Due to heavy hunting most of grey is hive free ...

I think it might work a bit better if there were two grey hive based in ukari and odia...

Is a "second hive" better than a stronger/scarier existing hive?

Yes, as long as the second hive is stronger and scarier.

I'm not sure if a second hive is a very easy option here. If it was, both hives would have to be more geographically limited.

But, altering the parameters of the existing hive might be a lot easier. So:

Is a "second hive" better than a stronger/scarier existing hive?

Grey really needs more then one hive. The systems I suggested should be ok but If you wanted to keep sedina hive and add a ukari hive which would over lap in latos I think it would actually work out better provided the overlap doesn't cause any issues.

Overlapping the hives might create a condition where the bots produced were a lot stronger then normal ones making Latos a nightmare area until one of the hives was driven back out of latos....

But no - amping up the one hive I dont think will solve the long term issue - Grey hosts half the active playerbase (or more) and without the extra hive large areas of grey will be free of any real activity.

Well, if I'm not mistaken, PaKettle is suggesting this because he is frustrated that too many people kill the queens and leviathan in the grayspace and thus prevent him from enjoying his personal solo hive activities. If I am correct in this, then making the existing hive more difficult to tackle (i.e. making things less easy to do solo) would defeat the purpose of the suggestion. Perhaps he could speak more to that.

If the rewards of a stronger/scarier hive were increased in a meaningful way then it *might* be better than a second gray hive. Otherwise, an increase in supply of the gray hive missions (i.e. via a second hive) would be better.

NPC pirates.

+1 to NPC pirates,

The Levi can be soloed, now we have a suggestion for a second Levi. That would say to me that the current Levi needs to be increased in difficulty for two reasons:

1) Encourage more group engagements
2) It would be faster and easier implementation so as not to detract from other current development processes

+1 Hoban Though I don't dislike the idea of more and different hive / npc content

I don't think the OP is talking about the Leviathan specifically, but again PaKettle would have to speak to that. Making things more difficult once more players figure out how to do things well (without exploits and within the intended design of the game) seems counterproductive. Even with plugins, taking down a leviathan in a solo attempt requires an indepth understanding of how the sector functions, a capital ship, and also takes a timely and dedicated effort. So from a preparation point of view, taking down a leviathan all by yourself is the opposite of easy (though, a bit easier now with the one-click goliath access).

I think there are better ways of encouraging more group engagements than making things "harder to do".

I think the current level of the leviathan is adequate, it can be tackled with difficulty enough.

But a second hive, with higher challenges, that would be interesting. But... Would they really have to be seperate?

Would it not be possible to have for example a second central mission? Maybe with just a slightly different balance of bots or something. Or, enough of a change might be a different roid field.

The second levi could be identical, just say 50% more shield. Maybe have a slightly higher drop rate of the same items. Not so much that its a treasure mine, but enough so that the additional difficulty and likely gauranteed failure for soloists, and also means there might be more to share upon the bigger boys death.

Maybe have it so that this new levi is off hidden somewhere else, and becomes a new level, a tier above current levi with similar dependency upon the queens and levi as the normal levi has with criticals.

So... A second identical hive is pointless, its just thirty mins longer for a soloist. But a single bigger hive kills off all the practice and experience and balance that has already beckme established.

Make the second levi harder to find, and maybe while it exists the usual levi is faster to respawn. ;)

Oh, and a definite yes to npc pirates! + 10!

i don't think a second grey hive is a bad idea, grey space is vast and populous but I also agree that the current playerbase has "solved" it so a buff may be in order

It used to be you couldnt touch the levi til the surrounding hives were killed cause the shields on the levi would be too strong either that isnt the case anymore or a zillion stacked avs has nullified this factor?

as far back as I can remember one only had to kill the critical queens, which is still the case (and then the levi queens)

Second hive
+1 in theory, but I think what Inc is saying is that it would require a decent amount of dev-time to deliver.

So with that in mind, how badly does everyone want it? Worth sidetracking new features to add a second hive? Personally I don't think so, but I'm not a hiver :P So let's call it -1

Increased Gray Hive Difficulty
+1 Either way sounds like the consensus is, 1 or 2, the gray one(s) should be tougher

NPC Pirates
-1000!!! To any CASUAL suggestion of it, like you can just say "hey devs, give us NPC pirates thanks!"

You kids these days! Do a little research ( https://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/14043#177619 ) or gather 'round ol' Smittens for a history lesson...

- Once long ago the devs added NPC pirates! They only attacked traders, & could be paid off. They were pretty boring and just kinda got in the way without adding any enjoyable gameplay for anyone (traders & real pirates both)
- So then players wanted them to be a threat! ...Turns out threatening NPCs who answer to no one are actually just annoying, and still don't add any real fun
- It wasn't worth the hassle of dealing with them, and all the fun PvP across gray space dried up

Sooo if anyone wants to seriously suggest NPCirates, I'd suggest they open a new thread and specifically address...

1. Who they attack
2. Where/how they fly
2. What's their behavior (do they take payments? do they care about cargo?)

But think long and hard about it. More lifelike behaviors takes more devtime, and will probably never even approach as much fun as real-player-interactions, or what you can imagine in your head

And the current state of PvP couldn't really endure the multiple months of tweaking that NPC pirates went through back then........ before everyone ultimately decided that they weren't really that fun anyway and just got in the way of the good Pew Pews

I am absolutely frustrated over the lack of hive missions in Lato's - I see them perhaps once a week if I can get there before the Levi dies again.

A tougher Hive would be very welcome as far as I am concerned.

Travel in Grey space storms is almost safe at this point. Dropping into a storm should cause a pilot a measure of genuine fear. Not yawning.

This is actually a long standing problem but since a method of soloing the levi was discovered the situation has grown much worse. The short solution would be to toughen the levi but as the playerbase grows the issue will eventually resurface.

It may also be feasible to alter the spawn pattern so that the surrounding areas have at least some hive activity even when the Levi is dead.

Oh your sick of me soloing a levi or killing it with our guild, which a lot did aswell till now? Logic! Let everyone have part of the fun. Not just restrict everything cool to real old vets (like the X1 or SCP for example, remove them aswell!).
Its not "easy" to solo it anyway, as greenwall already pointed out.

-1 for stronger hive: because of being selfish, unless it dosnt affect the leviathan.
+1 for a second or bigger hive in brac/pel/latos/edras (or just more small/large/crit/common missions).

Alright smittens you've convinced me.

Agree 100% with Xeha.

Nice reply there smittens. Good bit of vo history, before my time. I wish i could have seen it tho. Makes logical sense, but maybe things would be different now with more players around. You could also limit pirates in some imaginative ways, for example, set em out in a ship thats relatively slow, but can catch a moth. They will do there job and can be given good combat ai, but jumping to a station to lose should prove an easy enough avoidance that grey will not be dominated by them.