These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Citadel idea (I know, its kinda early): The wormhole stabalizer.
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Ligraph
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2016-03-14 06:27:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Ligraph
Basic idea is that one can stabilize a wormhole. It would not be able to do anything while it is stabilizing. This would cost fuel and have some variance in the destination.

TL/DR cause its long: add a new type of citadel which can stabilize WHs it finds. Modules can increase or decrease the mass and size of the entrance or the exit. The exit location of the wormhole also has varience (for K-space). This can be reduced with mods. The exit is always rather small (medium ships). You can also put citadels on the exit to increase its stats. If the accuracy of both citadels are high enough, then the wormhole becomes static and stays in the systems even through downtimes.

Possibly add a new fuel type, or just use one of the ones already in-game.

Almost all modules increase the fuel cost.

Once a WH's mass limit is exceed it will not re-spawn until after the next downtime. All wormholes respawn during downtime.

Details:

Modules:

Mass Changer. Increases the mass limit of the entrance.

Size Changer. Increases the ship size of the entrance.

Accuracy Increaser. Increases the accuracy by 1. This usually makes the destination of the wormhole closer to the intended destination.

Exit Obscurer. Makes the exit WH harder to scan down.

There are also 4 scripts that are used by the Mass Changer and the Size Changer:
Local-Positive
Local-Negative
Remote-Positive
Remote-Negative

Local scripts make the module effect the WH the citadel is stabilizing.
Remote scripts make the module effect the other end.
Positive scripts make the module apply a bonus.
Negative scripts make the module apply a penalty.

Scripts can be switched at any time, but they don't take affect until the next module cycle (after downtime).

Citadels and atributes:

To jump to a W-space system, you need an accuracy of:
System type: HS LS NS C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6
Accuracy needed: 0 3 6 1 2 4 6 8 10

If you are jumping into a W-space system, you automatically end up in the right system, although sometimes very far away.
If you are jumping into K-space you end up anywhere 7 jumps away. "Extra" accuracy (over the amount needed to jump) decreases this to a minimum of 2. Each extra accuracy decreases this by 2 (except for the last one cause of the limit).

All Wormhole Stabilizers have a default accuracy of 0. M, L, and XL Citadels make up for this by being able to fit more mods.
Wormholes could possibly have a lower base accuracy (more is needed) if they traverse more space. Goes against all the physics of wormholes, but it might help balance.

The Destination of the WH can be moved five systems each time the wormhole resets (downtime). This is set up before downtime.

The base stats of the wormhole spawned depend on the Citadel size as follows:
Citadel Size: S M L XL
Mass: ~10 Destroyers ~10 BCs ~20 BSs ~10 Carriers
Size: S-M M-L L-Cap Cap-Super

Getting a Super spawn is very rare.
Masses are just ballpark estimates.
Size and mass can be increased through mods, but size can not be increased more than one step. E.g. a S citadel can never transport Caps.
Size increases should have a high fitting cost.

The exit WH should always be able to be scanned down, although it should be very hard if the Citadel is fitted right.

It is possible to manually collapse the wormhole from the Citadel. Any ships in transport get spit out at a mostly random destination or destroyed. Destinations are often in W-space. Not all ships go to the same destination. It should take at least 30s to travel the WH.

Possibly allow multiple citadels to stabilize the same WH, with bonuses stacking with a slight penalty for the first few, but it increases fast. It should always be better to use an XL Citadel than 50 Smalls. Tactics aside.

A citadel can stabilize the exit WH too. The way this works is each citadel generates a WH. If the exit of the first WH lands within 3 jumps of the entrance of the 2nd, and vise versa, they "merge" and there is one wormhole with a citadel on each end (notice that this always happens for W-space). Otherwise you end up with 2 wormholes, each with a citadel on the entrance. Note that if the accuracy of each citadel is sufficient so that the WH it generates always lands within 3 jumps of its intended Dest, the WH till always "merge" and you will have a WH that always leads between the same two systems.

Also, there would be no way to generate wormholes. Although it could be added. I think that would make these a bit OP.

Balance for S, M, L, and XL citadels would be achieved via fitting slots and powergrid/cpu. If that's not enough, inherent bonuses could be added. But with Size and Mass, I think that we are fine using fitting to scale.

Modules can be overheated to increase the benefits and fuel cost. Each modules' "cycle" is one day. So if you prime a mod, it won't active until the next WH is generated (downtime). If a module is overheated for more than a day in a row it is destroyed.

