What changed

• Cargo sold into a port no longer becomes instantly stealable again.
• Sold goods now enter a short quarantine window before they can re-enter the theft pool.
• The cooldown is tied to the game’s normal 15-minute maintenance tick, not to a weird per-player wall-clock timer.

Why it matters

I investigated a live-economy pattern where a captain could cycle stolen goods through certain ports fast enough to generate credits much more quickly than intended.

The issue was that a port crime edge case allowed some sold goods to become immediately stealable again, which created a much stronger money loop than the design intended.

This patch closes that loophole while still leaving outlaw play viable.

Design intent

Port crime should stay viable for outlaw captains.

But it should involve real scarcity, real risk, and real opportunity cost:

• selling goods should not instantly restock your next theft attempt
• repeated high-value loops should be constrained by the port state, not amplified by it
• re-entry into the theft pool should happen through the galaxy’s normal economic tick, not immediately on resale

What this is not

This is not a blanket nerf to outlaw play.

Stealing, smuggling, and high-risk trading are still part of the intended game economy. The goal here is to remove one specific unfair loop, not to erase criminal playstyles.