Assembly Hall

There is a lot of debate currently on the viability of different security regimes (hisec, losec, null, WH) and how to make some of the less populated ones more viable. I would like to share some thoughts on this and maybe a few solutions.

Regimes:
* Hisec:
o Risk: Minimal. PVP is mostly optional. You can be suicide ganked. You can be wardecced. You can still be tricked into pvp, but crimwatch has pretty much put the kibosh on that.
o Reward: High. Most PVE play is not the greatest isk/hr, but there are many ways you can mine AFK or autopilot haul things to make isk with little-to-no player interaction. Access to the largest and most functional markets.

* Low Sec:
o Risk: Medium to High. Most areas of lowsec are a deserted wasteland, populated by a few stubborn locals or roaming gangs of pirates. Some FW areas are a little more active. There are frequent gatecamps as well as smartbombing BS traps.
o Reward: Low. The rocks aren't great. L5 missions or mid-level complex exploration might yield decent income if you could find a safe place to do them. The markets are for the most part terrible.

* Null Sec:
o Risk: Medium. Bubbles, hotdrops, etc exist, and you can lose access to stations where you might have your possessions kept. However, most of Sovereign Null Sec is connected by jump bridges and covered by multi-region intel networks.
o Reward: Medium to high. The anomaly nerf is still in effect. Null Sec rocks are significantly more valuable than hisec, but the rocks don't supply needed materials to build ships, modules, etc. Scanable sites can provide higher income. The markets are sporadic and only the largest null-sec trade hubs approach full functionality. It is often necessary to import the majority of your gear from hi-sec.

* WH:
o Risk: High. No local. Prevalence of cloaky ships. Everything you own can be destroyed. A large POS tower is your biggest defense.
o Reward: High. But high effort. Can make very good money, but you need the right hole category, the right group, and possibly capitals (which might not be able to leave the hole).


All of the points above are up for debate and I realize there are many exceptions. However, they provide us a good point to start from.

Problem statements:

• There is little reason for the average hi-sec mission runner to come to low-sec or null-sec.
• There is no incentive for a small-time miner to mine in low-sec or null-sec.
• Small groups cannot hope to establish a real foothold in Sov null-sec.
• There is little industrial infrastructure in null-sec.
• The rocks, planets, and rats in low-sec aren't enough to get people to come out and harvest them in any significant amount.

Some solutions:
Make it worthwhile to live in null or lowsec for the average risk-averse carebear. Directly nerfing hi-sec into the ground will not accomplish this. It will just make people quit. Make them want to join up with others and make money. Incursions were a good start, but they were nerfed pretty hard, and the small difference between hisec, losec, and null-sec rewards did not make up for the added risk and forced downtime while avoiding gankers. Yes, level 5 missions exist in low-sec, but not many groups run them. More often someone grind through them slowly in a passive tengu. Perhaps some more variety and tuning could help there.

Make the difference between different security levels more dramatic and or more linear. Right now when you go from a 0.5 to a 0.4 there is a huge difference. The game even warns you (until you turn it off). If the rewards in a 1.0 system for PVE activity were much worse were not nearly as good as working in a 0.5 (ie. mining veldspar in a 0.9 system with no belt rats and using 5 mining drones is not dramatically different from mining say, omber in a 0.5). Make hanging out in that sketchy 0.5 system next to low-sec, where you might get a suicide destroyer coming at you with the cops on his heels worthwhile. But make the 0.5 system sketchier. Maybe Concord takes a break every once in a while and doesnt respond and the criminal gets away (not often but possible). Maybe a local Serpentis gang with BSs, ewar and tackling show up in an icebelt and make a miner spill his coffee (and maybe lose his ship if he didnt fit a proper tank and bring some drones). Make it more random. Make it worth it.

Now that the 0.5 system has pretty good rewards, but isn't really very safe, make someone looks wistfully at the 0.4 next door and say to himself "It's not that much more dangerous and I could be making a lot more money."

Also, bump the taxes in the really high security stations. Make it so maybe a trade hub in a 1.0 system isn't as attractive as one in a 0.5. Maybe make the lower security areas be nice "tax shelters".

