As a Carebear extraordinaire who mostly lives in HS I really loathe the ganking mechanic. Not only by the loss that it incurs, but the limited ways you can avoid it. So that has made me try to figure out other ways to make High-Security space safer but still not safe.
This post outlines:
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A temporary event idea to test a gank-free high-sec.
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A real feature proposal to introduce piracy in high-sec
A Halloween Event: Disabling Ganking in High-Sec
Each year, EVE’s Halloween event introduces changes that promote PvP activity. This year, consider flipping the idea: temporarily remove the ability to gank in high-sec.
Lore Justification: A disgruntled miner crashes their barge into a CONCORD HQ, corrupting red safety protocols. For the duration of the event, red safety is disabled in high-sec. Players cannot engage in criminal actions such as suicide ganking, just like alpha pilots today.
What this tests:
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Will more players return to EvE and HS if they feel safe? (as in players who “won” eve).
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Do market dynamics shift when high-volume hauls can move freely?
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Does activity increase in trade hubs like Amarr or Dodixie?
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Are prices affected due to easier transportation?
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How is it abused and how much?
After the event, red safety is restored. CCP can analyze metrics: Did retention improve? Did the economy suffer? Hopefully the insights can tell us if HS without ganking would make the game a better or worse place.
(Yellow safety still works ofc and suspect baiting is just as alive as ever during this period)
New Mechanic Proposal: Piracy Through Hacking
Piracy in EvE is exclusively destruction-based. I propose a new mechanic that enables non-lethal piracy.
Core Idea: Robbery, Not Destruction
Instead of blowing up ships, attackers stop them mid-warp, scan them down, and hack to steal cargo and/or modules, or disable their warp without getting concorded for a limited time.
How It Could Work:
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An attacker “shoots” a target before it warps. This triggers a shortened warp, causing the ship to land off-grid and enter a disabled state.
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The attacker becomes suspect immediately.
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The ship has to be combat-scanned, and can be hacked using a specialized module.
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The hacker sees and can loot a random percentage (e.g., 50%) of the cargo based on skill and module type.
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Hacking takes 1–3 minutes, giving defenders time to respond.
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Freighter pilots can fit countermeasures (e.g., reinforced cargo bays that reduce hackable loot at the cost of cargo capacity or prolonged time to hack etc).
Risk vs Reward
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Hackers are suspect flagged and can be attacked by anyone.
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If the defender is active and has escorts, they can respond.
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The defender can stop warping if they get shot, wait out a timer and jump again without the interrupt.
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If AFK, attackers may steal significant cargo but cannot destroy the ship. Autopiloting a jumpfreighter with billions in cargo is still a stupid idea.
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Police response could be based on security status. This only happens if a hacking attempt starts and the time to intervene and what size of fleet depend on both the defemders and the attackers standing combined.
Why This Matters
This system maintains:
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Risk in high-sec, even without ganking.
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Interactivity and attention-rewarding gameplay.
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A new PvP niche that doesn’t rely primarily on destruction.
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Defenders can prepare, respond, and even bait attackers.
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Attackers get the chance to steal without losing their ships, so more shiptypes will be used in piracy attacks. Even an industrial can be dangerous now.
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No need for multiboxing when attacking. Anyone with the skills and the modules can do it.
This could evolve into a rich cat-and-mouse ecosystem of piracy, defense fleets, and counter-counter strategies.
Preventing Abuse: Adjusting Rewards
If high-sec becomes much safer, rewards must be adjusted downward to maintain balance.
Proposed Solution: Dynamic PvE Scaling
Apply the same dynamic bounty system from low-sec and null-sec to high-sec.
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Overused mission systems (e.g., popular L4 hubs) drop to 25% rewards.
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Cap maximum efficiency at 100%, unlike null which can go higher.
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This encourages movement, diversity, and discourages AFK farming.
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LP stores may self-regulate due to supply saturation.
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Harder rats in asteroid belts, and reinforcing rats. An orca afk-mining should not be safe, if you don’t pay attention enough rats will show up and blow you up. But not in a way that they can be farmed for isk, just overwhelming dps if you wait long enough.
These are just my ideas, but if this becomes a reality I’m certain CCP and CSM can figure out where they should limit the possibility to make isk.
My ideas on how to pirate
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For a mining fleet you scan the targets, try to see if they have expensive modules or shiny compressed ore. Disable their warp capabilities and start to hack them, you go suspect, they can try to kill you and risk that you kill them. If they have friends they can switch ships to defend, but it has to go quick.
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Same with lvl 4 missions, you can scan them down, warp to them, disable their warp ability and try to steal from them. Now you can suspect bait any mission runner even if they don’t have a MTU and they have to do something or you will be able to take something from them.
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Freighters is better to stop mid-warp, since gate cannons and police will fire upon anyone staring a hacking attack but not firing the module that stops the freighter mid warp. Here it’s about being faster than the police, or being able to tank them while hacking. And hope the freighter don’t have an escort.
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Cloaks won’t help, if you fire to stop a ship midwarp, when they land all their modules including the cloak is disabled until they can warp again, or the hacking attempt starts.
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There is no bounty in this system, if they hack is successful you failed in your chance to defend yourself and therefor don’t get to put up a bounty. Same as with suspect-baiting.
How would you use it?
What’s the biggest flaws in the idea?
Since there is no bounty system, would that make you more eager to try it out, if you do it you don’t risk having a bounty on your head so you have to fly cheap ships for 30 days.
