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Dev Blog: No Honor Among Thieves - Siphon Units in Rubicon

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Razzishi
Trash Reclamation Experts
#61 - 2013-10-17 16:24:57 UTC
What if you have a POS in which you were harvesting (or importing) 2 raw materials, reacting them in a simple reactor, then reacting the product of that with an imported processed material in a complex reactor to form an advanced material? The dev blog doesn't say anything about this stealing advanced materials, and says that it can only steal from the end of a POS production chain. Is that setup not vulnerable to siphoning?

on preview, I note someone else asked this as well.
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#62 - 2013-10-17 16:24:58 UTC
Zloco Crendraven wrote:
Aryth wrote:
I do love to call the ball and then smug later about being right. So let me explain how this plays out to you.

Everyone will transfer valuable moons to closer holders who are then taxed or rent increased to offset this. So null blocs won't be impacted that rent or that have good C&C. However, this also means everyone is going to enter into doughnut pacts and you are going to watch null blue up and stagnate even more so than it is.

This is a terribly flawed design. We withheld judgement when this was first released thinking you would do this one right and it was an interesting mechanic and had the possibility for some fun interactions. You got it wrong on balance with multiple siphons and costs.


Can't be more blue than it is now :D
And probably renters won't rent moons because people like me will suck their POSs 24/7 and they wont't be able to do anything about it.
Big entities will have to live in the area around POSs if they won't most of the moon goo from now on.
If they won't live around, than no moon goo :DDD

Totally blue with n3 that exists to destroy us, good point there

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?
ONE-MAN WOLF-PACK
STACKED DECK
#63 - 2013-10-17 16:25:01 UTC
I
DRANK
YOUR
MILKSHAKE!

I DRANK IT UP! *SLUURRRP*
pmchem
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#64 - 2013-10-17 16:25:08 UTC
Zloco Crendraven wrote:
pmchem wrote:
For a moment, let us imagine the future equilibrium for this gameplay element:

Guy with cargo-expanded covert cloaking ship and a bunch of siphons is AFK cloaking in a system with a R32 or R64 moon. He un-AFKs at a random time once or twice a day, drops or scoops siphons. Meanwhile, random griefer with a bubble-immune fast-warp interceptor flies by a dozen moons dropping siphons, including this one.

POS owner has nothing to defeat AFK cloaking or interceptors. They detect unexpected silo levels as their real life schedule allows and log in an alt, gun the POS, and shoot the siphons. In the meantime he's lost all his goo production for a big chunk of the day because there were 8 siphons attached to the POS -- they're so cheap, they're just a fire-and-forget griefer tool. There's no 'timer' at which both forces must meet to determine the fate of the gameplay element, so it's entirely async and the two sides never interact in realtime.

Result: higher moon goo prices, more AFK cloaky alts (which honestly seems to be the sort of terrible gameplay CCP is encouraging these days), nobody particularly having fun unless you enjoy griefing (which, hey, it's EVE -- many do). But nobody is rewarded for spending time developing or living in a system ... only for random, short logins to push butan. It's poor gameplay.

Rubicon: burnt farms and salted fields.


Or, actually live in the space where you are holding POSs and have patrols doing their jobs.


oh wait I get to laugh in your face directly, neat!

You're suggesting that the POS owner has muitiple people logged in to fleet and on-grid at POS 23 hours a day in order to defeat one individual who appears at a random time once or twice a day. So, let's say 69-character-hours per day played in order to defeat 3-character-minutes. That is surely good gameplay and sustainable! Let's also mention the fact that the attackers have d-scan and local and can check for traps before even attempting to launch the siphon! Or that if you're using a covert cloaker or Rubicon interceptor you're amazingly difficult to kill anyway unless totally incompetent, even if landing on grid with hostiles! In short you're making a terrible argument and do not know how this game plays out.

https://twitter.com/pmchem/ || http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/community-spotlight-garpa/ || Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal
Benjamin Hamburg
Chaos.Theory
#65 - 2013-10-17 16:25:16 UTC
Orion Moonstar wrote:
Benjamin Hamburg wrote:
Vatek wrote:
Making these 20m3 in size and having no limit on how many can be placed on one tower is a horrible design decision. One pilot in a blockade runner could seed a nullsec region with hundreds of these and shut down all moon mining income until the owners of the towers show up to pos gun them all to death.

Then they can just go get more and do it again and again and again.


Alliance - even small group of players - can actually do the same with SBUs. Size doesn't really matter as much as the time it take to all put in place, for the little benefit it will give.


What a ridiculous comparison. SBUs don't generate income.


Syphon don't "generate" income too.
Kazanir
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#66 - 2013-10-17 16:25:43 UTC
CCP Tuxford wrote:
Marlona Sky wrote:
CCP Tuxford wrote:
Two step wrote:
Sounds pretty neat. One issue: Using the API, people can tell when stuff is missing from silos. Has this been thought about?


Yes we did. We do track how much is siphoned from what and where it would end up and the API then reports those numbers. It's a bit evil abusing the API in this way but I think it's for the good of the feature.

