Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'll start off by saying that I'm sure CCP are working on this already and it wouldn't surprise me if we see the fruits of their labour by the end of the year, but still, I might have a good idea.

Secondly, I'm not sure if this is a good idea, or has been thought of before - I don't play in null and I don't keep up with F+I. But then again, I may have struck on gold and silence in that case would be foolish.

The current problem with sovereignty at the moment, as I understand it, is twofold:
- It's all about putting up structures and then bashing other people's - thus boring
- It's too difficult for smaller groups to challenge the sovereignty in any meaningful way and for new alliances to gain a foothold.

So my idea:

Sovereignty would be based on a percentage. Actions taken by an alliance generate more and more percentage to reach a threshold which marks them as the owners of the system - other alliances can still claim sovereignty percentage in the same area and anyone can undo the actions of alliances to reduce the alliance's sovereignty percentage.

Some made up numbers:

- A brand new system is spawned, no one holds any sovereignty (everyone is at 0%). This system functions like NPC space; whenever no single alliance claims overall sovereignty (including when sov drops due to going below 50%) then the NPC's should be stronger to make living there worthwhile and to reflect that NPC pirates move in to uncontrolled areas; this will also encourage smaller groups to run sites and so on. This should consequently make it harder for an alliance to claim sov and will require them to take fairly firm control of the area.

- When an area has 0% sovereignty then any alliance can drop a TCU. This gives you an automatic 15% sovereignty claim. The TCU will affect all systems in a 2-3 jump radius - This means you do not need to 'own' every single system and opens up interesting logistical games. The sovereignty in all area's under that TCU is the same and activity in any of the systems goes towards that %. (where overlap occurs, the TCU placed first will claim it's area first then any that overlap will just exert claim over a smaller area - which could be used tactically.

- Once at least one alliance has a 30% claim then all TCU belonging to alliances with less than 30% are deactivated and self destruct in 24 hours. No new TCU can be placed until your alliance has 30% or more. This may need playing with to make it easier to a new alliance to get their TCU up and running

- In order to claim overall control you need 50% sovereignty. Once you have that you can build a station and get all the other bonuses/perks etc. If your % drops below 50% and you lose sovereignty then your space reverts to NPC like state (station is FFA and no bonuses/perks OR your station locks down)

- POS ownership generates % - I'm not sure on the current proliferation of them so these are vague numbers. But every 3 POS in the TCU area grants 5% (up to a max of 25%).

- You can place up to 5 sovereignty relays in 5 systems controlled by the TCU, each gives 2%. These will be smaller structures with no reinforcement - easily blown up by a smaller group. The effect on sovereignty is instantaneous.

- The POS and sovereignty relay's make up the 'static' claims - alongside the TCU, gives you a max of 50% sovereignty. This means you can statically own the area controlled by the TCU - but it is at high risk as the relays are easy to kill.

- Fluid factors (completion of complexes, earning of bounties, mining, number of pilots, whatever) are a measure of how active the alliance is versus how active others are. This should also be affected by attacks by other groups (perhaps a measure of isk lost/destroyed in PVP). These will make up the final 50%. You could also include ESS in here; for a new incentive to use them.

- If your alliance is not living in the system then it will be hard to maintain 50% or higher and that will be susceptible to others using your space for it's resources (removing % from you) and blowing up your relays. Therefore, sovereignty is not a measure of your ability to jump Cap's into every system when a POS in reinforced. It becomes a measure of a) your ability to prevent concerted attacks on your infrastructure (POS's) b) your ability to secure the space from raids (keeping relay's up, stopping ratting/plexing) and c) how much your pilots actually utilise this space

If another alliance is 'living' in your space, then they will rack up % for themselves - they can get the POS bonuses as well. If it's a non-alliance group then they can not earn % but they can hamper the owning alliances ability to earn their %. An example would be, you get 10% for earning 75% or more of all bounties in a week - if a group comes in and keeps ratting then you may lose this.

Um, maybe you should look into how sov actually works before making fix suggestions. POS-based sovereignity ceased to be a thing in Dominion.

