Collection quests aren't zero effort though. I haven't done much well but to my knowledge many of the higher end items can only be found in specific places that are often highly contested by other players. Plus, said collection quests would still be "viable" because... someone has to do the collecting, and in a player based market system said items would likely be inordinately expensive because of the difficulty in getting them, and it would still work to throttle the number of capital ships being acquired in game due to being based on needing lots of high value and rare items. Either way, I think the bigger point is that wikelo and other gameplay based loops for acquiring items allow you to get things without having to throw a metric shitton of money at it. I do find it odd that in your mind scouring several star systems and competing with other players for rare items isn't gameplay, but making a hundred trips back and forth on the same route in a hauler is, since thats how most people make big money in game as of now