As it stands, nationspace is a fairly homogeneous space of almost absolute security (ie. boredom). As an enemy of the nation (pirate or opposing nationalist), you get blasted as soon as you enter the first worm hole. (Maybe better players than me can survive going past the turrets, but in any case I never see Itani or Serco-hated other players down in Serco nation space, and with my Itani alt it is the same). If I need to fly from Deneb to the greyspace border, I do it mostly AFK and see it as a total waste of my time. This is even worse for Itani pilots, who need 13 system hops = 26 jumps to get from Odia to Deneb. This explains the lack of participation in Deneb and the existence of ARF1 and ARF2. Nationspace is plain boring.

I think it would be much more exciting to gradually beef up security from the border station down to the capitol. Also, it would be much more exciting if initial security were provided by station guards rather than turrets.

There are some RP considerations, but it is mainly a gameplay proposition. For example, I think it is really strange that entering a remote backwater wormhole leads to almost instant death by turrets, while shooting someone in the NFZ of a capital station evokes just a couple station guards. Also, if the border is completely secure, why not establish an outpost in the next system? The current system has border security along the lines of the Israeli border, while the "feeling" of vendetta online should probably much more resemble the danger and opportunity of the romantic Wild West or current Saharan states. Even smuggling something into Britain on a small boat or crossing the Mexican border through the desert is easier now than flying into Jallik as an Itani KOS.

Proposed implementation:
1) border systems (e.g. jallik, initros, NOT deneb) are guarded by mobile forces. Most of the time there should be a bunch of 'station guards' border patrol, and if you are (un)lucky there will be a nation fleet cruising around. These fleets occasionally jump to the bordering grey system just to show who's boss or in persuit of criminals. Any unwanted intruders will be noted and hunted down, and shooting the border patrol triggers reinforcements, who would take their good time to come their from the nearest barracks. Where possible, the barracks should not be on the wormhole sector (cite sector stability or whatever), but in a different sector. Barracks stations (and capital stations) should probably have some turrets to assist in defense. If you are spotted and not apprehended (ie shot) by the border patrol, they will announce your presence on channel 100 (or a separate 'police scanner' channel), e.g. "outlaw Serco pilot XXX spotted in Jallik flying a Y, hunt down and shoot on sight. Suspect armed and dangerous" escalating to "Jallik barracks under attack from Y outlaw pilots including a trident, please come to our aid immediately".

2) mid-range systems have some turrets at the entrance worm hole, but nothing that a decent pilot can't dodge away from. Patrols are less frequent but reaction to unwanted pilots are quicker and reinforcements are stronger and quicker. If a KOS player is spotted (but not apprehended) at the border, in-land patrols will be beefed up for a short period of time.

3) core systems (capitals and other core system) have the turrets that the border systems have now.

This has a number of advantages:

1) It adds a new layer of suspsense/excitement, as flying through nation space is no longer guaranteed boredom the way it is now
2) It gives enterprising "opposing" pilots the ability to go into nation space to conduct raids and cause havoc, albeit at considerable danger
3) Well armed groups of players should be able to attack enemy barracks stations and lay siege to them for a while, until the nearby 6th fleet jumps in with a HAC, some teradons, and escorts. In my mind, this would be great fun even if the ending is pretty much given. It's like how fighting the police in GTA ultimately has the military come in with tanks. You know you will lose, but the process is worth it!
4) It opens the possibility of smuggling operations, where contraband will trigger a reaction from the border guards (who have cargo scanners), but you can hope to outrun / outsmart the border guards and make considerable profit. Of course, getting caught will cause a faction standing loss, but nothing that you can't recover from. I guess successful smuggling could replace dragging gatt turrets around in terms of profit/cu. UIT gives additional possibilities here due to the possibility of being KOS with UIT (who patrol the border), but liked by the corporations controlling the stations behind the border. Imagine the UIT border guard chasing you to the TPG NFZ and then getting a fight (and diplomatic row) between the station guards and border guard!

As far as I know, the border patrol is not so different from current station guards, so I would expect implementation costs to be fairly low. (But I haven't seen the source code, so who knows ;-))

Or we could just nerf turrets, but
+4830948290482092
It would really add more player controlled elements to the game. I want to be able to invade enemy space.

+1

Crank past the national turret defenses? Yes, we can! (I was going to originally make a reference to womp rats, but this seemed too obvious).

I do this all the time... fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on the OP's observations), my VPR training is such that the only victims of such incursions are bots. I will point out that getting past the turret field seems to be much easier before the sector "wakes up".

I don't think weakening the present turret field is necessary, or even a good idea (see video evidence), but adding occasional patrols may be interesting.

Yay, it's competing video posting time! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMTjMts0dRk

The problem with turrets is the super missiles and the inconsistency with them not firing when the sector is waking up, and firing instantly at targets when the sector is awake. Regardless of the strength of the turret field you should never be killed instantly before you can gain control of your ship.

The difficulty level is okay as it stands, it's just not consistent and it shouldn't rely on waiting for sectors to go to sleep to get in reliably. If we fix that problem and then implement more of the OP's ideas this will become a more frequent activity and will be quite fun.

Good to know that some people indeed can and do cross the border (and can even make it look easy :-) )

However, the problem remains that it is not very attractive to do so, as the places where the players hang out (WH and station sectors) are difficult to remain in for a long time, and there is not much to do.

So my suggestions are still valid. Maybe instead of removing the turrets just have less of them, but I still think that mobile patrols are much more fun than turrets, especially if they also 'communicate' with the player to tell them that they will be shot down, etc. Maybe McLayzor can hand over his source code to the devs to speed up implementation of that part? :-)

I suppose the PCC can already start creating missions to do "evil" stuff over the border and even spawn border guards, but I think that as long as the turrets are as they are it won't attract a lot of players. Time to join the PCC, I suppose!

Crossing some of the turret fields is straight up IMPOSSIBLE unless you highjack an NPC trident.

Try to make it between Azek and Dau, in most attempts you will die before you gain control of your ship.

The problem lies with turret mechanics and not having Ai that's not capable enough in combat or chase.

The problem lies in turrets shooting at you before you can control your ship.