Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Didnt i make it clear enough that i would employ players for this, did i?

Admin Hub - NPC Agents

I really like having NPC agents as this helps balance Sov Null versus NPC Null. Both systems will have to function similarly otherwise the benefit of using untouchable NPC Null will outweigh the potential risk of Sov Null. If the sov laser can be used to halt mission running on both, even the better. Then NPC null has risks to using the station services, even if the stations are destroyable. I like being able to go in and sov laser NPC null station services.

On top of this it should also work with the constellation design. Missions should be spread throughout the constellation. This will allow for variety, risk, a chance to catch someone, and more fun.

Isk levels should be on par with anomalies if not higher. Otherwise people will continue AFK-Ishtaring. Without some change to the anomaly system the current AFK meta simply allows for far too much income.

Admin Hubs - Security Status

This one is really exciting if you live in a crap region of Nullsec. Being able to turn somewhere like Pure Blind into better space is great. I say better, and not perfect, because there should still be a bonus to living somewhere like Tenal or Feythabolis. Maybe allow a change to the truesec of no more than 0.5.

Admin Hubs - Faction Control

This is interesting, but I think should only be used in border constellations. It seems a bit silly to be able to flip all of Fountain to Angels. But to allow encroachment on the border would make for some variety and also for a potential conflict zone.

Admin Hubs - NPC Security

This is Null. I'm not sure I see the intended result. If these police were too strong then there's not much reason to defend. If they are too weak then they don't offer much incentive. It seems difficult to balance between the two. I'd rather see resources go elsewhere and leave this one alone.

Ideas for how player actions and interactions could affect security status

Boring background stuff (skip if you know how sec-status affects system value in Null)

So, in Null the negative Security Value of a system determines how valuable that system is. The systems with true negative security status of -1.0 are generally the most active and the most sought after for PvE content. Systems with true-sec status closer to 0.0 are significantly less valuable, to the point that under the current system they often sit fallow and un-used except for strategic value or by niche players and the occasional interloper. This means the ability to influence the security status of systems in your space is extremely valuable and should come with an appropriate cost or risk as well.

The Ideas

All of these ideas require an Admin Hub with the appropriate upgrade(s). These are just mechanics that could be used in association with the admin hub to drive gameplay. They could be combined or used separately and could all run off of the same upgrade or multiple upgrades (so if you want to upgrade a -0.3 system to -0.9 you need to stack a lot of upgrades on a single Hub and skimp on something else. I'm going to avoid the obvious "pay money, lower sec status" idea. It's obvious, I don't think it's very compelling and it doesn't affect gameplay beyond increasing revenue.

I also don't think it should be possible, or at least practical, to make all space uniformly -1.0 or anywhere close. Otherwise there's less incentive to steal someone else's fully upgraded -1.0 uber-farm.

More spaceboat violence lowers sec-status - More or less what it says on the tin. The more ships that are destroyed in an area over time the lower the sec status gets. Under a system like this B5RB would be the most profitable system in Null for a week or two after the famous battle. There are a couple of obvious problems with this though, the first being the potential for gaming the system. Basically treating the required losses in-system like a tax and blowing up your own ships until you hit the daily or weekly top-up threshold. If you're making enough off of the sec status being lower then this is still a perfectly profitable endeavor. It also disincentivizes losing ships in your enemy's space, since it also buffs it.

Personally I think this could contribute to sec status but shouldn't be the only mechanic for the above reasons. Ideally the balance point has the PvP activity that large amounts of PvE attracts bringing up the overall value of the system or at least helping to maintain it, while simultaneously driving content.

New site types to affect Sec Status - These sites should, ideally, be of slightly lower value than the average for whatever the current sec status of the system is, as well as being more difficult, but completing them pushes the sec status of the system in the desired direction. This could involve fighting Concord outposts, Empire Navy, or something else entirely. The goal is for the sites to be fun and difficult to complete, at least enough so that the players are actually risking their ships if someone happens by and tries to gank them.

I personally think having the sites use Empire Navy is the most interesting option. Blowing them up has a built-in cost in sec status with two empire factions, which pushes people to potentially install Empire Agents in Null to keep their sec-status up (since getting shot at by gate guns isn't helpful when running to Jita). They could also drop Navy tags, which would shift around market prices and ISK concentrations based on where people are playing and earning their ISK, whether that's between different regions or even between High and Null Sec space.

The disadvantage here is that so far any NPC content has proven to eventually become relatively safe and routine. Though this could be mitigated somewhat with ship restrictions and more dangerous rats (perhaps something borrowing a mix of elements from Incursions, Sleepers, Drifters, and the Burner Missions), combined with the threat of player interference.

Activity levels across a constellation affect Sec Status - Basically if people are active everywhere in a constellation then the entire constellation gets more valuable, but systems still maintain granularity. You can't pull the entire constellation down to -1.0 unless it was already close to that in the first place. This reinforces the constellation based mechanics we already see through the Entosis system and incentivizes players to at least superficially spread out their activity.

The down-side, I think, is that it also turns playing in these lower value systems into a sort of work that you have to do to keep the high value in the others. While I think any gameplay mechanic used to affect the Sec Status of a system is going to have an element of this, this one doesn't really do anything new, at least by itself, and I'm not sure that's enough to actually impact player behavior outside of what we're seeing right now already.

---

This post is purely to generate discussion. I don't claim that all of these ideas are perfect or even good. They're just ideas for the consideration of everyone here and if someone sees a major flaw or comes up with a better idea then great.

These aren't meant to be fully fleshed out ideas either, just rough concepts, so if you see something here and go "oh, that would suck unless it's done this way" then please point out what that way is :)

I think anything that requires anchoring cannot be set up in Jita. System has a special rule of no anchoring.

Corpse grinding mills
Corpse repurposing facilities
Giant statues of giant ego's stompin on other people corpses
Spaceship wrecks full of Corpses, moored to the broken, deserted outpost ful of corpses
Asteroid of doom, dumping place for corpses, sea of corpses around it

And last but not least - Heads in the jars Amuseum.

Maybe option for graphic would be to make icons or modules images to be available beside text in the bilboard space, when ad is created.

Very good point. I would say limit billboards to static images. There needs to be a mechanic for reporting offensive imagery. ofc, nothing is stopping you from destroying said billboard.

My only concern is how long before Jita 4-4 undock has 10,000 billboards, leading to massive lag upon undocking. At this point, we might as well reintroduce mines.

I hope player's commercial can be broadcasted to every station and billboard like Concord's advertisement do in captain's quarter and space billboard. If it is just a glorified anchored container, don't bother to build it. A simple container will do the job.

So, not sure if this is the best place, but here goes.

From what I'm seeing in all of these new structure feedback threads, there is the opportunity to have many more dockable structures in a system. So, for clarity:

Will I be able to dock in like 10 different structures, assuming they are the XL version?

[/random questions]

Just a simple, small idea.

It would be nice to have a module that would allow your advertising structure to select which song(s) your jukebox plays when entering your system, or when approaching the structure in question.

It might look silly, but I think it's a nice touch to make "your" system feel yours and make you feel more at home. Also, other will recognize systems simply by the ambient music, which again I think adds a lot to immersion.