Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Stolen from my post in the ESS thread:


If there were deploy-able structures mining asteroids, moons, ice, or planets. What we have is a target for a gang to attack and an objective for the local inhabitants to defend. We can call these structures "farms and fields". They require pvp fit defense ships and haulers for small gangs to bubble and kill on either the station or the "farm and field". Give it a short 5-30 minute RF timer. Balance cost and ROI appropriately.

For instance you can have the cost be greater than or equal to a common ratting ship today. Take for example an ishtar(200m isk). So we can make the structure cost 200-300m isk. Then for ROI we need the structure to be better income than ratting which is currently 50-60m isk/ hr or about the same as running l4 missions in hi sec. Therefore we need to make the income 75m-100m / hr to get people to use it.

Now what we have is a ton of people in null sec putting deployable structures at risk that can't be scooped instantly (5-30min offline/unanchor time). Instead of docking/cloaking up ratters in null sec will defend their structures putting not only their structure at risk ,but their ships as well. Content is generated in fights had over income generating structures.

I think the time should be closer to the 5min unanchor time than the 30 min unanchor time. So that someone can log on deploy their structure, make isk for 30 mins haul everything in and log off making a decent 30-50m isk in a brief hour long play session. The key is to not make it too short though to avoid the current situation of cloaking/docking up.

To expand upon this.

Imagine a new null sec after this change. Instead of a fleet of multiboxing miners what we now have is a bunch of deployable structures in a belt with a hauler shipping the contents to a station and maybe a few defenders. Now a roaming gang comes into the area and maybe RF's a structure or two in the first couple systems. The mining operation has the option to close up shop because they see the hostiles in intel or prepare for the fight. They can't simply cloak or dock up as before because their isk production is at risk. Null sec no longer seems vast an empty to the common roamer. There are now targets EVERYWHERE!

The inhabitants decide to fight! This is their sovereign space afterall! Nearby miners must face the decision to abandon their deployable miners to go stop the incursion now or keep hauling isk made from their deployable miner, risking that their own deployable becomes the next target for the approaching horde!

Jabber pings are sent out. Friends log on. Maybe an FC stops his morning commute to get onto mumble from his smart phone at a gas station.

The roaming fleet makes short work of the 1 or 2 people making use of the higher true sec border system. They are coming.

The scout for the roaming gang enters a new system. He D-scans and sees only a few scan inhibitors and an abnormal number of hostiles in system. He drops probes and sees a scan inhibitor at the ice anomaly(or new place to drop deployable miners or whatever). He warps landing on grid, he sees the last iteron taking what could be emptied from the deployable miners and a rag tag fleet of cruisers and battlecruisers surrounding the deployable miners.

On comms the scout relays what he sees and the roaming fleet jumps into system warping to their cloaked scout immediately. Upon arriving the fight begins and the roaming gang drops a cyno for their buddies waiting on a blops battlehsip. The defenders are quickly routed and the structures are put into RF mode.

More jabber pings. More numbers! Defenders form up in their nearby capital system.

Meanwhile the hostiles realize that they have 10 or so deployable miners, the equivalent isk to a capital ship about to come out of RF in mere minutes. They batphone for help in case the defenders reform and come back to save their isk printing machines.

The RF timer is up and the hostiles begin shooting the first structure. A covert ops cruiser decloaks and a cyno is lit. 3 carriers appear on grid and begin repping the deployables as the friendly gang jumps in to defend the now exposed carriers! What happens next is determined by pilot and FC skill.

Does CCP want that kind of butterfly effect action in eve/null sec?

Limit them to one per account. Problem solved. Alternatively, 1+1 per skill level and reduce cost and mining output accordingly. That just clutters the server with more deployables though. Better to have one per account and a skill that increases its output.

