An idea to help make Gallia more active

[Montezuma/Kukulcan]

Recently, there has been some discussion as to how to get Gallia more active, as right now, Gallia is so dead you can smell it rotting from Kusari. The most notable of these being the rather complicated and presumably even more difficult to execute idea of having the GRN invade the Taus before .86 is released.

Now, while this may work, it doesn't really address the core problem of why Gallia is so extremely inactive, said problem being that there are no traders/miners in Gallia. Traders and miners being the base of the activity food chain. Meaning that if the GRN invades the Taus early, this may be all well and good for the GRN and the denizens of the Taus, but it still doesn't give groups like the Maquis and Council (along with all of the pirate and trade factions) stuff to do.


So, my idea is to do a few things:

• Firstly, a little FLHook magic so that the Vache, with transport mining turrets and the GMS ID and IFF get the same mining bonuses as an IMG Hegemon (namely, to mining beryllium and niobium in the Taus). This is so that GMS actually have something resembling a mining ship, leading to my second point...
  
  
• Buff the sale value for beryllium and niobium ore on Alesia (the GMS station in Burgundy for those who don't know) to around 10k per piece.
  

What will this accomplish?

Well, it will give Gallic miners and haulers an actual profitable business to be involved in, as right now, trading and mining in and around Gallia, for Gallic corporations is unprofitable, boring and extremely dangerous (due to the Gallic NPCs). This will give Gallic miners and haulers a much needed boost to activity, in turn giving Gallic pirates (like the Brigands, Maquis and Union Corse) targets and a reason to get online. This will then give the GRN and GRP actual opponents (pirates) and ships to protect (miners/ore haulers), which will in turn give the anti-establishment factions (the Council and Maquis, who are semi-piratical anyway) targets and people to interact with. All of this culminating to give Gallia a functioning economy, and as such, a functioning activity 'food chain', making it alive and just as fun a place to be as the Omicrons, Liberty, Bretonia etc.


What possible downsides could their be, and how could they be addressed?

The only major downside to this that I am aware of could be (emphasis on COULD) that it becomes unbalanced in it's profitability, making it much more attractive than other areas. However, I don't believe this would be much of an issue, due mainly to the fact that Gallic NPCs are... Well rather powerful, to say the least, making trading dangerous at the best of times. Also, the main mining area would be Tau 23 (Niobium can also be mined in Tau 37 I believe), which, when miners abound, is absolutely packed with Outcasts, along with the Gallic part of the journey involving passing through Gallia, whose pirate factions are starved of activity, and would no doubt jump at the chance to pirate everything they see. Plus to add to this, the Vache is huge, extremely slow and very weak, meaning that even Outcast NPCs in Orkney can pose a threat to un-escorted Vaches. Basically, the miners would be in extremely weak ships (much weaker and slower than the Hegemon), trying to get past some of the worst pirates on Disco, along with THE worst NPCs on Disco.

These factors all add up to a rather strong counterbalance to slightly increased profitability, as it would be far and away the most dangerous mining run around. The vastly increased risk would also provide a great opportunity for escorts and mercenaries to ply their trade, which they can't really do in safer areas of space.

Another slight downside would be the presence of so called "lolwuts", as was prevalent in Dublin, Omega 7 and Tau 23 prior to the mining nerf... Excuse me, prior to the mining 'changes'. However, in a much more dangerous environment, where a single wing of NPCs will tear your ship and 4.45k load of ore up before you can thrust 10k, there will be a much stronger call for teamwork, meaning lone 'lolwut' miners will suffer more than faction miners who have escorts and convoys as protection. Also, the actual transporting of ore could only really be done by Gallic corporate transports/miners (Junkers are a possibility, but any and all Sirian ships, Junker or not, are generally turned around and told to leave Gallia), as everyone else is repninja'd hostile to Gallic lawfuls, and any Sirian ships tend to get told to leave/shot at by the GRN and GRP.


All in all, I think it would create a profitable but very, very dangerous mining run, giving all Gallic factions stuff to do, and bringing Gallia back to life.



This idea is mainly directed towards Cannon/the dev team, but I'd love to hear any opinions people have on it.

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