You would never be able to generate a "perfect" WH into c6 or null.


I would be open to a way to protect the wormholes even more, but I think it could get OP fast. There should be a way to hide things from scan where they don't show up unless they are below a certain threshold. Like an imperfect cloak. But that's another thread.

This also opens up a use for the Intel citadels: see if someone opened a WH into your system.


All of these ideas could be implemented as modules for Jump Gates. That was my original idea, but I think that would be a lot, and this works better.
Julanna Egnald
Del's Industrial Strip Mining
#2 - 2016-03-14 17:54:09 UTC
Are you going to call your station Deep Space 9?

We know from Inheritance that the Jove (and Sansha) can create short-term wormholes, but I don't recall them creating long-term wormholes.
Ligraph
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2016-03-14 19:56:10 UTC
Julanna Egnald wrote:
Are you going to call your station Deep Space 9?

We know from Inheritance that the Jove (and Sansha) can create short-term wormholes, but I don't recall them creating long-term wormholes.


I wasn't planning on anyone creating wormholes, just stabilizing them. If WH-related tech exists in-game, it makes it even more feasible.
Ligraph
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#4 - 2016-03-14 20:05:59 UTC  |  Edited by: Ligraph
Changes v1:

Every module would now uses one of 4 scripts:
Local-Positive
Local-Negative
Remote-Positive
Remote-Negative

Local scripts mean the bonus/penalties applies to the WH entrance that the citadel is on.
Remote scripts means that bonus/nerf applies to the other end.

Remote bonuses/penalties are not as large as Local ones.

Positive and negative means that it is either a bonus (positive) or a penalty (negative).


Exit WHs have a default size of M, and a medium mass limit.

Players can use a citadel to stabilize the exit WH, and increases (or decrease) its stats. They can also increase or decrease the stats of the entrance WH via Remote scripts. Using this, if someone opens a WH into your space, you can put a citadel on it (or use one already in-system) and close it (by decreasing either the mass or size to 0). Since the wormholes reset each downtime, you will have to find the new WH that spawns and close it after downtime.

Accuracy can't be negatively affected by a citadel at the WH's exit, because the WH is already in place there.

But if a WH it stabilized at both ends, and the accuracy at each end is enough to jump into the other system (and for k-space, land within 3 jumps), its location will not move when the WH resets (downtime). So it will be possible to create "static" wormholes. But to be able to carry freighters you will probably need 2 XL citadels. Maybe 3.

For K-space, this only works if the exit lands within 3 jumps of the stabilizing station. For both ways.

Otherwise you end up with two wormholes, one going one way, one going the other.

Example:

Corp A opens a Large-Cap WH with high mas limit into Corp B's space.

Corp B then uses its WH stabilizer with Local scrpits to increase the stats of the exit WH (the one in corp B space), and sends a fleet through to Corp A's space.

Once the fleet is destroyed, Corp B switches their mods to Remote-Negative scripts (the new scripts may not take effect until next downtime, idk). This reduces the Entrance WH to a small WH. Corp A then stops supporting it, and Corp B's citadel closes it.

Example 2:

To create a hauling WH, corp A and corp B (probably different corps from the above example) do the folowing:

Corp A opens a WH into Corp B's space (both corps are in nullsec). They increase the accuracy enough to land the WH in the target system (6 accuracy), and increase the size to Capital.

Corp B then sets up their own WH stabilizer on their end. They increase the accuracy enough to jump to Corp A's space (6), and size to Capital.

Then freighters can go back and forth through the WH, and it will stay linking those two systems. Although freighters will probably exceed the mass limit fairly quickly.
Elyia Suze Nagala
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#5 - 2016-03-14 21:31:42 UTC
Interesting ideas, I think it could merit some consideration.
Elyia Suze Nagala
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#6 - 2016-03-14 21:36:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Elyia Suze Nagala
Julanna Egnald wrote:
Are you going to call your station Deep Space 9?

We know from Inheritance that the Jove (and Sansha) can create short-term wormholes, but I don't recall them creating long-term wormholes.


Agreed, but add Talocans into the mix then it becomes a real possibility. As we've discovered, Talocans apparently even managed to surpass early Jove tech with time/space manipulation and wormhole tech.

I don't think this kind of Citadel would be a priority, but it surely "could" be incorporated down the road if CCP would want to.
Ligraph
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2016-03-15 03:47:23 UTC
Elyia Suze Nagala wrote:
Julanna Egnald wrote:
Are you going to call your station Deep Space 9?

