Fuzzwork
I’ve made no effort to hide the fact that I think that WarDecs need work. That they’re inherently lopsided. That said, I don’t want to get rid of them. That would make highsec far too safe. People could anchor things with pretty much no chance of losing them. I’ve been kicking round a few ideas on how this could be ‘dealt’ with. That’s what I’m going to share here. I’ve mentioned it to CCP, but I don’t expect anything to happen soon, if it ever happened. They’ve got their hands full with some really large systems.
The core of the idea is simple:
Anchor a structure to declare a war. If that structure explodes, the war ends.
Not complicated, is it? Now a defender has a reason to undock and fight. If they win, the war is over. Maybe add an invulnerability to wardecs from that corp/alliance for a period (Week? Two weeks? Not long) Allies now have a concrete goal (Blow up the structure).
The key is it’s counterplay to the declaration itself. And there’s a degree of limiting for how many wardecs you run. Because every group you Dec can attack the structures which are running the wars for the other groups. Off time zones can be handled by Allies, if the Attacker tries to make it harder to attack, by setting it when no-one involved is on.
Yes, small groups will still be stomped by large groups. That’s always going to happen. But now there’s action they can take, rather than having to deal with an attacker that always fades if they manage to get a small fleet together.
There are a bunch of twiddly bits to set, of course.
- How vulnerable are the structures? (I’d say at least one hour a day. Maybe a few extra hours which can be scattered around).
- What do the structures cost? (Cheap)
- What fuel do they structures take (This is the replacement for the isk cost to concord. Maybe some LP based things from pirate lp stores/drops, in addition to other fuel)
- Where can it be anchored? (I’d suggest highsec, in the same constellation as the defenders head office)
- When does the war end (I’d suggest the following downtime)
- Edit: How is fuel burnt. (To keep some risk for the attacker, you put in fuel for 7 days. It’s all burnt to online it.)
And if you want a lore reason for the change?
Concord finally noticed a corrupt department taking bribes to turn off protection for people. They canned them. Now you have to hire hackers to do it for you. They have specialist equipment which requires microgravity, and can’t have a warp core in the same structure.
