Assembly Hall

A random internet commenter had a good idea.

There is a better way for Factional Warfare to flip sov/ownership: Turn the current static Bunkers into Nullsec-style Outposts, dockable only by the owning Militia. No need to lock off already-existing stations. No getting alts involved. Allow this Outpost to give certain benefits to owning militia; tax-free production, free repairs and clones, etc. Systems turned by putting this Outpost into reinforced, and popping it 24 hours later. Give it sentry guns to impede enemy camping. Make it a tactically important little piece of floating property. If your stuff is inside when the system turns, fight for it back, or jump into a clone inside. Give it cloning facilities, with the new owner able to revoke clone contracts.

This is a simple, easy way to tackle factional warfare.

Sorry that is way too elegant of a solution.



Wasn't the proposal meant to avoid that? It defuses the outrage currently in progress around the proposed lockouts.

Did the OP watch the FW presentation from Fanfest?

An interesting idea, but it would essentially push FW over the edge toward being exactly like nullsec.

While that's not inherently bad, it seems wasteful and a shame to start mimicking nullsec, since the whole point of Faction War was to create a new kind of warfare within the game. A lot of people who are ultimately interested in 'taking sovereignty over space' and doing upgrades and having outposts, live in nullsec where there are actually resources and etc. to merit them taking the effort to build something like that up.

I originally looked in it and said yes, I love this! Then I stopped and thought about it for a while and realised the best thing about it was the 24 hours to get your stuff out. I fly in FW, I want consequences for ownership but I hate the idea of a system being flipped while I sleep and then being locked out. CCP's current proposal, while more convoluted than this would work IMO as long as there is a (brief) window to get your stuff out after a system flips.

It does nothing of the sort. Nothing. When you lose an Outpost/system in Nullsec you are completely ****** and inable to live in that system whatsoever until your blob alliance retakes it, if they ever do. In the proposed system, the owning of the Outpost simply gives the owning militia an advantageous position from which to continue the effort of war and death in that system (and systems nearby) by providing a relatively safe, beneficial location to dock up that the enemy can't touch. It doesn't stop the enemy docking elsewhere in system, basing their ships elsewhere in system, getting repairs or staging from that system, like it would in Nullsec; this just gives you a clear, immediate and tangible benefit in the form of free repairs, tax-free market transactions, and free cloning (among others), in a station that is harder to camp by turds with instalocking arty Tornados, of which I am one.

As for the structure-bashing, this already exists and there really isn't any fair way to do it. By giving these "Garrisons" a reinforcement timer it at the very least allows the defending militia time to prepare a fleet ops. Militias love timing fleet ops because often fighting in militia is an irritating quagmire of random people being on at random times. Knowing the system will become vulnerable in 12 or 24 hours gives you time to plan accordingly and put together some impressive defense fleets that we currently almost exclusively get during POS attacks which are boring as hell. It also means a system can't be turned in 7-8 hours by a handful of dedicated people with too much time on their hands, which is currently the case.

To expand on the idea you can keep the current plexing mechanics of constant plexing causing the system's sov to deteriorate until a certain point is reached in which the owning NPC empire begins to pull out of the system after taking too many losses and the Garrison Outpost goes into a 24-hour timer, after which point the enemy militia may assault and incap it, turning the system. It'd be up to the defending militia as the ~last line of defense~ to stop this from happening.

~The Notorious Z.V.

The CCP presenter eluded to changing the station makeup in the warzones to accomplish this, which I like.

I also like the idea of having the stations that change hands to be militia-only. That would be a tremendous asset to the holding militia and make them a rally point, especially if the station guns shoot all non-militia ships (maybe that will be a system upgrade?). If neutrals can dock, both militia and non-militia will exploit it. Yes, you run the risk of getting ships trapped in them, but that adds excitement and meaning to the fighting.

If they keep enough non-militia npc stations around, it shouldn't have a drastic effect on neutral gameplay. However, I think they should drop two constellations from the Caldari side and at least one from the Gallente side to reduce the implications on the cluster.

