EVE General Discussion

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I think was wasn't clear: by taking it down, I meant dismantle, taking your assets with you and keeping it on station is too easy, before the war starts.

Edit: No increase in HP, infact should be less HP but needs to scale with the advantages in having a POS, and all the risk vs reward stuff. Right now there are really to few reasons to have a POS.

Nerf the hell out of NPC stations to the point where newbies can use it to learn the basic ropes but be very inefficient for large scale production both in terms of slot amounts and efficiency/taxes/fees, revamp POS to be able to replace the utility of current NPC stations - better refining, plenty of slots, etc, and fix corp roles in relation to POS so that a corp can easily share a POS and have their own subdivisions etc, much like a station, except now at risk.

There, now your average industrial corp has something at stake, which means they have impetus to actually learn how to fight (or hire mercs), and presto, wardecs now have a point.

Yes, I know that's probably years of work, but the bottom line is, unless your average highsec corp has a reason to want to fight back, they're not going to, and so long as they can have 100% of what they need in impregnable NPC stations that far outstrip all other options in the game, they're never going to have a reason to learn how to defend themselves.

The problem with not changing stations concurrent with POS buffs is that they'll still be just fine as a fall-back, meaning it'd go like this :

wardec -> pull tower down within 24 hour window -> keep producing just fine in station

or more likely

wardec -> lol who cares I just produce in stations anyway

The station has to be an undesirable option to make any money for this to work.

Oh of course. Honestly it probably won't even happen anyway because to screw up the balance would be chaos. I just meant it more as an idea to demonstrate that wardecs will never have a point until something real but worth defending is on the line.

I'd like if manufacturing was nerfed in stations and moved more to POS, I see this as improving a bunch of things - it'll improve industry in nullsec (which is basically dead other than for cap construction), and more on topic, it'll mean in highsec corporations have more of their assets and industrial capabilities actually floating in space and capable of being interrupted through wars - giving them a reason to fight hopefully.

It's really not this simple. You can't just think of how good the upper end of possible isk is, you have to think of how acceptable the lower end of isk is.

Let's say an indy corp can do A Thing in a highsec station and make 10 bil a month, but if they do it in a POS, they'll make 20 bil. First thought is that "hey, 20 is more than 10, POS all the way" right? Not quite. If 10 bil a month is acceptable to them, falling back to a station will not be a problem, and thus they'll just either rip their tower down for a wardec (or let it die) while they continue to make their just-fine income in station and wardecs remain worthless.

A real life analogue would be a Union going on strike. Obviously, on strike they don't get their full wages, they get Strike Pay, the amount of which varies on the union etc etc. Now, the theory behind Strike Pay is that a worker will get enough money to survive, but it'll be a big enough difference to make a worker want to resolve the strike sooner rather than later. However, if Strike Pay is too similar to their regular pay, they have no impetus to end the strike since they're just as well off now as they were before.

That's what you want to avoid, and that's why stations need a pretty firm kick in the pants for this to work at all.

I get your point which is good, I would still take more thought in nerfing stations. How much of a nerf can it take?. Will surely have adverse effects on the whole economy, which I feel is too risky, bearing in mind it will get players to quit. What about those that are not interested in owning space assets?

Let's try and take a more positive approach, how can we incentivise them getting more involved in wars? POS are quite mediocre when in comes to their ISK making capablities anyways. I mean, just making them easier to manage (less clicks and time to fuel /maintain) is a buff to POS on its own.

the problems you've identified are just natural results of the game design. Specifically, you and your assets are only at risk in space. The main effect of wardecs then is to disrupt activity and operations. Poses are vulnerable highsec assets, but poses are only used because they allow you to do certain things, weather the pos is voluntarily removed or forcefully destroyed, or even just reinforced, the main effect is in disrupting the operations of the owners, not in losing a few hundred million isk in hardware (if your pos gets destroyed with billions if isk in assets inside of it, you're doing it wrong).

People will always have the ability to avoid wardecs if they're willing to adjust their behavior or alter their activities. The goal of wardec design has never been "you have to fight no matter what or else you'll lose huge amounts of assets." I think this is a pretty balanced design. Changing poses or altering wardec mechanics significantly won't make any difference unless CCP is willing to make changes that affect all areas of gameplay and alter the fundamental design of the game. However, I don't know how often people are willing to completely remove their poses in response to wardecs. Introducing some mechanic to make it harder to unanchor the tower might induce people to fight for them more, but I can't imagine this would really change the landscape of how wars are fought.

Edit: Requiring industry, refining, and research to be all done in hisec poses to be competitive would be a massive sea change in how the game is played, but it would be a guaranteed death-knell for the game if something like that was done without a full pos-rewrite AND introducing personal poses. Even then you'd basically be reducing the role of stations to asset storage, markets, cloning, and missions. It would certainly make hisec more interesting, but I'm concerned about the barriers it would raise for entry into various kinds of gameplay, as well as narrowing the types of gameplay available to casual players.

What about using ISK as an incentive? What I have in mind is, upon declaration of war, an ISK pool is generated based on the number of members in both the targeted corp and deccing corp. A significant number, say 250 mil per head.

The pool would serve first: as a buy-out target number, similar to ransom, that could be paid to end the war immediately. Cover half of the pool and you're clear. Payment goes to the opposing corp, either corp can opt to buy-out at anytime prior to the pool reaching 50%.

Second, the pool acts as a bounty, collectable by anyone involved in the war. Unlike individual bounties, payout is 150% (or more) ship value, along with the usual loot/salvage/30% player bounty when applicable. The bounty is subtracted from the pool for both attacking and defending ships, and reduces the buy-out cost in the process. Allied/mercenary ships that officially enter the war also count against the pool for losses and kills (though only when shooting the opposing side).

The war doesn't end when the pool is exhausted, it can be continued as normal with the buy-out option removed, though it's unlikely under this idea that wars would continue indefinitely. Also, to lessen rampant abuse, perhaps a brief duration of immunity from further wardecs should be granted to targeted corps, a few days to a week, at most.

On the related issue of corp dropping and reforming, I believe the initial cost of forming a corp should be much higher than it is currently. Repeat drop and swap wardec evaders would lose more ISK in the long term than simply staying to fight or paying someone else to fight for them. Docking up or logging off, well, nothing can be done to change that, I'm afraid.