Assembly Hall

Currently, ridding one's system of old, offline towers involves blowing them up. This isn't a challenge in K-space because:

1. capital and supercapital firepower can readily be brought to bear on the tower, and
2. without a reinforcement timer to delay the process, the relationship between DPS and time is linear (in other words, many hands do make light work in this case).

However, capital firepower and numbers are both hard to come by in wormhole space; in addition, starbases are much more frequently needed/used in W-space as stations (NPC/conquerable/outpost) are not available.

Tower clutter is a problem in w-space as each offline tower is an entry on people's directional scanners: the more clutter on d-scan, the harder it is to see what you actually need, and simply removing towers from d-scan is not an option due to the need to keep track of towers that are online/active.

I propose that one of two potential solutions be implemented as part of the next expansion:

1. A module similar to a Codebreaker or Analyzer be implemented that has a chance each cycle of reverting a tower's ownership to the pilot using the module on the tower (or, alternatively, forcibly unanchoring the tower). The module would have a short range (5km maximum), so that it could not be used against an online tower. Anchoring III and Hacking I would be required, roughly parallel to a Data Subverter except for the Anchoring requirement (which could be dropped). It would be a Tech I module, and have the same mineral requirements as a Codebreaker I or Data Subverter I.
2. Starbase tower shield regenerators are shut down when the tower is taken offline by a fuel outage. This would cause the tower's shielding to slowly deplete over time while it is offline. Eventually, only the armor and structure of the tower would remain to be shot through, allowing the tower to be destroyed more quickly than it would be otherwise.

I don't want wormhole space to turn into a boneyard chock-full of the dead carcasses of starbases, such that you have to destroy an offline tower just to put your own starbase up whenever you colonize a system. Do you?

It is not very practical t build a dred just to take down 2 offline towers. It also takes a week. It just means you have to sit there for the entire day with lazers or drones, which is annoying.

Keep it simple. After three or so months towers "forget" who anchored them and can either be unanchored by the next person to come along or simply self-destruct.

With the Tier3 BCs fit for absolute gank you're looking at just north of 1k DPS using faction ammo and meta 4 guns.

[Talos, lolfit]
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Damage Control II

10MN Afterburner II
[empty med slot]
[empty med slot]
[empty med slot]

Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L
Modal Mega Neutron Particle Accelerator I, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge L

Medium Hybrid Collision Accelerator I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I
Medium Trimark Armor Pump I


All Level 5 skills, this tops out at about 1075. Swapping to T2 guns and void, you're looking at 1320 or so. Obviously it's not a "typical" combat fit -- but since the tower is offline, sacrificing survivability doesn't really make a difference.

Since the OP was talking about "abandoned towers in [his] system", I assumed they'd have a POS (or three) set up, and they were living in W-space. With that, they should be able to manufacture the necessary ships inside. Sure, it's a right ***** to have your "combat" pilots mine for a bit, and having to deal with ****** refining (75% yield tops, with max skills and the implants). Alternatively, you could run the ore out, refine it at a 50% base station (so you get 100% yield) and bring the minerals in (but then again, you need a wormhole big enough to let an orca through ... it's too damn much work in Iterons -- even the "small" sites have something like 2-3 million M3 of rock).

So, the only real logistical nightmare is getting the fittings inside (assuming we're not using T1 trash that one could build inside).

This.

Takes 1 dev 1 day to implement.

Three months is a horribly short time. If you want towers to become 'abandoned' I'd suggest a reasonable timeframe would be 12 months, to allow for people who are sent by work to places where they can't access the Internet at all, or at best have expensive bandwidth which can't be spent on games.

Three months is the kind of time that runs past when you let the tower go idle "for a few days" while you head off exploring null sec PvP, traipse around low sec getting absorbed into exploration, or decide to help a friend out with some faction standings.

Building dreadnoughts and carriers in w-space is par for the course: if you don't do it, some PvP corp will set up their own tower as a safe base of operations from which they can stage their attacks on your corp members and towers. If you can't bring superior firepower to their live, online tower, you will end up losing your own tower.

I'll counter that as long as it's a one-system affair, it doesn't matter if it's a single corp or alliance running things -- since you can just launch the ships for the other guys to hop in (still, a POS fix would be nice CCP). If you're going through one or more systems, things get interesting (read:annoying).

Yeah, definitely went with "gank >>>>>>>> tank" on the Talos fit. Mostly, because we're talking about an OFFLINE tower in w-space, so you're gonna be right up against it, and don't have to deal with range so much; and it's a "fair" bet that the owners don't have anyone able to do anything about it. I'm also assuming that if you had ~10 of those fits, you'd have a Guardian or two as well, maybe a falcon to increase the "GTFO" ability. Now, if we're talking about removing an online tower, then we've got to switch to rails/artillery/beams, so we'll lose DPS there... and then there's the need to fit a semblance of a tank.

Yeah, I understand that shipbuilding requires a lot of POS resources (and here I thought null was a ***** for that ). Again, my suggestions are built off the idea that the OP has settled in a system (so, I suppose it has a static), so blowing through the mass limits one time (to get the ships, or a secondary tower for construction, etc) shouldn't really be an issue -- and if you're going to settle, you might as well get a cap or two in there (there has been more than one w-space system we've passed by because "oh, found a Carrier/Dread on D-scan"). Obviously, if we're talking about an un-settled system that you're trying to siege, then you really have to weigh the pros/cons and come up with the best solution possible.

Or you could have a hacking module which can work on all offline towers, to take ownership of the POS.

If it's offline, then chances are it's been idle for "a certain amount of time". Either that, or they're incompetent, and need a ... lesson.

It's not wasted, it's put to better use. There are more than enough timers in the game, and if it's not given enough love for a full month or whatever, sucks to be them.