Going nullsec and becoming a pirate never looked reasonable to me from economics point of view. Anyone can buy any allowed ship anywhere, which is too comfortable for ultra-optimized highsec pve players. They just buy the best ship suited for ratting and make even higher incomes (Machariels for Incursions and Lvl 4 mission blitzing, Gila for Abyssals). Yes, they are more expensive than non-pirate ships, but higher price does not mean more risk in obtaining them.
The solution
Forbid all forms of trading of pirate ships in empire space, including:
Buy and sell contracts at NPC and player stations
Putting pirate ships into contracts and HyperNet
Direct character exchange at the station
Moving pirate ships in and out of corporate hangars
Building pirate ships in empire space
Important note: each empire faction recognizes different pirate faction as illegal, but allowing other faction pirate ships to be tradeable in the current empire space negates the original intention - people will simple get more highsec jumps to buy a pirate ship and the system won’t work.
This does not include the following:
Fly pirate ships in empire space
Transport pirate ships and their blueprints in cargo
Leaving (ejecting) pirate ships in space
The last statement leaves a loophole for pirate ships contrabanda, but this is more aligned with Eve lore and feels more natural.
Expected result
Players have to move out of highsec/lowsec or communicate more with each other to get better ships
Pirate ships cost will increase
Both players flying and shooting pirate ships feel the uniqueness of these ships
When it comes to how people see you, both player factions and NPC factions, it doesn’t matter what ship you fly but what your personal standings are to that faction.
Amarr faction police doesn’t attack players for flying Minmatar ships, nor do they attack people for flying blood raider hulls.
Instead Amarr faction police attacks players with bad standings to Amarr, and players who fly for pirate factions or enemy factions in faction warfare.
Flying a hull designed by pirates does not make you a pirate.
Oh goodie! Another “nerf high sec players” thread!
No.
If high sec players want to stay in high sec just accept that as a valid playstyle and valid choice in the sandbox. Enough of these half-baked ideas attempting to justify forcing people who play, in part or in full, in high sec! When I want to go outside high I do but, that’s MY CHOICE, not yours.
Why bother with these indirect measures, instead of limiting trade you should just ask the devs to make it so that any capsuleer with an active criminal timer get a 99% reduced damage output until the criminal timer expires.
Maybe indirectly something like that. Is there any precedent if ships affecting temporary standings? The Pacifier is one I know of benefitting from standings.
It could add a negative modifier standing towards the opposite faction for fun. Just as an example in Gsllente controlled space flying Serpentis ships could affect you up to -5 if you’re already -1 in standings. (A -4 debuff, as an example at around the thresholds).
Maybe for manufacturing it wouldn’t be permitted in Gallente owned stations to build Serpentis ships. Only in other factions stations and player owned ones.
I like these ideas that spice up a bit the potential roleplay-based gameplay elements.
I don’t think permission to build or fly ships based on the space you’re in is a good idea.
It tries to do something that already exists in the game in the form of standings, and having two such systems just overcomplicates the game with needless restrictions.
However small local industrial bonuses to build for example Gallente hulls in Gallente space could make industry and trade more interesting.
This would also be yet another encouragement to use of local ships, besides that rat types also encourage this, and may accomplish a similar result of letting players fly more ships of the local faction, but without annoying restrictions.
I think you’ve drifted from the original thrust of the thread to a generic building ships in a faction’s space should be easier for ships of that faction.
The OP seems to think that pirate ships are OP and thus they should be harder to get and thus the make/buy in low/nullsec idea.
Personally I like this idea, but maybe the pirate ships should be more OP to warrant such a nerf.
The Cynabal used to be feared but it doesn’t seem anywhere near as powerful these days, what with the weapon rebalancing which means AC are no longer the king of weapons. Also the faction (Navy/Fleet) cruisers have crowded the pirate cruisers niche. I’m not saying that’s a problem, more choice is good, right? But I don’t think the pirate ships are OP enough to need a nerf in the way the OP suggests.
The biggest problem is that CCP/FC would get a shitstorm because they’d “take away something from the players”. They are just used to their toys…
Would have pirate ships be integrated into the game this way right from the beginning, they could have told a nice lore story about pirate-ships so heavily modified, that they are banned by CONCORD to be traded, manufactured or even used legally in HS space. They would have to be pretty expensive of course and would need unique boni that would not overpower them in a classical way (more DPS, more speed, more tank bla boring), but enable them to do unique things regular hulls simply can’t.
So help me god if I can’t bling out a Gila, bought sold and fitted in a single highsec trade hub, then what is even the point of earning an isk? They are already expensive vessels, they do not need to be made even more expensive.
