EVE General Discussion

You aren't the 99%, we are :P


and no to a reduction of lowsec. If you make this 0.5-0.8 maybe..

There is a problem with the severity of the jump between 0.4 & 0.5, granted I do not have a great amount of time to explore every lowsec crevice, but in 0.6, 0.5 everyone and his gran are doing sites for absolute peanuts, in 0.4,0.3 nearly every constellation/system has a lone pirate and an alt scanning the sites to catch people, as well as the roaming gangs. For me, in real terms, running and salvaging hisec level 4's is still getting me more ISK in a few hours rather than trying to run radars in lowsec - I mean they are there but there are nearly always a number of people waiting for you to run them. Of course the Lvl 4's are boring and the low sec exploration is more exciting but if I can't even run one site in an evening then it is pointless.
The only time I saw what lowsec could be like was when I had some time off and played at a less busy time - yes you still had to keep on your toes but you could actually run a site or two.

To be honest I couldn't believe that one or two people would follow me around a few systems for hours on the slim chance they might gank me in a 3m cruiser. Even cloaking and going afk for half an hour they were still there! They must be incredibly bored! So more things for pirates to do might also be good. Smuggling looks like a winner for that.

The only other things I can suggest is that it might be time for 10-20% more lowsec systems, or even converting 0.5 into lowsec (don't know anything about null, might be also true), and also that stations can have a small retinue of ships to provide safe harbour for traders etc. For the life of me I cannot understand how it makes any sense that someone would invest in a station in a dangerous area of space and not proactively defend the immediate area around it in order to keep it as a profitable (safe) trading post. Of course you can flip this and have pirate stations that would shoot at me if I tried to dock.

Small NPC roaming navy gangs in the higher lowsec would make a lot of sense and keep pirates on their toes, infact you could also have the odd NPC convoys for pirates to attack, but I don't want that to take away from the real prey, i.e. noobs like me. Just generally more life and vibrancy like most of this game really needs.

As a fairly new (13m SP) player I see lowsec as a step towards null, to learn and grow as a player and do a bit of proving yourself and your skills etc for a bit before making the move to bigger things.

As it stands it's less of a step and more of a wall, i just can't get enough cash in low sec to afford a couple of BC+fitting losses. The other problem is that without really good skills for a tech 2 or 3 cruiser you have to use a specific harder fit BC to do any of the combat sites (only sites with a chance of decent loot as well) which is like a lamb to the slaughter for the vast majority of people waiting for you in low sec. Otherwise doing 4/10s in a nano arbitrator takes far too long. I do love a hard game but at points eve just makes you think YTF am I even trying
I am not talking about the serious gatecamps, I can use the map to avoid them, and I like how the game allows a well set-up gang to own nearly everything in that situation but even if you took gates out of the equation there is still a lot wrong with lowsec.

[quote=Xavier Quo
To be honest I couldn't believe that one or two people would follow me around a few systems for hours on the slim chance they might gank me in a 3m cruiser. Even cloaking and going afk for half an hour they were still there! They must be incredibly bored! So more things for pirates to do might also be good. Smuggling looks like a winner for that.
[/quote]

They are exactly that bored. Lowsec (aside from FW which is populated entirely by *Hope*) is incredibly depopulated, even moreso than 0.0 post Sanctum nerf. Lowsec still doesn't have any purpose. It used to, and that gave it a vibrancy it's lost.

Before the R64 Nerf/Tech buff and introduction of massed supercap fleets, an Alliance could cut it's chops by taking some R64s in lowsec to learn the (at the time) incredibly important art of POS warfare. The Lowsec R64s were capturable because they were geographically scattered, so they weren't individually as vital and they were harder to defend if an alliance was busy elsewhere.

With Tech, the important moons are all in one spot, essentially, so they're easier to defend. Especially against an up and comer who might not have much in the way of Capital resources.

I hate to turn this into another Supercap whine, but the biggest issue with Supers (and it's a problem that has infested Lowsec as well as Null) is that, while a subcap fleet can take one down, there is no way that anything other than a Supercap fleet can take down another Supercap fleet (especially in the numbers I've seen in actual fights. Care to take on 20 Titans, 100 Supers anyone?)

FYI: From what I hear, those pictures represent One TZ of PL/NC.'s travel operations.


Ultimately the fix for Low has to come from some exclusive production capability, be it Lowsec only material, LP, what have you. Better yield of the same crap you get in Hisec has never drawn significant numbers, and it's time CCP noticed that.

A stepping stone for up-and-coming Sov Holding alliances. Take a few R64s, shake the bugs out of your organization, get some income coming in, learn to manage POSes (at that time Sov Warfare was POS warfare), all that stuff that a new alliance needs.

Now R64s don't produce a significant income, Tech is far to well defended and geographically concentrated to be attackable, and Sov Warfare has no real stepping stones for learning the mechanics (though the mechanics are simpler).


Nerfing R64s was probably good, buffing Tech was an unmitigated disaster (so CCP promptly stuck their thumb up their ass and ignored it), and the Sov Warfare change is certainly an improvement, but it makes it harder for legit new kids to give Sov a go. The new alliances that crop up on occasion and hold Sov are renters or old players under a new name. The 0.0 rogues gallery hasn't changed in a long time.