I've heard that you shouldn't run Classic and Gold Ferrengi in the same game. I assume this belief also applies to Alien Traders.

I just wanted to point out that it's not necessarily "taboo" if you run both. Deploying Gold Ferrengi in Scorpions prevents them from being mistaken for Classic. And if you only have 3-5 Gold Ferrengi wandering around with max movement, 85% exploration, xenophobic, and avoiding Fedspace, you can "help" keep them out of reach of most players.

...or something like that. Deploying the Scorpion offsets the need to edit ships.

I usually don't deploy Classic Alien Traders because they don't do anything. I deploy a "bunch" of non-aggressive Gold Alien Traders in Imperial Starships with default trading and steal/rob turned off. I turn grudges on for aliens so players can learn to leave them alone!

If you run both Classic and Gold Ferrengi, you can introduce some unexpected behavior. For instance, the Ferrengi may attempt to invade the Ferrengi home world. I'm not aware of any issues with alien traders, but I would not recommend it.

Lol! I've noticed unusual behaviors, too!? I turn off the "defend homeworld" feature on Gold, because the only reason I use them is to deploy Scorpions. I'll release a Gold Ferrengi per 10K sectors (or something like that) on day zero to give the players access to them.

I'll turn up exploration and maybe movement, turn on aggression, turn off grudges, and crank "anonymous" up to max. With so few Ferrengi anomalous isn't likely, but...!

Anyway, I'll see them attacking the Classic Ferrengi from time to time from the "aggression"."