EVE General Discussion

In my experience throughout most of Eve low sec is simply too depopulated for piracy to occur. Due to the low population care bears will mine, mission run or belt rat/do anoms only in empty systems. If you turn up, they simply move system.

I've found only two regions that are busy enough for genuinely hunting targets, and even they become pretty dull once everyone in the area gets to know you.

There's also the fact that belt ratting is terrible, anoms are useless and mag/radar sites are worthless. Leaving only exploration sites which are gated. It is possible to find a rated plex, cloak up in it and get an almost guaranteed T3 kill, but tbh that can mean sitting and waiting for hours. So I can see why it isn't attractive to many people.

The only things you'll ever catch running the other sites are noobs, you can make more isk mission running in high sec than you can doing low sec anoms or belt rats. And you can always gate camp, but you need a fleet to do that realistically. And the truly valuable stuff gets moved by jump freighter anyway.

From the "victims" perspective, I gave up goinf to low sec when being ganked stop being fun. There was a time when there was variety, some would ransom your ship.or blow you up before you saw them coming - I was even told once to "stand and deliver" in the days before warp to gate and you could usually have a bit of banter either in local or in a private convo. Then it changed, I kept getting ganked by people who would just turn up in a blob and pod you for the hell of it and wouldn't talk to you - it got boring, so I now run haulers through low sec hoping for a gate camp to liven up the day.

Just my experience, don't know if it helps.

Yeah, that's pretty much the issue we had the first time we moved into low sec. We formed a very small alliance and started off gate camping, after ~2 months we had grown to nearly 400 members and people simply stopped coming through our system (despite it being a bottleneck out of jita high sec).

Even with multiple scouts out searching surrounding systems we found few targets after those first few months, people simply stopped running sites in the area and moved away. There is no incentive for anyone to fight for the ability to run missions, plex or rat in low sec when they can simply move to another part of low sec. Or return to high sec activities for a minimal change in payouts.

Now I'm back doing the same thing again in a three man alt corp, and already in only a few weeks people have learnt who my neutral scouts are and simply do not run sites with them in system. I actually wrote a proposal that I would like to see implemented that would combat that effect, as it is quite annoying and unavoidable bar recycling characters in order to reset your reputation.


+1

The only thing really worth doing in low sec in terms of PvE is exploration, of which the only sites really worth doing are rated. Which are all gated...

It's honestly never made sense to me. The most valuable activity is the safest, when surely it should be the other way round? I'd like to see some of those exploration sites changed so that the first room is ungated. Just remove the gates, have the NPCs there on the warp in and the following rooms behind gates as normal.


For what it's worth there are some of us who don't gank :) I almost always engage 1v1, even when I am in a worse ship, and have on a number of occasions let my main die despite having a falcon cloaked watching the fight.

The problem is that since so few people run sites in populated systems, because systems are so rarely populated, gate camping has become throughout most regions the most effective method of killing targets. And gate camping is designed in a way that means it is only really viable in a gang, and it also prevents ransoms as you are in a race to stop the target making it to gate.

I also ransom, and honour my ransoms. But in all honesty I really do just prefer the kill mail most of the time these days, the amount you can get from ransoms is just so pitiful I'd prefer the mail just so I can say I killed whatever it was. I do still however ransom freighters, orcas and the like (And, recently, a rorqual. Which was amusing.).

You should be happy with this fact, more space for you, more potential victims for you and your corp mates, less piracy competition, better profit, i have no idea about your personal piracy vision, more pirates in low sec = less neutrals visitors.
But maybe you realise you need more challenges, you bored of kiling industrals and ransoming pve fited people in low sec belts ? maybe you want pvp with those who pvp ? i have no idea just asking, well wardec somone, go to null space etc.

For some people low sec in enough scary it self, that why these system got less neutral visiors, here not enough potential victims for hordes of pirates, you think somone want share with own prey? i cant imagine two pirates corporation eath 30 members waiting for one prey whole day...

I actually prefer to fight those that can fight back properly, and i do enjoy fighting other pirate corps, but there are just to few of them left worth fighting these days. And some of them(not gonna mention names) are so incredible cowards that its hard to belive. (putting ships into the orcas at the first sign of trouble anyone? ) . Null sec, been there done that, tired of massive blobs, getting supercaps dropped on you at the first sign of trouble etc. High sec wars, filled with neutral RR alts that can dock and undock as they see fit.

There is less piracy, less fighting and less warfare in lowsec today.

When Sons Of 0din lived in lowsec we were in a constant state of war with nearby entities, it was great fun. We'd go pirating, roaming and warring and it was brilliant. Then the supercapital age really began, lowsec became swamped with capitals, some corporations would literally sit with 20 to 30 capital pilots and cyo toons roaming around looking for other peoples fights, drop on them and wipe out the battlefield. After a few months of that, less fights happened, less roaming and less warfare because there was less point.
Because of this many corporations, like mine, decided that we may as well live in nullsec, if we were going to get stoppped from doing the kind of warfare we liked (and we had battles as large as many nullsec engagements) was pretty much over in lowsec, then we may as well just move to nullsec.

When I fly around lowsec these days I generally just see possitive sec people all docked up and not doing much. Lowsec used to be a fantastic place to play, now it is boring as hell with neither risk nor reward. Apart from the very occasional gatecamp by the remaining few pirates. Gone are the days of hundreds of batleships roaming into enemy territory to slug it out just because it was fun.

I'm not sure how it is now, but back when I was doing the NullSec thing a few years back, I felt a lot more safe in NullSec than I did anywhere in LowSec. No one goes there because the risk vs reward thing is so out of wack compared to Hi and Null.
I'm talking about sitting in a system and doing stuff, not travelling between systems.


Rewards were designed where:

HiSec Low Risk
LowSec Med Risk
NullSec High Risk


Where more often the case is

HiSec Low Risk
LowSec High Risk
Null Sec Med Risk



The solution isn't trying to force players to go where they don't want to go there, but make it so players actually want to go there outside of FW.

That could be by either reducing the risk
Or by increasing the reward.

I think it may be a combination of both.

It seems like many of the pirates have not learned that just because you can doesn't mean you should. Low sec has been over hunted and now people avoid it because there is very little chance of being left alone unless your in a bigger/ better ship or in a fleet.

The other side of things is exactly what CCP intended, let the game mechanics allow for players to make their own content. Players choosing to pirate in low sec and created the 'content' that is now there. I could be like null sec with weaker rats and no sov if the players in low sec systems want it that way. I comes back to 'Just because you can, doesnt mean you should'.

Since they do, the consequences are that there are no targets left, people avoid low sec systems. The pirates have no one to complain to, its the content they created for themselves.

What makes you think I have no experience on this subject? We both agree that lowsec is underpopulated. I am just offering another plausible reason as to why. This doe's not invalidate the reasons you stated above. I think it would support your reasons why lowsec is underpopulated.

The pirates in many lowsec systems shoot any almost everything that comes through, this makes people NOT want to go there unless they are looking for a fight. Thats all well and good, but as you said before, its not reasonable to try and make a living in lowsec due to the risk / reward ratio being more out of balance than null sec.

P.S. I have been playing for almost 5 years. And of course this an alt just for forum posting... The forums are almost as dangerous as lowsec.

Its true that avoiding combat is relatively easy anywhere. I don't remember seeing what you have said about the earning potential vs risk in this thread, so it may have been another one. I am interested in what you did say about it though.