Rheinland Jumpholes

[Ichiru]

Hey hey hey!

I was flying around Frankfurt on my fighter, and I noticed that the Frankfurt->New Berlin jumphole was mysteriously missing. Unfortunately, this makes unlawful travel incredibly hard in Frankfurt, and with the Bundschuh having their only viable base in that system (the others are so far away from activity it's ridiculous), it makes it really hard for them to be mobile.

Right now to get to New Berlin, unlawfuls have 3 options:

1. The fastest option: Fly through the lanes and go through the New Berlin jumpgate. This is obviously undesirable, since unlawfuls shouldn't be on the lanes due to the fact that iRP they're patrolled vigorously.
   
2. Fly to the Dresden hole, and then take the New Berlin jumphole. This is incredibly far. The Dresden jumphole is 115k from Bruchsal in the north (and further if you're coming from the Sigma-13 or Luneburg jumpholes). And then from the Frankfurt hole to the New Berlin hole in Dresden it is another long flight.
   
3. Fly Frankfurt->Luneburg->Bremen->Hamburg->New Berlin through the jumpholes. This requires no explanation as to why it's not a great option.
   

So to get to anywhere from Frankfurt, Rheinland unlawfuls have to take one of 3 very suboptimal options. It would be nice to see the Frankfurt->New Berlin jumphole returned

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Acolyte of NoMe

[Karst]

Have to agree here.

Now, I can understand removing jump holes often used as short cuts by traders. But the Stuttgart-NB and Frankfurt-NB holes were not used for that. Both were way too far away from the lanes and do not skip systems to be useful for this purpose.
Ironically, while traders trying to sneak around oorp routes were the likely targets of this change, it had the exact opposite effect: Forcing unlawfuls to use oorp routes, that is directly along the lanes. Because I highly doubt, say, a Bundschuh traveling from Frankfurt wishes to spend literally 15 minutes in cruise to move two systems over.

There are jump holes that actually shorten trips (CA-TX, ONT-CO...) and are frequently used by traders; the jump holes removed in Rheinland were not.
Please revert this change or do something else to make unlawful navigation in Rheinland possible.

Edit: Original post only mentions FRA-NB but the exact same reasoning applies to the also-removed STU-NB hole.

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[Sciamach]

The mere fact that it was randomly removed kinda irks me-- now anyone wanting to smuggle through Frankfurt to NB has no option but to take the lanes-- something thats really a pain in the ass if you're trying to stay off the radar.

I'd love to know the logic behind it's removal

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[ sci·am·ach ]
/sīˈamək/

A simple, angry man casually working his way through life on a personal quest to acquire copious amounts of street cred.

[The Savage]

Cali-NY suffers for a similiar problem, because you need to fly around through Texas to New York, which is pretty far away from anywhere in the end, giving you more than 120K to fly. In the end, you waste around 10 minutes.

[Durandal]

If I recall this was part of the first iteration of changes for the Rheinland update by Max ( @Echo 7-7 ) with the intent of streamlining and generating more activity.

Now, even as somebody who has played as criminal and revolutionary factions for years in many different houses, I don't see this as a problem. Then again I also recognize that I am not as "hardcore RP" as some members of the community who don't believe anyone hostile to the a gate's or lane's respective house should be using them at all.

In my own personal view I see this as a change that should generate more interaction and I see that as desirable, even if it may have a negative impact on the lore, but that's an @Durandal view, not a devteam one as a whole.

[Ichiru]

If I recall this was part of the first iteration of changes for the Rheinland update by Max ( @Echo 7-7 ) with the intent of streamlining and generating more activity.

Now, even as somebody who has played as criminal and revolutionary factions for years in many different houses, I don't see this as a problem. Then again I also recognize that I am not as "hardcore RP" as some members of the community who don't believe anyone hostile to the a gate's or lane's respective house should be using them at all.

In my own personal view I see this as a change that should generate more interaction and I see that as desirable, even if it may have a negative impact on the lore, but that's an @Durandal view, not a devteam one as a whole.

These changes don't really streamline or generate more activity at all. From a trading perspective, the jumpholes are out of the way of any lawful bottlenecks (e.g. the lane to the NB jumpgate in Stuttgart, and the Sigma-13 gate to Holstein lane in Frankfurt), and were difficult for transports to use. These changes make it difficult for there to be more than a small handful of kinds of interactions. For the Bundschuh it is quicker to fly to Hamburg than to fly somewhere useful in New Berlin. This makes most of the lawful->unlawful interactions either occur through lawfuls flying straight up to and camping Bruchsal, or in encounters right outside of the Taunusfeld in front of Planet Holstein. It's gotten rid of a lot of variety, and makes raiding as unlawfuls significantly higher.

It's also important to remember that unlawfuls in Rheinland are considerably different to other houses in terms of their base placement. Mollies have a wide variety of jumpholes available to them in Dublin, and factions like the Liberty Rogues have a lot of bases that are close to jumpholes as well as very active areas of Liberty. Rheinland unlawful bases are generally very out of the way of anything lawful, and the house already is not very active as it is. Making it harder for people to have a good variety of interactions isn't going to generate more activity, and will most likely make people bored.

[Stoner_Steve]

In my own personal view I see this as a change that should generate more interaction

I disagree, now when I smuggle across Rhineland I miss New Berlin enterily, going via Luneburg/Bremen you skip the majority of the "bottle neck" also because of how few people are willing to patrol in those area's I'm almost assured no interaction along that route.

With the jumphole to New Berlin the RFP and others had a chance to catch me as I crossed New Berlin, no longer

[TheJarl]

Now, even as somebody who has played as criminal and revolutionary factions for years in many different houses, I don't see this as a problem. Then again I also recognize that I am not as "hardcore RP" as some members of the community who don't believe anyone hostile to the a gate's or lane's respective house should be using them at all.

It's not so much about hardcore RP as that it is inconvenient. Also as has been mentioned, variety in encounters are not a bad thing. Of course the need for bottlenecks is something I completely understand but the only bottleneck the JH removal could create already existed, namely the S-13 Gate - Holstein tradelane. I have never seen a normal trader use JH instead of the lanes and that tradelane has already been the main spot for activity in Frankfurt. In addition, even if people would use jumpholes with transports, if one goes from the S-13 hole to where the NB hole was you actually tend to pass through the exact same spot as where you would intercept traders along the lane.

In short, I understand the reasoning behind its removal, however the envisioned bottleneck was already there with the jumphole still there so apparently there was no need for its removal.

[Durandal]

In my own personal view I see this as a change that should generate more interaction

I disagree, now when I smuggle across Rhineland I miss New Berlin enterily, going via Luneburg/Bremen you skip the majority of the "bottle neck" also because of how few people are willing to patrol in those area's I'm almost assured no interaction along that route.

With the jumphole to New Berlin the RFP and others had a chance to catch me as I crossed New Berlin, no longer

The Luneburg - Bremen link is slated to be removed, it was an oversight.

[Ichiru]

The Luneburg - Bremen link is slated to be removed, it was an oversight.

Then we need other jumpholes back. If you remove that jumphole the unlawful factions are going to have no maneuverability and it will kill unlawful activity in Rheinland. The VWA rely on that jumphole for a lot of activity as it is, due to going other ways being so ridiculously inefficient and long.