The Tyranny of Distance Didn't Stop the Capsuleer

A willful misquote from one of New Zealand’s most awesome bands to be sure, but kind of captures a little of what I want to talk about.

The voodoo of EvE. The Djinni in a bottle. Quantum black magic. However you want to put it really. The awe and wonder that this game once had for all of us and how it could possibly be recaptured.

Helicity Boson makes some very good points here. There is also a forum post that seems to be gathering some steam. Or it would, if the forums were up right now.

I wrote back in June that my issue was that EvE felt explored. You’re never breaking new territory or that someone will have been there before. And I think there might be a way to do it. And possibly with the current game mechanics as they stand and without having to redesign every solar system in EvE.

At the heart of my issue is that there is no real distance any more. That warp to zero has basically taken the hard yards away. That competition for even hidden resource can be by any two week old adventurer in a frigate who logs on for 30 minutes at a time.

This is not intended to take away from the casual gamer. It is not to dismiss any particular play style. It is to enable those players who want to spend the time and effort to go to the places where the signs read “here be dragons”. The science of nearly instantaneous travel kills that mythical creature stone dead.

What I propose is this: given that anomalies only spawn within an 8AU radius of any stellar feature (as I understand it), and given that deep safes and the exploit to make them have been nerfed, why not make a perimeter around the system at 8AU outside which warp to does not work at all.

In other words, if you want to go there or back, you have to slow boat it. Pick a star and sail out into the unknown. A more comprehensive version of a microwarp drive perhaps that enables speeds somewhere between the current 3+ au/sec and sub-luminal speeds could enable us to explore the zone between 10 and 20AU. Or even 20AU plus.

A specific variety of scan probe could work in this region but perhaps with a much more limited range, but not in “normal” space and vice versa.

It should take time definitely. It shouldn’t be easy to do. It shouldn’t be safe. It should definitely have some serious rewards for that effort and commitment.

It might also help prevent the massive blunderbuss approach the larger corps and alliances can bring…. after all, if it takes a considerable time to get out there, and equally as much time to get back again, will they really want to commit too many people to such an endeavor?

Imagine this: a corp gets together a fleet of ships and heads out beyond the perimeter, they may lose local, d scan and probes work far less well. Will they find planets? Ice belts? Mineable moons? Or will they find a hostile new enemy?

We need a blank space on the map that says “here be dragons”, the chance to unfurl the solar sails, and to brave the atomic winds blowing through the edges of space.

H