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the only thing that hits an interceptor at 100km+ is praying for a wrecking shot

Fit an interceptor same as before but with an oversized AB. The issue is that something that can move super fast shouldn't also be able to use the ranged version of the E-Link. If they can only use the T1 version and stay close, that's fine, it forces the same conflict and isn't just trolling. Larger ships that can't just zoom away are the ships that need the range for the E-Link.

Honestly, you read the first part of this and how important it is to make the sov system understandable thinking; fine thats a very good start.

Then follows a book of text on how this stuff will work, and it´s not hard to understand the mechanic. But the meaning of it all just gets lost with all the complicated mechanics added just to make it work. Only vulnerable for certain timers, some module you have to activate on a structure to make it not love its current owner, stations made open to everyone for a certain time once you shoot it enough?

While the mechanic makes the game playable it´s completely not logical.

If you want to invade someone normally you do some of the below and this should be central for all wars.
a. Go to where they live and kill as many as possible until they flee in fear.
b. Go to where they have their strategic assets and lock/shoot it down making opposition very hard.
c. Destroy them from the inside making them fight each other, kill/recruit their leaders and so on.
d. Occupy them, patrolling their homes, show who´s in charge and hopefully they will surrender.
Plus probably a few more, but it´s simple and understandable.

Defender should of course always have the benefit of home turf and being able to fortify and choose which battles to fight. But the whole idea of having a sandbox where people matter is less rules and game mechanics, not more stuff that players have to do in order to justify the mechanics. Also already trollceptor online...

What about the maintance of space structures? Stations gotta have millions of ppl inside them to handle daily maintance. Why not have faction or corp NPC´s in null which you hire to do your sov maintance, kill the standings cap and give the PVE érs an impact on sov to grind standing for their alliances to make better deals with the faction to increase military/industry status. Also agents in null will bring more players to null = more content. CCP please dont fear, high sec mission runners will not unsub after being killed in null, they will just either take the challange or move back to high sec trying to do their stuff while suffer the broken HS gank mechanic.
If you want to attack sov you make a deal with the faction to weaken the defence for certain timer and launch your attack.

NPC´s can limit the amount of maintance any alliance can use and so limiting the blocks owning hundreds of systems.

Dunno, just writing as Im thinking but the fighting and conquer of sov needs to be somewhat related to how it actually works to be any fun in my mind.

Upside is Wormholes are going to see a massive increase in numbers by summer.

I like the proposal of a control point style gamplay in place of structure grinding. This is one of the more interesting game types in other games as it creates an objective rather than just mindless carnage. There are still a few problems though:

Player expectations - among the goals players have for a sov revamp are:
* removal of structure grinding focused gameplay. * make it more difficult to hold onto unused territory.
* reduce the need for blobbing.
* provide a way of building up for players to entrench/capitalize and get more use out of territory so as to reduce the need to expand.

This proposal only accomplishes half of these, so many players are still going to be unenthused about sov. A very narrow time window that can be focused around an alliance's prime time coupled with a mechanic that doesn't necessitate large numbers to defend may just make defense easier. Perhaps this could be tweaked so the vulnerability window grows with increased sovereignty claims.

The expectation of providing a means to build up could be satiated by reworking i-hubs. Tie upgrades and indices to specific player activities and make upgrades for different activities increase the effective number players that can be sustained by the system. This could be balanced by reducing the base available resources for non-upgraded systems and the upgrades themselves would only be available in focal points of these activities for alliances (like industrial/pve capital systems). Also the level of upgrade online/available would be directly determined by the level of player activity. This would prevent players from milking the system.

Aside from player expectations, the proposed system still has it's own potential headaches:
*Solo/gang entosis raiders flipping sov in cheap risk averse kiting ships.
*third parties bogarting on every capture for quick conquests.
*Reinforcement timers that are unnecessary on some things and too short on others. (TCUs vs. Stations)
*occupancy bonus is defender only.
*Offensively imbalanced sovereignty competition.