I don't like this idea, because this idea means that anyone can attack the outposts, regardless of whether the attackers are involved in FW. This would only be a loss for FW as one of the problems with FW and low-sec in general, is outside, much larger entities coming in. This disheartens younger players who are in FW to learn PvP.

I like the idea of flipping FW sov on systems with points, because it means that people have to be directly involved in FW to make a difference.

This is far too complicated for the general Militia population, myself included. It needs to be quite a bit simpler.

What I envision being one of the best alternatives is having a capture system that is a merging of the current method, Incursions, and Nullsec sovereignty:

• Systems are made Vulnerable the same way they are now more or less, by plexing. Plexing should also give an LP reward.
• When a system becomes Vulnerable, it initiates a Vulnerability Timer of 12 (or 24) hours.
• When this occurs, an Incursion-like process happens; a Sovereignty Bar is used to show the scales of power in the system, defending NPC military "Incursion (Reinforcement) Sites" appear.
• The attacking Militia must run these Incursion/Reinforcement Sites with fleets. Every Reinforcement Site completed tips the sov level of the system in their favour.
• They should get a good bit of LP for running these sites. That LP should only go to members of the attacking Militia, never neutrals.
• This can be made "even more interesting" by having a final big boss battle where a defending NPC military Carrier jumps in.
• The defending Militia can defend the system by disrupting the fleet ops of the attackers with their own fleet, or even just slowing them down enough that the initial 12-hour Vulnerability Timer runs out before the attacking Militia can run enough Reinforcement SItes
• If the attackers are ultimately successful, this triggers another 12-hour timer, at the end of which Sovereignty fully switches to their Faction. This is to give a bit of flexibility for people to evac their ****.
• The current "Bunker" is replaced by a "Garrison". This is an Outpost-like station (it can even take the exact same location, literally replacing it). It should have the standard lowsec complement of 2 Sentry Guns that will shoot enemy Militia and Pirates, but not neutrals. The Outpost will only allow members of the owning Militia to dock - no neutrals and especially no WTs. This Outpost may or may not allow the docking of capital ships. This Outpost will provide owning Militia with reduced cost/free Repair, Clone and Job services as well as low/no tax market transactions. These services can also be subject to any "LP Donation Upgrade" system.
• All of this is broadcast in either the Militia interface or the Journal, or both. Also, Vulnerability and Sov changes should be broadcast in Militia channels.

This IMHO provides the most all-round buff to FW. First, "plexers gonna plex" -- plexing fan(atic)s can continue their diligent prowling of enemy space in faction frigs circling those stupid little buttons and feeling the self-gratification of making a system Contested and Vulnerable. Second, it gives the defending Militia a chance to organize some sort of defense, however it also gives the attacking Militia the chance to blitz a system by running those "Reinforcement" sites full-throttle before the defenders can organize a good counter-ops. But that should take some effort; IMHO a single basic 20-ish man BS/BC fleet should take 6-8 hours unmolested to run enough Sites to turn the system. More fleets = faster, less fleets = slower. Third, it gives an incentive to doing this in the first place -- a big LP reward for members of the attacking Militia involved. Fourth, it gives owning Militias a real, tangible and immediate benefit to owning a system in the form of the Garrison Outpost, an awesome little place to stage fleets, get logistics support and disseminate cheaper market items to your Militia. Fifth, it provides adequate risk to that reward by possibly locking you out of your stuff should the system fall, but not a total and complete catastrophe like it is in Nullsec -- you still have the NPC stations in system you can put your stuff in, just without the benefits of a much safer and more beneficial harbour. You won't ever find your little Garrison Outpost bubbled and the system locked down with hundreds of enemies. Get yourself an instawarp and you can more or less safely shuttle any ship out of there -- except Capitals, but I'm for not letting them dock there in the first place.

If you add outposts as an alternative to getting your stuff "locked out" under the system that was talked about at fanfest, militias would still base out of the normal (currently exsisting) stations anyway.