I would also suggest make building things in nullsec easier. Its no fun when you have to refine at one outpost and go to the next system to build stuff. There is a reason raw materials sell for Jita - hauling fees in null-sec and finished products sell for Jita + hauling fee. Those ABCs have ok isk/hr, but sometimes its a lot easier to drop a mackinaw in a hisec belt, deploy drones and go make a sandwich or fire up Tanks. The isk/hr for the ship is lower, but the isk/effort is much, much higher.

Something else that might help spice things up a bit. Random wormhole effects that pop up in a system for short periods (from a few hours to a day). These would have stronger effects as you go lower in security. Maybe solar storms could temporarily disable the ability to light a cyno. Maybe your mining lasers are suddenly more effective. If both of these happen at the same time, set up some scout and do a corp mining op. Suddenly everyone is filling their holds with yummy Hemorphite. That would give someone a reason to come looking for you.

A New Hope
***

So how does this "fix" null-sec. We aren't there yet. Let's talk about Sovereignty. The current system relies on blowing up infrastructure that supports the top-down design. This requires large capital and supercapital fleets to succeed. This also results in the necessity to go out and own a bunch of moons, just so you can pay your sov bills and infrastructure. This moon income goes directly to the alliance. The average grunt won't see the isk, other than a ship replacement program (SRP). Instead, we should want to have a bottom up system. Here is a good proposal:

BOTTOMS UP PART ONE: INCOME AND INDUSTRY
BOTTOMS UP PART TWO: SOVEREIGNTY

Under this system, I would propose that Sov be earned by using the system (similar to how the military and industrial indexes are generated now). This would also include shooting other people's ships. Since space would be much more crowded, there would be a lot more targets for roaming gangs. Repeated failure to defend your systems from attack could jeopardize your sovereignty in that system. This would make outposts more valuable (because they are supporting higher population density) and also require that they be much more functional, in order to support increased usage and actual industry.

Basically, the idea is to put most of the income into the players hands. They would get income from PVE (missions, exploration, mining, etc), industry, and PVP (bounties and looted mods). This income would be taxed by the corp and the corp would in turn be taxed by the alliance. This system would also require nerfing moon income to match the new, lower cost of sov (basically nothing, since sov is earned by activity and not infrastructure) and SRPs.

Since actual usage is required, not using the system would mean losing it. This would have the effect of "capping" the size of an alliance's space in proportion to their size. If tuned properly this would mean even the largest alliances only would own one or two regions' worth of space. This system would also reduce the need for coalitions. If you don't have a lot of infrastructure that you rely on to generate your income, you don't need a lot of friends to protect it. This system would mean every player in null-sec generates value. If you rat or run anomalies and complexes, you are making the alliance richer and reinforcing sov. If you mine, you can build more ships to blow up gloriosly and you are reinforcing sov. If you build you are contribution money and available products. If you shoot other players you are reinforcing your sov or weakening somebody else's. Not to mention players in the first two groups provide targets for the PVP-ers.

I think this would allow smaller groups to establish themselves in space. They could find a lesser used pocket of space and just move in. Unless there was an overwhelming response to drive them out, they would own it. One difference I would propose to similar systems is make the systems more valuable the more you use them. Also make some systems more valuable than other (eg. lower true security rating means better resources). The drivers for conflict would be better resources and strategic location.

If I take away structures what am I going to do with my supercaps? Good question. There are still POSs and outposts to blow up. Fights can escalate from subcap brawls to capital ship engagments. Supercaps would be helpful, but not required to hold sov.

This post wasn't as organized as I had envisioned it, but here it is. Let me know what you think.

This.
I would say the emphasis needs to be on effort more than 'risk' if for no other reason that 'risk' is something that CCP does not really supply in the majority of possible actions (inb4.. but INCURSION RAT BLEW UP MAH SHIP!). Effort, on the other hand, is something that CCP can control.

That said, 'reward' is just as much of a weasel word as 'risk' since a not-insignificant portion of measurable rewards are determined by player action and not CCP. I am thinking specifically of all those things that are not ISK generating activities (mining, trading, exploration/loot generators, industry, etc)

The increase in ship and cargo value is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for 'radically different' risk.

Since I am bored I will bump this.



