Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So after reading the whole we the undersigned blah blah thing I was prompted to write this. Imo occupancy based sov is a terrible idea, holding sov should be based on military ability, not ratting ability. So how about this for a fix to sov mechanics. If this or a similar idea has already been posted I really don’t care, I can’t be arsed searching just don’t post here and this thread will be buried soon enough.

1. Sov
An alliance has to pick a capital system, if they hold no sov, their capital system will automatically be the first system they take until they change it, it can be changed once per week (or whatever who cares).

All subsequent systems that the alliance takes HAVE TO BE CONNECTED to their capital system via star gates, or they cannot claim sov.

Because CCP are work shy, let’s maintain as much of the old sov system as possible, that is to say, TCU and i-hubs will remain, and TCU will still be how you claim sov. SBU’s are gone. We will use something similar the FW plex system because it’s good (well done CCP).

When you wish to take sov from another alliance IT HAS TO BE A BORDER SYSTEM, that is at least one of the jumps has either no sov or another alliances sov. The capital system is invulnerable! until it is has no other sov surrounding it. You go into their system and you shoot their TCU (yes structure grind I know, but we have to compromise). The TCU’s ehp will scale based on jumps to capital system(closer = more ehp), but still be kept low enough that it is easy to contest systems.

When it reinforces, it uses the non-POS system for reinforcement, that is the owner picks a certain approx time frame (when it’s deployed, can be changed whenever it is not being shot) that they would like it to exit reinforcement, but it is chance based and there is say a 5% chance it will be 12 hours different from when they want (subject to balance).

As soon as it exits reinforcement, two timers will appear (attack and defend timer), the length of the timers are also dependent on distance (in jumps) from the defenders capital system (Closer = Longer attack timer), but the max should be capped at an hour, the min 10 mins (subject to balance). There is a 200km bubble around the TCU. If ANY player from the defending alliance is within the bubble, the defender timer goes down and the attack is frozen. If a player from both the defending alliance and another other player are within the bubble then the defender timer goes down but a lot slower. If no players from the defenders are present then attack timer goes down. Obviously cloaked players have no effect on the timers.

If the defender timer hits 0 first, the TCU returns to full Health, and the system is no longer contested. If the attack timer hits 0 first, the TCU becomes killable, with very little ehp, 20 man BS fleet takes 5 mins.

New TCU can then be deployed. Again it can only be deployed if a neighbouring system belongs to the alliance trying to deploy it. Takes two days for TCU to begin claiming sov.

I-hubs and strategic upgrades work the same as they do today, but the i-hub has no effect on sov, it can only be shot if the owning alliance does not hold sov in system. Strength of i-hub upgrades could be dependent on distance from capital (but not necessary).

Stations are owned by whoever holds sov, no exceptions, they switch with the system, if nobody holds sov, anyone can dock/use services, but nobody owns the station.


Why will this work?, well it might not and there is probably many issues that I have not thought of. But the way I envisage it is, first it will stop the massive sprawl we have today; By the fact that all systems have to be connected by star gates, and the fact that if your space is too large even with today’s power projection capabilities if you are attacked on 2 or more fronts you will have to either split your forces or be all but guaranteed to lose one of the systems, and so on and so forth until your space is small enough for you to move between the two systems quickly. It also allows the interesting tactic of severing sov links, if a portion of your sov is connected to your capital by only 1 system, if that system falls, all your sov on the far side will fall.

It makes it VERY VERY easy to take a system if it is not defended!

It keeps alliances centred around their capital and sprawling out from it, do you expand your sov equally in all directions, or do you expand in a straight line to get a particular system but making your sov vulnerable?

It will make renter empires more difficult, by the fact that you have to use a renter character to defend your sov (ok not that difficult but still annoying).

It creates borders/border regions between alliances, front lines with different fleets/groups working to push certain parts of enemy space at different points along their border. It creates choke points where an alliance only has to defend one system because of the jump layout.


2. Regions/Power Projection
However power projection is still an issue with this system, that is, it can be too easy to quickly move across your own space and defend multiple timers, how to fix this, well instead of a straight jump range nerf or something, lets actually use regions for something.
At the moment they are less than meaningless. Inside regions you can cyno around just like today, however if you wish to cyno to a different region, it either massively increase the fuel requirement (forcing you to bring freighters full of fuel. Or there is a jump timer, so any ship that cynos cross region cannot cyno again for a few hours. I see the outcome of this being that a lot of borders will be drawn along region lines and alliances will take regions as their space and not more. War will be fought over regions.

Jump freighters should be totally exempt from this, logistics is already hard enough, the game should be fun!

Anyway, eh, Discuss.