Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Greetings, Eve.

Let's take a look at something:

Empire Space (current)

We're all familiar with this scene - That's a map of all highsec and lowsec space, commonly referred to (and possibly inaccurately) as empire space. I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I think it's a bit ugly. There's too much of that green and blue stuff that we call high security space. So, let's make a subtle change so the map looks like this:

Empire Space after a tiny adjustment

It's not a drastic change, and if you don't open these in separate browser tabs to swap between them, you're likely to overlook any changes that may happen.

1. How many systems became lowsec?
2. How many systems became 0.0?
3. What actually happened?
4. What does this actually mean for the player base?

I'll answer those questions and more... Right now!

1) 386 systems became lowsec. These are generally positioned near the fringes of empire space, as well as on the borders between empires themselves.

2) None.
Two reasons, which I'll discuss a little more in-depth next.
* The mathematics just don't work out that way - nothing went from positive to negative.
* I didn't want to see 0.0-only modules (bombs, chiefly among them) usable in only a few seemingly-arbitrary systems. Some 0.0 module restrictions probably need to be lifted, at least for certain security classes, but that's a discussion for later.

3) Math!
The change was actually quite simple. We pick all the systems in high-security space and raise them to the power of 1.5. Because all empire systems have security status between 0 and 1 (lowest is Hophib at 0.02914748942441414, but who is counting), we're never increasing a system's security by raising it to an exponent greater than 1 - we're only (possibly) decreasing it, and never to zero or less.

If we make the unwise assumption that I did my calculus right, the greatest effect is seen in systems with a starting security status of around .444, which become around .296 afterwards.

True 1.0 systems will remain unchanged, as you may have figured.

If we want, we can view the universe if we want even more lowsec:
https://devapps.violentsociety.org/secmap.php?bias=2

4) As previously stated, most systems that become lowsec are on on the borders between empire and on the edges approaching 0.0 space. With a few major exceptions, this doesn't affect the day-to-day of eve's highsec community, while allowing some more freedom and opportunities to the low-security community, which is arguably a neglected portion of the player base.

There are some major considerations, however:

* Niarja becomes lowsec. This is a critically important system as it is a bottleneck on the highway between Caldari and Amarr space. Save for the extremely avoidable suicide gankers, players can presently travel freely from near-0.0 markets in the south such as Agil all the way to the fringes of northern 0.0 space such as Torrinos - all without worrying about low-security space due to this jump. Decreasing security in these kinds of systems prevents their use as a safe pipeline across the galaxy.

Personally, I've had mixed feelings about shutting down Niarja, but ultimately I like the idea. I'm of the opinion that there should be no way to traverse between all empires without entering low-security space. It's too easy to move huge amounts of goods across the galaxy, and Niarja <-> Kaaputenen contributes in no small way to the market centralization in Jita. Without this jump, we'll (presumably) see the Jita market shrink (possibly by a lot) and other markets open up out of necessity.

There only comparable jump, really, between Minmatar and Gallente space would be Bei <-> Colelie. Fortunately, these both become lowsec, further increasing the isolation between empires and balancing the changes made between Caldari <-> Amarr transit.

Another notable change is the Orvolle <-> Mesybier jump. After the changes, Mesybier becomes lowsec, which orphans the high-security systems in the Beyt constellation, such as Orvolle.

* To supplement the point made above
There will need to be more lowsec connections made between the empires, all of which should have more-or-less equivalently long routes between major destinations. Otherwise, we end up with extremely camped bottlenecks, and no opportunities to "sneak by" when nobody is looking.

* 0.0 Border systems:
Torrinos, Keberz, Kari and Dital all become low-security space. This means going instantly from bubbled, taking hull damage, and outnumbered to 100% invulnerable is no longer possible by hugging these high-security jumpoff points. Orvolle remains high-security, but the constellation itself becomes orphaned by low-sec.

* Several mission hubs (Irjunen is a good example) are also transformed into lowsec by this change. Missions probably don't factor in greatly either way, but it's worth mentioning. The increased number of low-security systems may be encouragement to add or activate more level 5 agents.

