After playing as a Blood Dragon in Kusari, it started bugging me how much I had to travel to even get close to a base where I could dock on. This also made is pretty much impossible to escape whenever lawfuls managed to catch me. At some point I realised Ainu depot was the only base in Kusari House space that was usable by me, and even that base is stupidly far away from any tradelane frequently used by traders, the essence of an unlawful faction which is allowed to pirate.
I think this might be the core problem for Kusari's inactivity. Without quick access to the main appeal of unlawful factions, piracy, there isn't much else to do as a GC or Blood Dragon. Add to that a lack bases to be able to retreat to (the most accessible are Kyoto Base in Chugoku, Ainu in Hokkaido, Ainu Depot in Hokkaido and to some extend Cali Base in Tau 23 and Battleship Matsuda in Okinawa, but they lack a proper system of jumpholes in order to be even remotely accessible and depend on your current presence in Kyushu or Okinawa), and you've got one component lacking of the typical activity generator.
With a lack of pirating unlawfuls, lawfuls will become obsolete, leaving only the traders who pass through Kusari.
I decided to put this list together to show exactly how crippled the unlawful side in Kusari is compared to those of other houses. It shows every base in House Space (excluding Gallia) defined by the server rules.
That's a massive difference, but I'm not done yet.
Out of those 4 bases, only one is usable by 2 Kusari unlawful factions; the Blood Dragons and Golden Chrysanthemums.
Kyoto Base is only reachable from Honshu and Hokkaido (and still is a jump away), while Hokkaido is a pretty much dead system which rarely gets any activity. Chugoku is also connected to Sigma 13, but that's already an entirely new region.
Battleship Matsuda is in a system owned by the GMG. Pirating there as a Golden Chrysanthemum or Blood Dragon has its diplomatic setbacks. If you still choose to pirate there, you can only really go to one tradelane/jumpgate, and the closest jumphole leads to the middle of nowhere in Honshu.
So when you do want to play as a Golden C or Blood Dragon, there's little to nowhere you can go and pirate without having to first travel a near hundred k.
At least the Farmers Alliance have the ability to fly 20-30ish k to the Kyushu gate from their own base, or sit in the capital system while 20k from the Hogosha base. However, they and the Hogosha have two respective official factions, so the activity isn't as horrible as the other unlawfuls.
All in all, the more attractive potential for piracy would probably draw more activity as those two factions, which also would give the lawfuls something to do more regularly.
Too long; didn't read version - Kusari needs considerably more bases usable by unlawfuls, and possibly a more versatile jumphole system. Discuss.