Assembly Hall

CCP and others have a dream of a independent nullsec, but this is impossible or impractical for a number of reasons. Also want more of a draw to it other then moons, with current nerfs to anoms people can make more or the same mission running in empire or incursions. To draw more people to nullsec it needs to be self sufficient and have more rewards, less empty space more people playing the player driven and owned parts.

To summarize quickly why nullsec is not independent would be to mention what only is currently produced by it, which is a much shorter list then what is not. Moongoo, isk, high end minerals, and loot from one type of faction, including faction and officer mods. Ice exists in nullsec, but it is of one racial type. Planetary Materials (and products) are richer in nullsec.

What doesn't exist in any one nullsec region is all the above not mentioned, a mighty long list of essential stuff to do anything, but here are the key ones.

1. multi racial or faction equipment in any region: unless alliances chose to be all one race of the region they live in (none do) they need equipment for 3 out of the 4 races that don't spawn. pirate factions overlap races, but each specialize in ways so ideally one would want access to all of them for fitting any pvp or PVE gear. High metas regardless are desired by people who don’t have skills for tech 2, certain fittings, or saving isk.

2. 3/4ths of ice ore, towers and captials don't run without it. You can change towers to whatever is racial in region, but even then some are more desired for certain towers for mining, industry, or deathstar. Capitals are another matter you train for those in a year or more, and some are more desired then others so choosing them based off spawning isotopes is unlikely (matar are known for sub par capitals, gallente have the covented carrier and super carrier). Add to that, the fact it can be mined in empire in safety for little isk per hour makes people want to do anything but ice mining in null.

3. Low ends, that high end (rare) minerals are more to be hand or actually exist in nullsec leaves low ends the domain of botters and afk people in empire. Much like ice, even if it is present in null that it can be done more safely for low isk per hour in empire makes most residents in null turn nose on it.

4. Anything that cannot be produced by players or player stations. CCP made a good decision in releasing planetary interaction to make things more player driven. But still no player owned station or region has blueprint originals, command centers (not imported), datacores, or skillbooks. All of these are required for many important things, lacking them draws you to empire, while you are their may as well do shopping for all of the above.

To address these here are the following ideas.

1. Any faction can spawn in any nullsec region, have the regional faction be represented in all belts and 50% of anominalys/complexes (so overly represented and in high quantity) but have the rest be a mix of others.

2. In addition to the static ice, have gravimetric spawns of ice (mini ice belt that has limited supply) that will be 50% one racial and a mix with the rest, the few systems with static ice belts be ten fold more likely to spawn these then systems without them. To increase desire to mine ice in more dangerous sec, make the quantity of isotopes able to be extracted doubled for null what you can get in empire, and 1.5 for lowsec, removing static ice in highsec would have the same effect it as well, but that would be a huge game changer. I support changing nullsec regardless of decision made on it but I woudn't want other improvements tied to something that is very controversial, and can be debated elsewhere.

3. Have the quality of ore much different in null then empire, so have rich (null) versions spawn double the minerals and plentiful (lowsec) 1.5, and have it so the quality of ore chosen for each security are only ones found commonly. That way you could also spawn all types of ore in empire and lowsec but morphite. So empire can be resource independent from null as well, but just be of lower yielding types (risk vs reward).

4. One option is having player owned stations spawning any NPC community, being that generation of these is artificial anyway who is to say that little robots or citizens inside player owned stations cannot produce these as well. Another option for blueprints, command centers and skillbooks is have them be random spawns in complexes, animomalys, or rats. That would give more rewards to players ratting without promoting inflation or too much minerals (primary domain of mining). Down side of spawns would take away isk sink, and the shear number of blueprints and skillbooks makes setting up a player driven market difficult at best. Datacores can be acquired (solely) from complexes that are more common and plentiful in the lower sec you go, making researching more of a activity that is better to set up in null.

Other things to fix
1. moons, (REVISED) regional differences are ok but you can’t have it too unbalanced IE 90% of tech moons (limiting reagent) all in the galactic north.
2. Stations, you only get one in null, and its really bad compared with others found anywhere else. Considering you can’t get multiple in same system it should be upgradeable to do what ten empire stations can do all in one. Without upgrades being of the same quality still as one or more empire station, in production, refining, researching, and or office space.
3. anything else

By making each nullsec region able to be able to be self sufficient, people will chose to be as much as they want.

Highsec should be self sufficient. Move moon goo, deadspace/officer mods to highsec.

If hisec doesn't get everything, it wouldn't be self-sufficient would it?

The very premise of "self sufficient null sec" is anathema to the design of the game: EVE Online is a PvP MMO. With self-sufficiency, what is the driver for conflict?

