It’s A War Zone, Not A Shortcut!
I’ve been musing over a post Ashraine made the other day and have come with a suggestion on how it could work in Faction Warfare.
“I don’t feel that militia pilots should be getting sec status hits for firing on neutrals in a Combat Zone. The whole concept seems odd to me. That neutral is, knowingly or not, traipsing through an active war zone and essentially putting themselves out in the line of fire. Had I been alive during World War I, you wouldn’t have seen me trucking over the trenches just because it’s the shortest route through an area yelling “SAFETY BE DAMNED!” I would be an idiot to think I would not get shot.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I think that losing sec status is an integral part of low sec and Eve as a whole. If it were to be removed all together, it would essentially get rid of piracy – effectively killing off the fun of a portion of the playerbase. If you want to roam around and pick fights, you should have every expectation of losing your sec status.”
“My thinking is that pilots or corps actively participating in faction warfare battles, or at the minimum plexing, should have either reduced sec status hits or have it capped to just above being able to dock in high sec. Pilots that are following the rules and ideals of faction warfare shouldn’t be expected to sit there and tank the first shot fired by some bear that ambles in to your plex to wet his paws in pvp. If i’m orbiting the warp in at optimal, and you come at me bro, you should be expecting to be shot up. I shouldn’t be punished for essentially defending myself from a threat. Maybe this should only apply in plexes and near the acceleration gates for them, since that is where you are doing your duties as a militia pilot. Maybe the mechanics should stay the same on stargates and stations, where it isn’t necessarily an “active” combat area.”
I think he’s right. A war zone is a war zone. Militia pilots have signed up to defend certain space and to capture other space, that’s their job. But we get penalized for doing it when we are the first to shoot. Like the other night, a couple of corpies and I were in a plex, chilling, counting it down. We all get distracted by something or other, no one is watching D-scan, and finally someone says over comms, “Uh theres people in here…”
So there we were, less than 5k from a handful of neutrals. Am I really going to let my corpies take that fight and die because I don’t want to lose sec or am I going to stay and fight with them? We killed all the things, of course.
I would like to see militia pilots not losing sec in plexes, but also I would like to see not losing sec if we occupy the system. That could give another reason to plex and own those backwater systems in FW that no one really seems to care about.
And, I’d like to see some sort of better pay out for ratting in our war zone. Maybe it could be something like, if we own the system and shoot a rat in a belt, we get double the points for it.
Not everyone wants to be a space pirate. Argh!
sovereigntywars.wordpress.com 
February 6, 2013 at 10:41 pm
Yes, this is really needed! I shouldn’t be a flashy… meh.
February 7, 2013 at 6:34 pm
While I think you should take a sec hit for attacking neutrals, I do like the idea of no-sec hits inside (or on the outside of the gate) of a plex, as these are obviously “war zones”. +20% sec gain for killing rats per level of system upgrade (maxing out at double sec status gained in that system) would be an interesting concept, although it could be abused (ie: Non-FW people would join FW just to rep sec status and then leave again).
Of course none of this will ever see the light of day as CCP tries to maximize profit, and having another reason to require an alt account (ability to enter high-sec unfettered if you’re pirate), gets them more subscriptions.
February 11, 2013 at 7:41 pm
Speaking as a former FW pilot and current pirate, I’m going to have to weigh in as being against this idea, for a couple of different reasons. As many people have already pointed out, piracy and FW are two distinct activities. It’s entirely possible to be a FW pilot that isn’t a pirate, a pirate who isn’t in FW, or a piratical FW pilot. (If nothing else, I’m sure there are roleplayers that would object to the militia dropping to the level of “common pirates”, or something.)
I could get behind this mechanic if FW pilots weren’t already exempt from sec status hits when engaging WTs, but the way it’s formulated right now, a change like what you’re proposing would basically amount to “FW pilots can pirate as much as they want with no penalty as long as it’s on grid with a plex”. I think it’s safe to say that if that DID happen, a bunch of people would abuse that by sitting on plex gates and waiting for people to come engage them so they could shoot whoever they wanted without taking a sec hit.
The second reason I’d hesitate to do this is because the actual changes on the ground aren’t going to mean much. You already don’t take sec status hits for engaging WTs or flashies regardless of where they are. I admittedly haven’t spent much time in the warzone lately, but with the gate-crashing mechanic making it so that you don’t actually have to sit outside the plex for any decent length of time if you really don’t want to, I’m having a hard time thinking of a situation where a FW pilot in a plex would absolutely HAVE to suffer a sec status hit when they rightfully shouldn’t.