Aria Jenneth
Caldari
APEX Unlimited
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Posted - 2006.11.06 08:52:00 -
[1]
Okay. Admittedly I'm an AP, but it seems to me that you lot are missing one really big point, here.
Correct me if I'm wrong-- aren't scan probes going 3D with Kali? And if that's the case, doesn't that make hunting down mission runners and the like much, much, much easier?
I fly covops, and I've struggled with scan probes in the past (have yet to get a successful read on a Z-axis target, actually). The idea of being able to track down deep-space, Z-axis safespots has had me grinning like a maniac for WEEKS. This is going to make certain kinds of pirating much easier, since it's going to get much harder to hide from you (also, it'll make it harder for you to hide from us, but fair's fair, right?).
This looks to me like a trade-off: lowsec gets safer in one sense, more dangerous in another. And the safety is mostly an illusion, since, as has already been observed, it's actually pretty rare to catch a juicy target slogging the fifteen clicks to the gate. In my admittedly limited experience, you catch 'em coming through, not going through. Gatecamping, you get battleships and cruisers while they align, you get covops when they're unlucky, and you get interceptors mostly not at all (or when they're stupidly brave). You get incoming ships (valuable ones, anyway) once in a chartreuse moon.
Further, since the carebear community is likely to be as convinced of the new "safety" of lowsec as you lot, you can look forward to a migration of a few thousand additional potential prey items into your clutches. My apologies for the few I've likely scared away by posting this.
Personally, at present, if you see me in lowsec, I'll be either cloaked or using bookmarks; this measure doesn't change things much for me, or for you, if you're hunting me (other than with probes). The suggestion of eliminating bookmarks without allowing the 0 km warp would actually drive me largely out of lowsec-- I can't match the firepower of my local pirates (one of whom gatecamps in a cloaked mothership), I can't make a profit while continually losing ships, and flying around with cloak up all the time doesn't work so well for the periods when I'm not trying to ferret you people out. You wouldn't see more prey, you'd see a massive exodus of non-pirates, and those potential victims you did see (as opposed to the covops scouts, who you wouldn't) would turn up in large convoys designed specifically to annihilate any gatecamp they encountered. If you think carebears shun lowsec now, this is a way to make it worse.
I do think the variable range is worth a look, but it seems counterintuitive (and damaging) to have 0.0 equipped with both warp bubbles (which not only can stop ships but can pull them right off target) and with mandatory 15 km warp-in range, which is the only logical way to structure it (otherwise you've got a strange scale from high to nosec of 0 km, 4 km, 8 km, 12 km, 15 km, 0 km). 15 clicks AND 20-km radius warp bubbles? AND interdictors? Talk about stacking things in the campers' favor!
I also find the idea of allowing bubbles, or at least interdictors, tempting, but frankly, guys, this leads way too easily to the OMG instaPWN traderoute camp of doom (ingredients: 1 well-aligned warp bubble, any size, 30 km behind 1 well-traveled lowsec gate, ideally between large hisec territories; 8+ blasterthrons, camping said bubble; unending supply of unsuspecting noobs. Stir and sprinkle with plasma for a nicely profitable fountain of loot and cheap lols).
So ... yeah. You're going to miss out on a few slow learners and people will make a few less mistakes. Being a passive pirate is about to become a little harder. Being an active pirate (or AP), however, is about to become easier. Those of you who quit, see you 'round the internet. Maybe. Those of you who don't, I'll cheerfully see you in lowsec, hopefully before you see me.
And believe me, guys, this isn't just about you pirates. We'd like to be able to catch you, too.
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