So, in light of "reduce nullsec inflation" being a design goal, I submit a humble proposal. Really, I echo the proposal several people have already made, but in a much more thorough manner.
- Eliminate the 5% penalty. If we're able to make it attractive enough, you won't need this stick to beat players into eating their carrots, so to speak.
- Rework the payout of this unit such that it reduces bounties to 80% of their value, but replaces them with LP at a reasonable exchange rate. This exchange rate would ideally be calibrated to the value of easy to buy and move items in the LP store, such as +3 or +4 implants. Given the extra supply we'd see here, something like 800 isk per LP would seem sensible. Thus, killing a million isk bounty rat would now reward 800,000 isk as well as 250 LP.
- As inflation is no longer a concern, the bonus payout can now increase to an acceptable level as to balance the risk inherent to putting 20% of your income on the line, potentially putting your ratting ship on the line (if reshipping to defend the ESS isn't an option, as it will so often be), etc.
- As is the case now, a thief can come along and access the ESS after some appropriate length of time. Should they do so, they receive LP tokens.
By using LP and calibrating to something like 800 isk per LP, you maintain the income level for players who just want a fast cashout. However, the unit becomes more attractive to people who are willing to put in the extra bit of effort to find higher yield cashouts, which is generally a plus. This also has the added perk of making the factional choice for ones ESS more meaningful,
and opens up the future possibility of ESS modules from other factions as well - naturally, the Sisters of Eve might want to get in on the action, or perhaps a special version of the ESS issued by one pirate faction rewards even more handsomely than the Empire versions, but only for kills against their rivals.
In the worst case, no one uses this - as many individuals and even alliances have already sworn to do with the current version - and nothing changes inflation-wise. However, in the best case, they see widespread adoption, dramatically cutting into the faucet that bounties represent. A followup bonus here is that LP often as not is redeemed with an additional isk payment, so we get the added bonus of an additional sink as well.
Now the largest obstacle here would seem to be that LP is corp based rather than faction based - it's not "Caldari State" LP, it's "State Protectorate" or "Caldari Navy" or what have you. Technically speaking that should not be difficult to overcome, as mechanics to convert one form of LP (CONCORD) into another (almost anything else) already exist, though of course I know nothing about EVE's code. Conceptually speaking though, there are many solutions, perhaps the simplest of which is simply speaking to an agent of the appropriate faction, and trading either your faction LP or your tokens for an equal amount of that corp's LP. That also offers yet another chance for savvy players to increase their income further still, as even within a faction, not all corps are created equal. If access to certain LP stores in this manner is undesirable (FW stores and their special ship offers come to mind) they can simply be added to a restricted list.
e1: Going to call back a much earlier post in this thread:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4108628#post4108628Elements of this could be incorporated, most notably the somewhat higher EHP and the short, fixed duration reinforcement timer as a means of governing access, thus committing someone seeking to steal from the structure to both having a decent amount of DPS and giving defenders a reasonable amount of time to reship and respond.