To make null sec more attractive, the design of the game should be skewed the other direction: each region, in fact each constellation, should become more specialised in what resources are available for exploitation. If a system has rich moons, it shouldn't also have rich planets. If a system has many moons it shouldn't also have plentiful asteroids. The distribution of ore by security status should be tightened up, so that some resources are only available in low sec, others are exclusively available in null sec, and even then, some regions of null sec should be richer in A, others in B, others in C. Even within the regions, the balance of ore distribution should be uneven.

Inequality of resources, choke points in logistics routes: there are many options for incorporating more conflict drivers into the game. Making all null sec homogenous will reduce conflict drivers. Why would I want to invade your space if we both have the same resources? The only driver will be the simple desire to blow stuff up. Many players are driven by economics, others are driven by industry. Only some players are driven by nihilism.

A "self sufficient" null sec will lead even the nihilistic players to calmer lives. That is not good for a PvP game.

No part of eve should be independent, they should all have to interact at a reasonable level.
Possibly some balancing should be in order, more isk avalable in lowsec, more risk in hisec (tempered by making suiciding less prolific, the risk should be real pvp not getting ganked by 10 fully insured ravens), nullsec should have things that only work for small gangs, basically a balancing of stuff.

But, no, no where in New Eden should be self sufficient.

high should have moon goo, makes sense, itshould be less or taxed based on standing with the faction's space your in...
officer deadspace should spawn in highsec also, but very rare.

low should have higher chance, and null the best chance.

everything should be self sufficient, but null should have more then low should have more then high.

The lack of slots, or proper refining or manufacturing in stations. Basically makes industry in nullsec 3/4ths importing things. Being that items (and some ships) are a more compact version then the minerals use to make them, it saves space to ship items in the first place used and don't bring in minerals.

It is possible to make isk by moving items to null (I think I have done it alot still do it, I got billions on the markets). But still its a nuisance that manufacturing the needs for a alliance is impossible for all but the smallest. (I think mittani said something along the lines of VFK manufacturing all ammo for a week would just permit 15 mins of shooting for a alpha fleet, that don't use much ammo to begin with). The issue is the lack of able to being self sufficient and running a independent space empire without NPC stations, not a lack of ways of making pure isk. This about something more then just having isk, something greater. Sure everyone can just keep supplying alliances by the olny practical means currently which is using allot of resources accumulated and produced in empire in jita (aid of npc stations) and moving that by jump freighters, but that seems kind of hollow to having a player driven space empires.

You are not talking about null being self-sufficient but rather every region .. what would be the bloody point if there is zero incentive to interact other than to form the biggest blob?

There should be more and a higher degree of differentiation between areas of space to make active trade a necessity for longterm success and controlling space should involve dramatic increases in maintenance costs so that a lot more ego's are involved in managing it.

Moons should be removed in their current form and all products added to PI reaction charts with distribution of key elements manually done by CCP in accordance with whatever scheme they see fit to use.
It should be possible to steal products from planetary operations to encourage patrolling ones space and protecting ones assets .. CCPs grand plan to make tax offices destructible doesn't actually add anything of value to Eve other than tedium like all other EHP grinds (yet another fail idea from Gotta-have-Barbie! devs).

Production should be boosted and options to specialize individual manufacturing nodes (read: stations) implemented.
Mineral bottlenecks should be solved by a combination of a revised mining system, introducing denser rocks/comets and allowing for temporary local boosts (for ISK) to PE value of prints used.

In short: No single entity should be able to be 100% self-sufficient without having to trade, invade or blackmail other entities .. ever. We want strife and thus we need as many points of contacts as possible --> maximize number of ego's and force interaction if they want "the best".

How would self sufficiency encourage blobbing, I would say deficient junk encourages it considering that you would need to be blue to people to trade with them. If one region has oxygen, and other nitrogen, you blue each-other and you got half of the isotopes needed, how is that driving conflict? If Super power takes over multi regional areas with different ice and spawns, will that not be blobbing?

Self sufficiency would involve interacting within your own space with corp mates, alliance and allies to get everything you need. One person finds one resource they sell it with others, actual null sec trade.

Interregional trading, or trade in the same region in null is non-existant, direct trading between hostiles will never happen (hell neighbors tend to have the same resources as you anyway, is fountain and syndicate going to trade oxygen isotopes and shadow serpenties mods with cloud ring?), everyone brings things to jita. That's not encouraging any sort of dynamic trade its just a market system blob, I don't know what fantasy you or ccp was thinking it is or should be but its all just spamming crap to one central location then shopping like you are in space wallmart.

Differences should exist in space, like one resource more then another but the current system is total impossibility to be self sufficient, with key ones for fueling certain races capitals and POS's on the other side of the universe. How is that driving conflict?