Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The alliance would be out-of-pocket for a strategic advantage. Like the alliance is out-of-pocket when they replace supers in order to keep their super pilots flying when going gets tough.
And you're not actually supposed to WIN the battle, its a heist. You don't win the shoot-out with the cops, you just grab what you can and run while the cops are mounting their attack. In this mission it may be possible that no one ever gets to kill an empire capital ship because they are assumed to be way better than the null-sec stuff, otherwise the empires would not still be standing.
This isn't a "go there and kill them and collect bounties and salvage wrecks" mission, its a heist, thus I said "The goal is to make a mission that by design costs battleships, carriers, supercarriers and titans, but if you plan it right and execute it well, YOU RUN AWAY with a prize that is worth the losses.".

Danika, the super pilots gets paid by the alliance who deems the reward of sufficient stratetic value.
Do you honestly think the mechanic would be the way you think it will be, when the way you think it will be is so obviously not a good mechanic?
Read: The reward would be of strategic value to the alliance and the alliance would then reimburse their pilots for the loss of their ships, just to keep the strategic ace. Strategic value is what Titans are. Titans have no actual player value to individual players (some might get value from flying them). They are purely a strategic tool for the entirety of the group to use when it is of strategic benefit for the group (PL also follows this even though they at first seem like roaming players. They are actually a group that has the strategic advantage in super numbers, so their strategic benefit is to hotdrop anyone they find knowing they can take out anything they meet and still be likely to have the strategic advantage in super numbers). The reward would be a new strategic advantage, that would not only be what could decide wars between the big alliances, but due to its out-of-pocket cost it would add a chance for the smaller alliances to catch up.

The only thing we really have to figure out, is what would be of strategic importance enough to be worth several supers.

Again stargate tech.

Seriously what you describe is the perfect method for how it can be done.
Well so long as its random and not a talk to an agent get a mission kill stuff.

make it an anom that travels.

To summarize:
-You can perhaps never kill a single empire capital ship during this heist.
-It is a heist, you're supposed to sacrifice a small fleet of supers in order to steal technology from the empires.
-This technology (or these technologies) don't have much resale value, they're stolen for their intrinsic value to the alliance that does the deed (for its strategic value perhaps, like supercapital stations with jumpdrives would have). If an alliance wants to sacrifice supers and sell the stuff to another alliance with lots of isk, it still does not add to the amount of isk or resources in circulation.
-Being a heist, you run when you have accomplished your goal, you never stand around shooting until someone can salvage all the wrecks because you'll just get blown to bits.
-The empire forces would have massively superior ships and forces (we assume the empires still have a technological advantage over the null-sec alliances).
-You can't be hot-dropped by some mechanism. Lets say a number or weight limit to the complex.
-You can not travel with capitals in high sec inside of lets say 200 AU from sun. This complex is over 200 AU from sun. Warping is impossible in complex, only jump-drives and micro jump drives work, not even afterburners and microwarpdrives.

Example of how this complex can work:
-scan down the complex in high-sec with a scan alt.
-Warp to it, activate the acceleration gate into room 1.
-Activate cyno, bring in capitals (some cheap maximum tank fit dreads, carriers, supercarriers and at least one titan. You're supposed to last long enough, not kill things).
-Engage the NPC fleet in room 1.
-Sneak a subcap into room 2 via the acceleration gate and light a cyno. Bring in 1 titan. Bring DD on the Titan.
-Destroy the secret facility in room 2 (one DD round possibly two so make your tank last).
-Steal the technology (BPC, probably).
-Bridge a subcap out with the loot then jump after it with the Titan.
-Now the remainder of the diversion fleet in room 1 can cap up as many ships as possible and jump them out. There will be neut pressure from NPC battleships (perhaps with tiny bounties, perhaps a significant standing increase with the other 3 empires). But if you do your jobs well you may manage to kill enough of them to make it out without too heavy losses.
-Ideally we would scale this so that you have to lose lets say 5 titans and 10 supercarriers every time, and get the appropriate amount of BPC's for it. If the BPC is a gate, then perhaps you can make 4 gates (the gates would be impossible to destroy like normal gates? if no then more gate BPC's per heist). If the BPC is something like lets say a ubersuperstation that can jump from system to system and dock supercarriers and Titans, then you would get 1 bpc run per heist, and you'd have to lose perhaps 20 titans and 20 supercarriers. Numbers would ultimately be decided by testing on the test server.
The complex would probably be full of NPC turrets (neuts in particular), and they would do all sorts of damage. Amarr would not only put out EM and Thermal damage, but would have enough other sources of damage, fex bombers that do kinetic and explosive damage, as to make a very omni-damage resistance complex. NPC's would DD at very increased rates and have epic turret damage output, and they would change targets and focus fire. By all intents and purposes, it would be a deathtrap. An exciting deathtrap that is worth it strategically to the alliance that does it, but a deathtrap.
There's something to be said for the intense gameplay value of going into situations you know will end badly for many on your team (Mass Effect does that very well in singleplayer, eve does it quite well already in multiplayer).

OP... you're not getting it. Your idea will fall into one of two extremes...

