Wormholes

So I'm back after a short break (more children!), and am keen to get back into wormhole space. My first gut instinct is to get straight out there and slap down one of those tasty new medium citadels.

But the question still remains, just how well can these things defend themselves, compared to the large death star POS?

My large tower was even called The Citadel, and I could man the guns considerably across my accounts, and it stood undefeated in over two years of operation. With a full range of guns, ECM out the wazoo and replacements galore, it would have taken an impressive fleet of T3 cruisers to take that C3 wormhole from my grasp. Quite frankly, who could even be bothered with all that hassle?

So, how does the medium citadel compare? I trust there is someone out there who's already gone ahead and taken the risk! Do they still represent a threat against small fleets, or are people refusing to abandon their POS'?

I'm a strong believer that WH space is the last, true bastion for small corps to claim space to call their own. I hope my previous fears that citadels were another step towards the standard alliance - blob - warfest are unfounded.

/Discuss

Citadels are just so much easier to live out of than a POS. For small groups, having your own, decently sized hangers makes life so much easier for all concerned and not having to hand out critical roles makes for much easier security.

As for defence, well, like almost everything else in EVE, it's easier with friends. An active wormhole that your corp lives in and uses is a safe wormhole. A wormhole that's seldom being used is a very, very vulnerable wormhole.

Just remember the anchoring time is much longer for a citadel (24 hours). They are most vulnerable when coming online, so try and have full hole control for the entire onlining process.

Yous also want to train for fighters.

Correct - you can use T2 fighters from a Citadel without needing the skills.

My biggest dislike of citadels stems from the 1 bil price tag which is comparable to a faction large.

For 1 bil in a large POS - I get 70 million shield hitpoints and if I'm small and can't defend, I put a ton of hardeners on there. No one wants to grind 50-60% resists w/out a cap. **** star, death star... there's just more you can do and you don't have to be on for it to happen. Although it helps.

For a 1 bil citadel - I can take on a 6-8 man gang, less if they bring extra logi, or I'm not focused on ecm/nuets (w/the 600-1k damage I scrape out of it).

This. because of the nature of wspace it can put a serious dent in your operations having to keep active a citadel killing fleet long enough to actually kill it. Wheras a POS can be taken down relatively quickly in less than 48 hours from the attacker's time of choice, a citadel requires the attackers to not only find your citadel, but bow down to your vuln window once they find it for assault times, and then keep the attack fleet in system for the rest of the vuln windows, resullpy it, reship it, etc. For all that effort, there's no reliable guarantee of loot either.

Given the unpredictability of supply and reward, this often translates to fleet logistics very close to what you'd need to properly occup[y the hole in the first place just to take down the citadel, which makes it not worth it to even try unless they really want to keep your hole for themselves.

Sounds like my disdain for citadels is less warranted than I had hoped.

pos are nice for solo or nomadic style game play... day tripping or short trips into whs, for fast up and down protection for short time... which is nice... and sad that its going away.

citadels are nice but require a fleet or corp/alliance to really defend it and run it. Although Im sure many solo players are out there with citadels sitting in it all alone thinking this guy is crazy... lol but for a billion isk risk, and it takes 24 hours to drop... so not so great on the nomadic short protections game play style if you will. at least that is one way I see it.

Yea, Ive never really ventured in WH's until citadels were introduced. Its pretty easy for all players new and old with their assets and organization. Only downside might be with PI and the need to dock versus dropping PI or material into the pos hanger without changing session.