[Rasorow]

It sounds nice that you have these space trading stations and etc outside your mine field but to use a modern day analogy warships do infact go into harbors, past the mine fields, past all harbor mid and long range defenses and dock. Not to mention the possibllity of Q-ships.

It is reasonable that you could escort ships past a changing minefield - See Red Storm Rising for one method of implementation (Tom Clancy) but I think have trade stations when a space station is as expensive as it is (least early on) is stretching it.

Personal opinion is I think the game works as is and it is not a gamey tatic. Its not a nice tactic, your allies and your enemies will remember the tactic and wonder about ever trusting you, (and personally I would come after you with everything I had to take you down as much as possible even if I had no hope of winning, nor would I surrender to you)

Which touches on other things on the list

- surrendering to a preferred enemy or ally instead of a hated enemy, - not gamey - plenty of Real World happenings - WWII Germany preferred to surrender to US/British Forces instead of Russia

Rasorow