First wave of revamped Insurgencies is over, a second has just begun and the Empire side couldn’t care less.
It was difficult prying the miners away from their rocks to defend their home system when Insurgencies carried a real risk of popping structures, but now? It’s impossible. A one week limit means that pirates have to actually use their new powers of corruption with intent to be able to infect a HS system, and even then they have to hope for a good timer to get the loot pinata. So nobody cares about Insurgencies anymore, unless they’re a pirate. It sure seems to me that the “fix” for LP farming has only caused people to care less about defending their space and made Insurgencies all the more farmable by shortening the length of them and giving the pirates the option to direct the infection of systems towards ones that are easily farmed by their ranks.
Insurgencies are what got me into FC’ing and I still remember fondly the Battle for Abudban and the glorious fighting retreat I led that day when fate thrust me into the commanders chair. Entire corporations, now slowly dying, were raised on the flagstaff of defending Empire space from opportunistic pirates and now I see even long time FW blues making alts and cashing in on the event. Is AWOXing even a crime anymore then? Now when I throw up a fleet advert in alliance chat I get maybe five guys, half not on comms, and we are the ones sitting in a safe system grinding out LP while the endless hordes of pirates corrupt systems with casual contempt and we can do nothing about it. Eventually those five guys will get tired of sitting in a circle and collecting LP that they’re just going to sell to someone on discord and they’ll go join the pirates.
Then what? Then what, Fenris? If you want people to fight over Insurgency plexes you’ve got to give both sides the incentive to do so, otherwise people will simply choose the better paying option. With no viable threat to any HS system, you will not be able to mobilize a defense of that system, nor even entice people into engagement elsewhere. There is no reason for anyone to set aside their regular gameplay to engage with Insurgencies unless they are a pirate, and even for them what is the point, aside from getting blue loot and isk? Even the most financially motivated among them will soon get bored of sitting in a circle and getting paid, if no one ever puts up a good fight against them and they will go find other avenues of destruction.
Make Insurgencies Dangerous Again. Put HS structures at risk to give pirates a reason to be bloodthirsty, give empire players a reward that is actually unique and not available to every single player who signs up for FW. If you want to stop farming and create engagement, then do that, not whatever this current slop is.