Assembly Hall

...Why?

If you can't put five battleships on field to break a medium, you shouldn't be attacking a citadel.

If you can't put fifteen on field to attack a large, you should probably not be attacking a large.

And that's only if you're wanting to hit them for the maximum DPS. If you're willing to take more than half an hour, you can use a lot less ships.

Have you actually read this devblog? http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/citadels-sieges-and-you-v2

I know you're now going to scream and cry about how a twenty man highsec corp can't knock over an XL citadel in under three hours, but honestly? If you want to hit something like an XL, you need to bring the numbers and the ships to do it properly.

Pretty much what he said.


Though I do like the idea of every ship size having that one platform which carries a ridiculous payload with obvious drawbacks. Frigates have it with bombers, the newer battlecruisers have it with large turrets. Maybe the battleship size should get its own variant of oversized weaponry too.

/shrug

Regardless of current highsec alliance numbers, I think that anchoring in highsec will create interesting motives for going there. For example:

A large nullsec alliance (Goonswarm for example) Create a XL Citadel located close to the trading station (within 14.AU), their goal being exclusive stockpiles of good and ships being located nearby ready to flood the market as an alliance or whatver (just spewing out random examples) Eventually their motive will start taking effect and people from null/low will start heading over to destroy the structure. This could generate some seriously impressive fights.

However, there are some valid points above. I don't agree that XL should be allowed in highsec for the time being, simply because (their current price tag) is still a very spammable price tag. YOu dont want all these super well armed structures taking advantage of peoples wallets immedietly or the richest alliances will dominate immediately.

I would propose some kind of lead up giving everyone a fair chance of acquiring the technology first. Perhaps before the initial release, sites like the current blood sites pop up rarely, allowing alliances the chance of getting a blue print copy and shedding light on the materials they need.

Alternately, Limit the amount of structures based on a point system (blame it on toxic emissions or a dangerous collection of gravity) for example

Gates:20 points
Xl:20 points
medium: 15 points

and give a system a maximum amount (which is increased by 10 for nullsec system with full established upgrades)

This way structures have to be strategically placed, you might be able to get an XL and a gate, but no observatory to detect cloakers.

(Yes im going there)

This would also alleviate that cloaking issue

It's going to take 120+ player-hours to kill an undefended XL citadel in highsec (vs 15 or so player-hours in low/null). With 40 people, that is only twice (3h) the stated design goal time of 30 min x 3 reinforces per player which might be on the edge of reason for highsec alliances. However, if these things are manned and defended, you are going to need several times that fleet size to attack these things well beyond the capabilities of any highsec group. It will never happen.

As for mecenaries, they already don't accept contracts for bashing large POSes in highsec because it is too tedius. What makes you think they will suddenly be interested in taking such a contract to bash something that takes 5 times longer to kill? Also, even if I were to find a large enough outfit that was willing to take the contract, what makes you think I have the tens of billions of ISK they would demand to compensate their members for 120 player-hours of their time? And all that to kill something that doesn't drop any loot?

Look, CCP can make citadels as safe as they want. I will point out however that it doesn't take someone with an advanced degree in game design to see that releasing XL citadels such that they require the largest-sized fleets to kill in the sector of space where corporation and alliance sizes are the smallest is not going to result in them being contested very often. It should be no surprise to anyone that if on the one-year anniversary of their release that there are only a handful, if any, killmails of an XL citadel earned by a highsec group.

I think the original design goal was reasonable. So, about 10-20 people taking 1.5 hours per person in 30 minute chunks, like it takes everywhere outside of highsec is perfectly fine.

The purpose of these structures is to generate fights, not serve as arbitrary and boring grinding so people don't attack out of boredom.

So you want to knock an XL into reinforcement in thirty minutes with ten or twenty people, flying subcapitals?

Am I reading this right?

No, they can require capitals to be reinforced. I don't really care how they are reinforced, just that it is possible in the same number of player-hours as everywhere else in the game.

You act like I am posting crazy talk but the original Citadel plan called for one person to be be able to reinforce an XL with an entosis link. That was 1.5 hours for a single person to destroy an undefended Citadel flying a T1-frigate. Now, I understand why CCP changed direction, but going from that plan of 1.5 hours to one that requires 120+ player-hours is not one that is a recipe for generating much conflict given the average highsec Corp size despite what CCP and our CSM friend thinks.

This isn't pure speculation either. We already have the example of large POSes in highsec now which are rarely attacked by anyone. These things are 5 times more grindy.

Hey, this isn't my call. If they are released like this I will exploit the excessive safety the gargantuan HP walls these provide like everyone else. But I do find it amusing that in the exact same O7 show segment where Nullarbor and Fozzie were saying how great it is that supercapitals are now subject to tackling by new players as the ability for everyone to affect the universe is what Eve is about, they then go on to announce that XLs will be released in highsec without counter to the high HP such that they are literally immune to attack by almost every highsec group because group sizes are too small. So much for the ability of highsec residents to affect the universe.

My only goal here is to make it absolutely clear to the CSM that the fleet sizes required to kill these things are completely out of the realm of possibility for the current crop of highsec PvP corps. Perhaps CCP wants it that way so that XLs are only vulnerable to nullsec groups, I don't know, but if they actually expect highsec residents to fight over them, something is going to have to change.

The only solutions I see are to let caps into highsec, release a subcap that can do dreadnought damage like the OP proposed, some gimmick where HP is reduced in highsec, or perhaps the entosis link can be used to reinforce in highsec or lower HP in highsec.

All of these have complications though or are messy. So the best option in my opinion is to just not allow XLs in highsec until capitals are allowed back into highsec which they say they want to do. As far as I can see the only ability an XL has over the L is the ability to dock supercapitals which are not allowed in highsec anyway. I am not sure why CCP is so enamoured with releasing them there given the clear imbalance in player effort required to attack them when the attacker is restricted to using only subcapitals and when there is nothing they provide that a L citadel does not have.

Seems like making highsec groups use L citadels would generate more conflict for everyone rather than letting the richer groups wall themselves off in unassailable XL castles, at least unassailable to the other highsec groups. But it is CCP's call. If they go ahead I hope they are right and the large low/nullsec groups semi-regularly bring a few hundred people to shoot them in highsec and low class wormholes, or at least that they have a "Plan B" for making these things vulnerable to smaller groups so they don't just sit there in space until the day the server gets turned off.