Assembly Hall

Example

I am not a game designer, but this is how I would achieve the goals of the original post:


System Occupancy Meter

What I would do is have an occupancy bar resembling five states of alertness (ala terror threat levels): Blue/Green/Yellow/Orange/Red

Blue:

Defending militia has complete control. The easiest of the new complexes is available for capture. When the attacking militia completes part of it, through proximity button(s) to prevent non-militia from advancing, a timer on that complex starts counting down. For this one, let's say 30 minutes. The importance of the timer to create a sense of urgency as well as allow rewards for defense. However, I would make the rewards for capture much greater.

If the complex is conquered, the state of the system goes to "green". If it is not conquered, the gate become inaccessible for a certai amount of time and the complex resets or disappears and triggers a respawn.

Ships allowed in complex: T1 cruisers and below. The reason for cruisers is you will likely need the firepower. The difficulty for this one should be relatively easy, but impossible to complete solo (maybe with a dual proximity mechanic).


Green:

Similar setup, but this is where system timers come into play. Not only will the complex trigger a timer, but there will be an overall timer where a complex must be captured or it refers back to "blue" status. Let's put this timer at 12 hours.

Ships allowed: T1 battlecruisers and T2 frigates. Those ships comprise most of the PvP militia fleets, so let's get them involved asap. The difficulty of the complex should be geared towards easy completion in 10-20 minutes with a 5-man BC gang. There should also be "speed bumps" put into place with proximity counters and/or hacking. This will help prevent steamrolling an entire warzone.


Yellow:

This is where the PvE starts getting more difficult. Once you get past the triggering stage of the complex, the plex timer should be around 2 hours. System timer: 24 hours.

Ships allowed: T1 battlecruisers and below, T2 cruisers and below. I chose this restriction to allow logistic ships and the aditional firepower of T2 cruisers. The stronger, yet still mobile, FW fleets usually have this makeup. The speed bumps here should make it at least a 20 minute complex.


Orange:

Similar to yellow, but the enemies and structures in the complex are much more durable. Plex timer: 3 hours. System timer: 48 hours

Ships allowed: T1 battleships and below, T2 cruisers and below. This would be the first complex where it would be hard to steamroll unless you have a sizable BS fleet for FW (10+ BS's).


Red:

This one you will need the firepower of a 10+ BS fleet to complete. Without a dedicated support PvP fleet, you will be very vulnerable to party-crashers. Plex timer: 4 hours. System timer: 72 hours.

Ships allowed: T1 battleships and below, T2 cruisers and below. Same as orange, keeping T2 BS's and T3 ships out of it.


Vulnerable:

If the red complex is conquered, the bunker becomes vulnerable the same as it is now. CCP, please redo at the very least the cosmetic appearance. Make it a cool-looking base as opposed to a space brick.

Timer: 24 hours. If the bunker is not defeated, system goes into some sort of reenforce mode. It then reverts to a lower stage of alert. I would go with "yellow" as the stage it goes to.


Odds/Ends

Minor Plexes:

I would keep minor plexes for the reason stated in the OP. The affect on the mechanic would be to either increase or decrease the system timer by a given amount. With the level of difficulty in conquering a system that exists today, I believe those who utilize minor plexes for T1 frigate and destroyer battles would be unfazed. It could also be a way solo players could help the effort, but not be in a position to completely thwart their enemies.

Complex Particulars:

I would like to see some sort of dynamic design, especially for yellow on up. Those should be multi-stage with unique goals. As opposed to Incursions where you can see all the complexes on the map, I would like it if FW plexes were excluded from the overview. Personally, I would like to see them excluded even after you warp to them, but others would disagree with that. For this example, there would only be one plex available at a time, but there could be redundant plexes to prevent waiting for a respawn upon failure. Progressing could also require defeating more than one complex type.

Complex Rewards:

Pilots should be rewarded isk by their respective militias for fighting in the complexes. The amount should obviously be toned down compared to Incursions, but increased exponentially as the level of difficulty goes up. This would incentivise PvP fleets to do them when there are no targets to shoot. The drops should also be obtained by militia-only hacking.

Occupancy Rewards:

There needs to be tangible benefits for controlling the battlefield. The easiest way would be to have the LP store offer more or less faction items and/or change the prices.


Conclusion

A system capture mechanic such as this would improve the faction warfare experience. Not only would it create a new and interesting PvE experience, it would also put the control over system capture in the hands of the FW corps as opposed to the plexing alts. Teamwork would be required to progress through a system capture, which would in turn create more target fleets for the militias and pirates living nearby. The timers would create a sense of urgency, but the speedbumps would prevent a militia dominant in one timezone from quickly capturing the entire battlefield. Overall, this would create a much more vibrant FW experience, without being more profitable than Incursions or nul sec ratting.

God I hope ccp doesn't do this.

If you want to run incursions you can run them.

FW plexes are the *only* mechanic in all of eve that promotes small scale pvp.

Please don't screw it up by forcing even that mechanic to be even more about pve.

no PVE in FW at all.