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Thx. Looks like a Keepstar is going to get a bit more costly than initially projected... (~184bISK materials. But hey, what's a titan more or less? We are all spacerich! )

You keep saying this but could you please explain what your reasoning for it is?

The raw HP is going to be a grind to burn through, but we're talking about hisec; we are good at grinds. We grind missions, we grind mining, we grind incursions, we grind standings; you name it and if it can be ground in hisec then we grind it. Grinding structure HP isn't going to be an insurmountable barrier; it certainly wasn't when hisec NPC customs offices became destructible, for example.

You will be able to get together a group of 20-25 hisec players (or a few players with multiple alts each) who will be prepared to invest 6 hours over the course of 3 attacks to kill an XL citadel, which is all you'll need unless the defenders can organise an effective defence fleet to stop you. And the ability to organise an effective defence fleet in hisec is not a common one - if it were, Marmite and Archetype. and other such groups would be a lot less effective than they are. In particular, there's going to be a fairly large disconnect between "hisec groups who have the ISK to buy an XL Citadel" and "hisec groups with the PvP skill to effectively defend one".

Speaking personally, rather than hypothetically, with my 8 structure bashing characters I couldn't take on an actively defended XL Citadel by myself - even if there is no defence fleet, just manned defences would stop me. But if I saw one belonging to what appeared to be an inactive corp, I would absolutely go for it - I'd be looking at about 13.5 hours grinding, spread over 3 4.5 hour sessions, but between all 8 of those accounts I'd be making about 2.5bil/hour from the whole process; to me that's definitely worth doing, especially since grinding an inactive structure isn't exactly challenging - it's something to set up and keep an eye on in the background while watching TV.

That is why we're not going to see XL Citadels piling up in hisec; at the very least, once the corp goes inactive they're going to fall prey to "demolition teams" like my alts. Meanwhile more PvP oriented groups (rather than PvStructure) will be attacking them to bait fights from defenders and collect loot from killing the Citadel if they don't get those fights.



I'm not sure that you appreciate the reason for this; it's not as simple as just being "because it has too many HP", it's because there's no reasonable expectation of a suitable reward for spending time grinding it.

If a POS is online then that implies that the corp running it is active, since they're keeping it fuelled (and presumably using it for whatever purpose) which means you have to assume that if you wardec them they'll notice, realise you're a threat to their POS and remove any valuable loot/modules before the war goes live, meaning you get very little payoff for the grind.

If a POS is offline then you don't need to kill the tower since you can just pop the much lower HP hangars/labs/ship arrays/assembly arrays and collect whatever they drop, rather than spending hours grinding the control tower itself.

Either way, there's usually no reward from actually shooting the tower, so it doesn't get shot. Even if you don't care about loot and just want to clear out a moon for your own use, you're going to pick a small or medium tower to take down because they'll grind faster than a large.

But none of that will apply to Citadels, since for a Citadel the structure itself is a guaranteed loot drop, and in fact a very lucrative one, which will directly incentivise players to attack the things and put up with the grind time. Comparing them to POSes based solely on the fact they both have high EHP is missing out on the most important distinction.



XL Citadels really don't have that much firepower in hisec - the most powerful AoE/multi-target weaponry is limited to low/null/w-space only. With just what they can fit in hisec they're equivalent to maybe a single Dread in terms of DPS, though of course a lot more EHP.

Obviously if both sides bring similar numbers, fleet compositions, logistics, support and experience then the ones with the Citadel as well are going to have a significant advantage, but that's making a huge assumption that the average hisec corp who might own an XL Citadel can field a fleet that has all of those things.

Most hisec PvE-focused corps (IE the ones with the ISK to actually build an XL) don't have much experience making or flying PvP-focused ship setups, creating or leading a coordinated fleet with a central doctrine, making use of specialised ships like Logistics or Ewar or just generally fighting in PvP. That's going to put them at a huge disadvantage against the PvP focused groups who do have all that, even if they don't have a Citadel on the field as backup.

At the very least, there is definitely a limited number of hisec entities with ISK, numbers and experience to build AND defend an XL, which is going to drastically cap proliferation - groups without all 3 either won't build them at all or won't keep the ones they build.

