A simple way to get people and traders into Grey Space would be to un-fix the price of shield turrets. Keep the purchase price as is but, bring the sale price back to where it was when released... or, even raise it!

Thats one hell of an incentive to get traders going through Grey Space. You'll see a sharp upswing in player escorts... (VPR, PA, ONE and ITAN all offer escorts). The pirates will have something to do. Unescorted players would have an incentive to pay the pirates or lose out on serious profit. The pirates would likely not limit themselves to strictly Sedina but fan out to Edras as well as making patrols. Atlas and Centaur traffic would drasticlly increase, Moths and XCs would even start showing up.

Problem Solved.

Plz do this

Not enough 'rats to keep this from being pure game rape.

Bring back unrats with serious teeth, then we can consider this.

UNRATS! YAH!

Srsly. With an NPC's aim, a jacks/neutron warthog mk2 would be effin scary..

NPCs cannot use flares for shit.

Its true... NPCs aim directly at you. They cant seem to get the whole leading your target thing down.

id be all for this execpt keep the unrats out of b8, simply because it has become the arena, or make them not attack triple kos players.

It is the “arena” aspect of B 8 that has killed most of the trade into and out of the area. Why even bother to make the run if you are going to be met by a rat convention when you arrive?

If you want more traders in Gray then make more pathways for them to get there, not simply two easily blocked ones.

Several new wormholes could be “discovered” or ion storms would be used as sneaky, if unreliable, entrances. Other ideas for new paths would also be welcomed.

With more ways in the rats would have to spread out to cover them and the traders would be more willing to take the chance. As it stands it simply is not worth the bother.

look... no hands has it backwards. B-8 has stopped being a trade route and become an arena. That is not good for the game. The area should be filled with turrets, or unrats, or Strike Forces or anything else that would keep the door open.

These defenses should not be so strong as to prevent a rat from jumping in, hunting his/her quarry, and jumping out with their loot, just strong enough that they can’t camp there all day playing in the arena while they wait for some noob who does not know to avoid the area, to blunder through.

By all means VO should have an arena area that replaces B-8 but it should be off the trade routes so those who want to go there to fight can do so without placing an automatic blockade on one of the most important trade passages in Gray Space.

I've got a great idea; just change the sector for PvP arena. It doesn't need to be done in a wormhole sector anyways. What about a different sector in Latos/Sedina/Odia? If everyone decides on one in the forms, we'll just advertise it in-game until everyone knows where to go from then on.

Also, addressing Ryan's idea; the problem is that you're more likely to shake off a pirate if you've got someone in a combat ship escorting you. If they're stuck in a turret, they can't draw the attacker away, just keep them from hitting (maybe).

B-8 has ALWAYS been an arena. It's also a choke point to Sedina, but there's nothing to trade to sedina.

The changes that have been made in the last 9 months have clearly divided the community into two groups: Money makers and PvPers. The money makers stay in nation space protected by ridiculously powerful defenses everywhere and the PvPers hang out in B8. What's not good for the game, especially since so few play it, are more and more changes that make it easy for the two groups to remain separate. Incarnate has segregated the community under the flag of newb protection.

He started by moving Nation stations out of Edras, which was the only good move in this unfortunate series of events, but then followed up by crippling Edras entirely by placing turrets all over both WHs. He did the same with H2 Latos, ruining it's potential as a combat zone and forcing the PvPers and the Moneymakers further apart. The moneymakers have free rein almost everywhere and sky high profits with zero danger, so they only venture out when they want to play PvPer.

There is no risk vs. reward when big rewards require no risk.

These defenses should not be so strong as to prevent a rat from jumping in, hunting his/her quarry, and jumping out with their loot, just strong enough that they can’t camp there all day playing in the arena while they wait for some noob who does not know to avoid the area, to blunder through.

And what keeps these defenses from killing the overladen XC passing through?

Overladen XC's almost never attack other ships. Like I said " just strong enough that they can’t camp there all day playing in the arena."

Playing in the arena means the incessant PvP that goes on and is the area's main attraction. If a mob of rats want to wait there to ambush a ship or convoy, well that is totally in keeping with the spirit of the game. Providing entertainment while they wait is not.

It's a game, it's supposed to be entertainment. Furthermore, it's a twitch based PvP game. Pushing people even further out of the main space lanes isn't going to help the game or the players.