I'd love some feedback on this idea, and the factor by which security is adjusted is definitely up for criticism. If you want to try for yourself:

Change the 'bias' variable in the query string here. This gives a rough picture of what the universe will look like, given a certain exponential change.

Use this to see what systems will become low-sec after a change. Note that a bias over 1 is required to decrease system security.

Maybe so, and that's another thought I had. I suppose I should clarify: My goal is more lowsec opportunities, not necessarily traffic control in highsec - that's just a side-effect of it.

I still have the same opinion as the other 'Seperate hisec with losec' thread that it wouldn't be a good thing, I thought there already were plenty of opportunities in losec for people? Better ores, better rats, moongoo, POS without standings etc etc.

In my opinion the best way to increase losec opportunities would be to improve PvE. This in turn would bring more people into losec if done correctly. Good detail in the proposal though, just not a good idea to me.

I think CCP would concentrate on opening up new space with jump gates rather than fiddling with the existing space anyway, it'll be easier for them to balance the risk/reqard there without impacting existing dynamics too much.

I've had that discussion in-corp as well, and there will likely have to be some arbitrary exceptions. Agreeably, a blanket-bombing of sec reduction will result in some unwanted changes, most notably the COSMOS constellations and Sanctum - CONCORD's home constellation.

The reasons I chose the algorithm (if you even want to call it that) that I did:

*It's not prejudiced against any particular region - it's an equal-opportunity offender.
*It has a minimal (relative) effect on the highest (near 1.0) and lowest (near 0.0) security classes in empire space.
*It saves a lot of the "But what about this system" questions. Let the numbers talk for us.

As for the Lore issues? Look what we have:

*Sanshas invading all regions of space for the last 3(?) years, no end in sight
*Empires at war - the current border systems are already becoming more dangerous
*Reduced income for CONCORD after transferring Customs offices to Interbus, thus less money for DED to provide consequences.

Let's analyze what really happens to empire space on a system-by-system basis:
*Upper Highsec (1.0-0.8)
True 1.0 systems will not change. Some of the lower 0.9 systems (.85 truesec) become 0.8, which adds the lowest tier of NPCs to the belts, and not much else. The lowest sec status in this range (.75) ends up becoming around 0.64, which adds a few extra types of highsec belt rats, and a few more asteroid types.

*Low Highsec (0.7-0.5)
Upper 0.7 systems will drop down to a firm 0.63 or thereabouts. This really doesn't change the quality of the system much.
Lower 0.6 systems end up becoming around 0.41, transforming into lowsec. The threshold on what systems actually transform into lowsec is around .605. That means about half of all 0.6 systems will become low-security space. The lowest end of this range (0.45), which is barely even highsec, becomes a respectable .30 when all is said and done. This is around where we see the largest changes occurring to security status.

*Lowsec:
All lowsec will stay lowsec. Some (0.40 and so) will become potentially better upper-0.2 systems. This also means that systems currently rated 0.4 will have harvestable moons after changes are made. That's probably not worth much to anyone but powerblocs these days, but it's a nice change nonetheless.

So the tl;dr version:

*Really high almost worthless highsec becomes slighly better for highsec-dwellers
*Low-end highsec might become more valuable, but might also might become more dangerous
*Lowsec will only get strictly better (we need that!), as additional risk will not be introduced for lowsec-dwellers, but additional economic and geographic opportunities will emerge.

And... what good does this do to the game?

And why is this a separate topic and not posted in the already large and well-discussed relevant thread?

On a different note: Yes, give me more Low sec, especially Low sec systems very close to the big market hubs Jita, Amarr and Dodixie, so that I can jump stuff around with my JF easier and faster and save me the lengthy travels with my freighter. Do it, this would indeed make my life easier and better. With more Low sec and interrupted routes, big chunks of market competitors are cut of from resources and I can rule certain market segments easier. Fantastic future for me. The rest of the game? What do you care about the peasants under my boots?