`John like agents and he knows. That's good enough for me.'
The galaxy in TEP will be somewhat more exciting and dynamic than that found in other space games, most notably Frontier. The player will be able to interact with the various powers and as such make a substantual difference to the way the galaxy runs.
The first point of note is that the important citizens of the TEP galaxy will be simulated at all times, by their own AIs. This basically means all spacefairing ships. They behave within a set of rules and are called agents.
A large part of the income of the player will come from trading cargo. This is true of many of the other space faring ships. Unsurprisingly, some systems are better suited to producing some types of goods than others and set their prices accordingly, for example a farming world might need computers and machinery. However, if we are considering a small terraformed moon and three large cargo ships turn up and flood the market, prices are going to fall. In addition, well known safe trading routes, plied by many trading ships are unlikely to yield huge profits as large gluts and deficits are unlikely to develop (cf. Sol/Barnard's Star in FE2).
As a direct result of this, trading in TEP becomes far more interesting. Well known trading routes are unlikely to give huge profits but are safe and good for beginning players. However, large profits are to be made on the dangerous frontier systems where few traders dare to tread (the AI regulates this).
As such, a situation develops where profit and danger are pretty much proportional. However, the wily captain with an ear to the ground might catch wind of the beginnings of a famine, covered up by a proud government. If he is to be at the right place at the right time with a cargo full of grain, he should turn a nice profit with little danger. The same goes for the captain with spare battle weapons at the outbreak of a new war.
The economics engine should respond dynamically to random events such as this; you better be the first trader there, or by the time everyone else gets wind of the event the profit will have already been made.
For a more complete discussion please see Trading in TEP.
The political engine is more complicated. The ideal situation would be that each power in the game has it's own intelligence and knows when to attack and defend.
Consider a lone outpost. An enemy force might decide to attack this thereby creating a war situation. The beligered defenders would then need weapons urgently, sending prices through the roof and attracting brave traders. They might even choose to recruit mercenaries.
Another slightly different situation would be the formation of a pirate base near a trading route. The pirate ships would attack trading ships and stop critical resources from getting to their destinations. The destination system then might send its ships to destroy the base. They might take heavy casulaties, leaving an opening for an enemy power to attack the system itself.
This system might eventually fall and then the occupying power would have to use some of its resources to fortify the system and build stations, whilst itself fighting off pirate attacks on shipping.
However, the dynamic universe and the plot must be married in a major way. The best way to do this is that the plot causes something to happen (eg. a famine, a war) and then we let the dynamic system respond to that. The problem is if the plot is too prescriptive to facilitate powers attack 'by themselves'.
I suspect a resource based approach for determing systems' powers might be best here. Each system will produce a certain amount of military resources. In addition, suitable trade good can be converted to resources (metals, weaponry etc.) by removing them from the stockmarket of the system.
Military resources would be required for: