Skyrates radio today was talking about proposed changes to the skill tree. So far for Trade, the currently active idea is:

First tier skills: Negotiation, Tax Evasion, and Trade Prestige.

Second tier skills: Leadership (Prereq: Negotiation)
Creative Storage (Prereq: Negotiation)
Cutthroat Business (Prereqs: Negotiation and Tax Evasion)
Farm Mogul (Prereq: Tax Evasion)
Industry Tycoon (Prereq: Tax Evasion)
Black Market (Prereq: Trade Prestige)

Third tier skills: Smuggling (Prereq: Creative Storage)
Luxury Schmuxury (Prereqs: Industry Tycoon and Black Market)

A suggestion was also made to move Salvage Ops under Combat Infamy, and to rename it, making it CP-only.

That looks good to me.

xander

EDIT: OR, someone else can do it nicer, better, and faster.

I'm a clueless newbie, and I don't mind the current setup at all, but this looks fine too.

The only one that seems to get left out is farm mogul - would people still take it?

as a not so hot trader, I really, really, really hate having to dump points into Negotiation to get anywhere. I have never, not once, negotiated my way out of a fight. Ran, yes. Got shot down, yes. Shot my way through hordes of Goldfish, yes. Bribe? NEVER! just for the record, my tp is a mere 280... fp 600... and cp, well, yeah. a lot.

I agree with Ell. I don't negotiate with scum. And I hired a trader to negotiate business deals.

I'm thinking that detaching Creative Storage from having a prerequisite makes a lot of sense, even if it's an awesome skill.

Also, in hephaestus' scheme, I'd say swap the positions of Trade Prestige and Tax Evasion. I like Tax Evasion leading into Black Market, since it's tapping an illegal themed vein.

Unsurprisingly, I am going to argue that the current tree is fine. Creative storage is the best trade skill there is. So it should certainly require a lot of CP (ie a prereq). I also strongly support having salvage ops remain a hybrid skill. I think it is a good thing when players are encouraged to try a little of everything, even if they want to focus on one thing. My aly, Rugert didn't have too much trouble getting Salvage Ops up to lvl 4, and I wasn't even micro-managing him particularly hard.
As for Lux-Shmux, while it is theoretically the best of the specific good trade skills, the truth is that none of those skills are that valuable compared to cutthroat biz and an actual trader. I ran my logs through excel (thank you Text To Columns!) and found that 20% of my total profit so far in this round came from my trader (even after wages and combat pay). So that's my two cents.

I agree with Ellington about Negotiation. I have never understood why it should be a pre-req for Creative Storage. And it has always annoyed me that I need to waste my precious TP on it so I can max out my storage.

I also never bribe scum. I shoot them down and laugh as they auger into the ocean below!

Maybe it does need a pre-req skill but Negotiation makes absolutely no sense to me as the pre-req. Maybe Trade License makes more sense?

I don't know, if you accept that Negotiation is being used as a prereq to keep you from getting to more valuable skills, then it makes sense to have it be a prereq - but I would say that it should be a prereq for Tax Evasion, Farm Mogul, Industry Tycoon, and Black Market. These three should be prereqs for Luxury Schmuxury.

I'd say that Smuggling should be a prereq for Creative Storage.

I'd actually suggest the reverse, Creative Storage as a prereq for Smuggling.

I think a possible idea would be making Creative Storage a hybrid Flight/Trade point skill, rearranging the tree as such:

Trade Prestige and Fuel Efficiency as prereqs for Creative Storage. (The Merchant Guild teaches you how to optimize Cargo space, and the Fuel Efficiency ensures that you can haul the extra weight, as a rationale.)

Negotiation becomes a Pre-Req for Leadership, which becomes a pure Trade Point skill and makes lot more sense in terms fo progression, IMO.