Changelog:
- Vista sound support is now a separate driver. Players using Vista will have to manually switch to it via the 'Change Driver...' option in Audio Options.
- Border Defense turrets now surround nation wormholes in grey space

Nice

Bah. Border defenses belong in nation space, not grey space.

- Added Pwnies to the game

They're around the remote end of the wormhole. It's not like they impinge very far into grayspace. Definitely not as far as, say, the existing Serco station in Helios B-7, or the UIT Barracks in Ukari L-2. Both of those are major faction stations in grayspace, and always have been.

I added them to the grayspace side based on user suggestions to that effect, as that made them more substantial deterrents (mostly due to how the turrets themselves work). It was my original plan to place them all on the nation-sides of the wormholes, but I don't think the outsides are too unreasonable.

That doesn't mean I have to like it Inc. ;) It's "gray" space for a reason, correct?

It is definitely gray for a reason :). On the upside, you can kill turrets all you want without any factional impact, as their sectors are all unmonitored. On the downside.. they're pretty tough, and will probably kill you. Their respawn time is also kind of hilariously short right now, but I'll extend that next week (to something like 5 or 10 minutes).

Aside from this, I don't think these little turrets impinge much on "gray" space.

It actually makes sense if you think about it, though. As a sovereign nation I would want to have defenses on the outside of a border, not on the inside of it.

I'll agree that it makes sense toshiro.

Inc, will have to play with it more next month after I resubscribe again, but it should make things more interesting for sure. :) If I die to much, I'll bill ya. lol

Thanks Inc. Yays for grey

Poor Latos H-2, CLM hardly knew ye.

But yay for Bractus B-14, Cro-bo still loves you ;)

[edit]

Oh damn, this is going to make trading up my sub-factions next to impossible! o.O

Well, I'm retiring my pirate to B8 to be a good little pvper. My Serco Nationalist from Edras to Geira where I won't do bs or bp. And I'll probably just sit around on my goody goody alt mining or somesuch when I do play.

BTW, what is the bloody point of having turrets on both sides of the Verasi wh?

This is going to make getting my UIT standing back up rather challenging. Fun.

Retracts the retraction.

I'm really going to have to rethink what I want out of the game at this point.

Hrm. Since I'm KOS with all three Vendetta nations, turrets will probably be the end of me?!?

But, at least we're seeing some realistic nation defenses.

I have never seen the end of you Leber, especially when I'm fumbling around in a moth, and i doubt turrets are going to deter you much :)

The Verasi WH has turrets on both sides, simply because I haven't removed the interior "test" turrets yet. But I can do so. There'll still be a station nearby with turrets, however.

Piracy was always supposed to be limited (mostly) to grayspace. The fact that piracy was so trivially rampant within UIT space was not intended. Grayspace is as large as any nation (bigger than either UIT or Serco territory).

There are a couple of things that could be done to smooth the transition, if people are interested:

A Reshuffling of Trade Items

Buying Back Standing

These might mitigate things so that people who are current.. pirates, might find more of their quarry without needing to enter UIT territory. Or that others who are triple-KoS might improve their standing with one of the major nations, until I have a more lasting and permanent fix for the whole "I want to be able to fight anyone" issue (and I can probably reduce or eliminate the need to be triple-KoS for PvP purposes within the next two weeks).

For further feedback, please comment on those above threads, or create new Suggestions threads that you think are relevant to this topic (feel free to link them from here).

One final note: I'm steaming ahead for the Great Changes and Stuff that we've all said we wanted (or most of us, anyway). There are going to be transitional periods of upheaval for all of this.. I just don't have the resources to make everything happen "at once", so I have to change bits and pieces at a time and try and balance them and then move on to the next piece. This results in some periods when certain areas of gameplay are nerfed, but make no mistake: I'm not doing away with piracy, and have zero desire to do so. Actually, I intend to expand on it, but I am going to make core nations a little safer, and Capitol systems much safer (but still not absolutely safe). This is important to keeping the company who makes the game in business.. we need the newbies (and frankly, so does the community). So anyway, please have a little patience with me and my changes in the meantime. If some major aspect of game culture is negatively impacted, feel free to say so, and preferably.. post a suggested way to mitigate it in the meantime.

All times of change are times of controversy and upheaval. This has been true of every major period of change this game has been through, and will continue to be true during this one. We haven't had any really major changes in years.. longer than some people have been around. But, remember, these are overall changes (like removal of Friendly Fire, making the faction standing system less Stupid) that most of us supposedly want. So please have a little patience and give me feedback. Critical feedback is fine.. just keep it positive. Thanks.

The following is not a very useful post. But it is positive;

That sounds great!

Having turrets hug both sides of a wormhole makes for a much more credible border. Plus I think it is fun to escape from one threat only to be engulfed by another.