The new update was in the spirit of navmap activity hot-spotting of the kind Karlotta suggested, without leaching content from other systems. Content-cutting is like amputating limbs from a sick person when bed-rest, exercise and food would have the same result. It's cost Disco some of its most unique content and lore before, without solving activity drops. Things like the unknown events and PVP changes have proven that adding content actually provides more impetus to play than cutting-fat. Content-adding in a way that centralises activity is proven to work. The server zoomed up to 115 people recently due to rebalances of the Gallic conflict and increased house unlawful viability, Unknown events, increased new player friendliness, along with a few other factors.
Military salvage only exists because UN lobbied for it and Congress suck the oar in and helped. It exists as an activity centralisation tool that encourages co-op play between lawful military and traders in an already active zone. The original idea wasn't "I want a buff", it was "Imagine if this dead-end system could become something worth fighting over for a different reason than simply that I'm encouraging people to log here".
Lyth once made a "tiers of activity" post which detailed sustainable activity v unsustainable forms (such as raids). Raids are usually promoted by a few vocal community leader figures who are good at managing community resources/getting the word out of joint activity times. Bering is a great system for that, but it's not sustainable. If me, Skorak, the 5th, 6th, or 1st fleet leaders depart without proper replacement, that activity format is going to get damaged. It's also only helpful for a few specific PVP oriented IDs.
The mining zone is there to intertwine econ and PVP. People fight more coherently when cash is at stake. The highest activity moments in disco occur when risk/reward is high, for example the 2014 AI/GMG conflict which had the server consistently maxed for a whole month with constant, 24/7 PVP and RP in Sigmas 13 and 17, over one POB that never got beyond core 1, that happened to be just a tad too close to an NPC station.
Omega 11 also works great. Hessians can mine there along with lawfuls, and both sides are equally at risk from each other. That's good. The corporates still mine at higher rates, so whilst the Hessians can fight better, they lose the direct econ advantage. The best measure is always "What are the indies doing?" I've seen hessian indie miners fight RNC and vice versa with Vidars and DHC. Not the most sophisticated activity form, but if it works, it works. If people are motivated to play, you're doing something right.
Unioners have the PVP advantage in Bering against DSE, but DSE can team up with the navy and steamroll Unioners to get to the zone and earn more cash-per-person than any group of Unioners ever could = teamplay at its finest. Constructing synergies where allied groups are encouraged to work together is the best activity generator the server can have, as it makes multiple IDs active and encourages people to experience lots of different types of gameplay. That doesn't mean nerfing the capacities of IDs - the fact that Unioners can mine mean there'll be Unioner miners in the zone for the military and police to shoot at - suddenly the game becomes all the more strategic than simply "LN/Unioners in Bering. Log and shoot. Oh, they're gone, log off I guess", becomes "The other team is dead, log the mining ships".
Whilst I'd agree that there is a problem with mine zones, I'd rationalise that the problem isn't the number of zones, its the location of the zones. Quite often they're too far away from the NPC stations and trade lane infrastructure of people who could present challenges, lawful or unlawful. It's fine for there to be loads of Omicron mining zones, but they need to be under a greater sense of threat. Mining should be dangerous. That works great in Dublin - you've got at least 3 dedicated POBs because of potential Molly piracy and the need to store resources.
The bad zones are a hangover from days where mining zone systems were intentionally made rather remote due to different development practices. It's getting better. The cutting-to-specialise theory has never worked in the past, we shouldn't keep going for it.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)
![[Image: XTF1d6x.png]](https://i.imgur.com/XTF1d6x.png)