New Keepstars and Sotiyos Banned from High Sec Space

CCP has been working on fixes for the Viridian expansion that launched just yesterday, so new patch notes are available this morning.  In among those updates was an entry under the heading “Structures & Deployables” that caught my eye:

• Keepstars and Sotiyos, can no longer be anchored in High-Security space.
• Existing XL Structures will be fully functional, however once they have been unanchored or destroyed they will not be able to be replaced.

No more Keepstars in high sec, but if you have one already, you are grandfathered in until somebody comes along and destroys it.

That pretty much secures the dominance of the Tranquility Trading Tower in Perimeter, one jump from Jita.

The Keepstar being deployed back in 2018

The Tranquility Trading Tower has had strange effects on the political situation in New Eden.  It brought strange bedfellows together to stand it up and it remained in place, paying out dividends right through World War Bee, with PAPI members and the Imperium still getting their cuts because, even during a war of extermination, money matters more than politics.

Jita and Perimeter

It was all as Gevlon predicted, that the null sec powers would band together to exploit the ability to earn easy ISK via transaction fees.

At one point, during the economic chaos era, from which the game is still recovering, CCP slashed the amount of money corporations could earn through transaction fees.  It was a blow, and reduced the importance of the TTT, but it was not enough to kill it.  It still made some money.

And now with the Viridian expansion, where CCP has reversed course and increased earnings as part of its corporation enhancements.  This made the TTT more valuable yesterday, while the exclusion of XL structures from high sec today means that the TTT will face no competition… sure, somebody can setup a market in a Fortizar, but part of the promise of the TTT is that a Keepstar is so hard to kill that you can safely leave your stuff there.  Market Fortizars have died in Perimeter before.

That said, all somebody has to do is blow up the TTT and it is gone, never to return.  But is there a force outside of the TTT agreement capable of attacking it successfully?

Snuffed Out might take it on.  They went after the TTT’s low sec stations.  But Snuff’s power is in its capital ships, which terrorize any structure owner in low sec, but which are also barred from high sec.

There is the B2 Coalition, which is outside of the TTT agreement, and The Initiative, which recently left the Imperium and which has the numbers to pose a threat and a history of loving to take on such projects.

There are numbers out there to do this, to bring down the TTT, if they can get together.  The question is whether they can put down their current efforts and cooperate… and what the response of the TTT’s owners would be to such a threat.  The Imperium has gone to Perimeter before to fight along side TEST and Pandemic Horde in the name of economic self-interest.