So this can increase the economy of everyone but, Since the Empire has a lot of guys dedicated to hauling crap around it really helps them in a big way. The price spread allows people like haulers to make more money per trip. Wakko's choice: I personally pick Big or Normal. Price Spread - It increases the range at which people buy and sell things allowing for a bigger profit margin per trip. If you are a veteran pick the highest one available, but be prepared to basically stay low until you have the better weapons.

If you want a challenging gameplay, pick tough. If it is your first time playing, pick weak or ordinary, since tough or higher will be way too difficult.

Yao.89's choice: I agree with most of the information above, however, I will go into the specifics a bit more. Furthermore, the pirates love wiping out every station except medical + pirate stations, which would really make it more difficult in the beginning. That and add in how fast they can strip resources off a planet and produce cheap goods that they only sell to friends and you have an extremly strong Faction that has no actual responsibilites. Wakko's choice: I pick Weak or Ordinary because even though the pirates have less resources, especially at the start of the game, they can quickly grow out of control because they are basically are made up of guys who fight everyone including themselves, all the time and the ones that survive for a long time end up being really strong. So all of these guys are playing the game at the same level as you. They will keep there word if you pay them and move to a new target but they will not ask govenours for missions, attapt to go on a miliary run, or take trade missions. Each pirate in the game is playing a deadly game of pay up or i will try to kill you. Each one normaly has a preference for what kind of missions they like to do. So they can ask for a mission from the govenour or they can take a trade run, or just look for a target to attack. Rangers can take offers from any AI just like you. So haulers for example go to places where the race ai told it was the best place FOR THEM (based on there distance and current circumstances) to go and buy things, and then the best place to sell those items. The Rangers and Pirates - Each ship in the game is its own AI that is doing something it was offered. This is similar to the Empire AI except each pirate is a unique individual and they own there own ship. The Pirate AI - This AI controls the Pirate fleets. So there control really devestates a local economy even after they leave or lose the system. The Pirate Govenours - They work like the Empire Govenours except they are actually destroying the economy and trying to get as much out of it as they can before they are pushed out or just leave. Otherwise they can and will work in tandem to try and overwhelm the Empire and pirates. Things like not owning any systems or being trappend between the other AI races with no other prospects will prompt the Machine AI to attack itself. And in this way they are almost on the same team. They will avoid attacking each other unless they are really desperate. The Machine AI - Even though they can not co-exist in the same solar system they can co-exist in the same universe while the Human opponents are alive. They control the production of planets captured by the Machine race and tell there fleets where to go and who to attack. They can not co-exist in the same solar system and will attack each other. The Dominators - Each Dominator race has its own AI. The Empire AI - The Empire itself has an AI that trys to balance the control of all planets between the Races and sets prioritys to taking or defending space. It decides how many ships it would like each planet to send to an offensive fleet. The Race AIs - Each Race AI controls its races fleet. There goal is to make there planet the best of all the other planets in the game and they do compete with each other. There is alot going on in the backround and the Govenours control what happens on each planet. They are actually doing alot of stuff you can not see on the planet like producing goods, ships, equipment, creating missions for haulers, and rangers, and military personel. The Govenours - There are AIs for each planet called Govenours. From my own calculations there are 13 AIs besides the AI for each ship in the game.

Once it starts it can not be changed after that so think about what you are doing and understand that you are not the only one playing. This is your chance to change the way the game plays. It allows you to make some basic selections on how the simulation will run. There is an ARROW pointing down in the difficulty section (Yes sometimes people don't notice this.) You are not controlling the simulation EXCEPT when you first pick the intial options.

Space rangers 2 driver