Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Forgive the carebear with zero nulsec experience for butting in...

I've been reading through the thread and have noticed a recurring theme of the small guys finding it impossible to setup shop in nulsec without getting steamrolled by huge blobs of (super)capitals. There seems to be a desire for a mechanic that allows a small hardened group to defend their home against a much larger group of attackers.

In real-word warfare this done by the defenders setting up a situation in which the attackers must pass through one of more choke points. Attackers loose their numbers advantage when they have to come through single file. This was a major design objective of most ancient castles, walled cities, and other fortifications. It was (and still is) also common to use the natural terrain (the Battle of Thermopylae). It's an effective strategy, but one that only works as long as the defenders actively and vigorously defend the choke points. If the defenders are unable to do so then the barbarians quickly swarm in and ransack the castle.

For a while now I've been thinking of resurrecting the long-dead idea of Deadspace Bases, in a way that would create this exact situation. My idea is for the acceleration gate to be password protected but also hackable. The first hack, or "crack", would be an extremely difficult hacking puzzle. Failure would render the gate unhackable again for 6 hours. A successful hack would not unlock the gate; instead it would render it greatly weakened for the next 24 hours. Within that 24 hour period any ship that attempts to hack the gate will face only a moderate difficulty puzzle. Success will immediately trigger the gate, as if it was tricked it into thinking that it has been activated by someone with proper access privileges. Failure renders it unhackable again for 30 seconds. Interrupting the warp would require to be hacked it again. Only one person at a time may interact with the gate. The ultimate effect is that ships must pass thru gate in single file. This, in theory, will make it possible for a small, well supplied group to defend their home from an arbitrarily large group of attackers for as long as they are able to muster the will to keep fighting.

The defenders will have the advantage.They can surround the warp-in point and burn down the invaders as they appear. If they can keep up with the trickle of (undoubtedly uber-tanked) ships then they can successfully defend their base indefinitely. But if they cannot then they get overwhelmed. Everything is based on the time the each individual attacker takes to hack the gate. One cyclopean knuckledragger who can't figure out the puzzle can hold up the whole invasion, to the benefit of the defender and to the detriment of the guy already inside the pocket who's desperately waiting for logi reinforcements. On the other hand, a well prepared invasion force in which everyone is well practiced at hacking can quickly flood the pocket and overwhelm the defenders.

The uncertainty of timing keeps things interesting. And I think that it would be better if this uncertainty came from the human factor rather than from some random number generator. It matters to the defenders because it's their home that they are defending. It matters to the guy who's up-at-bat to hack the gate because his friends are getting pounded inside the pocket and his ability to assist them depends on quickly beating the puzzle without f***ing it up, and having to wait 30 seconds to try again. And it matters to the guys already in the melee that their reinforcements arrive quickly. And it matters to the anxiously waiting fleet that the guy ahead of them get through quickly and efficiently for all the same reasons.. This is what makes for good gameplay!

I'm constantly reading comments from PvPers who want less blob-warfare and more small-group battles. In most fleet battles there are really only a few shot callers, calling out primaries and secondaries, who are actually "playing" the game; and everyone else is just acting as voice controlled drones. It's boring. It's like Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington meeting at a specific time and place, on a big open field, to see who as the better blob. I suspect that what I've described above would be a lot more fun for the individual pilots.

My idea is for these pockets to be created by conquering NPC signatures which lead to deadspace. There would be a small chance of the Overseer (or other equivalent entity) dropping a "key" that could be brought to the gate at the entrance and be used to "claim" the pocket as your own. When this is done the pocket become persistent (does not disappear during server restart) and any structures within it become the property of the new owner. This would include any sentry guns that were not destroyed during your invasion. (And much of the development of this concept would relate to making all of what has always been only scenery into active, useful things.) Also, whatever ship restrictions that existed for the gate naturally would be carried over. This would mean that some pockets would be accessible to everything up to battleships and others only to frigate sized ships. Not all would be created equal. None would be able to handle capital ships. And the more claimed deadspace pockets in a system the lower the probability of the overseer dropping a gate key.

So, what would you do with these and how would it relate to SOV mechanics? The main use would be as a base to needle and antagonize the big SOV owners. They'd have to come down off their warhorses and fight you on the ground (in sub-caps, mostly T1s). Without moon mining, industry would be limited, but still worthwhile.
[And I'm out of characters, so I'll have to leave the rest to your imagination...]

Can we get sov / null changes update in upcoming o7 ?

Just wanted to say thanks for all the great support on the CSMX stuff so far. I have been following the discussion here pretty close.

The best way to kill supers in blobs would be to make the doomsday effect negate or severely reduce the effect of remote reps for a period of time. That would enable even numerically inferior fleets to burn them down.

LESS THAN 24 BOIS AND GRILLS ARE YOU EVEN HYPE!

24 what

Step 1: Say AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Step 2: Go To Step 1

im just planning to burn it down and give as many opportunities for little guys to get in there and break it up

I like many of the deliberately localising nature of systems daily mining ops ect ect as it would counter the elitist pvp attitude that some pilots are developing

good luck and well said

plus 1 from me