Over the Summer I posted various pieces regarding the plight of Pirates inside of Eve Online. Most of these were clearly thought-experiments intended to highlight the issues surrounding our chosen play-style. I think most people who read this blog regularly understood that I wasn't always being serious - I find it best to work ideas out and see where they lead. CCP clearly read all of that and decided that what we really wanted was a way to join Pirate Factions and fight for NPC overlords. Which, while cool and hopefully good for Low Sec space - isn't exactly what we were on about.
Positive Sec Status players get all kinds of benefits. They can fly in High Sec space. They don't get gate or station aggression. They can fly Marshals with bonuses. Concord defends them, instead of attacking or exploding them. All of the suggestions I've made in the last years have been built around a simple idea - can negative sec status players get some benefits from maintaining that status? And while I do not believe it should ever be as much as positive sec status - it would be nice to get something for it. I've argued for our own version of the Marshal, a ship with bonuses for negative status. And I've argued for a range of other possibilities.
But now I think we may have found a real working answer. I say "we" because yesterday I got a DM from fellow Stay Frosty pilot Verdis deMosays with an idea that clarifies an actual working concept that I think solves our issue while also making complete sense from a lore perspective. And it is simple.
Anyone with a -9 sec status or lower is neutral to all pirate NPCs.
It has never made any sense to me that when I enter a site to kill someone who is killing the pirate NPCs that the same NPCs will turn on me and shoot me. For helping them. Yesterday I landed on a Caracal in a site and could have easily have killed it - but the rats wouldn't stop shooting me! I was (in a way) trying to save them from the Caracal. This is nonsensical and always has been. This would solve that issue. Unless I shoot the NPCs the NPCs won't shoot me.
The simplicity of this idea is astounding. There is no way to game the system either. It only works if you don't aggress the NPCs - as soon as you do you become like everyone else. And it gives those of us who work hard to maintain a negative sec status a small but significant bonus for doing so.
I still think a pirate bonused ship would be awesome. But until then, this issue needs to be implemented. It makes so much sense that it should be done immediately as part of the upcoming Havoc expansion.
I mean seriously.
We are, after all, all pirates here right?