Player Features and Ideas Discussion

A potential Highsec solution.

CCP develops a method of determining if a tower's owners are in-fact long term (say 6 months) absentees and then allow a dust connection, contracting a team to fight for the aggressor and in-game mechanic builds a team for defence.

The activity would be multi-staged progressing from a siege point (access point of the tower) requiring combat and REAL puzzle hacking for stage completion. the hack for the aggressor would take down barriers and for the defenders to raise barriers.

For the love of money...

Hiring a dust team will have cost relevant to the tower size. Winning the contest will flip the ownership of the captured tower to the aggressor.

Defenders will be paid an amount relevant to the tower size plus a bonus relevant to the tower size. Awards will be given to the defenders.

If there are periods when no such towers exist moc stations can be developed with payouts of bonus amounts only. This will be like npc ratting but with live players.

For CCP, this development for Dust will assist in the advancement for the in station activities for EVE Online.

That could work.

Determining long-term absentees wouldn't be too hard. Just keep track of how long it's been since the tower ran out of fuel.
Character activity or account status can't be relied upon because of W-Space where there will be offline towers that went offline because their owners couldn't find their way back to them.

why not just allow a hacking module to un-anchor the offline tower?

It's a terrible mechanic for use on an undefended structure. If you can't be bothered to fuel it (i.e. pay for it) then there should be an easy way to get rid of that structure. #didntwantthattoweranyway

I'm not advocating an easy button. I think a month timer is frankly ridiculously long. How many unfueled towers do you have, and why can't you be bothered to fuel them if it's so important?

As the owner of a wh, I have many non-fueled towers in place (hence the term placeholders) for tactical and strategical purposes. Their purpose is to prevent intruders from placing theirs, like placing a barricade to direct or prevent traffic. if you want to siege my wh and drop a tower, you are going to have to remove it. i am not an absent owner so there should be no means for you to "easily" remove it.

One the easy method discussion:
The 1st question that must be answered is whether or not the tower has been abandoned. Not having fuel CANNOT be the only qualification for progressing toward the determination of " if " a tower can be allowed to be removed by some future designed "easier" method.

Truthfully, the entire question is not about difficulty...it is about time investment. "I don't want to have to spend hours blowing up something". I suppose I can understand that. But, I don't feel that anything will actually be gained by a more expeditious removal. Yes, POS bashing can be quite boring when it is not defended, which is why I suggested the DUST514 connection.

hmmm, another thought hit me..... towers can have pos gunners. point being, a pilot, sorta, disengages his communication with the ship to control the guns.... how about a puzzle mechanic (a much better "thing" that relic data hacking) that requires a certain number of pilots to interact and complete in order siege the dead tower and take control. skills might even be created. for example, breaching the tower hulls.. getting in the door... racially typed.

With this mechanic and the association of the tower size, the puzzle difficulty will be scaled by general difficulty, the number of minimum pilots required to be involved in the puzzle "instance" (ie incursions) and a potential hazard such as if something fails badly, the pilot(s) is/are killed and sent to their med clones because they succeeded in blowing up the tower instead of capturing it and clone death was result of the explosion of the tower.

I will have to think this one out a little more.

A simple change would be to have the tower degrade naturally...Once it is powered down and unfuelled its shields go offline. Then it takes damage from space debris, gravitational wear and tear etc at a fixed rate that will eat it's armour and then hull in around a month.

This would naturally clear away old towers and make it much easier to remove a tower with guns if it's near the end of its structure and the owner hasn't realised yet.

I've never liked the idea of just getting free POSs when theyre offline.
It's too easy and lame. There are many reasons to put a POS offline.

I agree that it should be easier to kill an offline POS than an online one, to which end ive always thought offline POSs simply should have zero shield HP *shrug*.
much simpler change that solves the same issue without you being able to get free crap in a game where things shouldnt be free.

no need to introduce a largely complicated mechanic on this one.

Anchoring timers.
I am not sure I understand your point. the anchoring timers are the benefit (or bane) of ownership. as a hostile, you should have no such concern nor ability. even if CCP were to develop a siege mechanic which then turned control over to you, those timers should also apply. if anything, because it is a hostile action, i would suggest that the timing should be extended a small measure. just because you can take something that does not belong to you does not mean you should get it easily. Or quickly.

structure elimination
no. not a soft target. it is a building in space, not a box of tinfoil. it's mass, by nature, has a level of persistence. this persistence is identified by an unimproved shield/armor/hull rating. this rating is how "soft" it is when not fueled and activated. to lower these ratings is to reduce what it is. A Building. it is not a ship (or car). imagine our world's history. what would we have to mark that history if things like Pyramids were "softer". what would China be without the hardness of The Great Wall. Would we know anything of a Trojan Horse if Troy's walls were not so impenetrable. Things are hard for a reason. to prevent "EASY BUTTONS". so.... no... not soft. it is a freakin' building in space. so, yes, it will should take a considerable amount of resources and time investment to remove.

structure capture
acquiring the tower via siege should not be a one man/woman show. come on. lets try to have some sense of reality. the complexity of the operation should require at least five people. The brains (the "Skilled" hacker), the Ram (the "skilled" hull siege expert), and of course, the brawn (the security crew (lol... red shirts ...the hacker's defenders). remember, this is all happening inside the structure, not from your ship. it will take time getting from the command center back to the siege port. that is why there may be pod casualties for the intruders.

Pod death.
The reason for this is in reference to a point I made above, a tower is a building. to get where you need to go is probably somewhere near the middle of the "Building". An extremely large building. it will take time for you to get there and hence time to get out. odds are (or more likely to be) not everyone will make it out. i also agree that vessels within proximity should suffer damage of from the ensuing explosion if the "siege" is unsuccessful.

pod death lame?
boo hoo. risk vs reward. do you want it... or not. you are immortal anyway. you would just be annoyed that you are now in a med clone location and you ship may or may not be lost to you (oops, can't get back into that wh). besides... remember, if you can't afford to ... then...........

Largely I like your idea, however I see a potential stumbling block. If the offline POS has any modules it will be impossible to unanchor it. Any POS manager knows all modules must be offlined and unanchored before the tower can be taken down. Damn that stinking POS code!

Anyhow +1 for an otherwise great idea.