Player Features and Ideas Discussion

so the choice is btw having systems empty like we have now (with 0 chance to catch anyone) and system with more capsuler doing missions with the chance to catch one or two with their pants down; no brain i take the second; many will escape someone will be caught better than having soo many sys empty.

There are already seconds of null with mission running. Granted I have no idea how much it is utilized and can be a pain to get the standings to get started with the reasonable level missions.

One of the main reasons null sec systems are empty is because there are no stations in them, and even some of the systems with stations are fairly useless stations. Without the ability to refine or reprocess then a system looses a lot of its value for anyone mining or grinding rats. The lack of a market for most goods (especially meta drops since in any given area everyone has access to the same drops) means any secondary forms of income like loot and salvage and even exploration are of limited value.
It is also a very long and dangerous trip to get any of that to a real market. The overhead time it takes to turn said goods into isk can be quite long.

The biggest issue I see with null space is a chicken and egg sort of situation.

There isn't enough industry in null to live in null without occasionally heading to empire.
It is a PITA to move large amounts of goods, especially ships.
BPOs, especially researched are too valuable to be in null.
The limited number of stations and how spread out they are means that much more time and risk to get research/copy/inventing BP, the refined minerals, and the manufacturing slots all together to make something.
There isn't enough demand in any given region of null for someone to make the huge array of products that someone might want to buy.
So since everyone has to go to empire to get goods anyway there isn't a lot of market for goods to be sold in null.
The risk aversion for a lot of people in null isn't the isk it is the time.
And if you do produce something your possible market is a fraction of what it would be in Empire, you can only sell to your alliance and their allies, no one else can possibly get to your goods, but in empire you can sell to 99% of the playerbase.

Many alliances get around parts of this with reimbursement programs but those are almost always for very specific ships and often only for alliance PvP outings. There is a good chance any given player (especially fairly new) can't fly (or at least well) the ships the alliance wants everyone to use. Also most of those are for BCs and below, if you wanted to do lvl 4 missions or the high end anoms you pretty much need a BS and probably not one in the PvP fit that might be available for the reimbursement program.
Then on top of that the all might killboard seems to be the fixation of so many alliances, so if you are out taking risks to make money and do loose the ship not only are you out the isk for the ship, the time it takes to replace it, you're also getting yelled at by the killboard police because you are making the alliance look bad by dieing .

I have no idea what the solutions might be. I think having more fully equipped stations would help some aspects of it, but not everything. The cloaky haulers ease the pain of some moving but they are limited in use (many can't even move a cruiser, too small for raw minerals for manufacturing), they are also not that quick to train into and all of the larger haulers are too vulnerable or extremely expensive.

The thing I miss about empire the most when in null isn't the safety, it is the convenience.

What I had meant by loosing a PvE ship is not loosing it to rats, it is loosing it to other players while ratting. It doesn't take a whole lot of interference from another player, even in a frigate, to push the balance on some of the more difficult anoms/missions. And since many of them have scrambling rats there are times when you can't escape as soon as someone enters the system.

And I agree completely with an alliance not replacing a PvE ship. The point was that if that did happen not only are you out the cost of the ship, you are also out the time it takes to replace the ship. And that downtime could cost you more then the ship.

The other side of that is also that it is dangerous to PvE in null when enemies are around, so when they come around you get safe and wait. Even if you never loose a ship you loose a lot of productivity time. If I have 2 hours to play in the evening and I'm in empire I could spend that entire 2 hours making money in whatever way I want. If I'm in null with that same 2 hours I spend a bit of time checking intel for hostiles close by, earn money for a while, probably end up somewhere safe for 30 minutes of that time while hostiles are too close/in system, and end up with maybe 1.5hrs worth of productivity time. So I would have to make about 33% more while I'm out to make up for lost productivity just in terms of time, and even more then that if I want to come out ahead considering the increased risk and potential for ship loss.

Which is another form of convenience, being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it. And of course this part is a lot more variable, depending how deep into null you are, how close you are to your alliance's border, how busy the system is (busier draws more friendlies for protection but also more enemies because targets are around), and what time of day you are playing. If you can only play during "prime times" you are more likely to run into hostiles. There is a good chance you will be playing during prime times too, because the fact that most people have about the same time off is the reason it is prime time in the first place.

As for looting the anoms, it usually seems worth it if you have a noctis and reasonable skills, especially as you can usually clear the anoms that are best for your ship and abilities faster then they respawn so you can clear one while waiting for the next to spawn.

That's what I meant, if it gets to the stage where another player 'interferes' as you so aptly put it with your PvE ship then you have either made a daft mistake or been really very unlucky. The pointing rats should be dead very soon after they spawn, if they are not then its a mistake, if they spawn just as a neutral enters, then it's bad luck.

If you really are that focused on productivity then perhaps highsec is the place for you, 0.0 players tend to need more of a sense of fun and more to the way they play the game than just making money. For example if hostiles come near by your first response should not be 'oh noes my isk/hour' but rather 'Great! Targets! Now, where did I leave my sleipnir? Has someone got a fleet up?'

Move onto the next anom of that type in your system, if you are bothering to rat there it should have more than one at a time.

I agree that it would have to be bad luck or the player just not paying attention to be caught unaware in null sec. I put it as interferes mostly because the kind of ships that could get to you fast enough to lock you down probably doesn't have the DPS to threaten a PvE tanked BS on its own but is enough to break the tank with the help of the rats.

The main problem with trying to fight the roaming hostiles is that they come in 2 main varieties, the larger gangs that you have no hope of taking on your own and solo ships that are almost impossible to catch short of luck or a bubble on a gate and some luck. And it isn't that fighting them isn't fun, but it might not be what you have time for, because hunting down hostiles almost always takes a lot more time then running an anom.

As for the productivity, or loss of isk/hour, that is sort of the point of the thread. The fact that it isn't more profitable being in null compared to high-sec because you have nothing else to worry about in high-sec. Why don't more people leave empire to be in null? Because while null is more profitable in theory, in practice you have to dock up and wait or switch ships and try to hunt someone down. So in the end over any given period of time you are probably making less isk in null because there is a lot more downtime.