Assembly Hall

This will have exactly the opposite impact that you want. In order to maintain a few "useful" systems, an alliance will now have to conquer much more space just to stick a few towers in and leave it alone. And by leave it alone I mean, drop their entire armada on anyone who wants to settle in.

I understand the argument that holding huge areas of space should be more difficult than it is now. But simply making it cost more ISK is not a solution, as the only way to get enough ISK on an alliance level is to conquer more space. Eventually you reach a balance when the space the alliance holds de iure is enough to pay for the space the alliance uses de facto. Ideally, this balance should be achieved without having to hold any space simply to make ISK. All alliance-owned space should be profitable to operate in.

No argument here, and i think you are wrong.
Just go and check 0.0 areas now. The big alliances controlled huge terroritories, but when you go there you just see so many empty systems without any pilots.
If you cant pay for 30-60 system upkeep cost, because that is too much ISK, you need more renters or smaller corps and alliences there.
Thats better against blob and much better for smaller corps and alliances, because it is possible to populate the empty systems so better, while this is cut smaller parts the big continuous possessed areas.

I can't comment on some of the larger, alliance affecting issues like Moon Goo and Sov systems. However, from my perspective as a player that was quite active in 0.0 pvp 3 years ago only return this month, much of the complaints that I hear on these forums about the lack of good small-scale pvp and the poor health of 0.0 as a whole can be directly attributed to the redistribution of in-game resources that has occurred during the past few years.

These changes have included the introduction of level 4 missions to Empire, Incursions, the increase in "Gun Mining" and more. All of these changes have a) Created more opportunities for people to accumulate wealth without leaving Empire b) Lowered mineral prices to the point where mining anything but ice in 0.0 is not only unnecessary, but outright foolish.

Now I don't think that giving those who don't want to leave Empire a better game-play experience is a bad thing, and I certainly don't think that removing any of the current options available to Empire dwellers is the way to go. However, to ensure the health of 0.0, people have to be be given a real incentive to take on the risks associated with null space. Currently, those incentives simply are not in place - most players can earn just as much isk in Empire than anywhere else.

How does this relate to the decrease in small-gang warfare? Simply that without an incentive to mine, mission, haul, and rat in 0.0 proportionate to the risk, players won't participate in these activities - and those players were typically the targets for the small gangs of old. What's the point of taking a small gang to enemy space if there aren't missioners to probe down, or mining operations to disrupt. What's the point of forming a defense gang to defend your space if you don't have anything to defend that a small gang can take down?

To add a personal anecdote, newbies in Goonfleet in years past could make a decent amount of money mining Crokite in our old home in Syndicate. The number of miners in the system meant that the space was a frequent target of small gangs trying to disrupt the miners and ratters. This in turn lead to defense gangs being formed, to protect the miners and ratters. The result? Lots of small-gang combat and emergent game-play.

Contrast this situation to today. Most systems can only support one ratter at a time, who will instantly safe and cloak when anyone else comes in the system. Mining is simply not profitable in 0.0, meaning there aren't the frequent mining ops and solo miners like there used to be. Due to level 4 missions being available in Empire, there aren't a high concentration of players traveling near the old 0.0 mission hubs. There simply aren't the targets that there used to be for small gangs.

So, how to fix these issues and 1) Make 0.0 more attractive to players and corporations and 2) Create more emergent small-gang conflict? Here are some ideas:

1) Create different mineral classes for 0.0 space with significantly improved yield. The goal here is not to replace gun-mining, but to make standard 0.0 mining equally if not more profitable. Also increase PI yields from 0.0 (previously unexploited planets should have more resources).

2) Significantly increase the value, difficulty level and re-spawn rate of of 0.0 rats. Currently, most systems can only support one or two ratters at a time - not exactly a target rich environment. Ideally systems could support 4 or more ratters at a time, at an income rate on par with other earning options.

3) Create reasons for miners and ratters to defend the space instead of cloaking or docking up, while simultaneously providing more targets for small-gang pvp . This could be done by creating a new class of anchorable objects. These objects could only be anchored within 100k of a belt, and would come in two types: i) Pirate Beacon - Increases the number and value of Rats and faction spawns in the system. Only one could be anchored per belt, with diminishing returns for Beacons in additional belts in the system. ii) Rat Inhibitor - Once anchored, causes any current rats in the belt to de-spawn, and prevents additional rats from spawning in that belt.

Both of these anchorable objects would have hp comparable to 2x that of a large anchorable bubble, would have defenses equal to low-sec gate guns, and could be set up with basic anchoring skills. This personal infrastructure investment would give miners and ratters a reason to defend their space, make ratting in 0.0 more profitable, make solo-mining viable without relying on a partner to clear out the rats, and give small gangs a target when roaming through 0.0 space.


Though the implementation of these changes, 0.0 would once again be the land of opportunity for players looking to strike it rich, helping balance the risk vs reward equation. More players would be populate 0.0, and would invest isk in 0.0 infrastructure that is vulnerable to small gangs, creating the kind of emergent game-play that is healthy for EVE. Creating opportunity for players, stake for players and targets for players in 0.0 would go a long way into making 0.0 space healthier and more dynamic.