- If there is no resale value in what people are PvEing for, then it is pointless to get it in the first place (these days, supercaps are personal assets that are funded by individual player's actions... no one risks such an asset unless they are sure of victory or survival). This is only compounded by the fact that you specifically state that people WILL lose their supercap... which is something that few rational players will accept.

- If the objective in question can be sold for piles of ISK (which any item of strategic value can be) then people will devise the most effective means to get it for minimal cost.
Spider tanking carriers (Pantheon fits) would be one go-to method as they can take absorb unholy amounts of damage with enough of them in the same fleet (again, hundreds of thousands of damage per second and can only be broken by multiple doomsdays directed against one target at the same time). Short of CONCORD and their instant-death-guns... no NPC can take down such a fleet.
If the NPCs can take down such group... then it boils down to multiple Titans being hotdropped directly on the target in question... doomsdaying it... scooping loot... spider tanking long enough... then jumping out.
And if if complications are made to that... well... it comes back to the first point: Why would someone risk their personal assets in a very dangerous situation for, what is to them, minimal gain?

Next time, I will have a simpler idea, perhaps like this:
I have an idea for a feature to the game. When players spend ALOT of time mining and manufacturing, and then making ALOT of huge ships that you can't win against. Then take a hammer and smash your screen. That will destroy the Titan somehow and make someone's 4 000 dollar investment go boom so you don't have to invest 4 000 dollars yourself. This allows people who invest in a 50 dollar computer screen to destroy other people's 4 000 dollar investments. People can do this all day, so all 4 000 dollar investments are now worth precisely dink (dink is such a good word. It isn't a swear-word is it? its a childrens-toy and a place in west-virginia).
This is "balanced". (If sarcasm was bad for my health, I would have gotten a lethal dose now)
Next I bet you will want to start with all your pawns already converted to queens when you play chess against the current world champion in Chess. "Because otherwise I will never have a chance to win".

"People can and will find ways to run rings around whatever idea you propose." - we can pretty accurately predict maximum tank ability of a mass-restricted fleet. And then we can pretty accurately give the NPC fleet way more than this. And mass restriction means no one can hot-drop you, unless you leave mass available for them.

"And you STILL aren't explaining why the big alliances should be handed some massive advantage over everyone else" - First, they would pay the price of many supers. And second: Because they have done the most work! No one is holding a gun to your head in order to force you to put in as much effort as they have. But if you wish to win, you will have to it the old-fashioned way of actually investing time and effort. You know, get together with thousands of other players, then spend a few years preparing your wallets, hangars, incomes, skills, train all the pilots to fly well, wait for an opportunity and then be ready when an opportunity presents itself. Otherwise you can just forget about ever beating the big alliances in conventional warfare (big huge army against big huge army, like civil war line-ups on the battlefield. You will have to stick to guerrilla warfare tactics). Unless CCP deliberately or by mistake makes thousands of player's effort worth absolutely dink.

"why you'd risk the hotdrops...." - This makes me think you haven't read my posts. Mass limit = if you fill it, no one can hot-drop you. Unless the Eve universe works in such a way that a full bottle is not really full, its just pretending to be full until PL wants in. :P (EDIT: You know, ships in a bottle, oh nevermind)

"If there is no resale value in what people are PvEing for" - Well, it has resale value, it was only a poor way of saying it was not a resource or isk source (BPC then not counting as a resource or isk source, because if you sell it to players and they got their isk from somewhere else). My mistake for ever using the wording.

"If the objective in question can be sold for piles of ISK (which any item of strategic value can be) then people will devise the most effective means to get it for minimal cost." - I agree. A proportional cost to the intended value of the BPC would be demanded. And I don't expect anyone in their right mind will spend a single 0.01 isk more than is needed. But you don't magically get isk from nowhere, someone earned that isk in order to buy the strategic advantage. Like all things in Eve. Someone earned the resources to make every ship, and someone earned the cash to buy everything they buy (and only a relatively small portion is from missions that pay out isk, the amount of "isk printing" is quite small). Even when you sell plexes to get isk, you don't actually MAKE any isk come to existence, you just get isk from someone who earned it.

The rest of your post ShahFluffers is just a sign of not reading well. You can't spidertank your way out of it when you are limited by mass. Just make the maximum amount of tank inside the mass limit in EVEHQ and then make the NPC damage output twice that, or three times that, or four times that. And if someone reaches a certain time interval, it can be raised again. Neither can you as I explain further up, be hot-dropped with mass limits.
To solve your theoretical explout of only jumping to room 2:
We can put a timer on the acceleration gate to room 2, so you have to lets say survive 30 minutes before the other room opens.

"Why would someone risk their personal assets in a very dangerous situation for, what is to them, minimal gain?" - What do you mean "minimal gain"? Any alliance that wants to keep its active pilots would treat its pilots well and pay for the losses that occurred when converting the supers into another strategic advantage.

I am still waiting for other suggestions for what the BPC might be. Thus far there are:
-Stargates.
-supercapital stations that can jump from system to system and dock supercapitals.
And apparently that is as far as our collective species' creativity goes.

@Sentamon, hehe. Now what would be the strategic advantage from that? Would the NPCs drop cool stargate BPC loot once in a while?