The total number of IP datagrams that local upper-layer protocols, including ICMP, handed to IP for transmission, explicitly excluding anything already counted in ipForwDatagrams. Because it excludes forwarded traffic, this counter isolates how much traffic the gateway itself is originating, such as its own management sessions or VPN keepalives; a spike here with forwarding flat would point to the box itself generating unusual traffic, not the network it protects. Example: ipOutRequests spiking while ipForwDatagrams stays flat suggests the gateway itself is generating extra traffic, such as retried VPN tunnel negotiation attempts.