has anyone lived in a high sec island before, and if so would you recommend it as a play option and if so why? (or why not)
We had a WH exit into a high sec island in Aridia, only 2 systems, one of them an edencom one and I wondered what that kind of life was like, essentially stuck on an island with WHs the only way in and out, especially in Aridia which seems extra remote.
I have alts in a few islands for gathering certain resources but I wouldn’t put my main in one. I use wormholes for hauling out.
why not your main? limited things to do? freedom of movement? something else?
It can feel limiting but mainly it is access to markets. I specialise in gas plus I watch the local contract market for bargains, haul out for profit.
Low sec island living is actually a lot more fun.
Agree with this.
I’m currently living around the exact hisec island that you’re talking about. There really aren’t that many people that live out here, so you’d be free to do whatever.
I’ll probably try to kill you if I see you in any of the lowsec systems, but that’s just business. Otherwise, it’s empty enough to do whatever you like.
@Clyde_ElectraGlide - that was my thinking in terms of doing what i wanted without so many people around and hunting in the low sec.
I can see the lack of access to a market being a pain though.
Likewise 
Yep, wormholes do a job but of course you gotta plan your trips and do the scanning. On inserting alts into the islands I take a kit of BPOs/BPCs so that if necessary I can always buy a Venture and build. With a bit of local salvage for rigs I usually get by.
For missing stuff I’ll save it in hisec then next I do a wormhole exit with loot/gas I’ll bring it in at the same time. Takes a bit of planning but workable.
I did this a long time ago. It was difficult to get things in and out and the stations weren’t that good, but that was pre citadels.
With compression, it would have been so much easier to get surplus ore out. With citadels we could have installed our own infrastructure like an engineering complex for research and production, refineries for mining. And filaments would have allowed us to mix it up a bit.
I tried to live solo in Solitude once before. Still got some T1 ships lying around over there, probably will never retrieve them unless I get a lucky wormhole connection there. Never got to doing much in Solitude due to nearly non-stop wardec spam every other week. With the recent ore changes I’ll never consider living in any hi-sec island.
Something I’ve grown to appreciate is how useful having combat pilots mixed in with industrialists is for both keeping industrial ships safe and using said industrial ships as the catalyst for a few brawls. Kinda hard if you’re on your own to do everything at the same time.
There are ways around being wardec exempt, if people want to gank you then they will.
I think the hassle is more than it is worth at the end of the day but it is certainaly a twist to general high sec life
Problem is, that there is no real benefit over any other hisec system. If you go for lower population, there is enough dead hisec system inside main empire space and if someone wants you ganked, they will gank you anyway.
As an explorer I didn’t live in High Sec Island systems but I did do a lot of extended visits to them just to clear out exploration sites.