Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hello fellow capsuleers.

As of right now, for most people at least, 0.5 is viewn as completely safe, and 0.4 is seen as a completely lawless hellhole where you will get mercilessly destroyed by about ten people as soon as you enter, and your only defense is a gate turret that does little more than spit at those who violate the law.

While I know that that view isn't always true, it CAN be true.

I know CCP wants to encourage hi-sec players to venture into low-sec.

However, the slightly increased profit in low-sec is simply NOT worth the huge amount of risk involved. Most of the risk is immediate destruction at the gate.


What I propose, is that in 0.4 systems, ONLY on gates that point to hi-sec, have the gate turret give a ONE point scram.

This will mean that either in a gatecamp, ONE of the attackers will die... or have to reduce their lockrange/speed to crap by putting a warp stab on it.


You can't really encourage people to go do stuff in low-sec, when the mere result of ENTERING is almost certain death.



I want low-sec to be dangerous, but the danger curve should be a CURVE, not a cliff between 0.5 and 0.4

Not every gate to lowsec is camped, and the campers tend to attract wandering predators if they stay there too long as well. There are some changes coming to lowsec that will impact gatecamps, as I recall (gate guns doing increasing damage over time), so this issue is being addressed. But yeah, scouting is always a good option, as is looking at the map to see how many ships have been destroyed in the last hour.

The cliff won't be nearly as bad though.

As it is now,
0.5 (almost completely safe) -> 0.4 (extremely dangerous) -> 0.3 (extremely dangerous)

With my change it would be
0.5 (almost completely safe) -> 0.4 (Somewhat safe) -> 0.3 (extremely dangerous)

This instead turns the danger cliff into merely a very steep curve.




And AFKish, that's for FW people. Most people are NOT into FW, so it doesn't help populate low sec much.

Lowsec population is not low because gate camps, you can always scout/check map stats/go around them. Lowsec is "empty" because beside pvp there is nothing else to do in there. I mean, of course there are people doing PI/missions/mining/exploration but difference between rewards in low and in hisec with risk calculated in is simply not worth it. And of course that "empty" is also not completely true because is depends on TZ and region and people operating in area, also FW space tends to be rather busy due to plexers looking for farming grounds and people going after them.

So setting up border fates with additional CONCORD forces won't fix anything because even if you get relatively safe into 0.4 what will you do there? Sit on gate all the time because venturing into any of your activities will lead to same risks of getting ganked as it is right now.

Lowsec needs better rewards for risk taken not buffed up police presence.

You're misunderstanding the real problem. There's no reward interesting enough when you know you have 100% chances of not getting it.
And besides, low sec has already far too many and interesting rewards added all over the years and changed absolutely nothing because the real problem over there is how easy it is to completely close low sec access or travel.

I've previously proposed getting rid of concord in 0.5, and instead having strong faction police (although it would be possible to escape these police without losing your ship - although it would be difficult) with multiple webbing and scramming frigs spawned for each aggressor - as well as a T1 "support frigate" that gives reps to the victim

In 0.4, you still have the faction police, but the spawns are smaller, and they only web- no scrams.
Also, no reps to the "victim".
In this case, if you get attacked, if you can hold out a bit, NPC backup will arrive and hopefully drive them off the field.
Of course, if an engagement is over quickly, the pirate can be gone before the NPCs arrive on the scene

0.5 becomes *much* more dangerous, as what used to be suicide ganks are not necessarily suicidal anymore.
0.4 becomes a bit safer if you travel in a properly tanked combat ship


As to your idea... I like the idea of local safety near the gates - solo players have no way of knowing what is on the other side of the gate, and a mechanic that encourages dual boxing repeated trial alts in noob ships to scout ahead is stupid.

I'd be in favor of putting a tiny POS type shield (5km radius? have ships spawn that close to the gate?) around the gates - you can enter a system, and look at your overview in relative safety (though bumping out of the shield is still possible, at which point they tackle and kill you)...
but doing any other activity in low sec has no security.

You can go to the other side of a gate in relative safety, but you can't mission, rat, plex, mine, etc in safety.

The "reward" activities still have the risk,

There are other entrances to lowsec besides the shortest route from a major trade hub to the nearest lowsec. Amamake, OMS, and Tama are not representative. Or you could just bust the camp with your friends, since most gatecamping pirates are incredibly fail pvpers.

But all this is beside the point, because you're never going to lure the risk intolerant into lowsec. Better to give the risk tolerant more reasons to pick low over null.

I gotta ask, how is this gradual to the significant number of pilots who are afraid to risk their ships outside of high sec?

If you have a PvE boat, your low sec may as well be null, for all the sense of safety it offers.
You effectively made .5 space gank happy too, they won't lose their ships as easily.

My understanding was this should be enticing to the high security pilot who might consider low sec for their PvE, and possibly even try PvP.
There is a big difference between "don't fly anything you can't lose", and "fly here to lose it".

It's a start, but Joe PvE doesn't hang out at gates or stations as much as he goes to mission sites, or roid belts.

If he doesn't think he has a good chance to survive a surprise attack, that fear of a surprise attack will keep him away.

Just nerf high sec profits by 25% across the board.

Will force bears that really want to make isk to actually learn the terribly easy things you need to know to be able to live in low sec without getting ganked whenever you peak outside.