Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In relation to all the other threads about how Null sec can become more independent from High sec and have a better economy. I put it in a separate thread as it has nothing to do with trade hubs in Null sec in my opinion, but is still related to trade and logistics.

In spite of all the previous discussions and how to remove symptoms of what hinders Null sec production and trade viability, it is necessary to talk about one of the fundamental reasons for all the symptoms: Resources.

What makes High sec so much better sec for industry than Null sec? It's not the stations, it's not the location, they are all better in Null sec. What makes it better is the availability, abundance and security of resources. You can get whatever it takes for your production in Jita (to a lesser extend in Amarr). Every single resource in the game necessary to build ships, modules, upgrades, rigs, ammo, stations is available in the Big 4. This is something that Null sec lacks. Due to an archaic believe in wars for resources over long distances, Null sec will always depend on High sec as there are the logistical nodes that connect all the resource streams with each other.

To change this, we need to get rid of what the former German Ministry of Defense minister, Peter Struck called " We defend Germany's resources at the Hindu Kush". We need to get rid of astrogeographical limitations of resources, in particular moon minerals. Instead globally unmonopolizable moon mineral resource sources of all kinds should be reasonably abundantly available in all areas for local powers to fight over or trade with other people in the area who hold the sources. There can still be hot spots (like with the gas cloud constellation in a gas region) for certain moon minerals. However, overall an alliance or group in Catch should be able to build Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar and Amarr T2 ships with resources they can gather in Catch or close-by areas and not exclusively from resources controlled by another organization on the other side of the universe. Regional monopolization, on the other hand, is fine as it creates strive on a more local level if you cannot reach a satisfying agreement with regional powers. Conflict scenarios would evolve into either the standard monopolization behavior or interdiction/disruption of an alliance's production capabilities instead of meaningless squabbles over useless space.
CCP already set the precedents with the recent ore and mineral changes as well as the decryptor unification earlier this year. As much as I do not like it, you are not dependent on other areas of space anymore to collect necessary decryptors for a wide variety of inventions. This needs to be furthered and brought to the logical next step.

I further argue that these new T2 material resource sources are not put into moons. Instead, they should extractable by more active gameplay in form of the long suggested and teased Ring Mining and Comet Mining. Activities in scanable (either by probes or procuring work via Observation Array or via NPC corps) mining areas would also create another, much needed draw for more miners to be included and more importantly respected in an alliance or coalition organization.

With this material limitation out of the way and the probably soon introduced BPOs for meta 0-4 items, a huge part of what not only hinders local production in Null sec but also what holds back more player activity is out of the way and production in Null sec actually becomes viable for all sorts of organizations and sizes.

I am absolutely aware of that this will crush, obliterate, vaporize prices for T2 materials and I am absolutely fine with it. Continuing to insist on exporting these materials in large scale to a High sec to fuel SRP or other expenses is an unacceptable behavior, it is now and certainly more so after this change is implemented. The ISK driven welfare state needs to turn into a material driven welfare state: If you lose a ship, you do not get money back, you get a new ship. Local trade and resource processing should take over as primary ISK income generators for alliances to cover expenses rather than income from Jita.
I am also fully aware that this requires some other changes (a change in player attitude and mindset in particular, but also some better ingame tools to manage efforts, installations and information, among other things) are vital to further improve the subject.

Another option could be to remove all forms of active mining and make resource harvesting like PI, still limited to current PI skills so still only 6 planets to mine either, Minerals, T2 materials, or PI materials.
Like currently different planets would have different ores, t2 materials and PI materials, and high sec would have the least density and null/wh would have the highest density of materials.

Well I think you're not thinking spreadsheets enough. We need to turn pew pew into a completely passive form document stamping. Imagine the rush as you mash the f1 button only to stamp the wrong form!

As for turning active mining into passive pi, once again it is too interesting. You should have to enter a captcha for every cycle, in triplicate.

ALL KIDDING ASIDE, I believe the current system should remain, but have another active way to gather the same resources. Ring and comet mining sound like good candidates. I'd rather see gradual adoption for smaller market effects, and let the big boys keep some passive income, while letting small groups without the dedication to spreadsheets and flowcharts have some of the action.

Those spreadsheets and flowcharts are really the reason power blocs are so powerful economically. They've hit on the idea that if you let people who enjoy "boring things" do those boring but productive things, you can support people that like to do mindless things, like listening to the fc in a full fleet.

The reasons I would like to keep the current system are many, but a couple are:
1) you know where the sources of a groups' passive income are, and you can attempt to disrupt it at any time, 23/7.
2) infrastructure investment, deployment and maintenance are attractions for planners and system junkies, they are an important part of eve.

To cut it short(er) there should be alternate ways to gain the same mats at a lower yield than the passive form but not replace the current system.

The necessary mineral mix is available in the Null sec ore anoms.