The Corporate Hero isn't very useful in my opinion. Trade route abilities don't help much if everyone keeps declaring war on me.



We need some direct science and Dust boosting abilities similar to the Administrator's skillset.





Scientific Analysis: The hero looks into scientific applications of his Dust modifications, recording a large about of data about Dust and being affected about it. This is a major boost to system scientific analysis: (+20 science)



Divining Rod: The Hero can sense where major Dust lodes may be found in the system, increasing overall system Dust production. (+10 Dust on system)



Dust Rationing: The hero begins to refine their ability to efficiently use dust, reducing their Dust maintenance cost by 25%.



Stock Player: The Hero knows how to manipulate local markets for more efficiency and profit. +20% more Dust on system.



Private Security: The Hero has invested in a series of private armies and mercenaries to improve their ground-fighting capability. +5 Melee

I LOVE these ideas, really great. Also, I suggest an overall of the Trade Route system. I think your own systems should give trade routes to each other, but foreign ones are way more lucrative. That would help as well.

Good Idea. I agree with you. The corporate hero´s abilities need to be overhauled

I like the "trade between local systems is good, but foreign trade routes are better!" thing too. Civilization 4 did this and I think it worked pretty well, a downside to war without making trade routes useless.

Out of the endless space wikia

Corporate Hero



Industry-Academic



Partnership

+20% 16px-science.gif on Star System Dust Wielder 1

There is one science boosting ability for the corporate heroes. It is just unbelievably unintuitive to find it, since it needs "Dust Wielder" as a prerequisite. And that just cuts down on ability cost during battles.

Perhaps one of the Corporate traits should be the ability to trade with Hostiles. That would dramatically improve the usefulness of Trade-boosting abilities on the Hero and make Corporate-Only development paths viable later in the game. Call it 'Smuggler' or 'Free Trader'. Or make it levelled. Free Trader would be the first level, enabling trade with hostiles at a significant penalty. Smuggler would be the second level that works without the penalty.



Actually, that might be better fit for an Adventurer hero... It'd make Adventurer/Corporate a really sought after combination in that case.



I would suggest calling 'Dust Rationing' something like 'Independently Wealthy'. The maintenance cost of the hero isn't just how much Dust they need for their abilities (though that's part of it). It's also their salary! The maintenance cost could conceivably be reduced for a hero who had achieved tremendous personal success. They're not as dependent on their salary at that point, and continue working because it's personally fulfilling.



I really like the Divining Rod idea, and I think that kind of affinity fits strongly with what Dust is. I don't like the name 'Divining Rod'. I don't have a better idea, though. In any case, it would help players subsidize low-tax regimes early in the game, which could be a significant start-up boost and would reduce the dominance of Administrators in the early game. I think Administrators would still be the most powerful, just... slightly less so.