And we’re back from a bit of a break in blog posts.
Let’s talk about lowsec. Now, the general consensus is that it somewhat sucks. Living in lowsec a good bit of the time as I do, I have to agree – in fact, it sucking is why I don’t live in lowsec more than I do. I’d love to spend most all of my time in lowsec, I think it could be a really cool place to try and build a mid sized cartel, not quite like the big 0.0 alliances, but a group that still manages to control the area through economic, military, and political influence, even though the sovereignty mechanisms of 0.0 don’t exist. I personally think that has the potential to be a cooler endgame than 0.0 POS warfare and lagfests. Not that I have anything against 0.0, I just personally think I might find lowsec more interesting.
Except for that one little thing about lowsec sucking. It’s not worth the effort of all that right now. So, being enough of a pragmatist to realize when it would just be plain silly and dumb to totally devote my energy to that, and waste corporate and alliance resources for little gain, my dream remains largely unfulfilled.
Oh, sure, I do run a coalition of alliances and corporations that have all signed NAPs with each other and try to work together in a small area of lowsec. But that’s really just a taste of what I wish I could accomplish in lowsec, and the reward so often doesn’t justify the effort that it’s only my devotion to the idea that has kept me going with it as often as not.
So let’s identify a few specific things that could be done.
First, I think we need to promote rewards for industrial efforts in lowsec. Lowsec needs to be worth it in terms of industry, or else the only reason people will go there, for the most part, is for combat, maybe to get to 0.0 or to take a shortcut, and once a month to fuel their POS. And that doesn’t really give the pirates enough to shoot at. Mission runners and ratters have some reason to go to lowsec, and people that want to run a POS, but miners? Lowsec ores are a joke, and this is in urgent need of attention.
Researchers do have some reason to take shuttles in once every so often to get shorter waiting times on ME research slots, but there currently exists no reason for industrialists to do the same with manufacturing slots. Now, I’m normally the last to advocate a nerf, but I think we need to consider all options here when it comes to making lowsec manufacturing slots advantageous over highsec ones, and advantageous enough to be worth the effort of securing a supply line. If this were done, we might see industry corps start to try to use lowsec a bit more – the clever ones would prosper over both ones that were not so clever and fell prey to pirates, and over those who remain in highsec – which is as it should be. And certain friends of mine who operate on the other side of the law tell me that this would make things much more fun for them, too.
See? Improve industry, and everyone profits!
While improving industry and mining, I think it might be a good idea to look at a few other things in lowsec as well. Missions are better in lowsec than highsec, yes – but still most people choose to do them in highsec, rather than lowsec (despite it being a relatively safe activity to engage in in lowsec). Perhaps we should look at farther boosts to lowsec missions – though this is purely speculative, of course. Any changes need to be carefully considered.
Now, if highsec is considered the home of the ‘carebears,’ and 0.0 the home of the great alliances, lowsec is generally considered the home of pirates. While I would like it to be home to clever industrial groups as well, I’m not adverse to it maintaining something of a reputation for shadiness – in fact, I’m very much for this reputation for shadiness, and think it would be great if some of the industry groups that become successful in lowsec acquired a similar reputation for perhaps bending the law every so often. So perhaps we should put more (or any?) pirate agents in lowsec, so that people can run mission for them there, and gain standings. And then let’s make those standings mean something, like standings to the empires do – say, if you have positive standings, or standings over a certain amount with a pirate group, rats of that faction won’t shoot at you. This might be of some interest to miners if they can’t get someone to tank the rats for them. . . .
Let’s also give traders a little something, and make NPC buy and sell orders for various illegal commodities – drugs and the like – in lowsec. Arrange things so that long risky journeys through lowsec to trade these goods will be very profitable, as will trips that require smuggling through highsec to reach an isolated pocket of lowsec. Traders will have fun with this, and pirates who prey on them will as well.
Now, simply improving reasons to go to lowsec isn’t the only thing that needs to be done. It’s very hard to control and defend, unlike 0.0, or at least so I understand. While I think this is part of it’s charm, and I would never want lowsec to be as easy to control as 0.0 is, or as broken up into power blocks, I do believe it should be a bit easier than it is now – and that their should be rewards for managing such a difficult feat (besides the fame of course). How? Well, I’ll be honest with you here – I’m not sure. This part of the plan needs a bit of work. I know at least one of my fellow CSM candidates has some plans regarding this, and I hope that this is something we will have the chance to work on together. And you can be assured that I’m thinking carefully about this. But I also want your thoughts and opinions on this. So tell me:
Lowsec sucks. How can we make it better?
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