Previous feature review:
CCP moved certain ore types the medium grades mostly to lowsec, and wormhole space setting up increased contest over these regions and setting a new production choke point on minerals no longer found easily in nullsec.
Recently this patch has mostly been undone for convenience reasons and now those minerals are in abundant amounts in fully running null-sec encampments. As a result of this, some wormhole and lowsec interests are of lower priority and may be allowed to fall or deconstructed out of disinterest and a general sense that their use was a non-optimal time sink.
Proposal: Contest Wormholes
Take the new ore type sites and greatly reduce their quantity or remove them entirely. In place add a new type of wormhole instance grid that is not for travel and a totally new feature set from typical wormholes or “beaconed” wormholes. Contest wormholes are connected to random places in nullsec and are like a beaconed wormhole minus the extra burn distance. Inside the wormhole is a mining site and several 2-4 internal wormhole connections all on one grid. You cannot travel to explore the exits or scout the other connections, unless you have by chance scouted it from the other side where it entered from.
In these wormholes warping is prohibited, there is not star system, and you simply travel to the ore and back to your entrance and fight others doing the same over the shared resource opportunity. Moving too far outside the normal grid bounds sets an ovular slowing field until you cannot move out further, you can move back inwards at full speed in that slow zone. There are sizes like normal wormholes that will match the normal main 4 sizes seen in J space and have a proportional resource amount in them by size. Titans and Supercarriers cannot enter. There is no mass restriction, the contest ends when the resources are depleted. If players complete the resource amount in full it starts a 60 second expulsion timer and all players are ejected out through their respective entrance hole. Logistics and other expensive support can safety pedal by their entrance wormhole and offer logistics or other cover without extreme risk so long as they can tank a volley and jump. Normal jump cycling timers apply from J-space. The travel in distance when entering is set at the ranges for stargates, not wormholes, and perhaps even extended slightly. The grid sizes are as follows:
Frigate: 50km across, 25 km from entrance to mining center-point. 2 entrances
C1: Up to Battlecruiser/Porpoise 100km across 50km to mining center-point: 2 entrances
BS: Up to Battleship size & Orca 150km across 75 km to mining center point: 3 entrances
Capital: All ships except Titans and Supers including Rorqual. 200km across 100 km to mining center point: 4 entrances
This puts the closet grinding as miners down a notch and puts an action-focused game style around the choke-point production minerals, and sets up fast response style action, and escalating preparedness regarding economic activities across vast regions of null-sec, and connects PVP content to those that would have to travel long distances, or search for travel routes through standard wormhole chains.