So… been away from the game for a while. Had a kid, sorta killed my time for it. She’s four now, thinks spaceships are neat, wants to ‘help’ me mine asteroids.
Go to scout out a nice quiet spot in Minmatar 1.0 space (I’m not trying to make money, just amusing the kid). My main (who I was using) is in Minmatar FW so has very bad standings with the Amarr. I land on a belt where there is a Joint Harvesting fleet mining (you know, Amarr, the enemies of the Minmatar), immediately get scrammed and attacked. Luckily, I’m in a fast ship and escape with no harm done.
But… let’s face it, if I’d been in my procurer, I’d have been as dead as proverbial fried chicken. It basically means my main can’t safely mine anywhere (since if one of these fleets drops, you’re going to be guaranteed toast) and can’t even can’t count on a strong tank and backup from Concord or faction navy (who serenely ignored the whole thing).
From an RP perspective, it’s utterly ridiculous (the factional government is OK with this???) and from a game-mechanics standpoint it’s a useless gimmick (i.e., if the kid wants to watch internet spaceships, I basically have to spawn a level 1 mission space with some asteroids in it). What, exactly, is the point of this ‘feature?’