Wormholes

Adhocracy's position on new POSes (based on the information available to us)

General statement (Cliff notes for you busy CCP devs): We have a lot of concerns about the proposed ideas for new POSes under current mechanics. However, there are many other mechanics that are on the table for improvement that would interact with the proposed design of new POSes. The order in which these mechanics are addressed relative to the design and implementation of new POSes may resolve many of our concerns and yield an ultimately better system.

1. Regarding docking, mooring, and force fields:

We recognize that CCP has valid reasons, however mysterious, for wanting to get rid of force fields. We are not inherently opposed to this, provided whatever replaces them maintains certain key features:

A) Transparency, both from the outside looking in and the inside looking out
B) Unambiguous and visible division between "safe" and "not safe"
C) Allows for all of our actively piloted ships to be safe if need be
D) Allows for people to log in safely
E) Allows us to at least temporarily keep safe ships we do not have room to store long-term, so that in w-space our capital pilots are not enslaved to their capitals the way k-space supercapital pilots are.

We feel it is worth noting that, under current mechanics, fighting on a POS is a distinctly different environment than fighting on a station. We would like this distinction to be preserved in some form, as it adds more variety to the game and allows for new forms of emergent gameplay, both of which are part of what makes EVE great.

1a. About docking specifically

We feel that docking in its current form would be disastrous if implemented in w-space. However, based on conversations with Two Step, we recognize that there are great benefits to having all of EVE using the same interface for docking-like activities. To that end, we feel that if docking is going to be an integral part of the new POSes, then docking needs to be fixed before the new POSes are implemented. A docking radius that is visible to EVERYONE (even if it's just part of the Tactical Overlay), docking timers that are likewise visible to everyone, and ideally some kind of two-way "station windows" would make it possible to introduce docking to w-space without having a catastrophic effect on the way w-space works now.

To that end, if docking is a key part of the new POSes, we would rather the new POSes and all of their other important benefits be delayed until the docking system is fixed. While the new POSes will introduce a host of benefits for everyone, a broken docking system could have a disastrous effect on w-space life, particularly w-space pvp. While we expect that docking would eventually be fixed, we feel that w-space would suffer greatly in the interim. We are willing to wait longer to have other mechanics that will interact with new POSes refined before new POSes themselves come in to W-space

1b. Alternatives to docking

Alternately, a new system that simply allowed us to open the same windows as we currently get while docking and interact with them the same way while still being in space would be acceptable as well. Obviously we can't say whether this or a redesign of docking mechanics would be more challenging to implement, but that's CCP's job to figure out.

2. Defensibility and POS gunning

In general, the new POSes need to be defensible to more or less the same degree as the current ones. Systems that encourage fighting on the POS are also good, but timers that can drag on longer than a couple of days are impractical, especially in w-space. There are many good ideas for how to improve reinforcement etc. available on the forums, here is just one example: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1908401#post1908401

2a. Big things in small holes

Now that your mind is out of the gutter, there are good arguments on both sides about the size allowances of towers in small holes. Managing how these towers can be defended is going to be ultimately more important than the size of the tower itself. However, there is definitely a huge difference between a hole you can bring a capital ship to siege and one you cannot. Refinements to ewar mechanics (hinted at by CCP Fozzie and Ytterbium) may help address this problem without any special work on the part of the new POS design team.

2b. POS gunning

While not an essential feature, in w-space POS gunning is a very useful mechanic. Because of the limited fleet size and lack of supercaptials the w-space environment imposes, a POS gunner can have real impact on the outcome of a battle. Having both used it defensively and fought against it offensively, we can say that it can make both sides of a POS fight much more interesting and engaging. Defensively, coordinating POS guns with fleet action can lead to novel, emergent tactics that can generate unexpected outcomes and fend off vastly superior forces. Offensively, fighting a manned POS is a far more interesting and challenging experience than an unmanned one. Even one pilot in a hauler that can man four guns can make what would otherwise be an extremely boring POS siege into a white-knuckle slugfest.

The current interface is honestly crap and it's not something we would want new POSes as a whole delayed in order to implement, but we feel some continuation of the concept of "manning the guns" would add real gameplay value to the new POSes in w-space.

3. Property management and theft protection

In short, fixing the corp roles system will do more for this than any new POS mechanic alone ever could. Personal storage space is good, but ultimately directors and people responsible for POS logistics will need to have access to everyone's things so they can be moved in the event of needing to reorganize or relocate a POS.

Best take on this issue so far. _b

I can't see how this isn't going to end up with silly station games - you can't really put enough automated/player controlled firepower on a POS/Station to stop people dropping in logistics support in to tank the automated defences and then wreaking havoc with a corp if they only have a few people online who end up camped into their own "POS" without being able to even warp off to scan the system, etc.

If this is really the best anyone can come up with we might as well keep the current broken system atleast is provides some semblance of balance even if its badly lacking on the useability side.

Great Post jonnykefka it addresses the exact concerns we have had also.

The other large concern is about undocking/docking.

In 0,0 you have the ability to pod yourself out of a camped station and rejoin the fight coming from another station.

In wormholes when corps posses are all surprise-coitus caged they can exit the posses and get into other posses using interdicted T3 or by sneaking through the bubbles with cov ops. Or even use bombers to blow the bubbles up if the attackers are thin on the ground.

If some sort of undocking/docking mechanism is created that's the end of that. What will effectively happen with WH invasions is that the attacker only need to blob up on the undock points of each pos that contains players and will then effectively have shut down the defenders possibility of doing anything at all.

That's a pretty massive loss of gameplay for everyone in wormholes.

This worries me also...

Thanks alot for your post!

The most important skill as a game designer is to listen. Listening to the players as well. Many game designer don't get that.

Theres too many variables really to see the full feasibility or otherwise of it at the moment i.e. a triage carrier would be a pain in the behind to extract after your done unless you either slowboat out dipping in and out of triage if needed or kill the scrams but there are other ways around that - infact even most reasonably setup large POSes at the moment can be tanked by a fairly small number of logis if theres 1 or less POS gunners online (so you could burn the fleet out of range and warp once done with logis instead of a carrier). Then you have the other side of it - would people really sit around waiting to grief a corp that only has a few people active for potentially no gain - but from what I've seen people actually do go to great lengths just to screw with people in that manner in eve so I think it will be a potential problem.

for a second I thought adhoc has agreed on something , and the space-time fabric has been altered. Phew

I have been wondering why the station inventory system is so hard to implement in space, should be simple enough to have it connected to a POS module that would allow for "personal" hangars and all the functionality there in, with a limited space of course.

Is the issue with the corp hangar coding that i presume is shared with stations?

Hell, put both in the same module and the problem will be solved, just move stuff into the personal one whenever you need.

What if instead of docking inside the station you somehow docked while still in space? Kinda like the space shuttle docks with the international space station. Same interface you have while you are spinning in station except you are still in space.