Player Features and Ideas Discussion

We all know sov mechanics in nullsec are flawed and it's causing a lot of stagnation. This is bad for EVE because it decreases the content available and thus causes people to stop subscribing, which is obviously bad for CCP's bottom line as well.

There has been a lot of discussion on how to improve sov mechanics. In this post I will briefly discuss some ideas I have had regarding sov mechanics. Not that anyone cares about my opinion, but I just want to put it out there, maybe someone that has influence with CCP will consider some of these ideas.


Activity Based Sovereignty?

First of all make sovereignty at least partially based on activity and presensce in any given system. I don't know exactly how it would be calculated, but it could be a mix of ratting and mining activity, as well as the number of active POSes, that all builds up a "sov score".

The "sov score" would determine the strength of sovereignty structures. If the score is low, then the station, infrastructure hub and territorial claim unit have low HP and short timers, like a small control tower and the timers could be as short as an hour. If the score is high, then they have more HP and longer timers, maybe equivalent to what they have today.

In fact there is already the mechanics in place to calculate a sov score, the military and industrial index of nullsec systems. Although that could be improved but it's something to start off with.

I also think the indexes should have more influence on the amount of anomalies in a system, so that it scales better and would allow more people to live in a smaller number of systems. In addition to iHub upgrades and all that of course.


Nerf Supers

Second, nerf supercapitals and even capitals. I like supers, I think it's great that there are some extremely powerful ships in the game, just like there are aircraft carriers and what not in the real world. But an aircraft carrier can't go from the US east coast to China in 20 minutes.

Maybe the jump ranges of supers and capitals in general should be nerfed so that a supercapital fleet may require 30-40 cynos or something to cross from one end of the universe to the other. Someone also suggested placing mass limits on cynos, which is also a good idea. This way a capital fleet can still project force immediately within a region or so, but not across the entirety of New Eden.


Expand The Universe

I assume the whole "build your own stargates" thing is a pretext to expanding the EVE universe, introducing new solar systems and regions much like the Apocrypha expansion introduced wormhole space.

Making new unsettled systems available for colonization is a good way to allow new alliances and coalitions to come into the nullsec game without having to ally with existing blocs. And for those who complain that there are already too many empty systems in EVE: it's space, it's meant to be empty.

And if the expansion of the universe is accompanied by some of the other changes I mentioned, then if the big blocs go after that space it leaves their old space poorly defended and open for invasion by other entities.

There's my 2 cents. If you got this far, thanks for reading!

And? If you are not willing to rat, mine, PVP, PI, explore, moon-mine "your" systems, why should you have them to begin with? With activity based Sov, it's not a question of getting as much space as you can grab; it's more about what you need to satisfy your members. If you want to "own" entire regions, you better make sure that you have the members to cultivate these regions. Otherwise, why would you want to have these regions anyways? To show off with empty space? That's like owning a huge museum with 100 empty exhibition salons and only 1 exhibition room with something inside.

Whereas as a big coalition with hundreds of systems under your flag in the scenario of activity based sov means that this coalition really is active and does something with their space. And it doesn't even need a big coalition to keep your space, even smaller alliances or big corps could do it.

Btw. why is that in a separate topic while there's a thread about the very same thematic on page 1?

Get rid of sov, yes !

Oh wait, this is the wrong thread, must have confused it with the 10 OHTER OPEN SOV THREADS

Why would you not be able to hold sov elsewhere outside low truesec?

Or are you assuming that people won't be active in systems outside of low truesec because it wouldn't be time efficient for them to do so? In which case....so what.

And what's the problem with those being without sovereignty claim?

Besides: your view is kind of moot because Providence with loads of these systems seems to manage just fine.

There is nothing that prevent CCP from making space not so ****** in some place if SOV is to be linked to activity.

No, you can still keep the system without doing anything, but it becomes easier to take over by someone else as the sov structures weaken due to inactivity. Please re-read my post.


Exactly, people won't be arsed to do that just to hold some system they don't care about, so someone else can take over it and utilize it. And if people are motivated to run fleets like that, then great, more content for PVEers and PVPers who hunt/defend the PVE fleets.


No, it doesn't deteriorate entirely, it just weakens an unused system to a point where it becomes easy to take over.


Anyone who actually lives there and does stuff in that system.


Maybe, if it's worth it for them to take and hold that system. But the real question is, is it better than how things are now? Because nothing is going to be perfect.

If POSes matter, then you're going back to the old system everyone hated. PVP kills are hilariously easy to exploit to push up the SOV ratings. PI stuff, well, it encourages people to put an extra week into their cyno alts I guess?

And making the timers really short absolutely ruins small or single TZ focussed alliances.

Small alliances would probably focus on a few systems. That means that they have high activity and long timers and easier to defend their system. When they have too much activity in their systems they will look at expanding.

This hurts alliances that has many systems that they dont use.

It could also mean slow expansions, more action and constant conflicts and not huge campaigns where huge coalitions take entire regions at a time and the everything is dead quiet (like it is now).

I like this kind of system. It would need a lot of discussion and tweaking but i think its a good idea.

Perhaps even roaming defence fleets could result in increased activity? So if a fleet is in the system every day, it helps to keep the system strong.

I think everything should be included, but how it affects the sov score should be proportional to the amount of activity it requires. So POSes and PI would only account for a fraction of the score, whereas the bread and butter would be ratting, mining, PVP, active pilots in space etc. things that require people to be present and doing things.