We know from Inheritance that the Jove (and Sansha) can create short-term wormholes, but I don't recall them creating long-term wormholes.


Agreed, but add Talocans into the mix then it becomes a real possibility. As we've discoveried, Talocans appearly even managed to surpass early Jove tech with time/space manipulation and wormhole tech.

I don't think this kind of Citadel would be a priority, but it surely "could" be incorporated down the road if CCP would want to.


Agreed. But it could also replace jump gates entirely unless they have some function I haven't heard of (which is entirely possible, if not likely).

It also helps offset jump fatigue. And allows players to change the strategic map.
Caleb Seremshur
Bloodhorn
Patchwork Freelancers
#8 - 2016-03-15 09:16:34 UTC
The only acceptable wormhole stabiliser is a titan, within 5km, with a module active that infinipoints it.

As for the effect given? An extra % of mass calculated off what's remaining at the time of activation. Ergo a defender crushing the hple to keep dreads from null out can succeed in stemmng the tide if they work fast enough.
Elyia Suze Nagala
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2016-03-15 12:28:13 UTC
Ligraph wrote:
Elyia Suze Nagala wrote:
Julanna Egnald wrote:
Are you going to call your station Deep Space 9?

We know from Inheritance that the Jove (and Sansha) can create short-term wormholes, but I don't recall them creating long-term wormholes.


Agreed, but add Talocans into the mix then it becomes a real possibility. As we've discoveried, Talocans appearly even managed to surpass early Jove tech with time/space manipulation and wormhole tech.

I don't think this kind of Citadel would be a priority, but it surely "could" be incorporated down the road if CCP would want to.


Agreed. But it could also replace jump gates entirely unless they have some function I haven't heard of (which is entirely possible, if not likely).

It also helps offset jump fatigue. And allows players to change the strategic map.


Yeah, btw, sorry for the terrible grammar. I was using a phone and talk to text, which in my case sucked.
Ligraph
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2016-03-15 19:17:12 UTC
Caleb Seremshur wrote:
The only acceptable wormhole stabiliser is a titan, within 5km, with a module active that infinipoints it.

As for the effect given? An extra % of mass calculated off what's remaining at the time of activation. Ergo a defender crushing the hple to keep dreads from null out can succeed in stemmng the tide if they work fast enough.


It would be neat if there was a similar Titan module. But the way citadels are looking, anything a Titan can do a XL citadel can do 10 times better/bigger...

And having it based on citadels gives the opportunity for moving dests, increasing mass/size over time, ect.
Caleb Seremshur
Bloodhorn
Patchwork Freelancers
#11 - 2016-03-15 23:08:11 UTC
Ligraph wrote:
Caleb Seremshur wrote:
The only acceptable wormhole stabiliser is a titan, within 5km, with a module active that infinipoints it.

As for the effect given? An extra % of mass calculated off what's remaining at the time of activation. Ergo a defender crushing the hple to keep dreads from null out can succeed in stemmng the tide if they work fast enough.


It would be neat if there was a similar Titan module. But the way citadels are looking, anything a Titan can do a XL citadel can do 10 times better/bigger...

And having it based on citadels gives the opportunity for moving dests, increasing mass/size over time, ect.


My point was that making it a titan based module actually places something at risk. Titans aren't easy to kill nor are they invincible and with most caps taking an ehp hit they will all die a little quicker now
Ligraph
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2016-03-16 00:03:13 UTC
Caleb Seremshur wrote:
Ligraph wrote:
Caleb Seremshur wrote:
The only acceptable wormhole stabiliser is a titan, within 5km, with a module active that infinipoints it.

As for the effect given? An extra % of mass calculated off what's remaining at the time of activation. Ergo a defender crushing the hple to keep dreads from null out can succeed in stemmng the tide if they work fast enough.


It would be neat if there was a similar Titan module. But the way citadels are looking, anything a Titan can do a XL citadel can do 10 times better/bigger...

And having it based on citadels gives the opportunity for moving dests, increasing mass/size over time, ect.


My point was that making it a titan based module actually places something at risk. Titans aren't easy to kill nor are they invincible and with most caps taking an ehp hit they will all die a little quicker now


I hope citadels aren't invincible. From what I've heard, they aren't at all. And a WH stabilizer will have little or no defenses.

After shields go down, there is no way the defenders can close the WH using the citadel (can't take out the mods), or decrease its size (changing scripts).

After armor goes down, the WH will close after next downtime or whatever it is, because modules shut off.


If citadels are invincible I think that's a different issue.