Greedy Goblin

Monday, July 22, 2013

The loneliness of nullsec industry

Playing a missioner, ratter, PI, manufacturer or miner is a valid playstyle in EVE. It's also necessary as without them there wouldn't be any ships, ISK, modules, implants. However this playstyle is completely asocial. You can't do it with other people outside of WH space. Actually you can, it's just horribly unprofitable.

I've covered highsec: if you join a corporation, you open yourself to awoxers and wardeccers while receiving little rewards as other players can't really cooperate with you outside of incursions.

Now nullsec has complexes that are better done with a group. Also, in nullsec you must belong to a real player corporation to dock on non-NPC stations. However in nullsec the force projection of cynos made an awkward effect: the larger group you are in, the more likely you die. In WH space if you rat in a group, the roaming gang needs to be a larger group. However in nullsec a single frigate can find you, light a cyno and pour a larger gang in.

Since you are in PvE ships, you have little chance to fight back. Your best option is to remain unnoticed. If no one knows where you are, if you aren't lighting up the system in the various statistics, you can only be found by chance. Also, even if you are found, they may consider you not worthy enough to use their bridge. So they rather just leave you be.

Add spies to the picture and you get into a situation where everyone fears blues as much as they fear reds. Every blue can be a spy or someone who just brings attention. So you rat, mine, PI, manufacture all alone, with your alts. For most people it's not a fun gameplay. How about being the gang that drops? That's fun! Except they have nothing to drop on, because everyone already learned his lesson: PvE alone, dock up when someone comes. Maybe something should be done with force projection.

PS: if you still want to try out living in nullsec, no strings attached, come to Delve as a renter. Don't forget to mention me as your referral!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

> PS: if you still want to try out living in nullsec, no strings attached, come to Delve as a renter.

Question: why would anyone want to rent a system for a few billion ISK when they can just disband their corp and join TEST instead using the same systems for free?

Cowboy said...

I don't get the point.
Back in my days we moved from Europe to America in our T1 industrial called "Mayflower".
No CONCORD awaited us, we headed west to claim places where we can settle down.
We didn't had any local-chat warning us about the Apache scout watching us... and some night... a cyno torch lightened up and a gang of 30 apache warriors jump onto us, burned down our farm and tried to get our podscalps.
Those have been wild days, full of risks but full of profit and possibilitys.

Back to the future:
Take away force projection from nullsec (or nerf it to a point where it gets useless) and don't forget to take away those ABC roids, the moonmats and planets full of PI mats.
Less risk, less profit.

You agree, don't you?

Some days ago someone posted a fitting for a level4-sisters-missionrunner to reduce the risk of getting ganked.
How could a missionrunner in highsec, where there are no cynos, get ganked?
Didn't he see those neutral players in local? Wasn't he afraid of those neutrals? Why didn't he run and dock while there were other players in local? Every single one of them could probe him down and warp a gang of catalysts on him.

Should we remove combat scanner probes to make highsec a place of high security? Or nerf "warp to 0" as it is some kind of force projection?

Maybe the secstatus of nullsec systems should change by shooting rats. Some day it will be 0.5 and above, making it highsec, avoiding all cynos. There will be belts full of scordite and velspar and planets without PI mats, moons will get uninteresting and NPC corps come to build stations there, tons of 1/10 and 2/10 DED will spawn in this system and there will be peace and harmony all over the place.
The United States of Nullsec would be born, native nullsec people could live in small reservates playing the risk-your-isk game with new players.

What a perfect future...

Anonymous said...

"You are expected to sell the space"

I think you could really do some good, for EVE, for TEST and for the players you inspire to move to nullsec. create a plan for people to move to the rental plan (lisa needs braces), build an industry in nullsec that can easily afford the costs of rental. how easy is it to take a new player from empire to null and pay the rental fee?

personally i'm not currently subscribed. though in the eight months I played I only ever subscribed with PLEX, after using the free trial to earn my first 400m. but I never ventured into null.

Gevlon said...

@First Anon: he shouldn't if he can get in. But TEST got jumpy with recruitment nowadays.

Lucas Kell said...

That's not really true. Hundreds of people rat, mine and mission in groups in null every single day. There are some people that run purely with alts, but that's no the only way it's done. Back when I used to rat, there would be three of us per anom and one following in a noctis after each one. We could make a lot more doing it that way and splitting the income than without that. Then when we got a decent escalation, a larger group would head out to that.
Mining operations tend to be at least 5 actual people with 20 or so characters between them.

Hot dropping is not a common occurence. Most hot droppers are known by name, and intel picks them up way before they get into a position to jump to you. Added to that, the reaction to any neut/red in local is the same - safe up until you have assessed the risk.

Ratters also can't "hide" from statistics. unless they aren't ratting, the "NPCs killed" will continue to rise, and that's what a lot of roamers look for.

All that said though, I think the key thing you seem to forget that most people enjoy the social aspect. Sure you could do it alone, but it's more fun to sit on comms having a laugh and a joke while playing together. Most of us don't much care about the bottom line, as long as we can plex our accounts and keep a supply of ships, anything beyond that is meaningless numbers.

Arrendis said...

Add spies to the picture and you get into a situation where everyone fears blues as much as they fear reds.

Really? I haven't noticed that at all in the CFC. Maybe it's a unique feature to TEST...

Seriously, intel channels tend to provide plenty of advance warning about roaming hotdroppers, and outside of CVA-space (and apparently TEST-space), nobody's going to burn a spy to hotdrop a bunch of miners or ratters or PI alts. That spy is way too valuable in the long run, and as soon as they turn, they're reported, and the wheels start turning. They'll be KOS inside of 10m, and everyone in the CFC will know about it. Their corp will be notified, and if nobody can get hold of the Corp CEO/Directos, steps will be made to contain the damage anyway.

Nullsec is demonstrably safer than high-sec. In high-sec, unless I'm dealing with known quantities like a war dec or someone CONCORD already wants dead, everyone's a neut. Everyone's a potential griefer. Local is full of people who could be moving into position 10km behind my mackinaw in a covops so their two buddies in thrashers can warp in on top of me and blow me to hell.

In null, at least I can see when the neut/red enters system. I get warnings of their movements through intelligence channels that run the breadth of the space we're likely to be in - from Venal and Vale all the way down to Fountain and Syndicate.

Ratting or mining in groups in null is no problem at all. You just have to keep your eyes open, pay attention to the information available to you, and be ready to react if the situation changes.

If your experience in TEST is markedly different, maybe you should consider that not all nullsec entities are created equal.