Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Citadels are coming soon and, while they won't have contract features at launch, CCP has stated they wish to add contract features "right away".

Something that is quite problematic right now with existing outposts and contract features is that you cannot trust that you'll have docking rights at the location moment-to-moment. A courier contract is useless if the destination can be locked down. Similar issues arise for people looking to use outposts as trade hubs, for item exhcange contracts, clone services, etc.

As part of the work being done to add contract services to citadels, I'd like to propose a simple "freeport" flag for citadels to help alleviate these issues.

When a citadel has its "freeport flag" enabled, the access rights would be locked and forced to public for all docking/services. API requests would include the flag status, and public information about the citadel on item exchange/courier contracts would also note the freeport flag status. EDIT: a freeport indicator and filter option on the market window would be good too :)

If a citadel owner chooses to disable the freeport flag, it will disable immediately in all visible indicators (API, contracts, etc.) but the access control rights will remain locked and forced to public for a defined and reasonable period. I'm thinking in the range of 2 to 7 days, but this can certainly be tweaked.

Lastly, it should be possible to "subscribe" to a Citadel that has the freeport flag enabled; once subscribed, if the flag is ever disabled (or the citadel enters a reinforced period), you would get a notification in your nifty new-ish notification feed.

This would allow traders, couriers, and others to use freeport citadels accessibly with a measure of reassurance that they will not lose access without a reasonable opportunity to react.

Which does precisely nothing to address the issue described.

It pretty much cripples the use of citadels for anything interesting beyond what POS's/outposts already do. The dream of player-owned stations having a major role in future EVE, as a replacement of NPC stations, everything destructible, yadda yadda etc. is a complete pipe-dream unless there is a mechanism that guarantees third parties can actually use the resources in a reliable manner IF that is the intention of the citadel owner.

If you don't want to turn on the freeport flag for your citadel then don't, and nothing changes for you. But if you actually want an EVE where a player owned facility carries more weight and interest than an NPC one, this feature (or something that accomplishes the equivalent) is a necessity. Otherwise citadels will just continue to fill the same small niches that outposts and POSes did, with no better convenience or quality of life improvement.

As a direct example, Red Frog is not going to enter into a hand-crafted custom-negotiated agreement with hundreds of indy corps to deliver crap to their citadels, even once courier contracts become available. At which point the fact that you have the ability to courier contract to your mfg citadel is now pointless because there is no practical way to leverage it. You'll be stuck hauling your own stuff personally or in-corp just like you used to have to do to get it to your mfg POS. This is one example I'm more familiar with, but the same basic issue constrains citadel usage by third parties for market/trading purposes as well, among other scenarios.