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

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Vehawn Kwi
Brothers of Tyr
Goonswarm Federation
#861 - 2013-10-18 18:02:32 UTC
CCP Falcon wrote:
Good afternoon capsuleers!

CCP SoniClover is here with a new Dev Blog, to shed some light on the POS siphoning units that will be coming with EVE Online: Rubicon on November 19th.

While the statistics and numbers are subject to change pending final balancing, please take a look at his new Dev Blog to read all about the moneymaking opportunities that will be coming with this new feature in Rubicon.

Enjoy!


I am all for it as soon as they come up with a POS remote manage skill so that once trained you can kind of do what we do with PI today. Instead of view in planet mode you would get view in POS mode where one could remotely take active ownership as pos gunner. The skill should then for every level give you a distance capability as we have with market orders. Say level 0 system only, level 1- 2 systems, lvl 2- 3 systems, lvl 3- 5 systems, lvl 4- 10 systems and lvl 5- regional control. It would still give that active requirement while not making the defense of said POS unbearable. The owner would still need to visit the POS to collect all assets with a "indy" as well as to add fuel. There should also be a mail that is sent when an unauthorized removal takes place. So if your having something stolen from you it would be apparent how much (due to only having one siphon unit available). But have it mail everyvtime its stolen from e.g. every hour a mail will be sent. so if you get 10 mails etc etc...you all get the picture. It solves the RMT without activity issue. I believe that a reasonable person would agree to this. What say you?

And yes I can see where this could lead to people dropping POSs with just guns and remotely take an active defense. But that means a toon that is dedicated and can only manage one POS at a time. This skill should only be applicable if the POS is in NPC space (accessible to all except when criminal status or NPC standings are not sufficient to even drop a POS in said system) or if NULL space is owned by said Corp or Alliance (since players can't deploy POSs individually but only for Corp). Better :)
Arrendis
TK Corp
#862 - 2013-10-18 18:06:33 UTC
Krios Ahzek wrote:
Arrendis wrote:
Zappity wrote:

Tell me, what would the public goon response be to a change that was good for smaller groups but bad for CFC?


Good question. Got an example of a change that a group of 50, 100, 500, or 1,000 can make use of that a group of 30,000 can't make use of more effectively?


There's really nothing that accomplishes this except giving ships in a fleet stacking penalties to EHP and damage, which would be completely insane and dumb.


Exactly. Larger, more organized groups will always enjoy significant advantages purely because they have more human resources to devote to solving any problem. If CCP were to put in something like fleet stacking penalties (for example), we'd just form up a larger number of smaller fleets, making us of having things like shared communications and control infrastructure outside of the actual game, having a larger number of FCs between all of the CFC member alliances, etc etc. It might not be easy, but a workaround would be found.
Kat Ayclism
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#863 - 2013-10-18 18:15:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Kat Ayclism
Kaarous Aldurald wrote:
CCP Legion wrote:
Once this is out we will be keeping an eye on how players use it, both via feedback here and metrics that we gather. We can then rebalance it accordingly to make sure it is not completely unbalanced or if it is used as a pure griefing tool for example. There are a lot of values which we can tweak relatively easily as required.


As is, these stand to completely shut down T2 production. They are cheap, laughably cheap, and the fact that they stack can shut down a pos completely. Combined with no notification? It's just too much.

Tone them down somewhat.

...(snip)...

What I am, on the other hand, is rubbing my hands with glee at the sheer amount of grief I could inflict with these as is. Given timezone shenanigans, I can shut down system after system with myself and a few buddies/alts, even if you cap me at 5 per character.

Remember, folks. What one person can do, a thousand can do a thousand times better.

Exactly this. Although I do have moons that I manage, you can bet your ass that I am also going to be abusing the hell out of these if they're implemented as is.
You think some small group with less income can do some damage with these? Wait til you ******* see what we can do.
Benjamin Hamburg
Chaos.Theory
#864 - 2013-10-18 18:20:53 UTC
mynnna wrote:
Benjamin Hamburg wrote:
mynnna wrote:


The drawback ought to come because you're out to steal my stuff, not because of some automated system that punishes me for not monitoring the POS 24/7. If the contents of the silo are still there by the time I come to get it, either you left and may never have had intent to steal my stuff in the first place, or I beat you in ~~~honourable space combat~~~ when you were defending it to get my stuff back.