You would say that but you might be speaking falsely (not to be confused with lying). Probability of loss is the only thing that actually matters since you have held static the ISK value. However, probability is a conjunction (loosely speaking) of many other probabilistic factors and the amount of effort employed in mitigating those factors. It is entirely possible to reduce the probability of loss to 0 given sufficient effort and the game mechanics.

As such, effort v reward is a much more sensible route.


You should remove the stuff about small alliances gaining footholds and reductions in the need for coalitions as it is not really true. Swapping structures for players is just changing what is considered infrastructure. Swapping static, high HP, predictable timer based infrastructure for dynamic, low HP, non-predictable timer based infrastructure actually benefits those who have large player bases and are part of a coalition. 500 people spread over many timezones is going to be less effective at defending the dynamic infrastructure in comparison to defending static point infrastructure. So a large alliance/coalition can squash a start up much more efficiently. Since it can be done so efficiently, it will also be done more frequently. Sometimes the only reason why a small alliance can exist in an 'unused' system is merely because someone hasn't worked up enough motivation to overcome the :effort: of structure bashing.

It sounds like you're suggesting making belts in 0.5 system essentially nullsec pockets where anyone can attack you and the only consequences for such an action are the consequences you can inflict upon them...

The reality is, the belt system already functions similar to this:

1.0 - 0.5... increasing belt worth, decreasing concord response time to criminal actions.

0.1 - 0.4... theoretically increasing belt worth (although not in practice), no concord response to criminal actions.. .limited protection on gates and stations from sentry guns..

0.0 best belts, lawless....

The problems are: a.) belt value-sec status gradient needs rebalancing. b.) Mining is generally a low-effort activity... while NPC's do become more potent with lower sec status, it's the risk of assault from other players that poses the most threat to you... and that threat is binary in nature (extreme threat if a neutral is present, and no threat if they are not.). There is no real gradient to player-induced danger on an individual... the gradient doesn't exist until you examine gang vs gang...

I have lived in High sec, Low sec,(FW and non FW low) Wormholes and even spent some time in Nullsec.

Any way. High sec is not safe. First off. afk mining? You sir need to read this www.minerbumping.com
The days of setting your ice lasers up and going to cook dinner are gone. Which is a great thing.
Also where is this profit from lvl 4s? have you ever done them? most of the time you get ****** missions that pay out maybe 9 million plus 4 to 5 million in loot.Now yes you can get some good missions and get 26 to 30 million in loot but compared to anoms, scan able sites, or even belt ratting... Thats chump change. Also safe? you have to fly high priced ships that everyone in eve wants to kill. And you have to have skill points because they will rip your pricey little ship apart. Hell the noctis. a ship that has no real defense and can be ganked by a dessy or two. Cost over 100mil once fit and you have to have it if you want to make any money since 75% of your profit relies on it.
High sec= High risk, little reward. lots of effort

Null sec is pretty much candy land. Lots of money making ways. And your buried 10 to 15 jumps in blue zone. So as long as a wormhole doesn't open in your system you can mine all day long, or run anoms in peace. If someone comes with in 15 jumps of you your intel channel goes insane and you can dock up and switch to you highsec ganking alt to gather the much needed carebear tears you need to survive. There would be plenty of pvp if everyone would stop bluing each other, just saying. Null sec doesnt need to be made easier, its too easy if you cant make money in null sec. then check your map because your not in null sec you mistook the gate camps in low sec for null.
Nullsec= Low risk, high reward. Medium effort. (most of the effort is deciding how you want to make your millions that day)

Low sec is boring. Even faction warfare low sec can be super boring. Unless a Wormhole opens up in your system. Or a Nullsec alliance got bored of looking at blues and comes in to screw with you there's no activity its a ghost town. The only use low sec has is standing grinds, and Bpo research.
no one runs lvl 5s because you need a big fleet and that attracts even bigger groups of pirates or null sec fleets
Low sec= high risk. no reward. No effort, why even go there?

Wormhole.. I mostly agree with your statement on wormholes.
Just give us the extra large pos and some god damn ice so we can just sack screw K-space and never leave.
Highest risk, lots of reward if you can get it out of the hole. Maximum effort

I do like your sov ideas, though your the fifth person to stick up that same idea.

Spend some time in the areas you want to change before you talk about them.