Will a player or program, using the API, be able to tell if a siphon is on their POS or not?


Not. The API will lie about the content. Sorry thought that was clear.


That's horrible game design and whoever made that decision should be ashamed of themselves.
Vatek
Rents Due Crew
#67 - 2013-10-17 16:26:10 UTC
Benjamin Hamburg wrote:
Vatek wrote:
Making these 20m3 in size and having no limit on how many can be placed on one tower is a horrible design decision. One pilot in a blockade runner could seed a nullsec region with hundreds of these and shut down all moon mining income until the owners of the towers show up to pos gun them all to death.

Then they can just go get more and do it again and again and again.


Alliance - even small group of players - can actually do the same with SBUs. Size doesn't really matter as much as the time it take to all put in place, for the little benefit it will give.


SBUs cost >10 times as much, can't be crammed by the hundreds into a blockade runner and are very, very visible.
Fix Lag
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#68 - 2013-10-17 16:26:17 UTC
Maybe if the vast majority of nullsec space wasn't super shitty more people would be in it.

CCP mostly sucks at their job, but Veritas is a pretty cool dude.
xttz
GSF Logistics and Posting Reserves
Goonswarm Federation
#69 - 2013-10-17 16:26:24 UTC
Marlona Sky wrote:

Or... you could actually occupy the space you decide to deploy assets in with other players from your corp, alliance, coalition?


I can't tell if you're trolling or not.

Someone who's better at math than me please work out how many individual players you need to cover a 50km sphere in space in order to prevent a cloaky ship launching a structure and getting out alive.
mynnna
State War Academy
Caldari State
#70 - 2013-10-17 16:26:56 UTC
Marlona Sky wrote:
pmchem wrote:
For a moment, let us imagine the future equilibrium for this gameplay element:

Guy with cargo-expanded covert cloaking ship and a bunch of siphons is AFK cloaking in a system with a R32 or R64 moon. He un-AFKs at a random time once or twice a day, drops or scoops siphons. Meanwhile, random griefer with a bubble-immune fast-warp interceptor flies by a dozen moons dropping siphons, including this one.

POS owner has nothing to defeat AFK cloaking or interceptors. They detect unexpected silo levels as their real life schedule allows and log in an alt, gun the POS, and shoot the siphons. In the meantime he's lost all his goo production for a big chunk of the day because there were 8 siphons attached to the POS -- they're so cheap, they're just a fire-and-forget griefer tool. There's no 'timer' at which both forces must meet to determine the fate of the gameplay element, so it's entirely async and the two sides never interact in realtime.

Result: higher moon goo prices, more AFK cloaky alts (which honestly seems to be the sort of terrible gameplay CCP is encouraging these days), nobody particularly having fun unless you enjoy griefing (which, hey, it's EVE -- many do). But nobody is rewarded for spending time developing or living in a system ... only for random, short logins to push butan. It's poor gameplay.

Rubicon: burnt farms and salted fields.

Or... you could actually occupy the space you decide to deploy assets in with other players from your corp, alliance, coalition?



This isn't a bad mechanic, it's just mistimed. The tools and and incentives to want to willingly live in a smaller footprint, don't exist, and so mechanics and meta dictate that to not spread as far as you are able is to allow your enemy to do it instead. But instead of fixing that, creating those tools and incentives, and then introducing them at the same time as things like this, CCP is just hauling back and aiming a big kick in the balls at anyone playing by the current rules.

Spouting off that the solution is to just do that anyway is foolish and naive.

Member of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal
Callic Veratar
#71 - 2013-10-17 16:27:22 UTC
I find it very entertaining that players who periodically flood Jita with Tornadoes are complaining about a cheap griefing mechanic.
Fix Lag
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#72 - 2013-10-17 16:27:36 UTC
It's a shame siphons are an interesting idea that just got brutally murdered by their implementation.

CCP mostly sucks at their job, but Veritas is a pretty cool dude.
Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#73 - 2013-10-17 16:27:54 UTC
Marlona Sky wrote:

Or... you could actually occupy the space you decide to deploy assets in with other players from your corp, alliance, coalition?


Well, for starters, you've thought this feature through and read how it works so poorly you were outraged at a post telling you exactly what you wanted to hear.

But the point is this doesn't reward "occupying" your space. It requires manually checking your pos every few hours. If there's 20 people ratting in that system nonstop it's not actually stopping someone from siphoning.

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.
Zloco Crendraven
BALKAN EXPRESS
Shadow Cartel
#74 - 2013-10-17 16:28:29 UTC
Weaselior wrote:
What level of "monitoring your pos" are you envisioning players should need to perform? Let's assume that you check it once every eight hours (which is rather reasonable: you check it when you wake up, when you go to bed, and also once during the day).

That's already a fairly irritating level of checking your pos. That means that in those eight hours, 20% of your output will be destroyed irrevocably. And if the player is paying attention (because they can pick when they start the siphoning) they get about 80% of your pos output for eight hours, for 20m isk.

