Greedy Goblin

Friday, October 5, 2012

(I'm not) defining lowsec

This is a rather short post, will be one more today, about my very first PvP action.

Sugar reminded me of a problem that I read about a lot: lowsec development has no aim, lowsec has no "definition". I agree, but we must clarify how to define a zone? I think the problem comes from trying to define it via its PvP options. It's wrong. You can PvP everywhere. The lack of bubbles is not a defining trait. It is not something that makes one say: "hey, I want it so much that I move there!"

Every sector of the game world must be defined by its economy. X zone is the place where you go for Y. The gatherers of Y serve as food for the gankers, gankers serve as food for PvP-ers. Lowsec suffers from lack of resources. No resources: no farmers. No farmers: no gankers. No gankers: a handful of PvP-ers are killing each other.
  • If you want stuff safe/AFK, go highsec.
  • If you want top ore, officer drops, moon materials, go nullsec.
  • If you want T3 materials, go WH.
  • If you want lot of LP, go FW-low.
  • But why should you go non-FW low?
Lowsec needs a distinctive income source. One that is unique to it, one that can only come from low-farmers. Alternatively an income source that is much-much better here than anywhere else. If "I want to farm X" people would go lowsec, there would be life there beyond random encounters between PvP-ers.

Below I list a bunch of wild, random ideas to give an economic role to lowsec:
  • Hauling: remove cynos from lowsec too, force null/WH players to haul their stuff trough stargates. Then gankers would camp gates and PvP-ers could kill gatecampers. This can be spinned up by separating Amarr/Caldari and Minmatar/Gallente spaces by lowsec systems, forcing the trade between them to pass lowsec.
  • Pirate LP: it's kind of lore-ish, lowsec is considered pirate land anyway. Make the Amarr, Caldari, Minmatar, Gallente, Ammantar and Khanid lowsec either into FW-low or high or null and create lowsec in the land of Guristas, Sanshas, Blood raiders and such. Without bubbles, the blobbing null fleets can't make massacre over small gangs, so these zones would be small-gang pirate land.
  • Middle ore: rebalance ores/minerals, so Tritanium, Pyerite, Mexallon comes from highsec; Isogen and Noxcium exclusively from lowsec; Megacyte, Zydrine and Morphit from null and WH. Or easier: move all ice to lowsec.
These ideas are probably not the best and someone who actually know lowsec can come up with better ones. However the point is obvious: lowsec must have a unique economical advantage.


For EVE trade and industrial discussions join Goblinworks channel.
If you want to get into nullsec, go to the official forum recruitment thread and type the name of the alliance you seek into the search and start reading. I'm in TEST by the way.
Friday morning report: 171.7B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 4.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The role-less nature of lowsec, coupled with the huge cliff between highsec and lowsec in terms of safety are its biggest problems.

Highsec should get pregressively harder to the point where there is little difference between a 0.5 system and an 0.4 system.. so make low end highsec less safe, and high end lowsec more safe... that will get people dipping their toes into lowsec.

Then to give it a role.. well. It needs its own "thing". WH has sleeper loot. Null has sov + other bits, etc.

Low does get moon mining below 0.3....I suggest a new income stream. Its supposed to be "lawless" and where all the pirates and privateers live, so how about making it the place where contraband is made? Give drugs a buff and include lowsec in the drug trade...

Foo said...

I wanted to do PI.

I moved out of high and into low. I did most of the right things; built social networks; got a cloaked hauler; used scouts. I even put up customs offices.

I had a problem of moving sufficient resources on a through the jump gates. Less resource movement both in and out meant less resources.

I could bounce through the gates once or twice with moderate safety; but I know if I went pirate and saw a Viator jump through the gate several times an hour, I would have a swarm of drones and cargo containers littered around the gate. Difficult to catch does not equal impossible.

Wormhole space; even with roaming pirates and inconsistent connections feels far safer and has better resources.

Then I have already joined the chorus for more 'middle safety' systems rather than the binary toggle of high/not high; with restricted resources in high safety systems.

Serpentine Logic said...

Middle ore: rebalance ores/minerals, so Tritanium, Pyerite, Mexallon comes from highsec; Isogen and Noxcium exclusively from lowsec; Megacyte, Zydrine and Morphit from null and WH.

I think it's better that lowsec have all ore types to better shift production based on price movements.

I don't think you realise how much more risky lowsec is compared to both highsec and nullsec.

Nursultan said...

Lowsec has intermediate-level complexes, which are the source of A/B/C-Type loot, and level V missions, which produce enormous amounts of LP (although temporarily overshadowed by FW LP right now).

Some lowsec complexes overlap with high- and nullsec but others don't and the absense of bubbles coupled with the abundance of NPC stations makes exploration easier.

It also has largely free (as in not used by many players) production/research lines.

Anti said...

having no direct experience myself but having read quite a bit it seems that null-sec has a large deficency in manufacturing locations. so much so that large alliances dont even have the abillity to manufacture their own ammunition let alone ships and modules.

this leads to everyone importing from Jita. most of the imported goods are maunfactured in highsec from minerals bought from jita.

perhaps what lowsec needs is a massive boost to manufacturing. lower the availiable highsec manufacturing slots. force people to risk raw materials, BPOs, and produced goods by moving the majority of production from high to low.

Anonymous said...

@anti

Moving production to lowsec won't make me put my investment at risk. All it will do is force me to put down 6 bil on a jump freighter

Anonymous said...

A countersuggestion to your ore option: put all ores in all areas, but change how much you can get. Simplistic example: set a base amount per asteroid. Adjust by 1-(.9 * security level). So security level 10 rocks only have 10% as much ore.

I'd also like to toss one more wildcard into the list. Add occasional Concord response. In other words continue the "it takes longer" equation, and add a "if below 0.5 add a chance of no response." Maybe security level squared as chance of Concord response?

whatever said...

Removing the Cyno insanity, that is collapsing space into a single point, will cause null bears to cry. Anything that causes null bears to cry is not something CCP is getting close to.

whatever said...

I think it's better that lowsec have all ore types to better shift production based on price movements.

I don't think you realise how much more risky lowsec is compared to both highsec and nullsec.


You could safely place all ore types in Low Sec without significantly disrupting game balance. Low Sec is THAT MUCH MORE risky.