Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The map in eve is a pretty awesome thing; specifically the static nature of systems, routes, and size. Static geography is core to the history and dynamics of a living world, and imbues the events that take place in it with unique stories that reflect the challenges and features of the stage they unfold on. Geography drives decisions; risk vs reward, land value, strategic value, plex shuttles, the list goes on. Features like gate pipes are important for all sorts of pvp. Shortcuts, specifically in high-security space, drive opportunistic individuals on both sides of the spectrum towards "dangerous" parts of space, for the chance at a shorter route, or the fool that wanted it. If you didn't already guess it from the title, this thread is about the Amarr - Jita short cut route through the Kaaputenen - Niarja Stargate.

I love Rancer, I never actually go there, but I love what it represents, and I love the thought of those poor brave souls who clock in every day for thier 9-5 job smartbombing the stargates. Rancer acts as a lowsec shortcut to get to minmatar space(specifically Rens/Hek) from Jita, cutting a 25/19 to 15/9 jumps. You must go through 4 lowsec systems to complete the shortcut, and Rens is pretty worthless nowadays, so its not as significant as it once may have been, however it still holds a special place in eve as a pirate's nest. The Jita - Dodixie has a similar low sec shortcut available as well, but I don't remember any corp mates linking their shuttle loss with a pith A-type invul to smartbombing battleship for those systems like I have seen for rancer.

Some might argue that Niarja fills this same shortcut risk/reward role. Today I see the equivalent daily losses of ridiculous things, but there is a big difference between something like Rancer and Niarja. Things like 22bil providence's filled with zydrine, and other insane acts of carebearing don't happen in lowsec shortcuts like they do in Niarja. Doesn't that mean Niarja is even more dangerous than a Lowsec shortcut? Of course not, and most people will roll thier eyes for stating the obvious, but Niarja is high security space. Your plex shuttle is unlikely to get smart bombed by a battleship in Niarja.

The Kaaputenen - Niarja stargate pair jumps a massive amount of space between the two. Some nullsec gates I beleive jump farther, but they are few in number and do not exist at the core of the economic world of EVE. To illustrate, Jita - Amarr takes 9 jumps if you travel through this stargate pair, however if you avoid this gate, then it takes 45 jumps. That's nearly twice as long as Jita to Rens or Dodixie. Many people get the impression that Minmatar space or Gallente space is far away from Jita, but this is not the case.

My stupid idea is to make Niarja a low security system. This has more motivation than just to make Niarja a cool shortcut option. A simple action like this would have fairly significant economic impact on the whole game universe. The Kaputennen - Niarja stargate massively shrinks high-security space, and acts as a lense to focus the game market into jita. Currently, you either live far outside the Amarr-Jita sphere, or you live within it. This either means you have the convenience of quickly heading to Jita to buy your things, or you have to occasionally buy over priced garbage from Dodixie/Hek/Rens, and frequently do large sourcing from jita to keep yourself supplied. Amarr space is giant. Really it is a huge portion of high and low security space, and thus a lot of people live there. I always see people auto piloting freighters from Amarr to Jita daily, so clearly a good portion of Industry/Minerals operates within Amarr space, and supplies Jita.

So this change produces quite a few interesting questions that I really would like some people with a better grasp on EVE economics to discuss and answer:

1. If Niarja was low security space, how many of those people would leave amarr space and move to caldari? How many would stay and instead supply the Amarr market?


2. If Niarja was purged from high-security space, it would put all of the trade hubs within relatively equal distance of each other with the exception of Amarr and Jita being very far. What would this do to those markets?


3. With tools like eve-central, and CREST now supplying live market data would Amarr or the other trade hubs become actually competitively priced with Jita, instead of always being a 'convenience charge' economy based on distance from Jita?

TL;DR:
Make Niarja low sec so I can get my shuttle smart bombed.
Also trade hub balancing.

WIth so many people living in amarr/caldari space, I wonder what sort of crazies would take the Niarja low sec shortcut to save 36 jumps?

I for one am ok with deleting Niarja

The only real option is making at least 2 other 15-25 jump options from jita-amarr and make them far enough apart that you cant really cover all of them and then let ppl choose their safety levels and make gankers work for it.

Get out of hisec.

Chances are that it would just kill off the Amarr market and everything else would remain much the same. Unless Uedama went too, hauling would still take place entirely in highsec it would just take longer and cost more. People wouldn't suddenly go rushing their freighters into lowsec en masse.

It doesn't even make sense though if you think abut it, as that would be removing the only direct path between Caldari and Amarr, and since they are friendly with each other it's unlikely they'd be completely detached.

I agree that it doesn't probably make much sense for caldari/amarr space to be basically detached, but isn't it perhaps even stranger that their spaces are only connected by this single large gate? Maybe, like someone else said, a few gates should be added to create 25-30 jump trips between Jita and Amarr.

I haven't been around that long, but correct me If I am wrong, CCP has shuffled gates before, and the current trade hub situation wasn't always like this (if I remember right, it was even worse). I really wonder if Amarr would die, given the scale of the space surrounding it, but I don't have a degree in spaceship economics so I can't really say I have any idea what I'm talking about. Hek and Dodixie seem to be doing OK despite their distance from Jita, however they still operate on a convenience economy where the only goods that sell there are because someone is making a profit shipping it from Jita. Is that the best any 2nd trade hub will be in EVE? Has it always been like that?

Finally, I don't expect anyone would be bringing thier freighters to lowsec Niarja, let's not be silly. A lot of people are making assumptions about motivation for such a change. I don't really care who this change would affect, as I think it would affect most people. Are there people who live purely in null and don't give a **** about Niarja? Yes. Are there lots of people who live in Null/Low Sec/Wormholes that rely on Jita always being very close? Also yes. Perhaps Jita being accessible from most of highsec (read: amarr space) is a design necessity at this point and removing that shortcut gate would destroy amarr space and all of the amarr carebears would funnel into caldari space.

Cutting the pipe between Jita and Amarr won't shut down or move the Amarr hub because it is not Jita alone that makes Amarr a hub. Both are major crossroads between multiple regions.

Amarr is 1 jumps from Kador. 2 Jumps from Tash-Murkon and Kor-Azor. 3 Jumps from Khanid. 4 Jumps from Citadel and 6 Jumps from Genesis.

Cutting out Jita still leaves Amarr as the regional hub for several regions.

Every empire should be separated by low sec space.

I got the impression that this was an "idea" thread pretty quickly and couldn't bring myself to read an idea from someone who isn't smart enough to post their idea in the idea board instead of GD.

Does that include France and Germany?