Others on the forum have already explained the headaches of cheap risk averse ship fits (kiting frigs+desys raiding everywhere constantly. So I won't touch this.

Currently EVERY attackers link counts together, while defenders only have their own count. This allows third parties to show up to any event having not done any of the initial work and still being able to claim structures at will. Each attacking alliance should have independent capture/reinforcement progress.

TCUs have such marginal advantages that having them flip overnight should not be a significant headache for anyone. They should not have a reinforcement timer. Stations and infrastructure however are more meaningful. Stations can have years of assets that should probably take more than a couple days of interaction to flip. They should still be quick to flip if other structures are already claimed. So perhaps TCUs should have no timers. I-hubs and Stations should have a week timer if all other structures are still owned, 4 days if only one other structure is owned and only a 2 day reinforcement timer if it is the only owned structure remaining.

Currently occupying and using someone else's space provides no advantages to the squatters, perhaps the occupancy bonus should be applicable to either side depending on their level of use.

Currently many attackers can aide eachother's progress directly but defenders can not be directly aided by allies. This means that this gameplay can be reduced to n+1 in which the attacker just brings as many disposable ships with links as possible and can just destroy the fewer links of the defender for an assured victory. As stated previously, capture and reinforcement progress needs to be specific to the alliance. e.g.: an alliance should not be able to simply show up to a capture event in which they did not start the reinforcement. They should have to start a new reinforcement of their own and can only make progress in a capture event they initiated.

It is incredible how many posts are devoted to interceptors while we have no idea about the fitting... imho one of the more elegant solutions (assuming its even an issue) would be making the entosis module thingy relatively cap hungry.

I'd rather deal with hotdrops than interceptors. Seriously. It generates content, and there's guaranteed lossmails for at least one side.

Like, as it is now, or at least appears to be, it will be about speed and harassment, both of which are sort of boring in context.

Let's say the Entosis thing is deployable. I could un-dock a battleship gang to take it down, or any other gang of my choosing, and if they couldn't beat my gang, they'd accept a loss and move on. If they hotdrop on me, great, we should have a counter-drop prepared in this eventuality - We just got a real match! Let's go! If you can't defeat a hotdrop in your OWN system, you don't deserve that system.

Basically, by forcing a tangible, stationary ante to defend, it increases the chances of needing to escalate, which is a good thing. We all know our big toys are useless because everything is so fast, but this present system seems to be making that even worse, because speed is once again the answer.

The idea is to get big fleets undocked and blowing each other up. Much like FW, this system, with the Entosis thing as a ship module, appears to be encouraging its own low-risk meta akin to stabbed d-plexing.

If sov wants to succeed, it should promote skirmishes in prime time. Having the module instead be a deployable at least puts an entry fee on attacking to dissuade trolling.

I agree with the above poster.

I understand Sov is broken however clicking on a module and playing lock out tennis doesn't float my boat.

Warfare and occupation is about burning down assets, destroying or claiming everything and seizing control.

This feels like a bit of a wet slap approach.

Primetime window is worst idea, but everyone pretty much agrees with that.

I think you have two options one is continue down this path as CCP always seem to despite feedback, or scrap the idea and get more ideas on the table.

People want a game to be fun and strategic, I think there are better solutions that can be sourced from the collective players. At the moment it seems like a few devs have a favoured style of play and they are trying to shoe horn everyone into the same style.

Reading from the beginning-

-but it sounds like they're trying to break up large sov-blocks, encourage play from smaller alliances, and also make it so power can easily trade hands.

Even if it's super cap hungry, you will only be going through 1 cycle. So you turn everything off, start up the E-Link, and then go back to burning around.

They have stated that they are looking to have E-Link have low fitting requirements. Most people are assuming it'll be about the same as fitting a turret or a launcher.

There a lot of other issues with the new sov, interceptors are just the most obvious and easily picked at. There is still very little benefit to owning sov. The indecies are still very crude guides (especially the Industry one).

I wish it will have same fitting requirements as t1 salvager.