities and level 3 expeditions are implicitly correlated with epoch 4 strategic resources. The result is a possibly lagged opportunity for generating epoch 4/5 strategic resources. Curiosity levels and expedition levels need to be more obviously stated.


Epoch 4/5 Strategic Resource Distribution is a Key Midgame Consideration:

The mid game sees players with total scores of 1400+. These players can only get an edge on each other through military weapons tech that requires exploiting epoch 4/epoch 5 strategic resources. Access to these resources is a key priority in mid-game so the game should focus on this aspect. If this important mid-game imperative isn't actionable because the map isn't seeded with enough level 4+ curiosities, then the challenges afforded by the mid-game cannot be widely experienced and the game becomes severely imbalanced. Mid-game resources like epoch 4 strategic resources should be powerful enough to change the distribution of power.


Alternative Means of Resource Production to Normalize Markets:

The availability of strategic resources must be somewhat tied less to the prevalence of level 4 curiosities. This will promote their proliferation. Both strategic and luxury resources should be afforded some kind of alternative means of production to prevent long periods of market failure. Scarcity too disproportionally hits transvine for instance as opposed to some other luxury resources. Synthetic production would normalize markets and promote markets' importance/usage in the overall game. 


Market Information:

Economic research like relativistic economics should give players with these technologies higher "priority" in buying/selling on the market. These players have through their research in effect faster market information. In other words, if I have faster market technology than another player, then I should be able to conduct any trades before that player. 


Epoch 5 Strategic Resource Production

Lastly, a clearer division between means of acquiring epoch 5 as opposed to epoch 4 resources should be established. Epoch 5 strategic resources should only be found in non-star nodes. Exploiting these resources in non-star nodes should require mining infrastructure that can only be built in a non-star node that is within a player's borders. Epoch 5 resources should require some additional specific non-star-node system-wide infrastructure just to generate that resource. Take for example the non-star node: a black hole. Recall that black hole mining tech in es1 unlocked quadrinix. Having to build mining infrastructure in a black hole in order to obtain quadrinix would add additional complexity to the value of quadrinix. Quadrinix would no longer be just another strategic resource that must be obtained with specific kind of research. This complexity would support the fact that epoch 5 resources support game-breaking military-epoch-5 weapon systems. A good first step towards this direction would be to allow the building of mining-infrastructure and star-bases in non-star nodes once that node is covered by a player's territory lines.