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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Faction Warfare - FW Aliance Generated NPC Navy Incursion

Author
Degnar Oskold
Moira.
#1 - 2016-10-03 16:14:37 UTC
Summary:
Faction Warfare Alliances should be able to generate Incursions by their own Faction Navy within constellations in their FW Zone. This incursion can be farmed by the opposite militiias for Faction Militia LP the way that regular incursions work, but in the mean time will have Powerful Rats on Gates (occasionally including scramming rats) , regional cyno jamming, and sites in systems.

How it works


  • Members of FW Alliances are able to dump LP at I-Hubs into either the normal FW system upgrade, or into a "Navy Patrol Fund". The LP paid in by different alliances are tracked separately
  • Once 1 million LP are paid in by a singe Alliance, people with leadership roles in the alliance are able to select a constellation in the FW zone and spawn an "Faction Navy Patrol" incursion there.
  • This would act like a Sansha incursion, but with equally strong rats from the Faction Navy there. Cyno jamming and sites would go up. ,The sites could only be run by the opposing militia, but would be slightly easier to run than normal incursion sites.
  • The "Mothership site" would be much easier than the Sansha mothership site, and would involve killing a normal capital of the faction (ie Kill an Archon if you are fighting the Amarr Navy) and would drop Faction Navy Ship/Module BPCs.
  • The total amount of LP paid out to the opposing militia for running the sites would be less than what was cost to start the incursion, ie 500,000 LP paid out in total to Caldari militia for an incursion that cost Gallene Militia 1 million LP to create.
  • There is a hard limit of 1 or 2 incursions per faction simultaneously to avoid massive incursion spam. If the limit has been reached, Alliances can queue up their own Incursion requests and it will be executed the next day after the current incursion ends. Once an alliance's incursion is over it cannot trigger another incursion for 1 week.


Why is this a good idea?

  • This will help to fight LP deflation by creating a LP outlet for militia that doesn't translate into ISK for the same militia
  • Through the cyno jamming, this provides a means for militia to interfere with pirate lowsec entities who try to live in the FW Warzone without joining FW. Although lowsec pirate entities have the capacity to easily run incursion sites, since they would have to join the militia to run the sites this provides incentive for FW warzone dwellers to join FW.
  • This creates greater engagement for FW players with their Faction. It would be presented from a lore perspective as FW Capsuleers sponsoring faction navy fleets to go on aggresive patrols in the area.
  • The high LP cost of starting the incursion will encourage more FW Warzone activity such as missioning and plexing, giving more opportunities for all warzone residents to get fights.

Leto Aramaus
Frog Team Four
Of Essence
#2 - 2016-10-03 16:29:35 UTC
Okay one question,

Why would one side ever do it?

Why would anyone spend their LP to generate an income source for the enemy? I didn't see any incentive to do this for the Alliance generating the Navy Patrol. What do they get?
Degnar Oskold
Moira.
#3 - 2016-10-03 16:34:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Degnar Oskold
Leto Aramaus wrote:
Okay one question,

Why would one side ever do it?

Why would anyone spend their LP to generate an income source for the enemy? I didn't see any incentive to do this for the Alliance generating the Navy Patrol. What do they get?


The main benefit is constellation wide cyno jamming, at a substantial cost (basically 1 billion ISK thaat can only come through LP). The second benefit is interfering with casual movement of enemy ships through gate scramming rats. You also get more opportunity for conflict through fighting fleets that form to run the sites.

The downside/balance to this is that you give the enemy an opportunity to make ISK.
Christopher Mabata
Northern Accounts and Systems
#4 - 2016-10-03 16:35:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Christopher Mabata
Agreed without incentives, monetary specifically, the side spawning this Faction Incursion has no reason to waste their LP. Only a few groups would bother trying to use this to provoke fights, which doesn't necessarily make it worth doing or even mean it will be used often enough to justify its addition to the system.