1: POS spam was bad, terribly, insanely bad way of dictating sov. It will never, ever come back.


2: The idea that an alliance must be forced to carebear in mass in order to hold space is equally ridiculous. Not all alliances are largely comprised of PvE pilots who occasionally PvP in massive fleets. There are quite a few small or moderately sized (in players) sovholding alliances oriented towards PvP that hold far more space than they would if they were forced to carebear constantly for it. And this is a good thing. Size and willingness to spend hours grinding red crosses should not be the only metric for a successful alliance.


3: There is more, but it's going to have to wait a while till I get back cause the other guy in my apartment's car just started spraying power steering fluid on the other site of town in 10 degrees F and 5 inches of snow.

A: You have a system where unless an alliance wants to live and rat there, they need to spam POS's and maintain them at great time expenditure, then continuously babysit weak sov structures that don't have a reinforcement timer, and still are below the 50% mark unless they carebear. You also have weak structures without reinforcement timers results in entire regions getting blitzed by any modern fleet in a single day. This does not work.

B: PvP metrics do not work. If I hold space, it is my goal to kill anyone not blue to me on sight, not to allow them to wander around my space until they are in a system that could use a sov buff, then try to kill them. Having **** space security should not be a requirement to hold space either.




Renting, moon control, supercap building, jump bridges, buffer zoning away enemies, or whatever else they damn well feel like.

This is a PvP game, anyone with the pilots, time, money, and coordination to defend their space from all contestants can hold as much space as they have the fortitude to defend. This should not change just because some people are sore that PvP centered alliances hold more space than they need in order to rat in. That's the mindset of the carebear. The mindset of the ignored.

By the way, POS's were removed from the requirements to hold nullsec space years ago. That you were not aware of this speaks highly to the quality and understanding of your ideas.

POS spam is a bad idea because maintaining dozens or hundreds of POS's is the sort of pointless thing that makes logistical teams contemplate a bowl of pills and a whiskey chaser, or more likely not logging in to play EVE.

Structures that don't permit solid control of sov are useless, especially since your design forces there to still be significant PvE activity. Say I have a dozen POS's, a station and a TCU. Apparently that is all less valuable than someone dropping a ratting macro in that system, or a particularly dedicated ratting alt, and unless I bring my own ratting alt in and rat, I could lose control of the system to a single macro ratter. This is bad game design in many ways.

No great empire was ever built on "Who farmed there and thus deserved the land". Empires are built with sword or laser and killing, displacing, or subjugating those in the invaded area. "But I mine here!" is never an acceptable metric for deciding who gets to call it their own.

If you are not willing to defend your space by military might, then leave. If you are not willing to try and claim space by military force or diplomacy, then rent or move to NPC space. The end game of EVE is empire building, and the primary method of taking claimed space or retaining space held by might of arms will never be the ability to shoot more NPC's or mine more rocks than the current inhabitants.

That you have no stake in nullsec is apparent. No member of an even remotely successful military based sov owning alliance would propose to hand over campaign success and responsibilities to whoever can convince the most carebears to go rat in enemy space.

Edit: Get a picture. I feel foolish arguing against someone who has not even logged in for years.

Word limit.

Every military conquest is for land, people and resources. Yes, the whole point is that the government comes in afterwards, sets it to rights and carebears it (farms, builds, teaches etc). The only empire I can think of that didn't do this were the Mongols.

Plus. I don't advocate handing it over to the carebears. I advocate handing it over to your pilots to actively defend the space from multiple threats. Not throw a TCU up and wait for the reinforcement timer.

Do you really believe that the alliances today are fighting a real war? That idea is laughable. They are too rich for the losses to matter, the battles have no strategy and no tactics, the positioning and logistics mean nothing. At least, not by the standards of an actual war. With my idea you'd have merc corps hitting outlying relays, you'd have neutrals farming your space and dropping your %, you'd have enemy alliances hitting multiple places at once. You'd still have your cap fights, yes, but more can be done by the little guy.