Our little corp setup a station in lowsec. Within 5 minutes after it was ready a large fleet flew in and demanded payments in exchange for allowing the station to remain in the system. We said no, they beat our fleet and destroyed our station.
This is how the “mob” works, and is typically called a protection racket. I expect that in nullsec, but was surprised about lowsec.
So my question is, is there a way to find out what corp/alliance “owns” a lowsec system and if so can we pre negotiate with them for a better deal?
The easiest way to find who is active in your preferred lowsec systems and mosty likely “owns” that space is to check that systems on zkillboard. Additionaly, you can use complex map database dotlan..
On top of that - next time send scouts in cloaked ships, who will stay in lowsec systems and just watch, mostly for days, what is happening there. Gathering information, when it comes to settling in ruthless lowsec space, with your own citadel, is essential.
Good luck with your next settlement attempt. Fly safe.
I am not complaining about getting our station destroyed. What I am mostly interested in is how do I get an agreement up front. The amount of money asked for was too much for us to come up with on the spot, had we known we could have delayed and put it together. If we can figure out who owns what systems we could negotiate with more than one system lord per se.
Hang out in low-sec for a while. Operate out of NPC stations and free-ports as you get to know the locals. Open conversations with existing structure owners and ask what they do when someone attacks them.
And ask yourself, do you REALLY need a structure? And any payments anyone asks you to make will unlikely be a one off. They will most likely want a steady income for letting you live near them.
If you lack firepower find yourself a nice little empty C1 or contact a renter alliance in nullsec, you’ll have less trouble keeping your station there.
This exists in HS too, in fact everywhere in this game.
What I did was look for who was doing the killing in those systems over an extended period then would decide if they are killboard junkies or not. There are quite a few that just blap anything that moves.
Well to be fair, they didn’t actually ask us to pay the ‘tax’ or informed us beforehand on any of this. The basically showed up, destroyed the station and said that it was because we hadn’t paid 2 Billion… But we were welcome to pay said fee, install a new station and then pay another 2B every month…
They then informed us that paying the fee didn’t actually mean they’d do anything for us, like protecting anything or anyone… So basically they’d charge more than 50% of the likely revenue of the station and didn’t offer anything in return
I thought your name looked familiar. I’ve crossed paths with you quite a few times in Molden Heath and Heimatar. I am surprised you wouldn’t know that Parallaxis are a regular and active Russian TZ group throughout the region’s lowsec systems. I highly recommend sticking to NPC stations, you will notice Molden Heath is almost completely devoid of structures in low sec.
Wait, was it the Parallaxis Alliance in MH? Lol yeah dont even think about paying anything to them. If you are part of a coalition or something like that, then just pull superior numbers on them. They only roam around the region in very small groups attacking lone targets - they are quite stupid and do not do well when going against other groups - they make most of their kills from lone targets:
Do not set up structures in Molden Heath unless you can protect them.
Thing is, it doesn’t matter who “claims” to own any given low sec system, anyone can go there and bash your structure, all you’re doing is paying 1 specific group not to murder it, they can easily just let someone else know its there and let them murder it
