I see they finally gave into the carebears. great remove even more things to do from the game

Shit, they made a wormhole into UIT space monitored, just like all the others? Oh noes! D:

Yeah, all nation-space wormholes are supposed to be at least monitored. It would have been fixed months ago, except some of the numbers were off by one.

Lots more changes are on the way, as far as this goes. It has nothing to do with carebears, and everything to do with removing friendly fire.

and big-ass floating turrets everywhere "monitored" is sopposed to be in effect... right...?

Last I checked, there are no UIT stations in Verasi.

Shame you geniuses changed this and Metana. The prior diversity of terrain created real and somewhat engaging contexts for interaction. But I commend the elimination of such things in favor of a more even lack of anything interesting to do.

Seriously, if it was supposed to be this way from day one... why has it been like this for YEARS?

Someone cut once and didn't measure [twice]*?

*edit - RR

Oh, it could be that the devs have thousands of things to do, and not enough hands to do them with.

I'm glad they fixed it.

Lecter, Verasi never had much traffic. Metana even less. Shame on your for trying to point to these as "contexts of interaction".

Steve, not to rain on your parade with the facts, but you're talking out of your ass.

Metana has seen frequent Serco and pirate incursions to attack Itani shipping. I've both lead those raids and been victim of such use of that weak point in the longest string of nation space in VO. [SCAR] still likes camping in there: getting a group into Metana in one piece and then working the WHs is a load of fun and would be a great piece of content once the economy was dynamic. Good way to cut off Deneb.

Verasi has always been a hangout of pirates intercepting UIT-Itani-Unaligned traffic, particularly at the Verasi-Nyrius WH. I, solo pirates and numerous groups of pirates have camped that WH and any trader with half a brain knows they'd better bring mines and a fast ship through there unless they like taking risks.

Of course these conditions are rare in an absolute sense: VO barely has any players. Relatively, however, they're frequent and interesting points of content in a game largely devoid of it.

Devs, both have excellent reasons for being unmonitored, such that a sizable majority of players never thought it odd that they were that way.

Verasi is the most backwater of all UIT systems, backing onto Edras. In fact, there's not a single UIT station in verasi. And we all know that the UIT is barely a nation at all, and as such lacks the resources to firmly secure such a backwater.

Metana belongs to the race that has the most systems in the game, and it, too, is far from everything, a backwater. Even getting in there isn't a cakewalk, and is only likely to get harder as defenses at monitored and guarded WHs are upped. One has to pass through a cap system (Eo) to even reach Metana: in the future I expect that getting in will be much harder. Being so far removed and with the Itani being a basically non-military race stretched so thin across so many systems... of course Metana is unmonitored.

Put it back the way it has always been. It's fun, makes life interesting, and makes sense. Neither system makes much sense as being as well protected as the others. Warning buoys would be appropriate, but not what you just did.

i couldnet have said it better myself lecter.

It makes sense either way, but more sense gameplay-wise if they are monitored.

Cool, you clarified things. Good job Lecter.
(I was lieing, Verasi is an excellent spot on busy nights and Metana the same. Metana is also a nice strategic stranglehold)

Metana is supposed to be on a "Major trade route" according to its system description, however. It was pointed out to me when I found out that Metana was unmonitered that it was sort of odd that a major trade route isn't protected at all. But descriptions can be changed.

The only issue I have with Metana being unmonitered is that we're assured time and again that nationspace is supposed to be safe. Yes, Itani space is huge and would be a pain in the ass to defend. Yes it's boring having a big swath of faction space that you can't fight in(for strategic reasons or otherwise) lest your standing is smashed and hateful strikeforces fly after you. Though the new pilots thing is less of a problem if new pilots don't start in Eo(do/did they still/ever?). Having the Metana, Cantus, and Setalli Shinas->Metana wormholes unmonitored would be interesting once the faction system is fixed and Eo and Deneb are properly fortified against Serco incursions.

I don't see why Verasi needs to be monitored though. UIT is leaky space(why pirates like it), and how are you going to convince voters that you need to watch the wormholes 24/7 in systems they don't live in?

