Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I have been thinking a lot about SOV lately as many of you, including CCP, surely have. Changes are on the wind. You can smell it.

Without going into to much detail I have come up with a neat idea for a SOV mechanic. I originally imagined this as a Null sec mechanic but I think it might play out better in Low sec. Or possibly as a SOV mechanic in Null but not THE mechanic for owning space. Variety is the spice of life right? Read on.

One thing that has always bothered me is that the single biggest resource in these systems we fly through are almost completely wasted. I speaking of planets here. You know, the whole reason that we will most likely ever take to the stars if we ever get there. We fly past them, we mine their moons, and we interact with them in only the most simplest of way through PI. Seems like an unrealistic waste really.

So my idea is as follows.

You fly into a system. You claim a planet. You may then declare the planet in the name of any one of several NPC entities. Such as the four Empires or any of the Pirate Factions.

The goal now becomes to attract Colonists to your planet. You do this by upgrading the planet for them to live on. Drop power plants, basic city structures, etc. Im not talking about turning into a SIM game, but just invest isk and time building up the infrastructure. Once you reach a certain point then Colonists will start to appear on your world.

Now comes the fun part. Whoever you declared your planet for, lets say in this case the Amarr Empire, begins to take notice in your success. They reward you with a small fleet of NPC ships that you can then command to do various things in your system to protect your interest. Have them guard gates, patrol belts, orbit the planet. Whatever. To begin with it may only be a small group of Amarr Navy Frigates. But as your colony grows in size and sophistication you begin to recieve more support from your NPC factions. Better warships show up, maybe some mining fleets. Agents appear to run missions for. All sorts of neat things happen.

Of course it can all come crashing down if somebody comes into to attack you. Will your group, with help from you NPC allies (who do help you in fights) be able to stand against the unwashed hoardes? Will you be able to stop their orbital bombardment of you planet? Will you be able to keep your colonists alive?

The gameplay possibilities here are endless. As I said, it would be silly to base the whole SOV system off of something like this. But as a sideshow of granular SOV it would work to add flavor to the game. It would be a great mix of PVP and PVE that is sorely missing from EVE. It would be interesting to be planning an attack against your neighbors system knowing that he has several fleets of Guristas that will show up and jam enemies for him.

So maybe this would work in Low Sec, as a pseudo SOV mechanic that would spice up the lawless area between Empire and Null? You wouldnt be able to own SOV in Low Sec, but being able to plant your flag on a planet and defend it to the last man sounds fun. I see whole systems having planets declared for different factions. Amarr vs Bloodraiders vs EOM vs Gallente all in one system.

Warring Colonies. The planets will burn.

(Now if they would just recode the whole freaking game from the ground up and integrate a Dust/Legion mechanic directly into the game you could have first person shooter fights down on the very colonies you are trying to defend. But that is a whole other idea).

Also see this, which could be coupled with PI 2.x above in interesting ways.

Asuka, Abrazzar....excellent proposals on both your parts. I was sure I wasnt the only one thinking of this type of game play and it was a pleasure reading your ideas. The breath and scope of which are simply staggering. My original idea wasnt to delve to deeply into a SIM type gave but you may be changing my mind on that. Kudos and thank you both.

TheExtruder, thanks and Im glad you like the idea. The very nature of it does not however lend itself to over simplification I believe. As witnessed by the two ideas posted above any type of new mechanic involving planetary interaction will be a complex and engrossing one. What we have now with PI is a very simplified mechanic. Although if you actually try to read tutorial on PI they seem anything but simple. :)

I also didnt want to flesh out to many concrete details. I mainly wanted to suggest a new game play style the might be worked into the granular SOV that CCP is considering. I especially would like to see more interaction from Capsuleer and NPC factions but in a PVP environment, which is far outside of what has gone before. There current dividing line between PVP and PVE is far to stark and the game can only be better served by the eroding of this line.

Capsuleers working hand in hand with NPC factions to defend or attack other players and infrastructure would add an interesting and fun mechanic to an already great game.

Creative! And for that and also the fact that wormholes never need to deal with Sov +1!

well the whole point of SOV in real life is that you rule over actual people and resources, so it ought too be here ..
too claim a system you should have too control the resources and the people living there, instead of a station.

i think pirates should also be part of SOV, defending your colony and resources against the pirates aswell as other people.

resources you defend for SOV
- planets
- belts
- moons

planets
- how too take it , perhaps using items like marines or perhaps through PI or through popularity/influence index

belts
- you need too mine the majority of your belts or stop others from doing so

moons
- via a moon mining array .. so something like a POCO , but it would store directly from the moon and could be hackable or attackable, if it is left undefended for too long after multiple raids/attacks or destroyed / conquered (marines again perhaps).