Love this image from Jacopo Alfano, here is a link to his artstation |
So it was suggested on Stay Frosty Discord the other night that it was high time for some ships that benefit from negative sec status. Ships that grant bonuses in an increasingly negative manner, that start at -5 but increase the lower you get, with max role bonuses at -10. I love this suggestion and I think it is high-time that such a thing happened. We have Explorer focused ships, Mining ships, SOE white ships, Capital ships for Null Sec, it is about time we had a few Pirate focused ships with negative sec status role bonuses.
Obviously these ships (I imagine a BS/Cruiser/Frigate variant) would only come in black. Probably with badass Tribal markings and skulls on them. Maybe with skin variations available, or better yet the ability to have our Corp/Alliance logo on them. It would be great if the ship models were amalgamated versions of Empire ships cobbled together poorly, something that Low Sec people did. Worse than Minnie ships, which have been getting better lately. Think Reavers from Firefly. Or whatever, the design of the ships could be extremely creative and allow my friends in CCP's Art Department some freedom to explore.
So what kind of role bonuses would such ships have? My first thought was an automatic pod lock after the target ship explodes. Which is awesome but probably not realistic. Other dumb ideas included a YARRR! sound effect when it comes out of warp, a neutral appearance in local for a certain limited time, immunity to gate guns or NPC station guns, built-in probes (so you don't need a module, only the probes in cargo), a scram range and effectiveness bonus, a special rig that attaches extra armor onto the ship model (even if it is shield fit), a Flying Tiger skin (which gives your ship a full set of awesome Shark Teeth!), a smoke generator which generates a tremendous amount of smoke from the ships exhaust for no benefit other than it looks insanely awesome. I'm sure you can imagine your own.
As far as serious bonuses go I'm sure Fozzie could come up with some decent ones that don't imbalance the game but also make it worth flying.
As usual I'm only half serious here. But CCP started this with the introduction of those Concord sec status bonused ships, so I think it is only natural to start thinking along these lines. If positive sec status people can have special ships, then why not us? We're people too!
We're just freedom minded independents that don't like the Empire's boot on our necks. Don't tread on us.
What are your thoughts?