Making Low Sec Matter

This would make travel through low sec pretty much safe though?

I don't think so, both sides can still be camped and the gates should only connect low sec parts that aren't connected otherwise.

Aren't wormholes massive shortcuts through the eve universe? Im pretty much against the idea of making the eve universe smaller. At least wormholes have some kind of unpredictability.

Wormholes do already cover this - that said 'low sec rating' smuggling gates that offer additional routes may not be a 'bad' thing. Perhaps these lead to Pirate enclave systems?

Wormholes do allow one to cover great distances, but they aren't suitable if one has a destination in mind considering WHs have random exits.

Why not do this, but also only allow passage through them if you have a negative security status?

I prefer the idea that you need certain positive standings with the pirate faction associated with the region, rather than -vs sec status.

Even if occasionally they get 'abused' by people avoiding the long pipes to nullsec, well, that's still a valid play style right? Blockade runners are meant to run blockades :)

It might be interesting as an anomaly that leads to pirate sovereignty systems. It would be almost like a wormhole albeit a more focused kind.

Doesn't really add anything that makes me want to go to lowsec.

sounds like wormholes to me.

(admittedly more predictable, but that's not necessarily a good thing)

Gates don't move like wormholes do. So once they are scanned down then it's just a case of having bookmarks. So unless there are restrictions on use then the scanning requirement is pretty pointless. Maybe if they were in deadspace pockets behind acceleration gates with restrictions?

The scanning requirement does sound pointless now.... Just have it shown up in system and requiring certain positive standings with the pirate faction.

I would like to see them move systems on occasion. These would be old gates, hacked into use by the pirate factions, but perhaps the method they use destroys the gate after so long, or perhaps the Empire shuts them down, or the gates can only support a certain amount of mass (much like WHs). They should last at least a week though, to give enough people the benefit of knowing the locations.

I don't think it's necessary to restrict access to these gates. The idea would be to tempt people into venturing into low sec by offering significantly shorter routes from one area of the Eve universe to another.

People that are willing to take the risk to use these routes gain the benefit of faster connections from one point to another, at the risk of being attacked by local pirates during the travel.

I like the idea, until the part about needing to be scanned down. I didn't vote for it because scanning is tedious. But if you drop the scanning I will vote for it.

Ok, I dropped the scanning requirement.

ok I voted for it :)

I dont know whether I would take the risk to use one of these gates.

Sure it could cut, for example, 20 jumps off of my trip, but I dont know if that in itself would be worth it because these gates would be camped as often as the high/low sec gates are.

Would be more of a place where pirate groups would run into eachother, rather than a feature that would encourage more players to have fun in low sec.

How about a kind of toll gate where there is a charge to take the short cut(possibly scaled to ship hull size/tech class)the charge would have to be low enough to make it a viable option in terms of the time it saves, however it might still be large enough to create two distinct areas, so a roam might not cross the border without having a specific target.

Another option would be a timer that stops you re entering the gate within a certain time period (less than it takes to go back the long way) to make sure people commit to going through the gate, this might again help to seperate the systems as scouts would be seperated from their gangs, so multiple scouts might be needed to check out both sides of the gate, or the fleet itself could split down, and more small gang action is a bonus IMO.

These gates would probably attract quite a few campers if they work, as they will have a decent flow of prey, but also a camp would be able to jump through when the brown stuff hits the fan, so they would be safer from a campers point of view than a highsec gate.

lack of an edit function to fix those brackets makes me sad :(

I like that, but they should be in Lowsec systems not next to Highsec.

And maybe they need to be even more dangerous than that. Of course no gate guns. And what about a time delay of some (30?) seconds when you try to jump (because of the far distant or w/e). Giving gankers a chance to get you on the entering site.

I would love that and it would be fun to shorten long travel times by this dangerous means.

But there shouldnt be too many of these.

FYI: there's a newbie combat career mission that involves investigating a smuggler gate, so this idea is entrenched in the Eve universe.

Losec already provides shortcuts through the Eve universe. Making the Eve universe any smaller indirectly through this sort of action is a _prima facie_ bad idea and does not resonate with CCP's conception of Eve. Doing so should always be approached with great trepidation and skepticism. I can't support this idea as is, though perhaps with some more concrete suggestions as to explicitly what shortened routes are proposed it _might_ be worth considering.

They can be used as shortcuts, but are mainly meant to unify all the low sec pockets.

Elsewhere I suggested the possibility of privately owned, player constructed jump gates between POS. Presently, these are only constructible between 0.1 systems, which makes them kind of useless. Who needs a gate from nowhere to nowhere?

Make these gates constructible between .4 and .5 space though, and you have a perfect 'smuggler's gate', although small. These gates would be the perfect way to avoid getting your cargo scanned, and possibly even avoid gate camps.

Avoid gate camps? Well, if you paid the owner of the jump gate (who is probably a Pirate) a toll to use the gate, they would likely ensure you could pass through that gate safely.

Of course, you would also have to have the permission of the player corporation that built the gate in order to use it. Probably even to find it.

As part of a POS, these private jump gates would be expensive to build, illegal in Empire, and of course destructible. You'd also have to get someone with a high enough sec rating in the mid-sec part of Empire in order to get a charter to build your station there.

This would only be a profitable smugglers gate if drugs somehow become more profitable in high-sec, or other items that were needed in high-sec became contraband, such as warp core scramblers. In that case, building one of these gates would be high risk - high profit.

The smugglers gates I suggested above were gates from low sec into high sec, pretty much secret except to people 'in the know'.

The main reason for these gates is to avoid having your cargo scanned at the entrance to high-sec. This allows you to bring drugs, contraband, stolen goods, etc. from low-sec into high sec. They allow you to avoid the main jump gates altogether.