Assembly Hall

The perfect route design in this game is Jita to Hek/Rens (Hek for brevity, from here on out.) It's the route that most exemplifies a risk/reward design philosophy. Yet, it's only one of two hub to hub routes in EVE Online that offers reward for risk as a travel option.

This is a shame.

Travel between every pair of trade hubs should offer two distinct routes, with one route rewarding risk. The reward for that risk would be time.

Take Jita to Hek. The highsec, safe, reasonably risk-free route is 19 jumps. The riskier, much shorter, route through lowsec is 9 jumps. This is why Rancer is such a popular spot for pirates. There should be popular locations for pirating. These locations should be along shorter hub to hub routes. I argue that there should be more of them.

Another route that is perfectly designed is Amarr to Rens. It is 20 highsec jumps, 11 jumps via lowsec. Again, risk versus reward design. The reason why Amamake is a popular pirate destination.

Shorter routes aren't going to get freighter pilots and carebears into lowsec. That is not the argument I am making here. Those people are still going to take the longer routes. That's fine and okay. But there are a subset of people who will take the shorter routes, when they are available. They don't mind the risk of facing pirates, if simply to save some travel time. I'm arguing for the pirates, that they need more opportunity and more locations in which to ply their trade. There need to be a few more Rancers and Amamakes on the starmap.

I'm making the argument for them, but I am not a pirate. I'm a freighter pilot. I'm also an impatient son of a *****. As a freighter pilot, longer routes would be a detriment to the hauling that I do. But I'm also damned impatient, and dislike long travel times, if I can avoid them. When I'm in the appropriate ship (frigate, covops, blockade runner) I do take the Rancer pipe frequently when travelling between Jita and Hek. I've been killed in Rancer, it still does not deter me.

For other hub to hub travel, there needs to be an adjustment in the routes. For instance, Jita to Amarr needs more highsec systems between the two hubs. Currently it is a 9 jump highsec route, but it should be a 16-19 jump route; it then needs a 7-9 jump route that passes through some lowsec. The same goes for Jita to Dodixie, currently a 15 jump highsec route versus a 12 jump route that passes through lowsec (the differential needs to be greater.) Dodixie to Hek is 9 highsec jumps, it needs a lowsec route that is 4 jumps. Dodixie to Amarr is 16 highsec, 14 lowsec; that lowsec route needs to be decreased to about 8 jumps.

Think of the pirates, man!

-- from Hub to Hub Travel: Think of the Pirates