There is a thread in Features and Ideas Discussion forum by Commander Ted, that suggests that the four high sec empires should be divided by low sec in a similar way Solitude is disconnected from the rest of high-sec.
The original thread is here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=174097
Initially I have ignored that thread, because the idea seemed silly to me. But the more I thought about the idea, it seemed less and less gamebreaking. The majority of EVE players is smart and resourceful. That means, they adapt quickly to big changes (otherwise they wouldn’t be playing EVE at all). So after the initial spike of prices, they would eventually settle back down. Here’s my cause-and-effect thought experiment:
- one big change: Jita will loose it’s “primary trade hub” status in favour of local hubs in each empire
- lots of traders want to make quick buck on the change, so initially prices spike up
- T1 prices settle back quickly, because:
- local mineral suppliers will handle the demand
- nullsec minerals will flow from neighboring nullsecs to local trade hubs
- T2 prices will see a minor inflation
- currently Jita is the best market for t2 components
- ships will be moving those across borders, some of them will be lost
- manufacturers will add these losses to their cost
- Jump Freighters will become more common, a price spike will happen initially, then the supply is going to flood the market, thus prices will come back to (or below) their current level
- there will be more Jump Freighters in game
- thus, there will be more Jump Freighter kills = FUN for PVPers. More work for Manufacturers. More ISK to change hands (which is good).
- Transport ships able to use cloaking device will see a similar price spike to Jump Freighters, but most likely less pronounced.
- Red Frog freight will be divided into 4 racial divisions
- Black Frog freight will earn much more money and recruit even more couriers
- PVPers will have more targets to shoot = FUN for them. More ships lost = more work for manufacturers. More ISK to move around.
- it will be a bit harder for missioners to change faction they run missions for. Most likely ppl will be buying one PVE ship for every racial region, andthen use jump clones to move between them
- less inter-racial migration means some parts of high-sec space might become crowded (Caldari Online anyone?)
- “Foreign” ice prices will sharply go up
- in response, POS operators will switch to racial towers based on the empire they reside in
- Uedama will loose it’s “gank central” status – no one will be flying through that anymore.
I realize that above analysis of the impact is rather superficial, but I think that the 150% inflation or 50% players rage quitting that some people predict is unlikely to happen. What do you think?
