Warfare & Tactics

I have been throwing the idea around for making the structure within the capture objectives (Novice, Small, Medium, Large) destructible. First the why, then I will get into the suggestion for the EHP and how I would like this mechanic to work.

First off, I don't think there's anything wrong with defensive plexing if you make it to where pilots have to bring dps to run them defensively or offensively. The reward is low and tme consuming more often than not. But until people come into agreement on whether to introduce an npc for both factions, a dps or modules check, it is on the sidelines. Either way, the proposed changes so far by the Slack community do nothing to change the fact of how absolutely mind numbing it is to Dplex. Unless you have alts and a nice book/Netflix, it is almost better to let the system go and turn it later. Anyway, To keep them from being a bore or such a gruesome waste of time for home defenders, we can make the little button destructible, which would begin a defensive tick backwards, whether anyone is present or not. This way you have more activity across a wider area, with pilots looking for objectives. It could give neutrals the satisfaction of a better hunt when faced with runners by leaving behind a small, yet spiteful, gesture. It will offer the opportunity for defensive roams to clear the warzone, giving pilots a sense of purpose that would seem rewarding even if they find fights or not. It would give home field advantage, while not changing system siege's very much. It would make alts unnecessary, as one person can clear his home system of idle buttons and secure his donations for half an hour by himself. One pilot can effectively begin the timer on every single plex available in a system and if he can time them just right, arrive within the button as they complete, receiving the defensive value in LP and securing the system for that half an hour, until more plexes appear.

To balance this out or control it, we just give them high ehp so a frigate, or low dps/stabbed pilot, can't be clearing large's solo. How much? Well, I think there are a maximum of 5 npc spawns per plex. Add these values up, together with the regenerative values for their hp/s, and you have something like a tiny Infrastructure Hub, while again summoning another reason to have high dps ships, which means less warp stabs (which are CPU intensive). IMO, a great first step for preparing new pilots in the system flipping grind.

*Beacon timer counts down when destroyed. Decontested values not applied unless defensive FW pilot is present at completion. If empty at countdown plex simply despawns with no positive or negative impact. Pauses normally while enemy is present or contesting the plex and/or begins a tick to capture status when current conditions are met (npc's dead, no hostiles within capture radius). Can be done by giving the structure a partial value in favor of system sov holder that will override when contesting players are present.

This is not the only change I would like to see, but I will keep the presentation focused to see what others think of this particular idea.

Forgive me for skim reading, but what happens if you 'defend' the plex by killing the button and moving on to other places to find pvp or kill other buttons?

Say a wt arrives in a plex where you previously killed the button and started the time 'ticking back', does the timer start ticking forward because he is there? If he warps out does the timer start ticking back because the button was previously destroyed?

If this is the suggestion there are some obvious issues in practice.

After your edit:

* timer would tick to completion after the structure of the plex is destroyed. No credit to system control or LP reward if button is not occupied. plex objective is completed and gone.

* ticker would resume defensive tick if capturing offensive pilot is not present within the 30km capture range.

(I don't like the second part, but further enhancement takes various changes, as described in the previous updated posts. As it is, I have mixed feelings about it. It would tailor highly towards defenders but also make offensive plexing more aggressive.)