Not that I really care anymore, but....

hahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

The topic under discussion is how to get traders to go into Gray Space. Holding a pirate convention smack dab in the middle of one of the most important trade routes is not helping matters. By all means have an arena. In fact I would like to see an official arena complete with prizes and free repairs for the winners of all official fights. But that is a different topic.

The problem is to get traders to go to Gray Space the way the devs, and even the pirates themselves, want. All the tweaking of cargos and pay rates in the world is not going to tempt someone to fly their slow, venerable, XC into the middle of a pirate jamboree. Move the arena, and/or provide more ways into the area, or give up the idea of luring traders into the area.

Overladen XC's almost never attack other ships.

Let me see if I have this 'cock-must-have-gotten-driven-through-your-skull-in-a-tragic-gloryhole-accident' level of stupid idea correct:

B-8 has a defense force/turret set up, despite being in the middle of bumfuck nowhere unmonitored space, and it only attacks when ... you attack another ship?

Camping pirates=OK? Passing trade ship=OK? But trade ship that deploys mines against a pirate=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTAAAACCCCKKKK!??!!11

Providing entertainment while they wait is not [in keeping with the spirit of the game].



Sorry, Tosh, I have to steal this from you.

You know what's the real problem? So you get stopped by a pirate: Oh no, log off, quit the game, set your computer on fire, buy a gun and shoot yourself in the head cuz the world is about to end!

The trader could just pay and get their 24 hours and go on to make incredible profits while thumbing their nose everytime they pass the pirate they paid.

Before giving up trading, I found a nation-deep grey route that would give me about 1 million for 40 minutes of flight. I was pretty proud not having bothered with this sort of thing much before. If you pay the typical ransom of 100-250k, that's at most, 25% of your first 40 minutes and if you run the route a few more times, that percentage gets dropped.

Man... it's like no one has ever heard of overhead costs...

P.S. someone shoot death fluffy for making a post that forces me to scroll my screen over to read every single post in the thread.

impavid had it spot on, the developers have segegrated the community into the traders, and basically everybody else. Nation space has become a de-facto safe zone, under the flag of newb protection, which now that their are starting sectors, should not be necessary. I highly doubt the traders would come to gray for ANY level of profit, on the off chance that their presence might benefit the pirates.

"P.S. someone shoot death fluffy for making a post that forces me to scroll my screen over to read every single post in the thread."

Sorry about that. Looked fine on my screen. Hope the edit helps.

Anyways, having stepped back (again) for a bit, it seems to me that an excessive amount of emphasis these forums centers around trade and piracy and the lack thereof. Perhaps I am grossly missing the point of Vendetta, but isn't the central conflict supposed to be about the Serco / Itani conflict? Shouldn't there be more concern over how to get more players to Deneb?

I'm not sure why these threads keep popping up, but until the final economy (which I'm sure is coming just any day now) is in place, they only serve to rehash old conversations. Both trade and piracy are necessary but over rated aspects of the game anyway.

How about creating an environment that drives what I can only assume is the primary conflict? UIT should be active in both encouraging and equipping (at a modest profit) both sides. A UIT player should not be able to have better than neutral for both sides. If one improves, the other MUST decline. Piracy should be an attempt to capture the prized cargoes heading into Serco or Itani from either UIT or Grey space. Those cargoes should be of lower or moderate value until one reaches a reasonable delivery point, where the profits should be immense.

Nation protections should remain at least as strong as they are currently, however, standing loss for killing non nation players should be negligible and / or possibly even subject to bribery. For those pirates who aren't intelligent enough to handle faction management, they don't deserve the opportunities in nation space. Those that consider universal KOS as a badge of honor are merely after the kill or thrill of making someone pay at any cost. Seriously, some folk don't seem to get that part of pirating, is that some times, the target gets away.

The current model is idiocy. Make trade suck in nation space and put a few "good" routes from Odia? This thread is testament to how well that theory works.

Back to the subject, the success or failure of UIT trade to both Serco and Itani should matter strongly to the well being of all sides. Ideally, there should be a balance point where UIT profits hugely. Off balance, and either Serco or Itani gain a significant advantage in their war and UIT possibly both loses its profit margin and becomes a target for retribution from the winning side.

Oh, and keep the bloody missions to a minimum. Some of us like to play outside the box and still make an impact.