Assembly Hall

One of the most interesting parts of this game, compared to other games, is exploration and the implementation of various and realistic rare phenomena at space, that you can explore at your own risk, getting the feeling you're truly lost in space. One thing that makes it really interesting is the worthy stuff you find there. But I think the most atractive part of these sites is that they pose a challenge. Players can test themselves at them, specially at WHs.

But the biggest challenge of living in space is the environment itself. You may be at the strongest ship ever built, in an epic battle against others, but if just a nearby star decides to go supernova, you're screwed. If an area is dominated by exotic radiation, no stargates or cynos can lead you there; you'd probably die instantly if you could go. That's what happens with some named regions of the EVE star map.

This is when I encountered violent wormholes and spatial rifts at mission sites. For if you don't know what they are, these are their descriptions:

- Violent Wormhole: "Though the wormhole seems stable, the exotic radicals pouring from the tear imply that using it would be catastrophic"

- Spatial Rift: "A natural phenomena that rumour says will hurtle those that come too close to faraway places. Wary travelers stay away from them as some that have ventured too close have never been seen again"

Those are both Large Collidable Objects, but apart from their nice looking, they don't interact with you (except forthe violent WH, which damages you over time). So, I though they could be mixed with the "natural challenge" idea, and here's it:

These objects suggest they lead to a very dangerous place, due to their nature. So, they could be found through scanning, as cosmic signatures, fitting into the "Unknown" type. You can find them as you find normal WHs; you can jump through them. But on the other side, you'll find a very different kind of WH-space: one which is dominated not by sleepers or pirates, but by natural, dangerous phenomena. In the map, these "unsafe systems" would be the proximities of black holes, pulsars, or very active nebulae, or just space-ripping rifts. You'll be saying "Those are already at WH-space, and do interact with you", which is right, but not realistic: if a small laser turret can kill you, why not a whole star pouring radiation?
You could find these dangerous places though violent wormholes -that wouldn't hurt you by themselves- and/or spatial rifts. For added variety, each of them could lead to differet kinds of unsafe-space; for example, violent WHs would lead to systems dominated by black holes, pulsars... and would be harder sites, while spatial rifts could lead to interstellar/intergalactic space, dominated by emptyness, but also by hard-hitting nebulae/cold or whatever designers were inspired to add; these sites could be easier (but could also be the contrary). Both sites would be single systems and could be found at known and WH space; no unsafe-space web like with WHs. As them, spatial rifts and violent WHs could dissapear eventually, but inside these sites, new ones would be opened like happens inside WH space, leading to... who knows? Could be known or WH space...

So, after that wall of text, what would be the point of risking your ship there?? Well, there you could find even rarer ores, deep space ice, gas, lost devices, substances or even being able to do "sun mining", that would be getting antimatter/dark matter generated near these active objects (this part has been suggested at another topic). In the meanwhile, your ship would be affected by the environment in various forms, apart from just getting damaged over time. Examples: asteroids/ice storms were the smaller the ship, the lesser the chance of being hit; radiation pools were tank is required; or even black holes truly sucking you, etc. Different loadouts and fitting would be required at each location, adapting to the challenges.

If natural resources are good enough (I'm liking the sun mining thing more and more), players could stablish their POS there, if these systems never close, only the ways inside. Nullsec rules would also apply there, for id¡f someone wants a even more epic battle.

For ending, the point of this stuff is to make players not feel like the kings of space, since space itself is always above them... while atracting them with worthy things. Adding the new nebulae, would look even better.

Well, that's all. Please let me know what you think, what you'd like, what you wouldn't, etc. Fly safe! :)