In-Game Events and Gatherings

But if EVE in itself is an RNG lottery of "lucky strikes", per se, then you're essentially just putting 15 bucks into one of those toy egg machines at Walmart. You're just feeding in money in the hopes that your character gets something good. It's not quite gambling - I think the legal definition of gambling is exchanging money for a product/service wherein there is a chance of getting some amount of actual money back, and anything that isn't money, such as toys, food, virtual items like spaceships in EVE, aren't considered that way - but it's essentially the same thing.

I don't want there to be a "luck" element in the software, the game mechanics, of EVE. I come here to play around in a mostly closed system where the physical rules are well defined, and any and all interaction within that mostly closed system, and only within that closed system, has an impact.

Now, there are seemingly a few problems with this idea, for instance:

PLEX - "They're traded for out-of-game currency, and they affect the game, and blah blah."

Yes, but EVERYONE has the same opportunity to buy, sell, and use PLEX. The same principle applies to anything else - If EVERYONE were allowed to have custom ships and / or textures as prizes based on well-defined parameters and a transparent system of acquisition, I would be fine with that as well.

Heat damage / crystal damage / etc. - "It's a poorly defined random element, just like these proposed lucky events."

Yes, it's a poorly defined random element. I think that's bad. Throw it out along with lucky events. Throw them both out. Get rid of heat damage RNG. It's stupid.

I'd much rather have algorithmic heat / crystal damage that is both calculable and equal for everyone in equal circumstances.

OR

Have no heat damage at all, if that's easier to accomplish.

Other than these things, and probably a couple other things in EVE that I'm not thinking of at the moment (feel free to name them), the rules (mechanics) of EVE are really solid and sane, and I wish that the rules for "dev cheating" were just as rational.