The waste factor isn't a punishing system, but an incentive to react faster, cause you know that even if you have the number superiority and will win that ~~~honourable space combat~~~ there will be a loss that depend on your reaction time. Taking that into acocunt, the tool become a great thing to provoke fight. So you aren't punished for not monitoring your POS, but you are actually punished for not taking action against the thieves. Which goes in total adequation with what EVE is all about.


Nothing I can possibly do can allow me to "react faster" if I'm a USTZ corp and someone in AUTZ drops a siphon on my pos just after downtime, or whatever suitable combo of times reverses the situation. This is still the case if 100% of the loss comes through player action, but it requires that you are out to actually steal from me to happen, not to just come by and spam a bunch with no intent to return. It's a tremendous difference.


If the thief set a syphon with 0% waste, maybe you won't be as quick to remove it as if there is a 20% waste, cause you know your problem isn't solved only by killing the thieve, but by removing something that cause you more trouble than just the "possibility" of someone thieving.

To take your own example, the player that placed the syphon isn't maybe in your TZ and maybe can't retrieve what is stored in the syphon before the next day, so the loss he take is compasated by the loss you took.. You would have saved 80% of what's inside, but a 20% would have been wasted and the next day both you and him will plan accordingly.

Also, why is it bad if someone use this module without the intention to steal? Is stealing considered like griefing? How does a waste of 20% would be considered griefing and not a loss of 100%? If I want really to grief, I will take the goo in my cargohold, jetisson it and shoot the can so the loss is 100% instead of 20, so you face the same problem you try to denounce, with or without waste.
Zappity
New Eden Tank Testing Services
#865 - 2013-10-18 18:22:02 UTC
CCP SoniClover wrote:
Hey guys, thanks for all the good feedback. Couple of things we're contemplating:

a) reduce waste from 20% to 10%

b) have a character limit on how many siphons you can deploy (i.e. have in space at the same time). This would probably be in the 5 to 10 range.

Let me know what you think.

Why don't you tell us what you are trying to achieve with the waste aspect? Because at the moment it is what is most broken. Why isn't loss to the afk corp from theft adequate? Increase the siphon amount but remove waste.

And the limitation on numbers will make no difference to alliances while limiting play for smaller groups.

Zappity's Adventures for a taste of lowsec and nullsec.
Arrendis
TK Corp
#866 - 2013-10-18 18:23:58 UTC
Zakhin Desver wrote:
Arrendis wrote:
Zappity wrote:

Tell me, what would the public goon response be to a change that was good for smaller groups but bad for CFC?


Good question. Got an example of a change that a group of 50, 100, 500, or 1,000 can make use of that a group of 30,000 can't make use of more effectively?


There's a little misunderstanding here. Maybe goons (or any other big alliance) can spam these syphons on posses of little alliances and all that. But the real little group of players usually don't own a territory, much less a POS (unless it is in wormhole space) Whatever the case, patrolling a single POS or one single system is much easier than doing the same all over a nullsec region. Can they lose moon materials or polymers like the big alliances? Yes and no. Yes, because there will be times when they are not watching (ie, at work, sleeping...), but it will be much easier for them to watch their only POS

Small alliances count as medium size group of players.


Except now your small group is stuck watching their POS. It's like living in a wormhole, except instead of 'make sure you always leave a scanner at home', you wind up with 'make sure you always leave a monitor on the POS. Logged in.'

Want to go on a roam? Great, just don't be gone too long, you might be losing money. Or maybe Bob can't go. Or maybe Bob just has to keep an alt on a second account logged in to watch the one POS. Let's assume that - let's assume you're looking at 1 pilot out of 50* having to be watching the POS at any time, on an alt. Assume 50% attention for the sake of relatively rapid detection, and because it makes the numbers nice and neat, and it's just easier to work with nice, neat numbers.

You are now devoting 1% of your corp's efforts to watching a single POS.

Note: Not 1% of your corp's gameplay, because someone has to be watching this POS all the time. 1% of your players' lives, taken in aggregate. Now, assuming like most people our hypothetical players get (low-balling) 6 hrs sleep, devote half an hour to getting ready for work, half an hour for dinner, and have a 30-minute commute, and spend 8 hrs at work, that's 1% of your available 1/3 of your life. So 3%.

Do you think a small group absorbs that more easily than the CFC absorbs some monetary losses? Who do you think has an easier time swinging into a system in a scanner-fit covops and dropping combat probes to look for these siphons? (D-scan? Sure, if all the moons are within 15au of one another. Otherwise, screw it, decent skills and knowing what planets friendly towers are on lets me cover all of them in a fraction of the time.)

