Assembly Hall

Some of you may have noticed these remarks in the last CSM notes regarding the project to revamp starbases:





So our huge revamp originally slated for this winter has slipped to sometime in 2013.
Now keep in mind this is from the same company who announced Walking in Stations in 2006, named the release 'Incarna' in 2009 then followed up with release in 2011. I'm sure those alliance logos on ships from 2008 are coming along nicely guys!

So in the same manner as the Supercap rebalances earlier this year, I'm asking for a 'sticking plaster' patch to help relieve some issues with starbases until CCP can realise their final vision for them. This would be solely using statistics tweaks and an absolute minimum of coding work.

Problems

A) The increase in general ship EHP and proliferation of Logistics since 2007. Even if you're manually controlling all the guns on the tower, it takes far too many medium guns to damage typical fleet ships of 100k+ EHP. Large guns typically need over a minute to lock and cycle to the next target. And that's assuming any of them track the target and that the target isn't immediately locked up by 50 Logistics cruisers.
Oh wait you wanted to ewar those cruisers to hamper repping? Sorry that'll be a whole minute to lock it with that single ECM. Then he'll warp out and back quicker than it took to lock him.

B) No risk to supercaps. At all. Even if a tower could tackle one, most modules melt in seconds. Resistance, as they say, is futile. You used to be able to kill dreads with these things if you used them properly. Now, everyone is sporting enough DPS to level a tower in moments and the only real risk during a siege is if you forget the bring a support fleet AND the enemy reacts within 2 minutes flat.
Towers stats were last balanced over 6 years ago and were meant to be hit by a dozen dreads at most, who would sit in siege for 10mins in order to do anything of note. Now everyone rolls around with 5min siege cycles and supercaps that the tower cannot possibly hurt unless the pilot happens to suffer a stroke mid-op while thrashing his hands into the keys that turn off his hardeners and accidently saying "go on guys I'll catch up later" into comms.

C) Useless mods. Hands up if you've ever used hybrid weapons (or god forbid, missiles) on a serious tower. If you raised your hand there, get out of this thread. You're dumb and I don't want your support.
Everyone knows that even vaguely effective towers use laser or projectile guns (or more likely just lots of hardeners). Why not make starbase Citadel Torps an actual anti-supercap weapon like their ship-mounted counterparts? Let's make Hybrids capable of blowing up things larger than passing jetcans.

D) Stagnation. With the exception of various tweaks to jump bridges or fueling, Starbases have been unchanged for over 5 years now. Sure they can tip the balance in small scale fights as Low Sec Corp A sieges Low Sec Corp B with both of their dreadnoughts, but anywhere else they're not even an issue. Sieging towers in null-sec is another dull structure shoot that no longer encourages real traps or surprises because the tower can't do ****. Because everyone just puts hardeners on them.

Please bring back the risk, the drama, and dare I say excitement of putting your **** out in space and hoping someone won't chop it off.

Possible solutions:

1) Make starbases even a slight risk to supercaps - such as letting Warp Scramblers (not Disruptors) tackle just like a HIC focused point, or buffing Energy Neuts with more cap drain and HP. Thanks to the huge sig on supercaps, any such module could be balanced around its scan resolution very easily.

2) General increase in weapon damage, especially for medium guns. Failing this, let large guns lock faster - they certainly ain't for killing capitals anymore.

3) Right now the only reliable way to get enough pos gunners to a tower in time to man everything is if your opponent is nice enough to send a written invitation in advance. Give people with Starbase Defense Management trained the ability to use more modules more effectively (such as 2 per level, or starting with 3 basic then add 1 per level, or 5 basic with a scan res bonus per level).
3b) A couple of UI fixes to starbase gunning would be sweet too. WHY CAN'T I GRAB OR DROP MULTIPLE MODS AT ONCE :((((((((
I swear one of you devs is making money off a cure for RSI.

4) Tweak tower bonuses with appropriate racial ewar. Caldari already get ECM bonuses, but why don't we get neut bonuses on Amarr, damps for Gallente or webbing boosts for Minmatar?

5) Varied size ewar mods with stats suited to their appropriate target. We already have small medium and large guns. Why not the same for ECM, damps, neuts and webs?
Medium webs able to lock battleships but not slow them quite as effectively as their larger counterparts.
Small ECM with a quick locking timer to counter small threats like bombers, but with a suitably small jamming strength.
Small/Medium damps intended to counter Logistics cruisers in a way the current ECM mods can't.

Oh, and are you worried about balance in wormholes? I'm sure that crazy space can be convinced to do all sorts of zany yet very simple things to starbase systems, just like ships. Scan resolution tweaks anyone?

I have Starbase Defense Management trained to V on multiple characters, but haven't controlled POS guns in at least 2 years. There' s very little point to it anymore other than being a tiny nuisance to an enemy sub-cap fleet. Buffing POS gunning would be a good "stopgap" while we await a long promised overhaul of the POS system.

+1

I would be willing to have a CCP Dev's man baby if they would change the Rorq hold to an industrial hold that allows either Ore or Fuel Blocks.... just sayin...

But wait, poses need to cloak and have a jump drive.





:V