So we make sovereignty of a certain level a requirement for anchoring moon harvesters. Low-sec moons can be moved or some draconian imperial decree can be added to help limit it, like major increase in stront consumption making defense of far away LS moons difficult (governments do like like safety redundancy in the workplace after all).

Personally want the moon system to be abolished completely and products added to PI as reactions, but doubt that will happen any time soon.

moon mining should stay the same... maybe make more high end moons possibly as the market increases so should the supply.

out side of making some more moons they should stay the same as these are like the small nuggets that people fit over,
the item that people will politically let a moon fall of an ally so they can come to the rescue and take over the moon for their own purposes.

Though I Think some Random Moon have a temp store of High tech would be interesting. Something that would change every month. Make it worth while to once in a while to scan down a moon as it may have 1 months supply of value that you can collect before anyone realizes it. A reason to prob moons versus looking up on the 3 rd party sites.

No need for more renters that the case, you can sipmply not put up sov there but control it by your Fleets that space by controling key points, you can hold all ******* region just by byuilding up JB network and by holding entrance points. noting els is not needet to be controled. Problem for small entatis wil be the sames befor wil brin nochange at all.

Those systems are empty because they're garbage. They're claimed because game mechanics (like the market) make sharing a region with non-blues at best obnoxious and at worst harmful.

its time to nerf moongold. its become saturated. Every valuable moon location is now known and instantly taken by the power blocs wiht a billion caps etc and there i snothing the average person can do about it. its simply not fair that all an alliance needs to do si put up a pos and thats it to make billions.

proposal randomise moongold every 3 months! make people work for it and let everyone have a chance to hit the jackpot

OK rather than imposing artificial limits on people's behavior (limiting the amount of systems an alliance can claim or the amount of blues they can have) let's look at the what motivates people to form these giant power blocks and see if we can take away the things that motivate people to create a universe that we don't like (huge NAP fests, giant blob warfare)

The reason for this is that people will try to get round whatever rules you put in place. Take a look at the practice of can flipping, it's a bit of a mechanics exploit, but it exists for the simple reason that people like shooting at other people. And they'll navigate around the aggression rules to do what they wanted to do to begin with.

Even if what I say after this point is completely wrong I still think we should work on the motivation of large blobs forming rather than the means by which they form.

So why do big power blocks exist? Or rather why do people feel the need to form them?

Well so far I have come up with two reasons off the top of my head and I think we can work on one of them.


The first reason is that blobs win, and if you have a blob harassing you, the way to beat it is with a bigger blob. Having 100 noobs in you fleet flying drakes is useful. But having 1,000 noobs in drakes is even better. I don't know if this concept will ever go away so I am just going to ignore that elephant in the room for now. Granted getting rid of jump bridges would really hinder someone's ability to batphone a blob in.


The second reason I think is the presence of rare, valuable, and monopolizable resources that only an alliance can hold, (tech moons in particular). And for the most part these are resources that your average grunt will not care about.

So as an example ask yourself how much space (in jumps) do you need to enjoy the game? How many jumps would you go from your home station on a daily basis to rat or mine in? How many jumps would you go to buy something expensive or large (like a new ship, or a faction module)? And how many jumps would you go to start roaming?

I don't know about you but I would say I'd be willing to 3 jumps to run a haven every day (this is about the size of an alliance's home pocket). I'd go 10 jumps to the local market hub to drag an expensive CTA battleship or logi back home all by myself. And I'd like my roams to start at most 20 jumps from home. Try throwing up a roaming fleet advert in alliance and tell people that the first fleet destination is 30 jumps out before you are going to start looking for targets, see how many people join your fleet.

So if the average nullsec pilot would probably prefer to live their life in under 20 jumps, why do they have a sea of blues wrapping around most of nullsec?. And (in addition to the ability to batphone a blob) I would guess that it's the alliance as an entity is motivated to spread across space so it can take and hold as many rare and valuable resources as it can. This most obvious example of this I can think of is rare moon goo, although I was impressed with the whole gellente ice interdiction.


I could be completely wrong here but what do you guys think would happen to large alliances if tech moons were more common and drove down the moon goo price, or if the refined products of tech moons could also be produced by PI?

Specific nullsec industries needs huge boosts to make it worthwhile and reincentivize living in space for grunts.
Add new low-end roids that spawn in null that go far beyonf a mere +10% bonus, or make a capital-class strip mining module. Maybe Rorquals will finally be seen outside a POS.
Nerf Jump Freighters/the whole "cyno supply train" so that all goods and materials aren't completely centralized in Jita.
Have it so that PI can have planets to run a manufacturing slots, opening up null for non-capital class manufacturing (while running a deficit, not surplus of food and power PI items).
Retool null archae/hacking sites so that the average site is worth more then the average anomaly site. Oh and buff anoms.

Indirectly nerf highsec by making it more dangerous to live there (increasing cost of operation). Patch wardec loopholes, the bounty system, NPC corp invulnerability.