Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The introduction of citadels - while mostly positive - has introduced something that imo is demonstrably bad for the game; namely invulnerable nullsec logistics. Specifically, in the past null sec groups would move jump freighters back and forth mainly through lowsec into highsec for sale and/or resupply as may be required. To do this jump freighter pilot would have to light a cyno - somewhere in an appropriate system - sometimes it would be on a gate, station or pos, depending upon the system and circumstances. In each case, depending upon the skill of pilot, luck and other circumstances, the jump freighter might be vulnerable to interdiction. For instance, the cyno might be lite too close to a station causing the jf to bounce or he might appear out of jump range from the gate. If it is lite on a pos - it would be at a perch allowing the jf to be tackled if the tackle can get there before he warps into the force field of the pos.

Now citadels have changed everything making logistics essentially invulnerable. An alliance sets up a citadel in its homesystem, the jf undocks from the citadel and is instantly immune because of tethering. The Jf jumps while immune to its destination onto another citadel where it is rendered instantly immune by tethering. Bouncing is unlikely because citadels have huge docking rings. The Jf then aligns to its high sec gate while tethered and warps in total safety to highsec.

The reason why this immunity has come about is because CCP has conflated POS'es and outposts. CCP stated that because a jf could jump straight to an outpost and dock - it wanted to retain that same usability for citadels. However, outposts were hugely expensive and could not be put anywhere. POS on the otherhand while being vastly cheaper did not afford the same protection. You could not jump into a pos forcefield to be immune. In fact, you could not garage door - where you have the pos offline jump to the tower and then turn on the forcefield either. Further as POS'es developed you could not lite a cyno within 25k of a pos.

In short for the price of about 1bil isk per citadel, a null sec alliance can now render its logistic chain wholly immune. This circumstances hurts the small pirate groups that live in lowsec the most. Many of these groups are already red headed stepchilden largely ignored by ccp. And while yes citadels can be destroyed - many of the smaller lowsec grps that preyed on the null sec logistics chains lack the wherewithal to go toe to toe in fleet battles with the null sec alliances as the reinforcement timers of citadels encourages.

IMO there should be no situation of perfect safety for a player, yet that is exactly what citadels currently afford the jf pilot. With citadels it is certainly odd that the most dangerous portion of the logistics trip to high sec for a jf pilot is now in high sec.

How would I fix this circumstance? Simple - as with POS'es make it so a cyno cannot be lite within 25k of the medium and large citadels. I would leave the xl alone as it is functionally the equivalent of an outpost and its cost prevents it from being abused for logistic chain immunity.

Creating an unbroken Logistics Chain of Citadels from High to Null, especially deep in Null, would be incredibly hard to maintain and fairly expensive. Eve is about risk vs Reward, and that sounds like a fairly acceptable risk for the reward, especially when all of those Citadels are vulnerable to anyone looking for a fight or just something to shoot at.

Actually its not as hard as you think. It costs about 1.5 bil to drop a small citadel and nothing to maintain it. You get to pick your window of vulnerability (presumably for when you are strongest) when you set a citadel down and it takes at least a week to kill one. So all in all, it costs a little more then a large faction pos did but you get way better protection.

The old system allowed people to place dozens of poses everywhere just like you can do with citadels today (provided ofc that moons were available). As for for poses being quite safe - you are completely wrong. To cyno onto a pos you had to do it at 150k away - which means it was perfectly safe to tackle someone at their perch. You could also just suicide tackle and use dreads to kill the jf.

I believe that the op's point is valid - logistics should be possible but not risk free. The prior system had a semblance of balance. This system with citadels has none.

You just need a bookmark 151 km from where you cyno in at then warping to the book mark at the appropriate range (e.g. warp to 100 and land in the POS shields).

OP raises a perfectly sensible issue with the way citadels work and fails miserably because eve forums are filled with carebears that want more safety in this carebear pandering game.

This game is turning into such a shitshow...

It's not even just the logistics that are invulnerable, supercaps and titans can also be moved in the same fashion if I'm not wrong.
Citadels are disgustingly broken non-consensual pvp exclusion zones.

considering we always did it to NPC stations and outposts well within docking range nothing has changed

Right because it would take so much skill to kill a JF

With just over 5b of dread you can kill an ark in under 18s

No def fleet can save a JF in this situation

Make null sec non dependant on hs and I'll support that

Also works, either way cynoing in under a POS is quite a bit safer than cynoing in 25km from a Citadel's docking ring at present. IMO just throwing the exclusion zone on Citadels would be too much of a swing back the other way, but I'm all for some kind of middle-ground here.

Maybe a 30-second timer that prevents docking after jumping?

This would actually incentivize the creation of Logistics Chain Citadels since NPC Stations and Outposts don't shoot back at enemy Capsuleers, and 30 seconds as opposed to 1 minute because we're removing safety from things that don't involve citadels.