Far more likely that chance is zero as the defending corp takes down the tower before the wardec starts...That's why no one shoots them



And then the players spoke and wanted to shoot things so here we are...



The blob always wins. Getting together 75 randoms, NPSI, gankers, whatever to shoot something for 30 minutes, 3 times a week is not going to be a problem. The HS corp that puts up an XL fighting off a blob of that size...that's where I think the challenge is.

Yes, it makes you immune to every other group who lives in highsec.

That is pretty good value if you ask me. I wouldn't be the first, but once a couple have been killed and the novelty is gone, highsec XLs will the safest asset you can deploy in the game if you keep it private for your corp.

Same can be said for XL Citadel, heck these Citadels even if they got neglected by its owners, all its items get moved to nearest station so this is another reason of why no one will trouble himself taking down XL Citadel. I don't know how did you miss that ?

Just for your record that fleet need to be formed needs to be from same wardec Corp. in order to take it that hisec Citadel down, knowing that anything valuable won't drop for them only glorious KM after 2-3 hours of structure shooting neglecting that this XL Citadel can get their asses handed to them if it started to shoot them. I don't expect XL manned guns will shoot wet noodles at enemy ships, I know the stats of Citadels guns still unknown but I'm definitely sure these guns will optimized to defend big portion of that XL Citadel because it will be balanced around facing dreads and titans in nullsec which what we don't have in hisec.

I'm simply not asking for denying XL Citadels from Hisec, not at all I welcome it with open arms and Kudos to any proper Corp who will be able to defend their XL Citadel there but all what I'm asking giving us the proper ships to take it down or every small-med size Corp will have their hopes crushed to open a small business in their region because they know no one able to take these XL Citadels monuments down.

Just think for second here, Do you think CCP their biggest ever improvement to that game....the long waited feature that everyone is waiting for ... the feature that will replace outposts and POS ingame... the feature that will worth 700B BPO to acquire first and truck load of minerals and materials to build.....That CCP will design it into 20 afk BS can take it down in 2 hrs ? really ? If they did that this is gonna be the biggest fail I have ever see coming.

First, CCP Ytterbium while going over the numbers, I noticed you bumped the DPS cap from 4000/12000/60000 to 5000/15000/75000 without seemingly changing the hit points. Does this mean you intended to raise the EHP of the citadels to match these higher caps to keep an attack at 30 minutes, or is your intention to make it now take 25 minutes to reinforce a citadel?

You can play with the numbers all you want as there are a lot of variables that will determine how long it takes, but CCP themselves quoted between 75-225 battleships to reach the DPS cap which is accurate. 75 for a group highly skilled people field multi-billion ISK pirate battles capable of 1k+ DPS, and 200+ being closer to what a lower skilled, balanced fleet fitting some tank would require. So best case is 108 player-hours, more realistically it would be 120-150h and as much as 300 player-hours. In any case it will take at least 10-times more player hours to assault a XL citadel without caps than with dreads and if any opposition shows up, you lose. This is far too much for any current highsec group to do.

No one is going to invest that much in grinding a structure for just minerals. That group could just go grind 10 times as many XLs for the same amount of time somewhere whey they can use dreadnoughts, or 30-times as many Ls if they split that battleship fleet up and kept it in highsec.

Your corp has 15 people in it. Of those 4 people have been active in PvP. Where are you going to get the 68 other max DPS battleship pilots? Or even 25 friends willing to devote 5 hours of their game time to watching an HP bar tick down?

Marmite has 43 active pilots in the last 7 days spread across all time zones. Almost certainly most of those cannot fly a max DPS pirate battleship. But if they can, you expect them to risk 50B ISK in expensive battleships to "bait" fights they would have to flee from? To get a fun fight they could take, they would need two or three times that number depending how tough these XLs end up being. They have nowhere near the numbers. Only the large low/null groups can consider attacking these things without capitals.

This isn't going to happen. They will be ignored by highsec aggressors just like large POSes are today as unfun, multi-hour grindfests.

I am not sure why you keep arguing. I understand your point of view and have stated why I think you are wrong. Your estimate of the number of highsec aggressors and their willingness to suffer through structure grinding for minerals does not match with reality. L and M citadels? Yes, they will be attacked. But XLs? There are no fleets run by highsec mercenaries or gankers even close to the 100+ you would need to get and take a proper fight using these things.

