Currently, cargo ships only transport the resources assigned to individual dock modules. When setting up a trade contract, the traded resources also have to be assigned to specific modules, which results in ships using only part of their capacity. For example, an 8‑module ship often ends up sailing half loaded and half empty in both directions. My idea is that trade contracts should not require module‑based resource assignments anymore. Instead, the cargo ship could automatically use all available modules for the contract: all 8 modules filled with the exported resource on the way out, and all 8 modules filled with the imported resource on the way back. This would allow ships to operate at full capacity and make trade routes much more efficient. The only technical hurdle I see is that modules would need to support a configurable input for the exported resource and a configurable output for the imported resource. If such a system is implementable, it could greatly streamline trade logistics and improve overall ship utilization.
Improving Cargo Ship Efficiency in Trade Contracts
Most contracts are of resources of different type (liquid/gas, loose, units), so it would require ships changing configurations with each direction of travel (which is not a common thing).
The only sollution i see is implementing trade system similar to current network system of trains - we would have global storage of goods and when ship exports resource, it will be turned into imported one and stored at global storage which could be taken by other ship back. Ships would be then preconfigured to different type of resource with ability to set prefered resource and there could be priority system for said resources too.
You would need more ships (for most of contracts anyway), but bigger networks could be more effective then active ones.
It would need to settle some edge cases like when you take contracts copper ore > iron ore and iron ore > uranium ore (so there would be separated storages between contracts). But like iron ore > copper ore could use single ship for both ways.