Thursday, October 15, 2015

Thought Experiment: Allowing Capitals to Go To High Sec

Some capital ships can enter high sec, and some cannot. Freighters and Jump Freighters can, Rorquals cannot. Orcas, barely a capital really, can. Carriers and Dreadnoughts and Super Carriers and Titans cannot. Its not a technical reason for disallowing certain capitals, after all they are capable of transversing stargates in null sec and and low sec. Heck, some capitals are gransfathered in from back when capitals were allowed to be manufactured in high sec, the most famous being Chribba's Revelation in Amarr system (Note: these grandfathered caps may NOT be used in any offensive capacity be decree of CCP). Its purely a game design decision at this point.
The Veldnaught in Amarr

However, its worth asking the question if the game has changed enough to remove the restrictions.

Pros

Here's why I think it could be a good reason to allow combat capitals and Rorquals to have access to high sec once more.

1) New Content for High Sec - All those high sec players who refuse to go to low sec or null sec can now explore what having these super large ships is like. It will also give high sec wars another level to escalate to, and new targets for suicide gankers to stalk.

2) More opportunities for new missions / exploration content - With high sec capitals available, the developers can explore new high level missions and exploration sites that are designed around capital gameplay.

3) Interesting logistic questions for low sec / null sec organizations - Allowing capitals to jump into high sec and travel through it could pose some interesting choices for groups. Do they spend the fuel and jump or travel through relatively safe high sec? Then it opens up the question if war declarations to prevent your opponents from using high sec in this manner is useful.

4) Stabilize capital markets - With capitals able to go into high sec, the market would flourish there in relatively safety and prices would stabilize and standardize. 

Cons

1) What do you do about capital manufacturing? - If you allow manufacture of all capitals in high sec, it will destroy the low sec manufacturing industry (including myself) and probably hurt null sec manufacturers. If you don't allow it, why not? It seems just as arbitrary as not allowing capitals into high sec and excludes content from high sec, etc.

2) Escalation of high sec war declarations to capital blobs - I mean, you already have the problem of high skill point and rich players dominating combat in high sec, but allowing capitals would only exacerbate the issue ten fold.

3) Destroys logistical hard choices - Just like allowing jump freighters into high sec massively simplifies a lot of logistical issues, allowing all capitals into high sec could simplify fleet movement for groups.

4) Diminishes regional markets for capitals - Less of a concern but still worth thinking about, maybe we want volatile isolated markets with wildly different prices. Stabilization might be bad for the small time producers (like myself).

* * * * *

Outstanding Questions

1) What do you do about cynos? I mean, if you allow all capitals to jump into high sec, do we still want the cyno prohibition? Or is it outdated?

2) Would the Rorqual make the Orca obsolete for serious mining operations? Do we care?

3) What would 50 titans doomsdaying the momument in Jita look like?

Your thoughts?


7 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:00 pm

    I think it would add game play options. It would change null sec play some but no one seems happy with null sec game play anyway.

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  2. Anonymous3:01 pm

    I think it would add game play options. It would change null sec play some but no one seems happy with null sec game play anyway.

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  3. Anonymous3:23 pm

    As a dedicated hi-sec player, I would love the option. I see myself as basically bound to battleship and below, piloting wise. I would like to have the option to use those caps and to see some new PvE/Mission content spring up around their use.

    I'm not sure about concerns 2 and 3 above, but for 1 and 4, how about a compromise? Caps can be used in hi sec but not manufactured there. Would this keep manufacturers like you in business and retain some of the current volatility in the market?

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  4. Allow all capitals to transverse High Sec ie no cynos or jumping. The use of offensive modules like guns, ewar, drones and reppers will not be liked by Concord. This would allows capitals to be moved and sold but not used, unless you want a Concord Titan to alpha you to dust.

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  5. I personally would not like to see capitals in high-sec, especially because of carriers. With wardecs the way they are, they would be a significant problem, and moving things in a carrier would be much safer than in a bowhead or other freighter.

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  6. No. No no no a million times no. Make this change and it's only a matter of time till a wrecking ball fleet lands somewhere in highsec. And that should not be there. Maybe, MAYBE, after we find out what the capital rebalance is. But as it is right now, no. An Alpha Fleet has no place operating with impunity in highsec.

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  7. I am torn about this.

    On the one hand, I'd like to see capitals majestically roaming the hi-sec skys.

    On the other hand, hi-sec war-deccers would immediately take advantage of it and crush even more industrial corporations. While I'm not in favor of a :totally safe: hi-sec, the power discrepancy between hi-sec pvp'ers and industrialists has crept up over the years. Allowing capitals into hi-sec would make it even worse.

    I wasn't around when it happened, but if I remember correctly, capitals were allowed into hi-sec originally? There surely was a reason why CCP disallowed it at some point, and I wouldn't be surprised if that reason still holds up today.

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