Of the two, the second is the better idea. Not because it preserves local, but because it’s active.
It will always be better to set up things so ‘players want X, they do Y’, rather than just ‘X is how it is’. For example: players want the best ratting or mining anomalies, they have to invest in an IHUB upgrade.[1] It also opens up counter-play options.
Let’s turn it around: Assume Blackout is the ‘default’ condition of null[2]. CONCORD doesn’t provide those services there. But players can put down a structure, or a service module in an existing class of structure, that provides it. Other players then get a few options: blow up the structure. Maybe hack the structure, either with an entosis link or some other module designed to bring the hacking mini-game into more prominence[3].
Basic success: you shut down local.
Basic failure: you don’t.
Critical success: you get the option to just make you, or your group, not show on local in that system for 30m, or an hour, or something. You still get all the perks of local, but nobody sees you coming/going in that system.
Critical failure: you shut off local… for you. You won’t even know you failed. It’ll look like success, after all.
Active gameplay offers counterplay. The biggest problem w/cloaks right now is: there’s no counterplay. Sure, you can decloak someone… if you can get inside 2km of their ship. But if you weren’t there when they cloaked? Perfect stealth, uncounterable. We lack things like active sonar, or other tools to (even briefly) expose cloakers.
1 This is not saying players having the best anomalies is necessarily a good idea, only that it’s better to make them do something to get them, rather than just giving those anoms to them.
2 Go farther: gates function, because they’re paired, but without the Communications Arrays (or whatever), the fluid routers don’t work. What does that do?
- No chat channels at all. Maybe preserve fleet chat for ships on-grid, but not beyond that, because there’s no FTL communications.
- No cloning. The same QE He-4 used for Local is used to transmit your head to your next clone. Jumpclones would only work within the same structure, and if you die… looks like it’s time to go back to ‘did I update my clone?’ in Nullsec.
3 Really, hacking has so much potential in an environment where everything’s controlled by computers. Hack ACLs. Get yourself temporary docking rights in enemy citadels. Be really baller and turn off tethering. Get access to jump gates, or bypass the toll.