* - We're being generous here, because a lot of those solo towers run by small groups in low-sec aren't even that big. At 25 players, it's 2% of the corp's actual, RL lives (or 6% of their free time). At 10 players, it's 5% (15%). Are you the guy willing to give up almost 1/6 of your life to babysitting a POS? ONE POS? Is 1/6 of your life worth that little ISK? Is 1/33rd (3%) of your life so valueless to you?

I mean, sure, you're already working a second job playing EVE, but...
Ganthrithor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#867 - 2013-10-18 18:25:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Ganthrithor
Zloco Crendraven wrote:
Or, actually live in the space where you are holding POSs and have patrols doing their jobs.


Yeah, that will be tons of fun. Everyone fleet up for the "go warp to all the moons in our region to look for anchorable structures" fleet!

Won't that be fun? I'm gonna go sub another six accounts right now because this just sounds so interesting and ~*emergent*~...

There is only one good thing about this terrible expansion and it's the warp speed changes... literally the only good thing that's happened to EVE online in the last two years.

tl;dr: Get your head examined, friend.
Johny Tyler
Solar Forged
#868 - 2013-10-18 18:26:22 UTC
How are you planning to collect from these things? What ship has a 1200 m/3 cargo hold that you want to put within 50km of a POS?

I admit my experience with POS is mostly limited to null-sec and WH pos, and never moon mining...

Also, while I did read all the CCP posts in the thread, I just skimmed most of pages 20 - 40ish so I don't know for sure if this has been brought up...

I really like the idea in general. I hope this will spark more fighting.

Maybe I deserved to be flamed for not knowing enough about POS mechanics, but my impression is that actually collecting the materials out of these devices will be difficult at best for someone who is not the POS owner. I imagine this as just one more chore for the POS owner to go around collect all the siphoned materials then man a gun and blow them up. Unless you can collect from them then the time, irritation, and waste are the only things you achieve.
M1k3y Koontz
Speaker for the Dead
Shadow Cartel
#869 - 2013-10-18 18:27:01 UTC
xttz wrote:
Lallante wrote:


Theres an infinite number of other scenarios. This will be interesting!


Scenario A

Null-sec alliances run around dropping cheap siphons on any r64 and r32 moons they don't control. They're rich enough to spam scores of cheap siphons per moon and not even care too much about collecting the contents.

R64 and R32 mineral supply drop off heavily, especially if some specific materials are focused on. R64 supply fluctuates between 25% and 75% of the current levels.
There are huge market shifts as T2 materials adjust to the reduced supply, resulting in doubled Tech 2 prices within a few days.

Eventually speculators run low on r64 material reserves and T2 prices continue to rise sharply after several months.

GoonSwarm engages in a series of market manipulation moves alongside Burn Jita-style events to ensure further disruption of the market. We'll probably even spam these on low-sec reaction farms solely to grief the owners.

The net result is very expensive T2 ships and mods, GoonSwarm gets richer, and a bunch of pubbies quit running reactions and whine to the forums about grrrrgoooons ruining the game.
Thus creating the next generation of posters who won't believe our warnings over CCP's next broken feature.

Scenario B

Just kidding, there are no other scenarios.

Scenario B your scare tactics turn out to be scare tactics and price changes are negligible, as they were in the last ice interdiction (the highest prices achieved were during speculation, price changes during the event were merely 200-300 isk/unit

How much herp could a herp derp derp if a herp derp could herp derp.
Ganthrithor
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#870 - 2013-10-18 18:28:13 UTC
Johny Tyler wrote:
How are you planning to collect from these things? What ship has a 1200 m/3 cargo hold that you want to put within 50km of a POS?

I admit my experience with POS is mostly limited to null-sec and WH pos, and never moon mining...

Also, while I did read all the CCP posts in the thread, I just skimmed most of pages 20 - 40ish so I don't know for sure if this has been brought up...

I really like the idea in general. I hope this will spark more fighting.

Maybe I deserved to be flamed for not knowing enough about POS mechanics, but my impression is that actually collecting the materials out of these devices will be difficult at best for someone who is not the POS owner. I imagine this as just one more chore for the POS owner to go around collect all the siphoned materials then man a gun and blow them up. Unless you can collect from them then the time, irritation, and waste are the only things you achieve.


