Guess Who I Ran Into The Other Day…

For the more observant readers [both of you], this is no surprise. For the rest of you, this wonderful piece of elocution is a wonderful guest post from a frequent partner in Sleeper related homicides and other nefarious asteroid related crimes. Please welcome and read, Penny Ibramovic, author of the wonderful Tiger Ears –Kename Fin

I sit docked at a station, keeping an eye on business. I open up the market interface to see how my orders are selling. I check if stations have received new deliveries and I am being undercut, modifying my prices if necessary and sustainable. Based on the market information, I instruct my production facilities to install new manufacturing runs, hoping that my mineral stocks allow it. If not, I hit the market again to buy more processed rocks. During all of this, my Crane floats serenely in the hangar as I conduct all my affairs through interfaces connecting directly in to my pod.

My thoughts naturally drift to wondering what it will be like when Walking in Station (WiS) becomes a reality, when I am flushed out of my pod goo and set free to explore stations beyond their hangars. Instead of staring at my admittedly beautiful ship behind several windows of information, I could be watching people, probably other capsuleers, from a table in a café, sipping on a cappuccino, albeit still from behind several windows of information. It would make quite the difference to see capsuleers come and go. Individual privateers will get new mission briefs to be completed, or groups of pilots all leave the area at once, boisterously heading off for a scheduled mining operation, or maybe quietly sneaking away to roam local low-sec systems for easy prey. Still daydreaming about the possibilities, I check my current station to see who also is currently docked.

Space is big, and not just the parts with nothing in it. There are thousands of stars, hundreds under the umbrella of Concord in high-sec. Each system has several planetary bodies, many of them have stations in orbit, and a few planets more than one. Even if a system looks busy, with maybe twenty capsuleers present, the choice of place to dock means you are unlikely to find more than five or so capsuleers in the same station at any one time. Some of them may probably be shaking off a clone jump, or worse, and not feel in the mood to be seen in public. WiS sounds like an interesting idea, until you realise how lonely it is out in space.

Even the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Jita probably won’t be interesting more than a couple of times, after dodging scams and pushing through crowds to finally get served or find someone you know. And unless you dock in the navy station at Jita IV, moon 4 you still may struggle to find others to talk to. If it weren’t for intricate communication relays, allowing for real-time conversations across the galaxy, many capsuleers could go days without speaking to another person. But maybe that’s the problem, the universality of some channels meaning there is little need to gather in specific stations, so capsuleers don’t. It’s a slim hope, but maybe when it becomes possible to meet outside of our pods more capsuleers will be more likely to dock somewhere specific.

Capsuleers getting drunk before Angel Extravaganza

It’s a slim hope to expect pilots to congregate, if only because navigating systems can get tedious. Jumping across several systems is seen as a necessary means to an end for most tasks, but it is yet to be seen how many capsuleers are willing to jump five, six, or maybe a dozen systems to meet face-to-face, for a corporation meeting or a simple chat about ship fittings, when a simple communication channel could be opened instead. Indeed, it needs to be seen how WiS communications are handled before this can be properly gauged. Speech bubbles floating above capsuleers’ heads could make the air crowded quickly, and whilst the ephemeral nature of the conversation may appeal to some shady characters, the necessity of continually having to repeat yourself will annoy others. If WiS relies on the same communication window as other channels, I am sure many pilots will question the wisdom of spending half-an-hour flying to a station only to monitor a chat channel that would be identical ten systems away.

None of this is to say WiS can’t, or won’t, bring new aspects of capsuleer life to New Eden. Personally, a change of background whilst in a station will be welcome, even if it is only me and the waiter in the VIP room. I won’t get so desperate as to mingle with my crew or other civilians. And there is definitely one feature that would make docking in a particular station enticing: PvP. It would really add to the atmosphere of a station and lead to more interesting social dynamics if it were possible to spike a rival’s drink, start a bar fight, or stab a dastardly pirate. And I think this is the real purpose behind Dust 514. It may begin with ground battles for planets and moons, but Dust 514 must surely soon be revealed as the prototype system for WiS. You can leave your pod behind, but don’t forget your weapon.