Fuzzwork
I’ve had someone asking me about my feelings about NPC corporations, on Twitter, and while I answered him, I thought I’d give a fuller answer here.
NPC corporations are fine. But there should always be an advantage of not being in one. Also, you shouldn’t be able to use one to avoid consequences.
So, let’s go through various play styles, and see how I’d like to change things.
Mission Runners
I’m fairly happy with the current settings for them. Possibly add an LP tax, which converts LP into LP for their NPC corp. Perhaps slightly lower standings gains for other corporations or ‘opposing’ factions. Those are pretty minor though.
Miners
Right now, there’s little reason for miners to leave an NPC corporation. It exposes them to war decs, but other than social aspects, they gain little. This is less than ideal. However, I have other plans that I’d like to implement for mining, involving the removal of static belts, a prospecting system, and the ability to stake a claim on discovered sites, for your corporation. Mine in a claimed site, go suspect. So, NPC corp members can only claim for the NPC corporation, which means any other NPC member can come along and take the ore you spent time finding. It’s a similar downside to now, so it’s not exactly a nerf, with the benefit of additional game play. As an associated idea, I’d like for Mining missions to have regular ore, where you pay a tithe to the corporation, for the right to mine at their claim.
Gankers and Greifers
I know they’re not the same. But they get the same benefits from being in an NPC corporation. Someone can’t get help to retaliate. In this, there’s no way to do it without an ability nerf. I’d suggest automatically shunting people to the faction warfare corporation, when they drop below security status -1.0, maybe -2.0. Allows for mistakes, doesn’t allow for evading consequences so much. Military service for ‘hooligans’.
Industrialists
As long as you do all your industry in station, there is no reason to leave an NPC corporation. I’d like to see limitations on all industrialists in NPC run stations, capping the number of slots you can use per station (3 perhaps) with the addition of an industrial array you can anchor in space, for easier slots, with a lower entry cost than POS. Renting would also be good.
Haulers
I can’t think of a way to incentivize PC corp haulers over NPC corp ones. Everything that came to mind also came with a simple way to bypass.
Dedicated PvPers
No real benefit from being in an NPC corp. No real downside.
tl;dr: I’m not a fan of people staying in NPC corporations because it’s the best idea for what they do. So there need to be bigger changes than just taxes and the ability to anchor a POS.
