Player Features and Ideas Discussion

It's been said before, but the drop-off from 0.5 to 0.4 in terms of protection is quite sharp. Even if it's "low" security, it's still within the sovereignty of the major empires, and they would do well to police those space lanes.

Just to be clear, CONCORD would not be involved. Basically, the faction police would operate in lowsec, responding to crime in the way CONCORD does in Highsec. The response time would be similar to corresponding Highsec:
0.4 space would have 0.7 space's reaction time.
0.3 space would have 0.6 space's reaction time.
0.2 space would have 0.5 space's reaction time.
0.1 space would function as it does now with no space cop presence.

These space cops are able to be engaged and destroyed by players. After causing a group of police to show up, no more arrive to assist the first group unless another player is attacked.

The goal is to provide a modicum of protection for players in lowsec, as I believe it doesn't matter how lucrative you make it, you're not going to get highsec players down there. Lowsec consists of mostly large pirate corps and the empty space surrounding them, so this could help invigorate the area.

This would also add to the 'criminal element' feel of lowsec, where you have to deal with the cops as part of your plans. It would go hand in hand for enhancing the smuggling side of eve too, as the cops would scan you at lowsec gates too, forcing a 'fight the law or run' option for the player. The cops could have sleeper AI too (if they don't already). Discuss!

I think thats the idea with faction police not being really much of anything. It's not something you can count on to protect you, but it 's something that can turn the fight in your favor.

True, and they should get a buff in accordance with CCP's pve revamp initiative. And that 'get back to hisec' attitude is why lowsec is desolate. That and the random chance of hotdropping of course, but that's another problem.

Aside from wasting their time with burner missions, there is no such thing. And if there were, "moar safe T!" should not be part of that list.

The game needs less safety overall, not more.

Low sec NPC police forces? No. Low sec and 00 Sec are areas where players are supposed to take over such roles from the NPCs and create the fun and exciting environment that everyone is craving for (long form of content), and this should always be the case.

If people are not criminal, pirate or suspect, don't hunt them if you don't want to lose your security status, as there's no reason for a police officer to hunt them. If they are criminal, suspect or pirate, you can do whatever you want with them.

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No, it would completely eliminate any sort of small scale PvP that exists today. Frigate PvP would die forever, cruiser too in all likelihood.

Meanwhile the carebears would keep farming red crosses and sucking on asteroids in highsec, and you have ruined PvP in lowsec for the people who already lived there.

Yeah, I believe you.



Yeah, and? Or are you saying it actually came as a surprise to you that lowsec is less populated than other areas?




No, it's a question of lowsec not having any real reason to live there, as far as economics goes. You can make better personal income in highsec, that's a big underlying cause.



Why would you possibly think that "juicy targets" will show up at all? Facpo will not keep them from getting killed, and most of them are such chickenshits that they won't accept anything less than a guarantee of safety. Nevermind that I can just kill them in highsec, which is what I've been doing for a while.

Until CCP provides a concrete and unique economic advantage to lowsec, thereby FORCING people to have to deal with lowsec, it will continue to be bypassed, skipped, or ignored.

It has not one damned thing to do with "safety". All you're doing is proposing that we take one more step towards Trammel.

Hence why an important part of it would be to actually remove facpo, except for people in FW. The magic space police are a big factor in cutting down player on player interaction, since no one can chase and catch you as fast as they can.

Which is why most neg sec status characters just stay docked up until a gank target is found.

Facpo is a mechanic that hurts any potential player interaction where it's applicable. It's not something that should be spread around to other areas.

What did you lose?

I think rather than try to protect and coddle the players, the design goal should be to give the players a boost in defending themselves without actually protecting them outright.

I'd like to see faction police ships in lowsec showing up for illegal acts of aggression, but I think the crimewatch mechanics should work a bit differently in lowsec:
* if you attack a criminal, you are not flagged suspect, though you do get an aggression timer with that criminal
* even when you have an aggression timer with a criminal, the faction police who showed to up protect you initially will continue to protect you even as you fight
* if the criminal is beaten, then re-ships and comes back during the criminal timer, said police will continue to protect you

Also, I think the police ships should perform primarily disruptive EWAR and have low DPS, because that will make it easier for the player to fight the aggressor but will still require them to be fit to fight.
One police ship should spawn for each aggressor, so that using larger fleets to gank will have a diminished effect.

The power of these police ships could be scaled by security status, from being as powerful as a player combat recon in 0.4 to being weak as a mission cruiser rat in 0.2, or something like that.

Easy solution: player-owned station has a cop-free zone around it (the grid). If you're close enough to any POS, there are no cops. It makes sense, too, because it would be up to the players to run their own security in that sector of space.