Assembly Hall

Sovereignty has always been a pain in the ass for everyine in nullsec and CCP... It doesn't have to be though.

The one massive problem has been that it's always been based around a structure grind. First posses and now SBU's, all things that don't really need any presence.


I say, remove all structure based sovereignty and base it entirely around activity.

If an alliance manages to form at least 60-80% (to be determined) of all activity in a system for a week, they gain sovereignty of it.

Activity can be defined as follows, from the least impact to the most:

• Influence.
See below.

• Basic presense.
Be present in the system. The more pilots spending more time in a system, the more activity you produce. Cloaked ships do not count as any activity!

• Construction.
Manufacturing items in POS or stations. Putting down POS (doing nothing else with it) also goes here.

• Moon mining.
• Belt activity.
(ice) Mining, belt rats, the lot.

• Anomalies.
• Capital ship construction in POS.
• Construction of outposts.
• PvP kills!
PvP kills over the past x days are tallied up: More kills (final blows from players) generate more activity.

Activity accrues over time, retaining the level 1 through 4 for a given system. Massive PvP action can swing activity in favor of another party, making war a viable option to switch it. However, to retain sovereignty, one must remain active!

System level and the amount of time where sovereignty is held also produce influence around the system, ala the EVE Sovereignty map. This makes it so that fringe systems do not need to be actively pursued around the clock, but still gives smaller alliances room to manouver into a part of space.

This system also allows smaller alliances to claim a part of space without being overrun by larger alliances almost immediately - Sovereignty is no longer a matter of plonking down an SBU, you no longer need a pure capital ship force to take over systems, making invasions by smaller alliances much more feasible aswell as them simply taking unused portions of space.

This system also means that travelling to another part of the universe for a prolonged time means you may have to give up sovereignty back home, since you will be much less active there. This makes cross galactic wars much less common and much harder to maintain. This combined with the possibility for smaller alliances to take unused space means that conflict may become much more common and local.

Renting out space is still possible, a new standing might be created where the renter doesn't generate any activity for themselves. In return, they get (full or partial) access to the system and generate activity for the landlord.

Freespace alliance could retain their sov due to surrounding system influence (as most freespacers will not generate enough activity over multiple systems to affect this), but they could also enact a system-wide tax which generates activity in their favor. This would apply to bounties and refining at least, possibly also a fee for POS maintenance. This would apply to neutral and higher standings towards the sov holder: Negative standings don't "pay tax" but are also unlikely to be able to dock in stations/outposts, nor survive for very long in the first place unless they're in invader, in which case they have to be able to generate competing activity anyway. Another mechanic to enforce open space would be to have it declared as such, but tax has to be paid to CONCORD.


The PvP mechanic could be enforced by a dominance system. A tug-of-war style system where dominance goes from 50/50 to 0/100 or 100/0 for the parties involved (all attackers vs the sov holder). The more dominance one has, the less activity one generates by more kills, this also prevents abuse of the pvp activity by repeatedly killing a pet corp in newbie frigates for example since they will not generate dominance activity in return and will cap out very soon.


Continued in part 2...

Quick! We're losing sov! To the mining barges, everyone!

This is silly.

It can't be based on anything else if you want to get away from the structure grind. That's the entire issue.

The values on which activity is based are TBD of course after a lot of testing. I don't really see any downsides to this proposal, but i do see a massive improvement on what the situation is right now, or what it has been ever since sov was introduced.

Another group being active in their own timezone in your systems means that they are giving up on their own systems to do so. That said, while timezones are an issue they are an unimportant one imho. You could simply make non-pvp activity by the alliance that owns the system count 100% more than activity from alliances with no sov there.

Sitting in a system doing nothing should give next to no activity. Sitting in a system cloaked gives no activity whatsoever, this also counts for 'active' covert ops ships. As such there's no point doing nothing.

The point of this system is not just to eliminate structure grind, it's also to force alliances to only take systems they actually use. ANY kind of sov system which does not reward actual activity in the system (ie, sbu's, posses, whatever) can and will be abused to spam them around, making it impossible to wage any meaningful warfare nor stake a meaningful claim to something.