You will need a blockade runner and you'll have to line it up so you can do a moving, aligned drive-by run to to scoop the contents. It's doable, technically...
Benjamin Hamburg
Chaos.Theory
#871 - 2013-10-18 18:28:55 UTC
xttz wrote:
Benjamin Hamburg wrote:
xttz wrote:
I

  • Remove waste as it currently works, a single siphon pulls 50% of material from a silo each tick. Up to 2 siphons can be anchored per 'end of chain' module on grid. They will automatically leech from the one that is physically nearest to them.
  • When a siphon is destroyed, the full contents within are dropped back into the silo it originally came from.
  • A siphon is emptied by a ship by clicking an 'empty' option while within 5km. This ejects any materials inside into a jetcan, but deducts a certain amount of waste first (much like POCOs). A nearly-empty siphon will have zero waste, a full siphon has 90% waste.
  • The API reports the total contents of a silo plus any siphons leeching from it, meaning that it's only possible to detect loss if material is removed from the siphon.




I don't agree. Waste should (and logically do) occur during the syphon action and not after. With your idea, if you just destroy the syphon without empty it before, there is no waste at all since all the content is returned in the silo with no others drawback.

+1 for the API idea though, it's seem to be the most logical way to do it.


The aim is to counteract the 'fire and forget' griefing aspect of this feature. Otherwise siphons would just be thrown around purely to cause waste, with no intention for the owner to ever come back. A fair system must involve both sides making a continuous effort to inflict damage on the other, otherwise it is unbalanced.

If people are so keen for starbase owners to make a constant effort to defend their holdings, why shouldn't attackers have to put in the same effort to hurt them? This implementation means agressors can inflict loss, but they have to stick around for more than 20 seconds to do it.


The question is, what is the advantage for an organisation to spends billions ISK just to reduce the production of another entity?

If someone WANT to do that, I don't see why it's bad. EVE being a sandbox, it's cool to have this kind of feature. It add a whole strategic dimension to war, one that i'm sure CFC will be able to use.
M1k3y Koontz
Speaker for the Dead
Shadow Cartel
#872 - 2013-10-18 18:34:38 UTC
Querns wrote:
Benjamin Hamburg wrote:
mynnna wrote:


The drawback ought to come because you're out to steal my stuff, not because of some automated system that punishes me for not monitoring the POS 24/7. If the contents of the silo are still there by the time I come to get it, either you left and may never have had intent to steal my stuff in the first place, or I beat you in ~~~honourable space combat~~~ when you were defending it to get my stuff back.


The waste factor isn't a punishing system, but an incentive to react faster, cause you know that even if you have the number superiority and will win that ~~~honourable space combat~~~ there will be a loss that depend on your reaction time. Taking that into acocunt, the tool become a great thing to provoke fight. So you aren't punished for not monitoring your POS, but you are actually punished for not taking action against the thieves. Which goes in total adequation with what EVE is all about.

A 10m ISK, 100k EHP module is not worth fighting over for either party

If the siphonhaver logs on and finds his shit destroyed, welp, time to anchor another one from the 500 he has kicking around inside his blockade runner

If the poshaver logs on and finds his shit burgled, welp, time to assume control of the pos guns and shoot a single laser at the siphon until it goes away

The very nature of the interactions dissuades any actual interaction between siphonhaver and poshaver because erecting the siphon, scooping from the siphon, and destroying the siphon can all be done in complete safety

This is why things that actually matter like SBUs and POSes themselves and sov structures have things like timers and gobs of EHP

If a guy is carrying around 500 of these siphons, at about 10m a piece, he's an idiot with 5b of siphons in his cargo and we all get a good laugh.

People wont be stupid enough to carry 500 of these things at a time, totaling at 5b--what am i saying, ofc someone will, but they'll be retarrded and die and we all laugh

How much herp could a herp derp derp if a herp derp could herp derp.
Derka McDerk
soldiers.fi
#873 - 2013-10-18 18:35:28 UTC
Ill just pop back here.

END T2 NULL MONOPOLY. POWER TO THE PEOPLE. HIGHSEC MOONGOO!
Von Keigai
#874 - 2013-10-18 18:36:44 UTC
Jack Haydn wrote:
The information which is available through such an API is and should be a 1:1 reflection of the in-game state. Now you want to intentionally deliver wrong data, to work around the horrible design decisions you made around a new feature. That completely breaks the spirit of an API. If you want an API in your game, do it right and deliver accurate data. Otherwise just scrap it - either the API or the feature.


Hear hear. Yeah, I mean you, CCP.

Delaying information is fine. Not reporting information is fine. Lying is not fine.

