EVE General Discussion

Being able to take down a citadel within 24 hours seems more 'arbitrary game mechanic' to me than it taking a week. I mean those are like big station structures, it's fairly reasonable to accept that these things will take much longer time to anchor/unanchor compared to a POS.

I have no problem with people packing up POS as soon as war is declared on them, they are doing what they do within the game mechanic. Remember that you can also pack up citadel when you get war decced, it just happens that the time to unanchor will take longer than it takes for the war to begin after it's decced. Presumably, if you can defend it for a week, you will be able to secure the citadel (someone correct me if I'm wrong on this).

What you are asking for, like being able to pack up citadel within 24 hour period of being decced, basically equates to total immunity of your citadel in high-sec. Such total immunity is just not in line with the way eve works.

To also give an extreme hypothetical scenario, IF all NPC stations are removed at some point, don't think that it's only non-pvp crowd that will be effected in high sec. Those station hugging high-sec 'pros' will have to base themselves in citadel too, which can be attacked and destroyed, resulting in loss of their bling fit ships which they have been keeping so safely for so many years.

You may like/dislike the citadel changes, which is really up to your preference and opinions. But the same game mechanic applies to everyone equally. So you can say you hate the new changes, but it would be incorrect to call it 'unfair' in any sense.

[edit: adding a few more tips]

Contrary to what many high-sec players think, low/null-sec is a lot safer than high sec in some aspects. For example, if you are decced by a high sec pvp corp, try running off to low sec systems, 99% of the time they will not follow you where they can be shot by other local pirates and their NPC corp alts can be shot first on sight. They will not hang around in their insta lock Loki to station camp you in low-sec station. They will not set up a camp on the low-sec side of the gate to catch you travelling.

If you are into industry, doing BPO researches and manufacturing work in low-sec have added benefit of extremely low job cost in low population low-sec systems. Before the Crius changes, people who couldn't afford high sec POS used to travel to low/null sec to do ME research and copy blue prints because the queues were too long in high-sec.

When you know your way around, low-sec is very safe compared to war time in high-sec. Null is even safer if you are part of sov holding alliance and have blues around you, always being fed intel on potential threats. Heck, even if you are not part of any alliance, there are places in low-null that's so empty you'd struggle to find a hostile for a fully day's game play. Sometimes I take wormhole that leads to null, and I'm ratting in some big alliance's backyard, with whom I have red standing, but there's just simply no one there for hours, and if someone turns up I just take the wormhole back to my alliance's sov space or back to low sec or whatever.

High-sec is very populated and full of gankers and people who want easy kills, and there's no need to stick around and play according to their terms. It may sound unintuitive, but low/null is where you get real freedom. where you can shoot people first if you don't like them, without having to play with various 'mechanics'.

Well, that's a bit off topic from 'citadel' discussion, but you get the idea.

1. If you don't like high-sec war mechanics, move to low/null where you can do whatever and shoot whoever without being tied down to high-sec mechanics. High-sec mechanics trap you in false sense of security and the whole timer & status mechanics that make things very complicated unless you know all these tricks thoroughly yourself.

2. As I said in earlier post, make use of other players' citadels. It will be cheaper for most small corps and solo players to use other people's citadels than maintaining and baby sitting your own pos.

It's difficult to say now what the final mechanic will be.

The following was the original dev concept.

"Unanchoring may only be started if the structure has full shields and is not within a repair timer. This is to prevent some early bail-out should it be attacked

Once the unanchoring process has started, the structure will become invulnerable for a specific amount of time

Once the invulnerability timers runs out, the structure will be vulnerable for damage yet again, with having a repair process identical of what’s been mentioned above. This time however, shields, armor and hulls will be fully available"

https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/citadels-sieges-and-you-v2/


But the above dev blog did not specify how long it takes to unanchor.

and then I read from SISI feedback thread that unachoring timer is 7 days

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=473950&p=10

And I think it must be from the above thread the OP gets the idea Citadel cannot be unanchored when there's a war coming.

As far as I understand, there is no mechanic blocking players from unanchoring a Citadel during or before imminent war. If there is, I have seen no such information so maybe some one can point reference if they think other wise. But when you think about it, it is very unlikely there will be such war time restrictions, because it would mean that an one man corp can perma dec an alliance making it impossible to unanchor any of their citadels forever (as long as war dec lasts).

So I think the currently mentioned 7 days timer is the only restrictive mechanic in place for now. But of course, the length of such timer or anything at this stage may change before hitting TQ though.

Also, to say that people are selfish, just because they like a different play style, is just rather silly.

Of course it is a valid game mechanic - no one is accusing you of cheating. Pulling down a POS after a war is declared has been a valid, but broken, game mechanic which CCP has now decided to fix. Whether you like it or not, CCP has decided that it is better for the game that players have to defend their structures instead of being able to use them with complete immunity to the other players.

