Player Features and Ideas Discussion

In my honest opinion, I think the sandbox is big enough, the problem we are having is that we have to many options that allows us to travel great distances.

I think these options should shrink, or be limited in a sensible method. Have I figured out this method yet? No, I haven't made a perfect solution yet, I made a post way back when, but the thread died sadly =(

The sand box is big enough. the problem is the way sov is set up, large alliances can easily control 10 times more space then they need.

There are alliances that control over 200 systems.

CCP has talked a lot in the last couple years about creating more instability and driving conflict. Yet they allow these super empires to dominate the game in a way where stalemates are much more common than conflict. We need to reduce the number of systems a single alliance can control.

Sure this could simply result in these large alliances dividing into more smaller alliances but still run as a single large Coalition. However, we all know coalitions bound by agreements and politics are far less stable than alliances bound by in game mechanics. It is far easier for alliances bound by coalition agreements to betray one another than for corps bound by alliance mechanics with common assets to betray one another. There is just more loyalty within an alliance than within a Coalition. Time an time again we have see coalitions turn on each other. true we have also seen alliances fall apart, but in an alliance mutual assets and holding Sov in systems being tied to the alliance you belong to, forces at least some coperation.

Why does an alliance need to control over 100 systems when they only use 20. many could easily support their entire alliance with only 10 systems, and it would make defense easier as everyone is in the same area. More players in less space would drive more conflict.

The biggest problem this would create is for alliances supported by moon mining where they control many valuable moons across many systems. Being limited in controlling sovereignty in 20-30 systems would make supporting the alliance through moon mining much more difficult. Considering the problems these moon mining cartels have created I see shaking this up as a good thing.

If holding way more space than they need became a PITA for these large alliances and coalitions, they would scale back on the space they held. This would free up a lot of space for smaller alliances to get a foot hold in null.

We do not need more space, we just need mechanics changed so that there is no advantage to holding more space than you need. A hard cap on the number of systems an alliance can hold is to extreme, but perhaps a scale where the maintenance cost of maintaining sov in a system is increased per system the more systems you control.This should only affect the base maintenance of the TCU not the Sov upgrades that add to that maintenance.

For example a small alliance only holding 5-6 systems up to say 10 systems would pay the same as the current maintenance bills. I believe the base is 180M per system, it has been a while, I could be wrong. but for every 10 additional systems the cost would increases by say 50%. So an alliance holding 20 systems would not have double the maintained costs of the alliance with 10 system, but it would be triple. (180,000,000 x 10 = 1,800,000,000) vs a 50% increase to the base maintenance per system ( 270,000,000 x 20 = 5,400,000,000) While an alliance controlling 50 systems would have a base maintenance of not 50% increase but 50% per 10 systems or 250% increase per system. (630,000,000 x 50 = 31,500,000,000).

Such a scale would encourage alliances to hold only the space they need, rather than the current system where they hold as much as they can effectively defend. There would no longer be alliances holding over 100 systems as there would be no point to driving maintenance costs that high.

Consider that if this idea of scaling maintenance costs was implemented a huge alliance holding 150 systems that would currently have a maintenance cost of (180,000,000 x 150 = 27,000,000,000) would instead have a base maintenance cost of 750% or ( 1,530,000,000 x 150 = 229,500,000,000) Which I believe would be unsustainable by any alliance. If maintaining your 150 systems would cost you over 200 Billion isk per month rather than 27 billion per month you pay now, would you not cut back to only what you need?

I know this seems a little extreme, but my though is this would encourage more smaller alliances rather than fewer larger ones. With this change the ideal size for an alliance would be to hold 10-19 systems, still big enough to build supers but not support fleets of several hundred supers. you might get a few larger alliances in the 20-29 systems range, but anything larger would be discouraged due to system maintenance fees being to high. We would have hundreds of alliances fighting over null sec space rather than 5-6 really big ones. Large fleet battles would be smaller but far more common. coalitions would contain more alliances but also be more unstable. The tech cartel's would become a thing of the past. And best of all we would see far more conflict throughout null sec. Null sec PVP would become much more fun and far less stale.

My though for having this maintenance increase at 50% rather than 10% or 25% is that it would rapidly discourage larger alliances, making the majority of alliances around the same size. Most would fit into the 10-19 systems bracket, with only a few going bigger, and leave lots of room for the smaller 1-9 system alliances.

This is just an idea. Not something I plan to push for, or will leave the game if it does not happen. I am not looking to argue to support this idea. It just seems to me that this could fix many of the problems that are causing null sec warfare to become stale.

If you do not like this idea, then propose something better. But we all know that CCP will be changing things up soon, their goal is to drive more conflict in null sec. If we do not give them ideas, who know what will happen if they do their own thing again.

(Jut out of interest I checked this on dotlan. A JDC V Carrier jumping from VFK to G8AD in Cloud Ring has to make a stop in Pure Blind anyway. You might want a better example :P)

The jump range on jump-capable vessels is far too long. No one is going to fight for sovereignty in a system if someone is just going to hotdrop them instantly. It's ludicrous!