In my personal experience, there is nothing better than roaming in low security space with friends to blow up lone wolves and “welcome” new players to low security life. With that said, how do you keep your space healthy when it comes to having friends to fly with and targets to shoot? In this article I will discuss some strategies that will spawn great fun and opportunities for corporations of all sizes and interests in low security space. This is more of an opinion piece than a straight informational article, so I will be using my own personal experience as my cited source.
Any further discussion of this topic in the comments is encouraged as I would like to know more from those more experienced in nullsec and larger lowsec alliances that hold infrastructure.
Chum the Waters
There are no fish without bait, and those small fish attract the larger predators. This has been talked about extensively in the community, but what does it really mean? Players need opportunities, and those opportunities should be connected to a corporation goal. This is because there are a lot of ways to make more ISK/hr than PvE in lowsec, but what is the ISK for? ISK is useless to the individual and the organization unless during the procurement you are creating or engaging in entertaining content. Moreover, if your guys are all over space making ISK instead of doing things locally, people will miss out on small, exciting, emergent PvP engagements that randomly occur in your organization’s HQ system.
For example, my corporation builds our own T1 hulls. We have ore buy orders up, but we could just as easily ship in the minerals at our current volume. The real answer is that we want all kinds of activity close to home available to fill times in between PvP opportunities. An active system both attracts other players and keeps them wary of engaging our own members, which is a great environment for communication to occur. We want to reach out to players outside our own organization to see what kind of relationship we might have, both with and against them.
Make a Connection
Contrary to popular behavior, Blue Donuts are not good for this game. Everyone around you being your sworn ally breeds apathy and boredom. You have to go far to find a fight, and there are no interesting third party dynamics or politics, except for those that violate said alliances. An Awox opportunity can be entertaining, but it can also be very demoralizing for individuals. This gameplay mainly spurs emotional decisions, like changing organizations (as it did for one of my new members, Nicara,) and is not as healthy a bit of uncertainty as there would be in space full of neutral players.
In a “kill or be killed” environment, everyone is fully engaged, looking for allies and creating the political metagame. When you blow up or get blown up by a neighbor, take the opportunity to make a human connection. Voice communications are by far the best and allow for the most dynamic interactions. Be ready to deal with an unpleasant chat, but hope that you might learn more about a person or corporation that has their own goals and motivations in EVE. When under stress, the true colors of most individuals show. Take stock of their reactions to you and develop the relationships that are entertaining.
Grow Respect for the Local Community
EVE is like Valhalla Online. We are here to fight, and fight forever. You can’t build a golf course or feed starving children on Eszur I. You can only build a ship with weapons to turn against rock, can, or man. To this end, we all need both sides of a conflict to fight, and in turn buy our spoils of war and industrial wares. A healthy adversary guarantees the need to undock and slug it out. In Faction Warfare space we use the fight over complexes as a proxy war, and most other fights really hinge around player owned structures of all kinds. Bloody your opponent’s nose, but you should never try to eradicate them. The leadership of the opposing forces are not only generating content for their own members, but they are also guaranteeing your corporation has a reason to exist.
All that being said, you should ally with as small of a group of corporations as possible. Preserve neutrality with your neighbors that is built upon respect for what you do as a corporation, and vice versa. Keep communication channels open and allow for occasional cooperation. This dynamic makes temporary alliances possible if a larger threat comes to bare on your local space, while keeping space full of similarly strong gangs who can skirmish and sharpen steel against steel. When outsiders try to flex their muscle, you can show them what your constellation or region is really made of.
Ecosystems start with a base of the food chain, but that base need not be clueless, but bold pilots with little direction. In a game that relies on players to provide a soul to the narrative, EVE needs those that can use the tools provided to lay down the framework for new or less experienced pilots. Management in this game is as complex as with any real business, minus most of the regulation. Lowsec is an amazing part of space for new and growing corporations, as well as a great place for folks that like a frontier-esque lifestyle to stay for the long term. My personal organization aims to bring some life to an area of space that has many interesting stigmas from those who don’t live here. More information about our mission and vision can be found here.
If you as a player or corporation are interested in flying in space where bandit gangs square off on the fringe, please join Carver Club Reception in game, or look up The Carver Club in Recruitment. Don’t be afraid to pop into our TeamSpeak. You can get the connection information from our Message of the Day in the Carver Club Reception channel. We look forward to hearing from you all in the future. Good hunting, and whenever you fly, fly with purpose!