If you want to PvP, then go PvP. Don't talk yourself into thinking you will grind ISK and train skills in highsec until you are "ready". You will never feel ready, and are more likely to burn yourself out and quit the game than if you just jump right in. Faction warfare is easy, cheap, and offers pretty good ISK for a new player. Or join a null corp with an SRP and get in on this war action. Or join CODE. and shoot some ships with James 315 picking up the cost. But do anything other than sit alone in highsec not PvPing if you really want to PvP.

If you find a passion in mining and/or industry that is a perfectly fine and you should do that - play the game how you want - but don't do those things to fill time or earn ISK if you rather be PvPing. There are much better, and more interesting and efficient ways to earn ISK than hiding behind CONCORD in highsec, ones that actually involve PvP.

There is no linear progression in Eve. Highsec is full of PvP as the rest of New Eden. You are mistaken if you think you require special skills or a certain amount of ISK to leave, and you are really mistaken if you think highsec is a safe space for grinding ISK or a place for new players. It is not, nor is it intended to be.


I never said that. I said it is selfish for players to ask the developer to change the fundamental pillars of the game to suit their particular playstyle.

Asking CCP to make your Citadel immune to the other players in highsec is as selfish as me asking the developers of FarmVille to add a "Farm Raiding" mechanic so I can burn down other people's barns and steal their hogs. FarmVille is not a PvP game and it would be incredibly selfish of me to ask for a fundamental change to the game that would impact the other players. Similarly, asking that you be made immune to the other players in a game CCP themselves says that "[t]he essential core concept of EVE Online is that it is full time PvP in a sandbox environment" is just as self-centered.

I'll save you the reasons why there is no safe space in New Eden, but let's take as a given that CCP has designed and sold their game to players for almost 13 years on that premise. Don't you think it is a little selfish to ask CCP to wall you off from the rest of the players who joined this game looking for a single-world, competitive sandbox experience? If you don't like the design of the game, then you should go play one of the hundreds of other games out there that are not single-universe, full-time PvP sandbox games instead of trying to ruin the game for the current player base solely for your own gratification.

Citadels are on SiSi right now and for all sizes there is a 7 day timer to unanchor them from space. As far as I know there is no direct tie-in to the war declaration mechanic, but clearly that time frame prevents taking them down in the event of a war. CCP Nullarbor confirmed this was intentionally done to force players to defend them on Slack, and the fact has been discussed in the Test Server thread, but I agree we are overdue for a devblog clarifying all the recent developments.

What about moving ownership of the Citadel to another corp? Can you do this under war dec?

The replies in this thread are correct, it is intentional that you cannot unanchor or transfer away your structure to avoid it being destroyed in a wardec. The asset safety will save the hangar contents but the hull and its fittings will always be at risk.

The average industrial orientated player in EVE Online is not going to like this risk element one bit methinks. I would suggest you consider allowing players to continue to be able to unanchor expensive infrastructure prior to wardecs beginning. The alternative is that EVE Online will likely leech even more player numbers than we already have .

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Players will go elsewhere if they are forced to do something they don't want to do. My two cents for what they are worth.

The average industrial player doesn't need a Citadel, they might need one of the upcoming industrial structures, which will hopefully be more in line with POS costs than even a medium citadel.

@ Black Pedro: what is the attacker, that's you, putting in danger? In another Thread you said that Docking was a viable tactic against Bad odds. Where is the difference between Docking and taking down a POS? When the attacker has to have a Citadel in the rgion he wants to attack it would be fair. You can't defend your Citadel you have no right to attack someone else.

@ Geronimo

Not to mention the fact, that with current POS mechanics, you're still able to remove/relocate assets even during the defense of said POS. And how can you not know what the attacker potentially "puts on the line" or loses during a POS assault? Have you not ever attacked or defended a POS? If the defender decides to vigilantly defend it ( with his/her own assets, or via contracting a merc corp to help), the attacker stands to lose A TON of resources - ships, gear, etc. It could even turn out, economically, to be a loss for the attacker even if the goal of destroying the POS (or citadel) is accomplished.

@ Anna Thiesant

You seem intent on continuing to accuse people (Black Pedro) of being selfish without any real basis. He has an opinion about the game and it's mechanics just like you do; just like everyone else. The most important point that was made by Black Pedro, that you seem to be completely unwilling to come to terms with is this:

CCP has decided, not recently, but long ago, that this is how THEIR sandbox works. CCP wants it to be driven by player interaction and engagement. CCP doesn't want you to be able to pack up your Citadel and entirely circumvent war dec mechanics. If the prospect of setting up a Citadel doesn't seem to be a feasible concept, if you stand the chance to lose it? Then it's like any scenario in this game: YOU DON'T DO IT. You wait until you're in a better position to do so. Or don't? And take the risk, and maybe your stuff is blown up? But expecting the mechanics to be tuned in a way to provide you ultimate, single player, unhindered, risk averse gameplay, when it's CCP - THE DEVELOPER that is telling you that you can't have that, it's actually you who are being selfish.

Jut my .02.