Warfare & Tactics

Hi some more,

The structure revamp is well on its way and we are looking to see Citadel enter the game next year. I'd like your thoughts on a few things regarding anchoring and warzone control.

(I am writing a separate post to discuss Citadel bonuses in the warzone)

Citadel, unlike POS, can be docked at. They can be taken down but the system will be a bit different from POS. (Please check the dev blog: Citadels, Sieges and you v2)

Along with changes to attack, XL Citadel will be able to house supers. While capitals are changing in the future (Please see the dev blog: Reworking Capital Ships: And thus it begins!) this is still a big change in how forces will potentially be able to attack in the future.

I feel that the ability to dock in the new structures creates a different situation than POS does when it comes to fleets having a safe retreat or a base of attack. I'd like to gather your opinions on the topic.

They can be anchored anywhere.

They are owned by corporations but will have more granularity. They can also be made public for docking and use of the market and other services.

tbh i would leave it completely unrestricted (regarding anchoring and also no special case for FW docking rights) and see what happens.

it is difficult to estimate how many of those will be in the area or how difficult it will be to kill one (we don't know any details on the weapons for example). Having a freeport XL in every FW system would entirely override FW docking rules but it is probably unlikely that this happens - we will see.

my only wish is that ccp should make sure that we get a chance to actually kill them. For example i would like to see the game forcing you to put at least 1h of your vuln window to the weekend, so that you have the chance to attack a structure which operates in a different timezone.

I doubt every major alliance in FW can even afford to deploy an XL citadel in every FW system and realistically defend it. Remember CCP said those things will cost as much as titans in terms of building materials. I'm guessing the norm will be mediums with the occasional larges for major home systems and such.

The asset safety mechanics wrap your stuff up and ship them to a NPC station. You do get a notice. You can in some way do this on demand. The standings will probably hit as normal but I'm not 100%. You won't be forfeiting your stuff but you will/can be inconvenienced.

it doesn't have to be a XL and it doesn't have to be a FW alliance. But we will see

These are so new, I doubt it is possible to make any concrete predictions. Acting on any hypothetical assumptions is just going to make a mess of it.

Some things to keep in mind:
Our invasion/push plans are subject to the same considerations as WH folk - POS setups can be restricted by occupying moons with dummy POS sticks. Availability of POSs determines how well an invasion can be carried out.
Citadels trivialise that by having no placement restrictions, meaning a push effort is restricted only by how much ISK you are willing to funnel into M sized Citadel staging points.

Citadel destruction mechanics are also likely to influence the time window of system pushes - currently if a POS setup slips the attention of the defender, they can still take it down within a short time window once they have pushed the aggressor back and stabilized the system, severely limiting any further push attempts. Citadels could take upto 15 days to take out though, seeing as you could put 3 hour vuln periods on the same day every week, and even if you lose those fights, you still get up to 2 reinforcement periods.

This forces a rather long enemy presence that cannot be circumvented in any way except for being on full alert for up to 2 weeks. Whilst 2-3 day pushes result in manageable content (speaking from the latest Kehjari battle PoV), a continuous 2 week threat is likely to burn people out.

Even worse if you manage to have a sizeable force available for defending it for 30mins a day 6 days per week. M Citadels will likely become extremely difficult to remove.

But like I said, this is just one plausible, but not guaranteed scenario.

do you mind poses by any chance?

well all that sounds to me like more pvp
there shoud be some DRASTIC bonuses/penalties for having that system high/low contested so ppl fight for it .. maybe something like denying docking in citadels while system is like stable or more like contested to (10% ... 20%.... w/e....) .. no hoping militia .. loyalty should be rewarded + give us promised rollbacks
+ nerf npc stations hard - insane repair prices, pay for fitting of your ship, etc.....

Alright, I think everyone understands how big a deal structures will be in FW. In a lot of ways, it's true - Citadels will at least in part circumvent the station lockout features of FW, which has made it so hugely unique in terms of how fights play out. Even though previously you could base out of a POS, Citadels are simply far better logistics platforms in pretty much every single way.

1. While I initially thought that it would be gamebreaking to allow hostiles to anchor a Citadel in opposing faction space, the fact that one could simply use a one man neutral alt corp to accomplish the same thing makes any such restriction pretty easy to circumvent.

2. On the other hand, simply allowing hostile militias to drop Citadels with no restrictions at all makes a mockery of the occupancy war. Some penalty has to be available to balance things out - otherwise capturing systems has little value.

3. The best way to balance things out, IMO, is to make Citadels owned by corporations who are not a part of the militia owning the system more vulnerable in some way. Either raise the Damage Mitigation cap (meaning you can apply more DPS to it, with same EHP = faster kills), increase the vulnerability window, or some combination of the two.

4. Speaking only of the Cal/Gal warzone, no major home system has been flipped on either side for about a year now. Front lines are pretty static, and trying to assault with a 2 jump reship hasn't proven viable. Even stocking up assault POSes hasn't worked - either from the Caldari side hitting Sujarento, or from Gallente hitting Hasmijaala / Kehjari. We've gotten good enough at the current FW meta that we've reached a stalemate in some ways - I think that Citadels are the kind of thing we need to shake that up. Unfortunately, I feel it might serve the Gallente better at this point, as we're more often the ones mounting organized assaults on home systems.

5. I'm concerned with having nearly a week of perfect safety after anchoring. Once the initial vulnerability period is done (24hrs after anchoring completes), a savvy attacker can set the full vulnerability window to as far out in time as possible. That gives him nearly a week to assault out of a Citadel that can't be touched. That might be too much of an advantage - either you murder it when it anchors, or you're SOL for a while. Forcing the owner to spread his vulnerability windows over more than one day would help with that.

6. It'd be interesting if the proposed NPC patrols would attack Citadels not belonging to their faction. Probably not enough to kill them, but might be interesting to have them try.

That's all I've got for the moment. I'm of the opinion that any penalty applied to folks not in the militia holding the system (in terms of vulnerability windows or anchoring times) need to apply to corps / citadels that are not a part of any militia. These are active warzones after all, and capsuleers are crafty buggers never to be trusted. There's no reason that the Empires should let capsuleers who are not enlisted in their militia anchor Citadels in the warzones unimpeded.