EVE General Discussion

Citadels are a mess.

1) Beyond their initial cost, they are trivial in cost to maintain.
2) There is no meaningful restriction on how many Citadels there can be in a system, or where.
3) Asset safety makes aggressing a Citadel inherently unprofitable. Free magical transport, or 15% value cost? Really?
4) Vulnerability mechanics significantly favor the defender.

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Implications per sector:

-HS: Asset safety is automatic, free and complete. There is always an NPC station nearby. As HS is not player owned, there is no reason to aggress a Citadel. There is no telling how many Citadels may proliferate in HS.

-LS: Exactly as above. Though LS is more aggressive and territorial in culture, the same mechanics apply, meaning Citadel destruction benefits the aggressors only by depriving the target of the cost of the Citadel.

-WH: J-space gets proper shafted by loss of POS, except as grandfathered. I am unclear on whether j-space can transfer its assets, safely, to another owned Citadel in the same system. The support info indicates yes, but I have read player testimony indicating it cant, and just drops as a cargo crate. In anycase the logistic difficult of transporting/sourcing a Citadel in j-space are disproportionate.

-NS: Proliferation of Citadels in border systems constitutes fortification. I dont even want to think of the potential increase in grind required to capture a system from another NS entity. It will extend from weeks, into months, whilst all the time asset safety mechanics allow safe, free and magical transfer of assets, or for a mere 15% of value (which can potentially be gamed to transfer assets to a LS frontier on a flank).

Furthermore, rich NS entities can construct an infinite amount of such Citadels in any system, making it infinitely more expensive and arduous for any opponent to take that system. Due to negligible upkeep costs, and lack of restrictions, a bottleneck system might have potentially any number of Citadels, making conquering of a single system a task that will take many months, or potentially even years.

---A) How long will players bother to show up to Citadel attacks, when they realize they are likely to spend hours on end in TiDi, grinding through each Citadel in a system and its defenders, risking their own ship at their own cost (despite SRP), for no profit?

---B) Even if the alliance/corp is successful in eventually taking the system, the profits from that system go to alliance/corp leadership, not to the rank and file participants (whom carry the loss personally).

---C) Due to Asset Safety mechanics, the defending alliance/corp does not lose its existing assets, except for the cost of the Citadel. This means that they can still field just as many ships/assets readily available to defend the next Citadel. Their assets, as physical, are not reduced, except by loss of the Citadel itself. Meaning resistance will be as voluminous in each Citadel defence, as in the first. They just stage out of another Citadel in the same system. Ergo, the destruction of the Citadel does not impair the defenders capacity to defend other Citadels, except by loss of of Citadel itself. The assets within are still available for use in future defense thanks to Asset Safety.

---D) The 5 day Asset Safety transfer timer, doesnt matter in regards to larger Citadels. The defender has ample time to transfer assets, for free, magically, in entirety, re-stage an equivalent defense based out of that same system before the next Citadel in the system is brought down, as well as defining its vulnerability window for advantage.

---E) This is like WWI trench and attrition warfare, where you must expend and lose more manpower than the defender inorder to advance the front past the next trench/Citadel. Yes, it advances the front, and looks good on the generals map back at HQ, but its the participants, as rank troops, that are paying the price, spending hours upon hours in TiDi, and earning no profit from it, infact taking losses, I doubt they will participate for long. Esprit de corp only goes so far. Players will get tired of grinding multiple hours through multiple Keepstars, at their own cost in time and isk, with no profit to themselves.

---F) Furthermore, its also akin to a medieval castle/siege warfare situation. As long as one enemy Citadel exists in the system, it is not secure, owned or controlled. But you cannot starve it out, as would have been typical for this paradigm of warfare at that time, in EVE. There is no equivalent mechanic to that in EVE. That remaining Citadel can spawn any number of defenders via jump clones and preponderance of assets, especially if moved there by mechanics of Asset Safety from a neighboring destroyed Citadels, 100% and free.

No matter how many Citadels you destroy, the enemy will still have all their ship assets to again resist you in the next remaining Citadels defense, with full character and asset force, thanks to Asset Safety.

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TLDR:
-HS/LS: Proliferation of inconsequential Citadels, with little to no incentive to destroy them.
-WH: Enormous logistic problems/risks in creating operations in systems already isolated and difficult by mechanics.
-NS: Concretion, fortification and stagnation of existing NS dynamics between player entities Sov borders, especially against weaker neighbors, with almost no risk of stored asset loss. Individual attacking players will shoulder their own risk, for hours on end in TiDi, for no profit. And when they aggress the next Citadel, the enemy assets will not have been diminished. Its lose/lose for rank alliance/corp members involved in the attack.

High sec citadels are easy to remove, the defences on them are pathetic without the AOE weapons. Just get a few friends together an blow them up if they annoy you. If you don't care enough to blow them up, then obviously they aren't actually causing you any issue.

If you think it's bad now... just wait until they start removing POS...

I've always kind of wondered how well some sort of degradation mechanic could work in New Eden? If left unpowered or unoccupied long enough, the Control Towers and Astrahaus' and POCO's eventually lose their orbits or maybe better yet - much, much easier to destroy. Maybe instead of 5,000,000 hitpoints, it's like 250k. (just brainstorming not really serious)

The wormhole i'm living in had POCO's installed well over 5 years ago (assuming that's when that corporation was still playing and active based on their killboards.) and they still had the benefit of full 2 day reinforcement timers..

I've always kind of wondered how well some sort of degradation mechanic could work in New Eden? If left unpowered or unoccupied long enough, the Control Towers and Astrahaus' and POCO's eventually lose their orbits or maybe better yet - much, much easier to destroy. Maybe instead of 5,000,000 hitpoints, it's like 250k. (just brainstorming not really serious)

Pretty interesting idea, but maybe too much of an extended time period 'imo' The cost of such structures isn't terrible and is easy to rebuild or restart if you're away for an extended period of time from EVE. If you know you'll be away for x amount of days, which would cause the structure to become vulnerable due to natural decay, the player can easily transfer high value items to a NPC station for safe keeping until his or her return