Hello i found nothing in the patch notes so i ask here,
i experienced from personal playing that trade ships are now spawning less often.
And you are only able to talk with them with a pawn with a certain title at the Empire?
I was planning to do a "rebell playtrough" but this basically means no trade ships at all at bad relations with them?
They spawn either way, you don't need good relation with empire as far as I know.
Just that it take ages for them to show up now (they nerfed them to the ground in my opinion), probably to force us to trade with neighbors via caravans :)
There is already a mod which make them show up more often (called, quite appropriate, "More Trade Ships").
Generally the trade ships that appear are unaligned with any faction (it should say it in the pop up letter info). There are empire specific trade ships though, which you do need at least a Knight/Dame ranked pawn to trade with them, if I remember correctly. Out of all the trade ships I've encountered since installing the DLC, only one so far has been empire specific for me.