Jita Park Speakers Corner

The simplest way to do this would be to embed some K-space constellations within the W-space region.

simplest way to do this is to go to NPC 0.0

Maybe he means to create areas in W-space where sov can be claimed?

Exactly. If you add new space that can be directly accessed via current K-space, then what could prevent large groups dominating small ones in this new space?

The emergence of increasingly larger groups in a contiguous habitable area is as inevitable as it has been in RL, and for the same reasons. The only way to keep "space nations" small is to make it extremely difficult to travel. The easier travel & logistics are, the more quickly you will see large groups (blobs, if you like) emerge. In the distant past, nations were small, because once they grew past a certain size, the outlying provinces were impossible to defend or control due to the communications & travel barrier. As technology improved, with inventions like horses for riding, roads, telegraphs, navies, etc, then the maximum sustainable size of a nation increased. Each time that maximum size increased then not long after, one nation or another would grow to that size, forcing others to follow suit or perish or be dominated. We saw similar progress in EVE, with the proliferation of capital ships, jump bridges, titan bridges, etc. Each addition made force projection easier and increased the maximum viable size of a player empire.

W-space has conditions such that it's relatively easy to move a small fleet, but very very difficult to move a large fleet, to a specific system. And once that large fleet has been moved, it is no easier to move it back home. Thus we don't see the 1000-man blobs in W-space. Even in W-space, relatively large and powerful alliances have emerged and claimed most of the best systems, but there's a practical cap on how big they can become and remain manageable or coherent.

That's why NPC 0.0 is no real answer. It's far better than sov 0.0, of course, but still far too hospitable to megafleets. Also, there just isn't enough of it. That said, I strongly agree that we need more NPC space to act as a spawning ground for small & new alliances to get an initial foothold in K-space 0.0.

We also need to accept that sov 0.0 will be the battleground of large coalitions for the forseeable future unless CCP implement some VERY radical changes (eg: reduce capital jump ranges by 50-80%, remove smuggler gates, reduce warp speeds by 50%, remove local as an intel tool, etc.

Why not have them altogether free of rats? I know that seems radical, but bear with me. People living in these "pocket regions" would have access to ore, moons and would be able to claim sovereignty (and thus have jump clones, etc), but to make their ISK, they'd have to venture into W-space - and take the risk of drawing the attention of whatever groups inhabited the wormholes today.

On the one hand, the inhabitants of these pockets would have a large incumbent advantage with access to stations and so forth. On the other hand, they'd be faced with the challenge of permeable, ever-shifting borders, no meaningful way to cyno-jam their systems, and constantly changing neighbours. There would be no question of just being able to "turtle up" and grind ISK and squeeze out supers in safe space.

In fact building supers in these pocket regions would be a huge gamble. They would give a great defensive advantage, but... if you lose that space, your supers are stuck in there. How's that for some risk:reward?

Just spitballing, but .... maybe one of the "small gang sov" mechanics, could be that neighboring systems could never be more than "X" levels of "development" above each other? .... so in order to have one system capable of containing SuperCaps, the neighboring systems would likewise have to have some reasonable level of development (or nearly so) ... and so on and so on, so that you develop clusters of "more developed" systems but retain small, isolated systems on the outskirts?

The trick might be to allow these systems to retain critial aspects of WH Space (difficulty of transport, lack of 100% dependable "Local", etc.), but still be somehow slightly MORE civilized or connected than WH Space is ...

how about simply getting back to basics and making current space larger aka logistics more difficult etc. maybe jb ranges cut down...

there's already plenty of space no one is really interested about, but no one can realyl go claim it since if they do there's soon 500 man titan blob bashing their towers.

See my idea from the old forums here: http://eve-search.com/thread/1551371/page/1#15

Needs to be more than constellation sized, to make it harder to defend. If pockets were ~1-3 regions wide, with the wormholes connecting them to w-space constantly moving, it would be pretty hard for one group to lock it all down.

Since there would initially be no stations in this area, ISK is pretty useless to the inhabitants. Spawn things (like drones!) for ratters which drop minerals. These will be nice to have, since virtually everything will have to be built on-site.

If you are really concerned about supercaps taking over the pockets (just like they already have with the rest of null) you could always make it so they can't go through the wormholes to enter the pockets. Don't give the ability to install super-capital building upgrades. Regular capitals would be fine though, I assume.

This basically, if you want small alliances/corp to enter 0.0 just dramatically increase the size of NPC space and increase the amount of entry gates to a region. Very simple.
I find alot of the problems with EVE are usually because CCP have tried to be too clever with a certain dymanic and then spend the rest of their time trying to fix it.

The simplest answer is usually the best.

High income w-space is more stagnant than null space (and that's saying something). Some of those systems are packed with carriers, making them impossible to invade. The more time goes by, the more w-space systems will be like that.

NPC null is okay in moderation. It is where bored, established players prey upon less established players. NPC null looks wonderful when large wars are going on, but is hellish the rest of the time.

To fix null:

1. Kill moon goo. It is a coalition builder, not a conflict driver.

2. Add regions. The more regions, the more people, the more fighting.

3. Kill the "I win" button. Supers should not be able to mop up sub cap fleets.

EDIT: It would be interesting to see small pockets of space that are outside super jump range of the rest of space. It would fix the "stack carriers" problem of w-space while keeping supers out of the mix. The viability of something like that depends entirely on how much income potential is there. Too much and it will be stagnant. Too little and no one capable of defending themselves will stay there.