Tag Archives: op-ed

Solving the WarDec ‘problem’

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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.

Making Sov more fun

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I’ll prefix this all with: I’m not particularly experienced when it comes to Null, and Sov grinding. I’m not a Noob to eve, that’s just not an area I’ve gone into. Most of this stems from the arguments about it that I’ve seen on the forums.

From the sounds of it, the main complaints are:
Grinding Sov is dull, as you have to take out many multi-million EHP structures, to do pretty much anything to someone. Or camp their systems to stop them maintaining their upgrade levels.

This isn’t fun. Not fun at all.

The second is: There’s no space that’s not taken. Even if it’s not being used, it’s not available.

What I’d suggest is the following, with large parts stolen wholesale from Faction warfare.

If a system has neighbors which are not owned by the same alliance, and don’t have upgrades, they are ‘Frontier’ systems. Frontier systems do not improve in Strategic index, unless the system has levels in either Military or Industrial.

In all systems strategic index will decay, if there are no other upgrades.

Upgrades are not anchored at POS any more. They are stand alone structures which generate a deadspace field (with free acceleration gate) The owner can set the size of ship that can enter these. This cannot be changed after installation, without tearing it down. (This includes moon mining facilities)

Upgrades and levels of the indices spawn complexes, which can be attacked by people to reduce the index levels in a system (or knock out an upgrade). When the Indexes hit zero, a final complex will spawn (at a time set by the owner, or X hours away. Just to deal with off hours invasions) which will remove Sov from the system, if defeated.

The higher the levels of indexes, the larger the ships that can enter the some of the complexes. These complexes will have multiple entrances, to make camping the way in more difficult.

Effects:

  • If you can get behind enemy lines, you can blow stuff up and mess with their upgrades. And while doing so, you can be sure you won’t be hot dropped, by staying in the smaller complexes. you’ll do less damage in them, but they’ll allow you to chip away.
  • Fights should be somewhat more fun that the blobs. As you can always blap stuff in a frigate or cruiser
  • Sov isn’t an all or nothing affair. You can hurt an enemy, even if you can’t knock them out. A BLOPs fleet can cause pain.
  • You don’t need to take down a POS to get at the goo. I’m thinking a multipart facility. taking it entirely offline is hard, but damaging it so you can steal, easier.

Why I’m in a personal corp

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tl;dr: I’m a suspicious bastard. Gimme a personal POS I can let specific other people use.

I make stuff in Eve. Mostly T2 stuff. I run three accounts to do this. I’d like to be part of a larger corporation, but instead I keep my alts in a separate Corp. This is an attempt to explain why.

It’s because of 2 things.

  1. I’m paranoid
  2. I can’t control who accesses my POS, beyond some very very general roles.

The two are tightly linked, as you might guess. Either I join a Corp where they’re willing to grant me the ability to anchor stuff (and un-anchor other people’s stuff. And have other people un-anchor my stuff) or I keep it all in a single Corp.

I can’t imagine that I’m the only person in EVE that thinks this way.

What would be ideal for me is the ability to launch a POS that I can limit access to, to a very specific list of people. So only those people I authorize can use its resources, un-anchor it and so on (ideally a separate list for each)

I might trust my CEO to manage the corporation’s ISK. I don’t trust them to not take my stuff and kick me out the Corp. Only time I’d trust them that much, is if I know them, and can take it out of their hide in person.

POS changes for EVE

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This is all inspired by A post by Two step about where he’d like to see POSes going.

I pretty much agree with what he’s saying, but it inspired a few more detailed thoughts than I was happy putting into a comment on someone elses blog. So, I’m writing this one.

 

The method for placing POS modules appears to be a reasonable one. I’m happy enough with it as that is, except I’d like it to require modules to be connected, before they can be powered up. This would need a connector module, or another ‘useful’ module, like a lab, hanger, assembly aray, you name it. That way, you’ll have a ramshackle arrangement, but it’ll be a thing. Rather than a few disparate modules all hanging there, with some sort of power beaming tech, and wireless communications 😉

That pretty much matches with what was mentioned in fanfest. This is good.

 

I don’t like the central tower idea. It makes upgrading to another size more difficult, and it means someone can go ‘large tower, this much in the way of resources.’ What I do like, is the following:

  • Every module still requires a certain amount of power, and CPU.
  • Power is provided by dedicated power station modules, which have no CPU requirement, and each have their own fuel bay.
  • CPU is provided by dedicated control modules. These have a power requirement. If you have a charter requirement, they would go here. Possibly add charter requirements for SOV space (Sov holder’s choice) with a ‘Pirate’ Control module that avoids it, while providing significantly less.
  • The first module to be anchored is a power module. And this can be /anywhere/ in a system. No moon requirement.  Then a CPU module.
  • POS shields are provided by another module. Ideally with a variable power requirement, depending on the range you want. Multiple modules are possible, allowing for intercecting bubbles of POS shields. If you want to store a Titan in one, it’ll cost you a lot more power, requiring a more powerful Power station. If a shield is taken down, it exposes the things within it. Multiple shields reduce what is exposed. I wouldn’t want for the shields to be stackable though.
  • Power Stations come in a number of sizes, each providing a different quantity of power, and each using a different number of fuel blocks. A more powerful module may cost more than multiple smaller modules providing the same amount of power, but it requires less work to keep fueled, as it’s just one bay, rather than multiple. It’ll also take up less space, making shield requirements smaller.
  • Docking up is possible, but will require a dedicated module.
  • All station services are possible, but require dedicated modules for each. This includes market services, but they’re only advertised to people who have the standing to use it.
  • A cheap module to allow people to see your POS on the overview.
  • Defense modules as normal.
  • A ‘cloaking’ module, to make it harder to scan down. Including ships docked up in it. Hard, but not impossible to scan. The higher the power rating, the easier it is to scan. this can be mitigated by more cloaking modules. But these should be expensive to run, at least CPU wise.

 

As for anchoring, I’d open it up to allow individuals to do it for themselves, as well as on behalf of a Corp or Alliance, as well as allowing the transfer of the POS as a whole between any of the three. If the owner doesn’t have the standing for the POS increase the charter cost. Delegation of POS access should be from the Owner’s standings to th User/Corp/Alliance, with each level being overridden by the earlier. Ideally, like with the research services, you can allow access on a slot by slot basis, without people being able to change other people’s jobs.

Something I’m not sure about yet, is a War Dec immunity on a POS. If this was allowed, on the other hand, all services on the station would have to be made public (and on the overview), with a suitable cost cap. Possibly with an on-going cost, too. Pretty much to make it a break-even endevour. This would mostly to be to move things into player hands, and out of NPC hands, without the ability of wardecs to cripple high-sec. It doesn’t quite feel right though.

 

I’ll probably have another post, as I think about it more.