One of the things that holds Eve back is Gate travel mechanics. But there is an easy solution that can open more of the dangerous parts of space to newer and small corp and solo players. That solution is the ‘jump-in-distance’, from a gate.
Instead of 15km, have players jump in at 5,000km from the gate, unless a player alliance has sov over the system in which the inbound gate resides. In those cases, the alliance may set the gate to a ‘narrow focus’ and players will jump in at 15km. Or the alliance can keep the wide 5,000km distance if they so choose. All High Sec and low sec jump-in-distances will be 5,000km.
This will get more players out in the more dangerous areas of space, by eliminating the blind jump into gate-campers-online. By giving sov holders the ability to configure the gates, they can maintain the choke point that they feel is required for defense. Further, at 5,000km, bubbles can still be lined up. 5,000km doesn’t add up to many degrees over an AU.
Edit: Also, if a corp/alliance is at War, then gates in High and low also drop the pilot on the inbound gate at 15.
Edit2: Allow one bubble per low sec grid, excluding Heavy Interdictors. And increase DPS and range of low sec NPC station/gate guns by 20%
Tell me, in a situation where a ship is flying a journey of 30 jumps through high sec and low sec systems with war targets, suicide gankers and other enemies looking specifically for you along the way, from the safety of tether of one player structure to the tether of another structure 30 jumps further, at which point can this ship be interfered with when ships land 5000km away from gates instead of next to them?
None. Zero. The ship cannot be caught.
Outside regions where bubbles exist, there will be 0 chance to interfere with a travelling ship, unless the travelling pilot is lazy enough to jump straight from gate to gate into smartbombs.
Your suggestion allows 100% safe travel for any ship. And that’s why this is a bad idea.
I’ve added an update, before you responded to address the wardec scenario you describe. As for what I want, I want more people in low and null. This is a way to make those areas more accessible.
Thanks for taking wars into account, but what about non-war situations?
It will still be possible to completely avoid any ganks, gate camps, ship scans and other player interaction with your proposal.
Gates are the place where player interaction on your travels happen. I understand that people who are at the receiving end of that interaction may wish that it wasn’t there, but we’re playing a PVP MMO, not a solo game. Player interaction is a fundamental part of gameplay and shouldn’t be removed.
I’m not talking about the people who want to do something in null, I’m talking about the people who are hauling and travelling.
That industrial, overloaded with billions worth of ISK? Uncatchable in high and low sec. Immune at tether, immune at gates, immune at other tether. All risk for travelling, gone.
We’re flying from player-owned station to another player-owned station using bookmarks within tether range
Taking multiple gate jumps in between
Using a hauler with a 10 second align time as an example
Currently, there is one main point of player interaction (and thus, danger): when you drop gate cloak and align toward the next waypoint until you’re in warp. The outgate.
The only other point of player interaction is at the ingate.
Undocking and docking could be other points of interaction. But in this scenario the hauler is flying safely from tether to tether. (Also insta-undock and insta-dock bookmarks exist for the NPC stations).
The outgate
You are suggesting that the player is 5000km away from the gate when dropping gate cloak, which means that to interact with you before you are in warp there is an opportunity window of 10 seconds in which someone needs to either:
accidentally be within 20 kilometers from where you dropped (1 - 20km x 20km / 4 x Pi x 5000km x 5000km) = 99.99987% chance to not be there!
burn over 5000km in 10 seconds (that’s 500km/s, impossible for EVE’s ships)
combat probe the hauler, warp to him and tackle him (6s probing for a bonused Pacifier, 1s targeting him with sensor boosters and 5s getting into warp and decelerating out of warp (I just timed it), you’re two seconds late even if you do everything perfectly.
Having bookmarks every 20km on the surface of that 5000km sphere to warp to and tackle the hauler. That’s 785000 bookmarks for this single gate. If you can set up all of those you have a chance of reaching the hauler (5s) and tackling (1s) him within the 10 seconds. Good luck!
As I have shown, catching the hauler on the out-gate is impossible
The ingate
Catching him on the ingate is possible if you have smartbomb camps and the hauler is stupid enough to warp from gate to gate. The hauler isn’t stupid, has set up tacs around the gate and warps in from a different direction where you have not enough smartbombs for his tank.
Conclusion: the hauler is 100% immune unless you’re willing to set up almost 800 thousand bookmarks (and probably crash your client in the process).
That doesn’t help the new player that wants to go mine or move some stuff around so they can support doing something more than flying around in a frig.