Many players are complaining about a dearth of conflict and general boredom. Whether it be nullsec with supposed mega coalitions, or lowsec with little to fight over other than faction warfare, this game needs more conflict generators, places of valuable interest that cause players to want to fight to keep them.
Several ideas:
Firstly moon mining. The active component of moon mining was a great change in my eyes. It allows for the democratization of moon ore, it serves as a content generator for miner and pvper, and prevents the old issue of the elite controlling the best without possibility of eviction other than massive firepower. Thus this should in general not be changed, however pre active moon mining, many factions, both in null and lowsec, fought to control the passive wealth generators of good quality moon mining POSâs.
Therefore allow for two modes for the moon drill, first mode is the one we have now and remains unchanged. The second is a passive ânibblerâ of a chunk, however it is grossly inefficient, after all processing vast amount of useless material, without the slow and delicate precision of ship and drone mining lasers, results in over 90% of useful material to be wasted. Furthermore, the chunk itself should be able to be disrupted, the reintroduction of the siphon module would be a great way to punish those who think that they can simply enjoy passive income without penalty. Functions similar to an MTU, the owner can scoop up the moon ore and the regular ore, does not result in suspect penalty, and is freely killable by anyone, since the thief also cannot enjoy passive income without penalty.
Secondly static lowsec DED sites. Lore wise lowsec is filled with empires trying to expand their territory at the expense of other territories. Black rise is the result of caldari colonization into an area of space one thought inhospitable, and many areas of lowsec are teeming with pirate activity, for its a space close to civilization, without the security nuisances. Therefore, have a few scattered DED sites that respawn daily, are large in number, with a dozen or more gated rooms, similar to the maze, that require unique keys that expire every downtime. If you can lock down the complex and collect all the keys and head to the end, you get great rewards. But thereâs a catch, hunters can easily find you, as they can simply ignore the key hunting, which requires a mix of PVE fighting, and hacking, simply by bypassing the gates.
And finally I return to nullsec. I am of the rare few who do not have issue with the concept of a mega coalition, if players manage to become very powerful, they should not be nerfed because of their ingenuity and tenacity. I therefore would propose a structure that will make fighting too irresistible, and defense of it absolutely necessary, that conflicts would result. I would call it the Remote Pirate Destabilization Array, and it would unlock truly powerful and wondrous pve sites, the actual logistics and infrastructure of the pirates, who are eager to let their Haven, sanctum, and forsaken brethren die to keep hidden.
The sites will be interesting. Firstly the main objective is the destruction of the Pirate Command Center, similar to the FOB concept in highsec, or the nullsec pirate stations that drop pirate titan bpc. This Pirate Command Center does serious damage that scales up based on signature radius, a super would die very quickly without logistic support. It will spawn bombs, reinforcement fleets with the FOB mechanic, and other goodies that are randomized to keep things interesting. The reward is the sites spawn as a Haven or Sanctum does, so alliances provided they have the numbers and equipment to run the sites would want to drop these structures.
The catch is equally as fun. The Pirates hate anyone who attacks the bases that fuel their clandestine network of crime, so LP rewards will be given to those who show up to fight the attacking fleet. Even if you have terrible standings, provided you do not engage the base or the hostile fleet, the pirates will assume your there to defend and thus will give you lp, scaled based on isk lost like faction warfare. The location of this structure will show up on the map, for ease of finding likely great fights.
And finally, the system that has this structure deployed has a very unique property. Cynosural field generators are much stronger here, allowing for ships that are at opposite areas of the galaxy to lock on and jump in on the fun. This means that if a mega alliance manages to get several systems and begins to reap the rewards, everyone else can easily lock on and make sure that even the mightiest can be humbled.
Naturally many will disagree, and perhaps server wise my mechanics would be difficult if not impossible to implement, but fighting over something shiny and nice is the driving point of many conflicts, and this game needs more shiny objects to fight over. Thank you for reading, please criticize, support, and suggest any improvements to these ideas.