We will eventually have an answer. Let's agree to disagree and you can come back in a year and you can rub all the XL killmails by highsec groups in my face. In fact, I would be very happy to see them generate massive fights, or even an industry of highsec grinders cleaning up dead XLs, but the player numbers required are just far too high for that to realistically happen.

I keep arguing because you keep saying (paraphrased) "You're wrong, you will not get enough players together in hisec to hit the DPS cap". Which I think is the root of our disagreement; either you think you need to hit the DPS cap to kill a Citadel or you think I'm saying that hisec residents like Marmite (or even myself) are going to be capable of hitting it.

Neither is the case - you're absolutely right that hisec groups will not get together 100+ players and do 75k DPS to an XL citadel; not unless both sides of RvB decided to team up and attack one, at least. But we also don't need to do that to kill an XL Citadel, especially not one that is genuinely inactive/unmanned.

I really do think that 20-25 players grinding for 3 sets of 2 hours to burn through shield/armor/hull is a pretty reasonable expectation; as I've said, that'll pay about 320 mil ISK/hr for each pilot if the XL has a 70bn ISK pricetag and drops around half its components. Sure, that'll be in the form of minerals/structure components, but that won't really matter because it's all worth ISK and can be converted into that ISK by selling it in the nearest trade hub. It'll just require a bit of logistical work to get it looted and hauled.

Defence and defender-wise, obviously we won't really know anything for sure until these things are out in the wild. With that being said, looking at the proposed numbers, it seems like citadels in hisec will be much more effective force multipliers than they will forces themselves - they lose all the AoE weapons and the bouncing doomsday beam and are left with just anti-subcap launchers (well, also anti-cap ones, but those aren't going to be useful vs a BS fleet) and their alpha can be soaked by a reasonably tanked BS and their DPS can be repped by 2-3 Logistics cruisers. Providing ECM/damps, breaking up groups and energy neutralizing to supplement a defence fleet will be a lot more effective, but a force multiplier is only as good as the force it's multiplying.

As you've said yourself, most hisec groups cannot field 20 BSes - that will be a problem for those groups who want to field XL citadels when they need to defend them. Could 10 well-fit and flown PvP BSes plus a support citadel take out a 20-25 man attacking fleet? Probably yes, fairly easily. But could 4 or 5 BSes fitted and flown by players with little to no PvP experience and mostly PvE setups plus that Citadel do the same? I'm not so sure. That's the kind of calibre of defenders you're more likely to find in hisec, though, especially since corps looking to knock over an XL citadel (or attack one to bait fights) will do their homework to look for that sort of target.

Alternately you'll get people like me coming along looking specifically for XLs belonging to corps that have gone inactive so that I can mostly-AFK bash them over the course of about 5 hours per defence layer, in which case none of that stuff will matter since there'll be no defence fleet and nobody running whatever mods the Citadel has fitted.

Ultimately you're right - the only way we'll know for sure will be when they're released and we can see what actually happens. I just wanted to lay out what I think is going to happen and why. That and I find it interesting to theorycraft this kind of thing.

Hey CCP Ytterbium / [Team of Drones]

I was wondering if ALL citadels including the replacement of those silly POS towers are being replaced as well.

Asking for 'original' plan was more drawn out then your ending statement stated


Thank you Team of Drones as a whole! Even if there are some bugs to work out we will not have to deal with Poses anymore!

Question - are we getting a module that allows Citadels to interact with Custom Offices and PI?

I'm pretty sure it's intended to be added in in the future to allow Citadels to take over the role of POCOs. It was mentioned back in the original devblog first discussing the new Structures:

Presumably that would come with some significant limitations beyond simply needing to be near the planet - possibly they'd have to be on-grid with the warpin, for example, plus maybe they'd require the citadel to allow public access - I can't imagine it'd be CCP's intent to completely lock out anyone but the citadel owners from doing PI on a planet for hisec at the very least, hopefully not for the rest of EVE either.

Either way it's probably not going to happen in the initial Citadel release, just like their manufacturing and research service modules probably won't come in that first release.

Edit to add: Pretty sure it's also been mentioned a few times since then in the blogs/threads as well, I just didn't want to dig back through everything ever mentioned on the subject looking for the info.