They are also good choke points to bring gameplay to specific areas.

For those that suggest camping ion storms in nation space, 2 nights ago I searched all throughout Itani space until I finally found one in Jallik, but even [SCAR] knows to plot around storms there. Basically, the Metana wormholes will always be there, ion storms won't.

I think lecter pretty much covered anything else I could possibly bring up about this, but I have to say, this is really the first change in my 2 years of playing that has truly disgusted me. Patrolling the Metana wormholes were, without a doubt, my favorite thing to do in this game. I was really looking forward to blockading with my RL friend who is planning to subscribe next week.

-Nautargos

So now the Serco and the pirates must do like the Itani have done since forever, namely, find no respite anywhere in enemy space, and they cry?

Figures.

This is a much needed change to ensure newbie safety and I heartily welcome it.

Stop generalizing.

That said, I'm for the consolidation of nation space monitoring. You kill someone, you pay the consequences. The points brought against this change are, as I see it, void.

Serco and Pirates cannot kill Itani in their nation space without experiencing a faction hit? OMG NOES!!11!

Get serious, people. The new faction system won't allow you to have POS with all three nations simultaneously, anyway.

I'm KOS Itani. I just want a place to blockade without a constant sf after me.

-Nautargos

That fits into the same frame.

However, I think there might be a solution to the problem.

There could be space observer type ships. They are the ships that monitor the wormholes. If they see a person who is eligible for SF launching, SFs will be launched, after a short period of time (to account for signal transfers et al.)

If they are destroyed, they send out a distress signal, requiring backup, investigation, a goliath cannon.

If those are destroyed, more forces will be dispatched.

Now the trick is: This can be done at multiple locations. IF the observer ships are not around, they cannot follow your actions, so a few pirates could take out many, if not all observer ships, and at some point, the Nation will run out of quickly-dispatchable resources (read: SFs). Of course this would have to be implemented, but I am under the impression the developers are working on the new version of the AI handling NPCs, so this might be a viable solution.

That way, you could *create* unmonitored space (anywhere), if only for a limited time.

First of all, wormholes within a given nation's space were supposed to be monitored. I'm not sure why they weren't. I'm also not sure why it wasn't fixed for so long. Probably a communications breakdown between developers, at some point, combined with our many, many other priorities. I appreciate the reasons given for it being better the way it was, and if this were just an arbitrary "fix", I would change it back, however:

I am attempting to completely change the faction system in the near future, removing friendly fire (hence the recent HUD changes and the like). Newbies must be protected. Part of this will be a stiff defensive perimeter at the borders of major Nation space. Yes, I imagine the change to it being monitored is a bit of shock, but it's going to become Guarded, with defensive turrets. These changes will also allow the existence of faction-less players, and so on (as some of you have seen Momerath testing).

This is not an arbitrary alteration of sector state. The whole meaning and structure behind monitor/guarded/unmonitored space is about to change. There's always a degree of chaos when you take a system that people are used to, and alter it. However, I think most agree that the faction system has been broken in some important ways for a long time, and I'm trying to fix that, along removing FF and making unaligned faction-less "pirate" players a reality (while keeping the FF-less game as newbie-friendly as possible). Unfortunately, we're so "used" to things being broken, that there'll be some amount of upheaval for any change.

That all being said, I appreciate the need for "choke" points in the universe. That's actually why there's grayspace between the major nations, to make locations for pirates to strike at convoys (due to the general failure of storms to be useful in any way, and more John<->Waylon miscommunication, it didn't really work out as intended). Anyway, it's mostly guarded at present. I'm much more inclined to create unmonitored wormholes in grayspace than I am in a major nation's territory (Edras B11? I2?). Of course, I imagine moving any of those stations or changing those sectors will also irrtate a bunch of people (or change the balance of power in CtC, racing, or various other things), but at least my future defensive perimeters would remain intact *within* a nation's territory. If anyone has any related suggestions please post them to the Suggestions forum.