Capitals in Highsec

What are highsec capitals?

A valid case can be made that capital ships are all ships, that require the skill Capital Ship Construction during their production process. Those are:

1. Freighters
2. Jump Freighters
3. Carriers
4. Motherships
5. Capital Industrial Ships
6. Industrial Command Ships
7. Dreadnoughts
8. Titans

Another popular definition for capitals is that only ships that can not use stargates count as true capitals. This reduces the above list to the following:

1. Carriers
2. Motherships
3. Capitals Industrial Ships
4. Dreadnoughts
5. Titans

When people talk about high sec capitals though, they mean almost exclusively the following two ship classes:

1. Carriers
2. Dreadnoughts

Where do they come from?

When capital ships were first introduced in EVE Online, they could be produced in any station with manufacturing assembly lines and the corresponding POS assembly array could be anchored solely under the normal fitting restrictions.

A later rule change limited the production of them to station assembly lines in low security or outlaw space. Similarly the POS assembly array was restricted from anchoring in high security space. Already anchored arrays in highsec were however not unanchored and production continued to be possible there.

Supercapital (Motherships and Titans) introduction was uneventful from the capitals in highsec point of view, since their production requires a sovereignity claim that is only achievable in outlaw space.

After the introduction of the Rorqual, which could have been built with the still anchored assembly arrays, but before any Rorqual production job could finish, all still anchored Large Ship Assembly Arrays were unanchored by CCP during downtime. Thus no Rorqual was ever produced in high security space. This also stopped the era of Carrier and Dreadnought production in highsec completely.

Please note: The Large Ship Assembly Array has since been renamed the X-Large Ship Assembly Array. The link goes to the array with the equivalent production capabilities of the LSAA of that time

Carriers and Dreadnoughts that were produced in high security space prior to the general rules change, or afterwards in a still anchored LSAA and since then did not leave the system are still there. These make up what capsuleers now know as highsec capitals.

Famous highsec capitals

The most famous and probably best known highsec capital is Chribba's Veldnought, a Revelation class dreadnought that calls the Amarr system his home. He can regularly be seen mining Veldspar in its asteroid belts.

While a rare commodity these days, there still exist a lot more of these relics throughout New Eden and while it is even rarer for one of them to undock, you might catch a glimpse of one on your travels through the stars.

Rules for highsec capitals

Since these ships are relics from the past of New Eden, their simple existence actually conflicts with the current state of EVE Online. The GM team has therefor issued the following rules for these capitals in high security space, which everybody that has one or plans to buy one should be aware of:

Warning:

1. Capital ships may under no circumstances be used for aggression.

2. If at war, or with war declaration pending, you may not take your capital ship out of station.

3. You may not use your capital ship’s attributes to gain any sort of advantage over other players while in high security space.

4. Breach any of the above and receive 2 weeks ban and off to low sec with your capital.

Known legal activities

Following is a list of activities that are widely regarded as fair use of these ships. This may change, so do not rely solely on this information here.

1. Showing off
2. Mining

Prior to the formalization of the rules by GM Grimmi, mock pvp fights with members of your own player corporation were also known to happen throughout New Eden and did not conflict with the vague guidelines at the times. Whether this is still legal under the current rules or not is unknown to the author.

Please note: If you are unsure about the legality of what you plan to do, petition before doing it. It will save you hassle afterwards.

Links

Rules statement by GM Grimmi