As i already explained, the best way to take over someone else's system is to fight them. PvP activity, especially succesful activity is rewarded with a LOT of activity. This also makes guerilla warfare possible and a credible threat, rather than something to be ignored 'since they can't hurt out pos/sbu anyway'. If you want to conquer a system you have to fight. If you want to keep a system you have to fight aswell, you can't simply ignore invaders.

If you choose to try and ignore invaders, all that happens is that your activity will degrade since you're not doing anything there other than hide. In the mean time, the invaders are happily making use of your system, generating their own activity. Cloaked fleets don't help you, the occasional gank doesn't create any meaningful activity due to the time spent cloaked and a single kill here and there won't offset the otherwise massive activity an invader could bring.

If alliances are in two different timezones, sovereignty will be determined by whoever is the most active, simple. Timezones should not count as a defense against anything - As i explained already, 'offline defense' requires structures that can survive untill the next time you can log on, which introduces the structure grind yet again. This is exactly the thing i want to avoid, and so does everyone else.

Timezones not mattering for this also reinforces the effect of more space being available to smaller alliances... Also, one should not be able to claim sov solo.



As i explained above, parties have to engage one another to force the other out. If this can't happen due to timezones, then quite honestly it's just bad luck or bad timing. EVE isn't turned off when you go to sleep, nor should it be, but structures do exactly this. They don't just make it boring for defenders, they make it boring for attackers aswell.

The current system also forces capital ships to be used for each and every fight that determines sov. Any other ship class does not matter for this since they hardly do damage to the structures determining sov, or can even defend themselves against stuff like pos guns.

I don't see how timezones are more important than the sovereignty system itself. This is an important distinction to make - Catering to different timezones is a part of it, not it's main focus.

The problem with catering to timezones is that you are saying to give a defender a means to defend without actually being there. The next question is, how long should he be able to do that? Why should the game give 'free defense' to someone who isn't actually there to defend it? Catering to timezones is one of the reasons why the current system doesn't really work.

You could, of course, reply with actual arguments based on facts and deduction instead of going for the typical troll/flame response that adds nothing to the discussion in this topic.

Nowhere do i mention that 24/7 presence is required. You only need to generate more activity than other groups in the same system. If you don't want to actually be active in the system there is no reason to take sov there - If you don't want to invest in an area of space, why should you be entitled to take it and keep it? The current jump bridge mechanic is one of the major offenders in this entire story aswell by the way, if that wasn't clear enough.

If you can come up with actual arguments that 100% refute and put down my proposal, i'd be happy to concede the discussion to you and declare you the winner, if that makes you happy.



Point 1 is inherent in my proposal - You need to actually use the system to generate the activity points (clarifying this term like this for now) needed to obtain and retain sovereignty. The costs are (again) inherent, as time is the most important commodity in EVE.

Point 2 is also covered under Influence, which is one of the activity point generating mechanics in my proposal. It basically works like the EVE Sovereignty map influence, albeit in a modifed form. Influence alone could feasibly take over systems, but since it's activity rank is the lowest, any proper activity in the system will very quickly move sovereignty to the 'proper' users.

Point 3 is also inherent to my proposal (that word is popular today isn't it?) - More activity points enable more sovereignty levels, which might work the way they do now. Enemy activity, without even needing to generate points, can be incredibly disruptive since it disrupts your own activity point generation.

Point 4 would be irrelevant here, timers are something you'd want to avoid since they encourage more passive play, aswell as being prone to abuse, both from internal and external sources.

Sounds to me like you're proposing we trade an annoying system for one that is completely broken and easily exploitable.

No thanks.

So riddle me this, why are the only people complaining about this proposal Goonswarm members, alts or pets? Seems pretty childish to attack my proposal purely on me being a member of my current corporation? I thought Goons were such nice people 0-o

Once it hit the point where you failed to take in the constructive criticism offfered and failed to notice the parts where you contradict yourself within your own posts, it became a comedy thread. Which of course we've been passing around on jabber alongside choice quotes. At no point have we complained, this is simply pointing and laughing now.

lets introduce something called "null plex" and you have to orbit a beacon with your titan to contest it. If no enemy enters a NPC will spawn to amuse you. If somebody contests your system while you are not on you have to spend the same amount of time when you are on to decontest the system again. In worst case its a total waste of time for both sides. In best case both are on at the same time and meet at the beacon. At this point you have to make the decision if you should better orbit something else or press F1 while activating your batphone. Ok maybe not.