Pennsylvania Helium Drop Rate

[driftwolf]

To deal with just one line of your original post:

...
At this point almost NOBODY goes to Gallia, other than to /restart for their ships. It could be an opportunity to get them to want to try something new.

As a new player I encountered this problem. I start as a Freelancer, supposedly a neutral.
But in fact the default seems to be that I'm a LIBERTY faction. Which is at war with Gallia. I didn't realize this. It's not exactly obvious. Sure, I start in Liberty, but I could be from anywhere. Like Trent was.

So I take my new shiny Freelancer and go exploring. I head to Gallia, because I've heard it's interesting. I arrive, and promptly get my shiny new arse shot off by a battleship. Yet nothing shows in my reputation that says "hey, they're hostile". They just start shooting.

I EVENTUALLY, after much research and reading, discovered the /restart command, and was able to restart as a Kusari civilian (why can't I restart as a FreelancerKu I don't know...). That allowed me to enter Gallia and do some trading.

Is a typical newcomer to the game going to figure that out? Probably not. They'll just go explore elsewhere. Probably get their arse shot off by a Wilde or something. Haven't gone that side of the map yet...

So here's my take as the de-facto loudmouthed newbie: start folks off as NEUTRAL to the major factions. Sure, have a few discontented unlawfuls trying to plug my not-so-shiny-anymore arse with plasma bolts. I can deal with that. But not being able to dock ANYWHERE in a entire section of the map is a little disheartening as someone just arriving and wanting to look around before diving in.