Occasional pirate: ConPlays' joined NCE.
NCE   New Carthaginian Empire   2   6   0.00%   210,032
[NCE] ConPlays (#10931)   52,485

He's not currently KOS with us, but I asked if he wants to be..

Sounds good

If Raphael's good with that, then need only Odlid's agreement and you can update the bylaws :-)

That would be perfect

Want a minimum trade size on that, and a flat fee (30m3-diamonds ?) for any trade less than $1,000,000?

Too much money. Don't quite have the capability of getting that yet.

NP :-)  Change the order if you like, or come back when you've more $ ;-)

lol, don't challenge the man, I'm trying to take 2nd place off him

You're trying to take second place off Pokeboy?  
([PT] Pokéboy098   4   1,205,825)

Can’t you go around picking up COMs just to drop them to clean up?

Penalty unless you let them go at Earth (Red dialog path).  No issue if you have plenty of storage.

I raided a pirate station and got 7 million big ones. Hoping to improve my ship for use against pirates

Congratulations  

Under GCA bylaws, with a POW of 851,966, you can buy mods up to 5% = 42598.3: ($ are base price before markup - you don't have to charge yourself the GCA fee that's your current pay agreement ;-)
Shields:  EMS-337 ($816,888), AES-65 ($2,124,720)
Weapons:  MAU-53 ($291,871), VPR-82 ($835,580), LCN-25 ($1,833,150), RGB-11 ($3,637,480)
Armor: TAP-167 ($604,874), IAP-53 ($1,383,088), OAP-19 ($3,105,018), CAP-8 ($6,532,384)

Would you be willing to sell me a long-25 I could get the diamonds today from the moon

Just one?  I'll start it now.  $1,833,150 x 1.1 = $2,016,465 ~ 1152m3 diamonds
Since you're our GCA Manager, your credit's good with me, Cliff  

Pay when we're done = on or after 25 x 1.5-hrs = 37.5-hrs

The problem is that clearing the COM mission 'pollution' costs about as much as the profit from a SOS rescue mission.  I admit it me leaving a trail of COM mission and SOS PT mission 'pollution' in my wake

Does anyone know how long a COM or SOS mission exists before it winks out of existence? Seems like it is <4hours but that is just a feel rather than knowledge.

Fortunately, the Prospectors you leave are our bread & butter  

COMs not so much.  You can only service so many of them, due to the unadvanceable Timer used with AI pirates.  COM pollution's a real issue that's sometimes handled by "good samaritans" who want to see more SOS and fewer COMs when they harvest a quadrant's SOS.

Neither SOS nor COMs "wink out" (though SOS Prospectors can point to dead stars).  It's just that enough folks have discovered wealth through SOS, that the Cluster is getting pretty small ;-)
SOS and COMs are replenished hourly, not sure about the time, but lots of stuff happens around 23 past the hour, so maybe that too.

I raided a pirate station and got 7 million big ones. Hoping to improve my ship for use against pirates

Congratulations  

Under GCA bylaws, with a POW of 851,966, you can buy mods up to 5% = 42598.3: ($ are base price before markup - you don't have to charge yourself the GCA fee that's your current pay agreement ;-)
Shields:  EMS-337 ($816,888), AES-65 ($2,124,720)
Weapons:  MAU-53 ($291,871), VPR-82 ($835,580), LCN-25 ($1,833,150), RGB-11 ($3,637,480)
Armor: TAP-167 ($604,874), IAP-53 ($1,383,088), OAP-19 ($3,105,018), CAP-8 ($6,532,384)

[DO NOT]

You have to pay to pick up SOS mining/prospecting missions.  You DO NOT get this initial investment back if you abandon the mining/PT SOS mission at Earth - you just do not pay the penalty.  If you abandon the SOS mining/PT mission outside of Earth - even at the Sol 'safe point' - you not only lose your initial investment but you must pay a hefty penalty as well.

Definitely :-)

However, as a major SOS player, you're "polluting your fishing hole" if you don't collect everything.  The stuff you don't want lingers, and gradually skews the distribution so there's more of it vs what you want.  Smaller players shouldn't worry about pollution - they're too cash constrained anyway.

AP -> QP -> solars is a 20:1 loss.  Now that we have GCA (thanks Pokeboy!) you should be able to sell your QP for almost $1m :-)  
However, you'll need VIP and a one time cash donation of $5 to transfer the QP (if you don't already have those).

Scatter/gather mining costs very little, pays little, and you're very vulnerable.
SOS (see Odlid's new, excellent guide http://forum.astro-galaxy.com/index.php/topic,9989 ) pays very well, and scales nicely as you invest more in it.
PT (Prospector Treasure) mining pays well and scales nicely, but requires either SOS (to find PT's), or a marketplace for PTs.  Investment is high, and diligence required is high as soon as the strength of your mods passes the 6-hr VIP auto-upload threshold (forget to click upload and your mod is soon clogged at 100% until the next auto-upload..)
COMs (especially when many are stacked on a single timer ship) pay even better, but require very high investment.  However, they require very little diligence other than bookkeeping.  Most high level players invest heavily or even exclusively in COMs for the convenience even more than the payout.

That would be great, Cliff.  Same price at the Moon as at Earth (AG sets the prices), but selling at the Moon keeps the diamonds in circulation and available for trading.

Excellent Guide, Odlid.  Thanks!

You can disembark unwanted COMs and SOS Prospectors at Earth for free.  Otherwise there's a penalty for breaking contract.

Hi Odlid  

4@AES-100 = 64,375 x 4 = 257,500-POW (prior to Bomber multiples)
4@MAU-200 = 50,750-marines x 3-pow/marine x 4 = 609,000 (prior to Bomber multiples)

Typically, you want shield and weapons to balance.  This is unbalanced towards weapons, and might be retreated too soon.  Suggest 5-6 AES, and 2-3 MAU (at those relative strengths)

Assault Bombers are a great small ship choice.  However, if the mods are too low level, you're better off financially with an unoptimized ship and more mods.  Let's check that:
AB-10 on a Frigate = $5,200,000 x 10 = $52,000,000 and confers +200% to weapons, shields, and armor.  So the same as another 8@AES-100 + 8@MAU-200
8@AES-100 = $26,150,400
8@MAU-200 =  $8,811,200 + ($30/marine x 50,750-marines x 8) = $8,811,200 + $12,180,000 = $20,991,200
So the Optimization's $52,000,000 is buying you the benefit of $47,141,600 in mods and marines.
Meaning you're right at the tipping point in terms of your tech level.  I'd say go for the Bomber - your tech is only going to improve, and so will the advantage the Optimization gives you.
This won't be a great platform for COMs, though - not enough fine tuning available - but you said it was for a Defender, so no problem  

Assuming VIP and full Combat Tech (but no Officer), your ship's Pow would be over 3m!
Federation's been hunted to under 1k Pow (both alts).  
GeneralTiberius is down to 94k.
ConPlays is 52k.
You'd be way past them, and any other Troll using simple alts to gain renewable power (through SEA).
Would an established player go after you?  Not typically, but there's no certainty in life or AG ;-)

Too much money. Don't quite have the capability of getting that yet.

NP :-)  Change the order if you like, or come back when you've more $ ;-)

I want only one thing from GCA - to see good mods made available to new/recent players.
(something that frustrated me greatly before joining SPQNR!)

If you and Cliff work out a salary, I'll agree to changing the bylaws :-)