MercenaryMuffin
The 0rder
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Posted - 2010.02.04 09:32:00 -
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Some good and bad ideas all around. I like this discussion, lowsec has needed an overhaul for a long time now. Zero-zero has received its massive boost, I think it's time lowsec gets the same. A few things here:
 First of all, in order to understand the problem with lowsec, you need to give a reason for people to come to lowsec who wouldn't normally. Everyone is happy just running L4s all day because there's no risk at all. How about making all L4 agents with positive quality ratings (1 to 20) available only in lowsec? On top of that, no more low-grade item drops from killed NPC ships during missions. The current mineral market is terrible, because you can just reprocess a bunch of junk from mission pick-ups and sell the minerals.
When you eliminate item drops, the price of minerals goes up. This means more incentive to mine the lowsec and nullsec ores, because it will mean more isk/hour for those miners...if they're careful.
Increase the value of scanned plexes in lowsec, make some systems hold more valuable ore, that sort of thing.
CCP has talked for a while about being able to mine planetary rings and comets/asteroids that zip around in space. Perhaps these can only be mined in lowsec (you could say hi sec rings have already been stripped of their resources), and thus it would give people an incentive to mine.
Speaking of mining...at risk of sounding like a carebear...we need a new class of Mining ships. Something that has a good, solid tank. Maybe the tank of a battleship.
Think about it: You buy a Hulk for 150mil after fitting and rigs, yet most people will never take it out of hisec. Why? Because it can be popped by a T1 cruiser, or a T2 frig. I realize mining ships aren't meant to PvP, but for the love of all things decent, why are they so easy to kill? These are supposed to be big, heavy, tough ships. They work around asteroid fields, you'd think they would be built to take a little punishment.
I propose a new class of Mining ship, which brings in less ore than a Hulk, but has a much stronger tank. That way, it wouldn't be so scary to the miners to venture into lowsec to get more valuable ore.
Pirate markets. A black market. Like has been said before, make the buying and selling of things like Boosters, certain Implants, NPC goods, Pirate Faction Ships, etc. only available in lowsec.
More criminal factions, not just Guristas, Blood Raiders, etc. I'm talking about the lowsec version of Hisec corps. Maybe they're associated with certain "normal" pirate groups, and thus they determine your rewards, but you wouldn't have to worry about killing, say, a Guristas rat and being denied a mission by a corp that is associated with them. Or at least be able to buy your way to mission status with them. After all, everyone wants more money, an a corp made of dirty pirates is no different.
I like the idea of buying your way around things. Perhaps you can find a crooked member of Concord who will negate your 15 minute GCC...for a price. So if you paid them, say, 60 million isk, you could negate your GCC 3 times. Gate guns would still fire on you if you engage someone within their range, but once you warp away, they act like your GCC is up.
Or maybe you can buy your way into a hisec system (a 0.5 or 0.6), without police harassing you. It could last a few days, or a week, or a month, depending on how much you pay. I think it would encourage people who want to try piracy a boost, especially those who don't have hauler alts. This way they could still make trips to the closest hisec system without fear of being attacked.
Smuggling, smuggling, smuggling. Who doesn't want to be a dashing smuggler, ala Han Solo? Make ships that have concealed cargo holds, so you could run illegal goods around without attracting the attention of authorities.
I love being a pirate, it's the most fun I've had in Eve...we just need some piratey lovin'. Yarr 
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