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You have different playgrounds: high-, low- and null-sec. People start in high-sec so have to be inclined to leave for other zones. Incentives for that are profit and different gameplay. Zones with higher profit must be more difficult. Else everyone would leave high-sec for null-sec. So we do have:

High-sec: base profit, relative safety.
Low-sec: higher profit, no CONCORD.
Null-sec: highest profit, no CONCORD, not every system has stations you can use, people have to protect their assets, higher organization level required to survive.

Low-sec = no law = free PvP. Free PvP is:
a) "fair" fights just to prove you are better than the other guy (duels)
b) ability to kill everything inferior to you on sight just because you can (not always, but usually just griefing)
c) ability to shoot juicy targets to rob them and earn money (piracy)

Duels are minority and do not define low-sec. Griefers do not need anything other than some way to blow things and would function anywhere. That's why I'm naming piracy the only low-sec proprietary gameplay. Null-sec is more about military operations, "grab & hold" gameplay, while low-sec is "hit & run".

Here we come to two things:

1. To run successful extortion business you must have someone to extort. Extorting another extorter just won't work - there is no source of income. So piracy won't function by itself, it needs isk-generating players in low-sec. The more you drive them away from low-sec - the less interesting the defining low-sec's gameplay would be, the less populated low-sec is going to become.

2. Different playgrounds with different gameplays should have about same level of profit per month. That way willing people would simply leave starting hi-sec for playgrounds with most appealing gameplay.

Yes, there is inequity in null-sec where some have tech moons and other only have Call To Arms to defend those moons. But general level of income in null-sec is higher than in low-sec. That's why we have low-populated low-sec same time as having massive lag-causing battles in null-sec. Make low-sec as lucrative as null-sec and people would spread evenly, some leaving organized null-sec warfare for organized low-sec crime. But make low-sec less attractive and we get (at boundary condition) empty systems with only transports passing by on their way between null-sec and hi-sec.

So every change to low-sec has to improve financial attractiveness of this zone unless you are going to abandon it. And POCOs would just make low-sec's gameplay look more like null-sec's and decrease low-sec PI's attractiveness, both leading to degradation of low-sec as unique playground.

The thing is, you never know which one you are engaging in. What seems like a fair fight might just be a guy in his first battleship he can't fit. The lone noobship might be someone's alt with a capital ship skillbook in cargo. Or the expensive ship you are about to gank is actually pimped to the top and sends your gang home in pods.

Actually, the thing that defines lowsec, mechanics-wise, is accesibility. It's trivial to get in and out of lowsec in the right ship. A corp can claim to control a system or a station, but has no way to actually stop other players from coming and going. Even gate/station camps are easy to avoid. Now, that is why people were doing PI in lowsec and not (so much) in NPC 0.0. Even a cloaky hauler is easy to catch in null, but barring keyboard accidents, it's 100% safe in lowsec.

For that reason, in the previous thread, I advocated against letting people close down lowsec POCOs. You can easily make some RP reason to explain it, and it fits the lowsec spirit better. But I'm not even sure people will restrict them anyway.

I have counter proposal for CCP. Don't make COs destroyable. Let people build some destroyable installation per system to increase PI profit such as:
- resource concentration increase
- powergrid/CPU/bandwidth/storage increase
- remote CO and launch management
- protective fields around COs to prevent ganking PIers there
- something esle
Autoincrease CO taxes in such systems by some factor (have to be balanced with utility installation provides to be attractive for PIers). Give share of those taxes to owner of such installation.

That would improve profit for PIers and provide profit for installation owner without degrading existing gameplay. As if there is no such installation - numbers simply revert to current state.

You could even make such installation modular - each module provides some utility from the list above, increasing CO taxes more.

I'm so disappoint by CCP with this one. So if say something like what happen the last time the Dev srelease something the community didn't like, will it be removed?

I call for an All Hand on Deck to sign the death of this feature. This is getting pushed in to the winter expansion. Either do it right or not at all.

/signed Removal of Feature.

/ signed for Removal - nothing I like about it... and am concerned this is the return of the steam-roller approach they have apologized for in the recent past if people don't like their 'fantastic new thing'.

/signed for removal.

Only the Goon's and their like minded minions think this is a good idea, what does that tell you?

/ Signed for Removal

Its people that post like PMCHEM that give me the slightest sense of hope for this game (and often this genre). Thank you for talking sense and demonstrating a very well thought out and analyzed position on this feature.

I concur with your perspective that POCO is a critical first (or early) big step in the DUST/EVE linkage. CCP needs to show this very alert and questioning playerbase that they've got a serious vision for this game.

People, the deadline CCP is focused on is not the 29th of November. It's the 20th of December. If CCP botches this rollout it could be a rough next year or longer. You've got to evolve and grow to stay alive in any business, especially this one.

I seriously hope they not only make the right decisions about how this new mechanic will work but also how to communicate their recently publicized 'new and improved approach' to EVE ONLINE.

/signed for removal

1. PI resources in low-sec replenish too slow for any planet with average concentration to be used effectively by more than 1-2 persons. And only limited resource types have high concentration in low-sec.

2. For effective PI you have to use at least 4 planets per person.

3. Current low-sec population is low.

That's simple strategy. If you have few defenders and a lot of things to defend, you are going to fail no matter how active attackers are going to be. Key to victory is concentration. And while attackers would surely be able to concentrate their forces, defenders are going to be spread too thin.