Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I watched the Vegas Keynote and got to thinking a lot about structures. I did what we all do, all the time, and imagined how I would design the best, coolest structure system possible, and I decided that to me, CCP is missing the mark here with Citadels. They are a step up from current stations AND POSes, and would have been great to get 5 or 6 years ago, but in 2015 I feel like we should be getting an even better system...


Years ago there was a thread on the forums, posted as a reply to the "POSes: Flogging the dead horse" thread (POSes were outdated and hated even 6 years ago or more, and the "dead horse" thread lived on the forums literally for years). This reply thread detailed someones vision for updated POSes, and the core concept of it was being modular. They made mock-up pictures of several different modular structure pods that linked together with tube-like connectors, and I believe the idea was that the linked together super-structure still lived inside a shield bubble.


Now, even our current POSes, and the upcoming Citadels are, in a way, modular. POSes have various different structures (modules) that you can anchor or not, this was a great idea. The new Citadels are going to be literally fittable with modules, just like our ships. This is great and all, but I feel like structures could be a lot better...


CCP had the right idea with POSes originally, the modularity of purchasing individual structures and tying them all together to be one station is how I think structures should stay. However, like all structures in EVE since forever, the scale was off. POSes didn't look very cool, certainly not like giant space-cities. Nothing looked like any ship could dock in them, and the individual floating structures just didn't do it for me, personally.


We have over 200 ships in EVE, I think the FIRST introduction of new structures should have been 20-40 different items, with more to come later. These individual structures would be things like;

CreoDron Docking Bay
CreoDron XL Docking Bay
Ishukone Docking Bay
Thukker Mix XL Docking Bay
...
etc, etc


Duvolle Labs Research Lab (something that gives your station research slots)


Deep Core Mining Refining Plant

FedMart Market Warehouse

and etc...

Do you get the idea? Multiple racial variations of every type of structure we need, that are built/purchased separately and literally assembled together in space. They would need to be massive and visually modular so they can be physically connected and look like one giant station, and should be connectable from multiple (if not all) sides, so that every station could potentially be completely different looking. You could mix and match Caldari, Gallente, Amarr and Minmatar to have a kitchen-sink-looking mixed-race station, or go all Amarr corporation structures to have a pure-blooded shiny gold space city.


A single small docking bay gives you 50? 100? subcap docking slots for that many players to dock at once. (I'd say we'd have to break realism and not count every ship each player has in their hangar, and just count # of players docked).

An XL/Capital docking bay gives you the ability to dock X amount of capital ships. Maybe you could set the bay to allow subcaps AND capitals, or deny any players in subcaps from using that bay to save space for capitals.

Labs would give research slots, refineries would allow refining (durr?), market warehouses (or something, pick a name) give the station a market...

These structures would each still have fitting slots. For example, a docking bay should be able to fit a "repair service" module that gives the ability to repair ships docked in it.

Each structure, though visually, seamlessly attached to the others, would be a separate thing to target, and have it's own HP and resists.

Lastly, before I cut this short because I'm just not up to keeping this organized and well-written, what is the difference between "tethering" and "being inside the POS shields"? Nothing, that's what. There's nothing wrong with a giant shield bubble around our stations, and in fact I wonder if that might look better than 100 ships outside your station, all with yellow/green "tether" effects spidering out from the station onto everyone. Keep the bubble shield, make it it's own module/part to attach to the station.


TL;DR: Structures should be a hybrid of POSes and Citadels that keep the modularity of POSes but increase the scale massively, and strive for the visual look of Citadels.

So to add to the work of making the citadels functional and balanced, you want to add the massive balancing task of making all 4 racial module unique and usable? Just for 'flavor'?

Your entire concept fails on the singular, lore driven, reason; citadels are built by the capsuleers. Not by the empires, not by concord. There is no reason for faction modules because there are no factions involved in the construction.

And for the difference between tethering and pos shields, you can cyno outside a station and dock immediately. You can't cyno outside a POS shield and be safe 2 seconds later. No to a shield bubble that forces cynos in vulnerable areas. Leave tethering so you can still light a cyno on your doorstep, land your JF and dock before anyone can lock you. Then undock and jump out without so much a 'o7' in local.

Which is already not acceptable by CCP. Despite the nigh invulnerability that my example gave, there is still a window for an enterprising capuleer to prevent the JF from making its trip safely. Cynos have been made progressively less safe by CCP, I don't think they will allow cyno's inside the proposed shield without undoing several balancing passes.