The idea requires you to mine less yourself, but you make more and risk more. Instead of risking a mining ship in a belt, now you would risk a mining deployable and a hauling/pvp ship.

ah, right the hauling, it would be balanced by the ore hold size. Smaller hold means you have to be there constantly to pick up


Make it small enough and the cycle time fast enough, you'd need a constant stream of people, or it shuts down and is a liability not paying for itself.

more freighters/orcas in belts, for the dumb ones, or a steady stream of t2 haulers. don't come out to play? they can grief the undefended expensive structure. Oh wait, this would be for highsec and lowsec too? no, i'd skip that then, means mining as a career is kinda lost, even if it took the same skills to operate.

Ah yes, and mineral prices come into it too, 50-60 mil/hr but at what mineral prices, so what is the real mining yield/time? Perhaps plan for minerals to go up x%? mining should never really be as profitable as ratting though, ratting there is "risk" you're taking damage and you might not pay attention, etc.

It's not afk. You have to haul stuff. If you go afk for the ore to build up in the deployable miner thing, you leave it and your ore/isk haul at risk with the upside of having a full hold to haul when you get back.

Defendable by the blob is called content. Blob has to defend stuff or the blob suffers income and can't defend in the future.




If people aren't out working the fields, then someone can come burn them!



Not everyone can use it. I'm sure there will be some skill requirements. This is Eve after all.

It doesn't necessarily have to haul ore/minerals. I hear the empires want this new "covert technology" stuff. Mining is a great example, but if the CCP economists are worried about the mineral markets it can just as easily be "reasearch labs" or something else that can be traded for LP or used by players some other way.

EDIT: Maybe it even pumps out stuff for DUST?

Rats would make things challenging for the solo person who wants to sit and guard his deployable field until it is full and then switch to a hauling ship to scoop his loot/deployable up.

Not everyone will use this. Limit it to null sec. Skill requirements. Etc.


1) It doesn't have to be ore. It can be ore / Ice / PI goods / moon goo / LP / New item XXX. Also, there is that new iteron thing that can haul 60+ km of ore.

2) Again doesn't have to be ore. Certain goods will increase in demand though as people buy things to build new "farm and field" items and lose ships attacking/defending/killing them.

1) Then those people will not get the potential rewards from utilizing this new system. The roaming gangs will go "deep in alliane sov" to get fights/disrupt money making.

2) If they set up in "hostile areas" then locals end up coming out and content is generated! Mission accomplished!

3) It depends on the size of stuff these produce. Hopefully it isn't so big that it requires a freighter to haul. That would make little sense.

4) Who said anything about minerals? I don't think you understand supply and demand. Demand for minerals will always exist so long as player wish to buy ships. Demand for minerals will increase as PVP increases which will cause ships to be lost and require more minerals to replace said ships.

In theory, because you'd save money on not needing to replace it. In practice, once you pass a certain threshold, you'll write off saving it as not worth the effort.

@OP: how big do you imagine fights over one of these being?

Perhaps the example cost isn't optimal. I'll let CCP figure that out.


Typical roaming gangs are 5-10 ships. Solo roamers will target them. Larger fleets without strategic objectives could go mow down an entire region.

So anywhere between 1v1 to 200v200.





I don't hate mining. It doesn't even have to mine ore or ice. Again, I'll let ccp figure that out.

What is the difference between an afk mackinaw that docks up every 20 minutes or so and a dude in a pvp ship babysitting a deployable structure?

One of these situations leads to pvp. The other leads to a dude docking up. Do you want an eve with more content or less?




If you don't defend it, you effectively make no money for 2 hours of work.

If you ignore them they get km's and isk from killing your structures and looting them. They will want to come back. If you defend them, and win they will either decide it isn't worth attacking your space which is defended or come back with more friends.


I understand supply/demand just fine. I'm not sure where you are getting this "massive" increase in supply from. I haven't even stated what these things produce. That's for ccp to decide. It could simply be isk tokens like the blue loot from wh npcs or ghost sites. Or, if they are worried about isk/material sinks/faucets it could be LP.