That you want to lie is (or at least should be) a red flag about the way siphons work.

vonkeigai.blogspot.com
Zakhin Desver
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#875 - 2013-10-18 18:37:03 UTC
People here is talking about indys full of spyhons like if they were cheap as ****. Even 10 = 100m ,and you just need to log once in a while in your pos to pop 10m with one shot.

BTW, pretending that leaving 1 guy watching your poses while the rest are in PVP is too much for you, must be a joke. Are you telling me you have hundreds of players but leaving a few watching your poses is too much

I knew it, nullsec alliances are kids even compared with highsec dwellers. Grow a pair.
A Research Alt
Perkone
Caldari State
#876 - 2013-10-18 18:37:38 UTC
Derka McDerk wrote:
Ill just pop back here.

END T2 NULL MONOPOLY. POWER TO THE PEOPLE. HIGHSEC MOONGOO!


I'd be all for this if we could openly shoot anyone in highsec without repercussions.
Zakhin Desver
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#877 - 2013-10-18 18:39:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Zakhin Desver
Von Keigai wrote:
Jack Haydn wrote:
The information which is available through such an API is and should be a 1:1 reflection of the in-game state. Now you want to intentionally deliver wrong data, to work around the horrible design decisions you made around a new feature. That completely breaks the spirit of an API. If you want an API in your game, do it right and deliver accurate data. Otherwise just scrap it - either the API or the feature.


Hear hear. Yeah, I mean you, CCP.

Delaying information is fine. Not reporting information is fine. Lying is not fine.

That you want to lie is (or at least should be) a red flag about the way siphons work.


Well, they are not reporting you some information. The fact the you have a sink hole in your pos.

A Research Alt wrote:
Derka McDerk wrote:
Ill just pop back here.

END T2 NULL MONOPOLY. POWER TO THE PEOPLE. HIGHSEC MOONGOO!


I'd be all for this if we could openly shoot anyone in highsec without repercussions.


It amazes me how can you asking to ruin the day of other players but at the same time cry like babies when somebody hurts you.
Johny Tyler
Solar Forged
#878 - 2013-10-18 18:40:06 UTC
Ganthrithor wrote:
Johny Tyler wrote:
How are you planning to collect from these things? What ship has a 1200 m/3 cargo hold that you want to put within 50km of a POS?

I admit my experience with POS is mostly limited to null-sec and WH pos, and never moon mining...

Also, while I did read all the CCP posts in the thread, I just skimmed most of pages 20 - 40ish so I don't know for sure if this has been brought up...

I really like the idea in general. I hope this will spark more fighting.

Maybe I deserved to be flamed for not knowing enough about POS mechanics, but my impression is that actually collecting the materials out of these devices will be difficult at best for someone who is not the POS owner. I imagine this as just one more chore for the POS owner to go around collect all the siphoned materials then man a gun and blow them up. Unless you can collect from them then the time, irritation, and waste are the only things you achieve.


You will need a blockade runner and you'll have to line it up so you can do a moving, aligned drive-by run to to scoop the contents. It's doable, technically...



Ya so what is the cost of a blockade runner vs the cost of the stuff you are stealing? Are you going to roam a blockade runner around just to do this?

After thinking about this a bit. I bet the most common instances of theft will be someone using an alt to place the siphons on a blue tower then collecting from the tower with the blue main. They could leave anchored containers at a safe to hold the loot so corp leaders couldn't check their hangers for it, if living in null.
Zakhin Desver
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#879 - 2013-10-18 18:42:31 UTC
Considering you only need 1200 m3 of space, nano-indys could be a solution
Kaarous Aldurald
Black Hydra Consortium.
#880 - 2013-10-18 18:43:33 UTC
Zakhin Desver wrote:
People here is talking about indys full of spyhons like if they were cheap as ****. Even 10 = 100m ,and you just need to log once in a while in your pos to pop 10m with one shot.

BTW, pretending that leaving 1 guy watching your poses while the rest are in PVP is too much for you, must be a joke. Are you telling me you have hundreds of players but leaving a few watching your poses is too much

I knew it, nullsec alliances are kids even compared with highsec dwellers. Grow a pair.


Would you want to be the one guy? You know, the one guy logging in and using his time NOT having fun like everyone else?

Fire and forget is a bad mechanic. Forcing timezone wide babysitting is a bad mechanic.

This has both.

"Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws."

One of ours, ten of theirs.

Best Meltdown Ever.