This feature is poorly thought out. It's poorly balanced. It's another one of CCP's hamfisted nerfs of 0.0 that should go hand in hand with buffs of 0.0 that are pushed off until "SOON(TM)". It doesn't reward people who use their space: it merely penalizes them a little bit less. It doesn't actually place the people siphoning at risk physically or economically: the siphons make it hilariously easy to break even.

It's a neat feature. It would work well if it was balanced properly, and if there were buffs for people who DO live in their space. But it's sort of half-assed and fits into the general CCP philosophy of "nerf 0.0 now, buff SOON(TM)" and then get distracted and naturally never get to the buff.


Ahm... you take for granted that the attackers play 24/7
Also CFC can field 3k players, 1 guy doesn't have to check all of them. Spread the duty.
Sry, but from now on you will have to play the game to get isk. No more passive farming.

BALEX, bringing piracy on a whole new level.
Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#75 - 2013-10-17 16:28:30 UTC
Callic Veratar wrote:
I find it very entertaining that players who periodically flood Jita with Tornadoes are complaining about a cheap griefing mechanic.


You make this cost as much as a tornado, problem solved.

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.
Fix Lag
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#76 - 2013-10-17 16:28:32 UTC
Callic Veratar wrote:
I find it very entertaining that players who periodically flood Jita with Tornadoes are complaining about a cheap griefing mechanic.


I don't think you understand: they're not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with them.

CCP mostly sucks at their job, but Veritas is a pretty cool dude.
Bienator II
madmen of the skies
#77 - 2013-10-17 16:28:56 UTC
mynnna wrote:
Bienator II wrote:
CCP SoniClover wrote:

1. Mobile structures, including the siphon unit, can be probed down (and d-scanned).

well thats very disappointing. Removes everything guerilla from the guerilla warfare feature if you give players 100% intel.


People will already have to add the tedious chore of checking pos multiple times a day to the already tedious chore of "running them in the first place" and you want it to be worse?

Whatever style of play you like, I'm going to have it nerfed, just for that. X


this basically said that the same rule will apply to the depots. He wasn't only talking about siphon units.

how to fix eve: 1) remove ECM 2) rename dampeners to ECM 3) add new anti-drone ewar for caldari 4) give offgrid boosters ongrid combat value
Berluth Luthian
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#78 - 2013-10-17 16:29:46 UTC
I don't really do moon harvesting, but is there not a way to see what gets put in your silos via the API? If so, a simple tool that is showing expected vs. actual output could be a really easy alarm system.
Benny Ohu
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#79 - 2013-10-17 16:29:51 UTC
Quote:
What level of "monitoring your pos" are you envisioning players should need to perform? Let's assume that you check it once every eight hours (which is rather reasonable: you check it when you wake up, when you go to bed, and also once during the day).

That's already a fairly irritating level of checking your pos. That means that in those eight hours, 20% of your output will be destroyed irrevocably. And if the player is paying attention (because they can pick when they start the siphoning) they get about 80% of your pos output for eight hours, for 20m isk.

This feature is poorly thought out. It's poorly balanced. It's another one of CCP's hamfisted nerfs of 0.0 that should go hand in hand with buffs of 0.0 that are pushed off until "SOON(TM)". It doesn't reward people who use their space: it merely penalizes them a little bit less. It doesn't actually place the people siphoning at risk physically or economically: the siphons make it hilariously easy to break even.

It's a neat feature. It would work well if it was balanced properly, and if there were buffs for people who DO live in their space. But it's sort of half-assed and fits into the general CCP philosophy of "nerf 0.0 now, buff SOON(TM)" and then get distracted and naturally never get to the buff.

i don't want to argue about the feature because i don't know pos well, but please remember that if the pos owner sees the siphon before the robber logs in, they can take their goo back again from the siphon, so the theft isn't irrevocable

other than that i don't have experience enough to comment vOv
Benjamin Hamburg
Chaos.Theory
#80 - 2013-10-17 16:30:59 UTC
Vatek wrote:
Benjamin Hamburg wrote:
Vatek wrote:
Making these 20m3 in size and having no limit on how many can be placed on one tower is a horrible design decision. One pilot in a blockade runner could seed a nullsec region with hundreds of these and shut down all moon mining income until the owners of the towers show up to pos gun them all to death.

Then they can just go get more and do it again and again and again.


Alliance - even small group of players - can actually do the same with SBUs. Size doesn't really matter as much as the time it take to all put in place, for the little benefit it will give.


SBUs cost >10 times as much, can't be crammed by the hundreds into a blockade runner and are very, very visible.


Cost isn't really a turn off when what you want to do is to grief or harass a group of players. My time in your alliance thaught me that at least.

In my opinion, syphon unit's role isn't to "create" an income for the players, but rather a way to harass and be a general nuisance. If you have the time to pack "hundreds" of Syphon unit and able to spread them around a whole nullsec region without being killed, then you are doing exactly what this item is designed for.