Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Hello Space Friends!

My name is Lyris Nairn and I have been playing EVE Online since 2008. I think that I have something to say that is relevant to many of you. Especially in this age where renters are becoming commonplace and more people than ever are flocking to 0.0, the idea of a "faction Navy"-style mechanic in nullsec seems like it might be worthwhile. I envision there being introduced an Infrastructrure Hub or Outpost upgrade which would spawn NPC entities what I am tentatively calling the "Alliance Navy."

This upgrade would require a certain Sovereignty Level to install, and would require a monthly fee to maintain (like other upgrades).

The upgrade would have the effect of spawning NPC entities whenever one of the Alliance members (or some other entities as denoted by standings) is the victim of aggression. The spawned NPC entities would then attack the aggressor, and behave similarly to Faction Navy vessels in High Security space. Unlike the Faction Navy, these ships would not necessarily spawn infinitely: there might be an internal cooldown of only once per hour, or once every few minutes, or once per individual aggressor in some time window, or once per individual victim, etc. I am not really certain of the specifics, but I am confident that CCP would be able to hammer out the details and create a worthwhile addition to nullsec game play.

This sort of upgrade would be potentially useful to help make a roaming enemy have to dedicate more than a single ship to an attack on PVE ships (their preferred targets), and would force them to make choices about target selection, projection of force, and investment of numbers or assets. In short, I think this is a good idea! Tell me what you think in the comments.

Damn Fury, quick on that smackdown. Lol.

But Lyris, that is a fantastic idea. Especially considering that according to CCP's trailers, "the Empire's are losing grasp."

But I ask you this...what kind of loot will Goon NPC's drop?

If you can't defend your space, you shouldn't have taken it in the first place.

Under my proposal the Alliance Navy would not respond indefinitely. There would be only one wave per activation, and there might be cooldowns on their activation. It's not meant to be a substitute for a home defense fleet, or to be able to provide a threat to more than one or two poorly-flown frigates; but, it would force the player to make choices and weigh their options in a scenario where there presently is no need to do so. Lowsec has its gate guns that make fights on gates nearly impossible for small ships due to their perfect tracking and high damage; Highec has magical space police (CONCORD) and an infinitely-respawning Faction Navy. I think this is a small enough thing that it would fit the theme of nullsec: after all, why wouldn't a large empire that is able to control and tax the resources of planets and moons under its control not install a quick-response force? You see these sorts of things in other space-themed games, like Sins of a Solar Empire.

This thread has been moved to Features & Ideas Discussion.

Great idea. Let's replace player interaction with some NPCs. All something like this would add is another stale, predictable PVE element (something we have more than enough of already) in the place of the actual players defending their alliance-mates/renters.

Your facetious response raises the question of what you think of CONCORD, faction navy, gate guns, station guns, etc.

It's called Nullsec for a reason. Not "A little lower than Lowsec" or "Next to null sec but not quite", but Nullsec as in null, zero, nada.


Thanks for getting to the real point here: Exactly, why wouldn't a large empire, which makes tons of ISK off the resources of the area it has claimed, not be able to launch such a quick response force?


So your definition of "defending space" is only about defending structures. My (and probably almost anybody else's) definition is about defending all structures (including the space claim) and especially the people who are living there and their belongings. Obviously CCP is with me on this due to the sheer lack of a mechanic like the one that you're proposing.

Ever heard of a country which doesn't care about goons (no pun intended), who cross over the border, slaughter the inhabitants and take what they can get, as long as they don't put up a flag? No? Me neither. It's almost comical, that such a proposal comes from a member of one of the largest alliances in the game.

I disagree. This is going to hurt anything other than larger gangs when roaming. We need less reasons to blob up, not more.

Now this might be a silly idea but what if 0.0 sov system would be changed into more like fw. Sites and stuff that you need to contral. If it would be done that way then the npcs would actualy make sense.

But this is just my twisted idea. Might actualy add more small gang operations when people try to take control of something. This way also towers would have a huge impact on safe locations in hostile systems and all new things and tactics could be uncovered.