Also constellation wide cyno jamming makes this seem like a stealth nerf hotdrops and logistic operations of moving supplies thread

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MP2008
Restinotia Corp
#5 - 2016-10-03 16:53:31 UTC
This is a good idea in theory, however as pointed out above this should not be the final product. There should be a tangible incentive for the aggressing militia. Such an incentive could be, reduce offensive plexing time by 50% to make it easier to capture systems. This way Spawning one would coincide with offensives.

Or perhaps the incursion would slowly auto plex up the constellation. Call it 2% per hour unless the incursion is stopped by the opposing militia. That would mean systems at 0% would take approximately 50 hours of the incursion running unopposed to becoming vulnerable.
May Arethusa
Junction Systems
#6 - 2016-10-04 11:21:56 UTC
It's an interesting idea, though I couldn't realistically support it before the current bugbears of FW are addressed, and a few other changes were made. Ignoring the standard "fix farming" arguments, this wouldn't make sense from a lore perspective without a natural increase in hostilities between the empires. If/When the four-way war becomes a reality, this would make a nice addition to that. Imagine branching out to a new battlefield with the full support of your navy behind you.

Secondly, I'd only support it if Corps/Alliances were able to tax LP, and the cost (more on that later) were payable from this wallet alone. This would prevent existing stocks of LP from being exploited. The tier system is becoming increasingly unpopular, and bankrolling a new mechanic on the byproducts of it would sour the experience. The fact you're proposing a massive LP dump after a prolonged period of equally massive LP gains should and will set alarm bells ringing. Removing existing LP stockpiles from the equation would provide a suitable break from the old era and hopefully begin a new one coupled with other overhauls.

On a related note, the cost simply isn't high enough. Conversion rates aside, you're proposing that for the cost of four Faction Battleships, the respective navies would stage a full blown incursion with capital ship support? Such an event should require significant effort over a prolonged period of time, and shouldn't be trivialised by arbitrary caps like those you propose. Think along the lines of Community Goals from E:D instead of "I ran a few plexes at T4." Being able to chain these events would detract from their meaning and it wouldn't be too long before people got tired of them. Conversely, a united effort by an alliance to amass the LP required for this before triggering an Incursion to support an assault? That has meaning, and promotes unity within an alliance, as well as potential competition between rival groups within a militia pushing their own agendas. I'd be much more impressed by a group pulling this off than having an individual dump a fraction of his stabbed farmer's LP stockpile to cyno jam an entire constellation.

I'd also like to see some way of directly countering the Incursion with a similarly prohibitive donation to the targeted militia. My understanding is that FW is essentially a Cold War, with capsuleers acting as partisan forces in satellite systems to prevent full-scale war between the empires. By matching the donation, it should be possible to trigger a stalemate between the two navies, who are unwilling to enter into direct conflict with one another. This adds a degree of uncertainty to the mix and opens up some strategic options; do you hold on to you LP to negate an Incursion, or weather the storm and mount your own to counter-attack following a successful defence, or even to prevent a successful attacker from stocking a newly acquired system?

Quote:
Why would one side ever do it?


Quote:
There should be a tangible incentive for the aggressing militia.


As Degnar has already pointed out, Cyno jamming an entire constellation is the primary benefit. You've already seen how that can bring an assault crashing to a halt in a matter of hours in Kehjari. Knowing it will be an issue allows you to prepare around that, while the defender has to manage without that warning. You can stage out of an adjacent station/citadel, the defender doesn't have this luxury.

If that isn't enough for you, couple it with the fact that an Incursion means fewer pilots in plexes. When an Incursion hits FW space, activity within those systems tends to drop off significantly. Furthermore, in order to clear the Incursion you'll need to designate pilots to run sites while maintaining a cohesive defence force. That means bling on field, and a second set of sites that require defending that have zero impact upon the contestation level of the system.

Frankly, the idea of passively contesting an entire constellation on top of cyno jamming and travel restrictions from effective NPC gate rats is ridiculous. It is a good idea, in theory. Don't spoil it.

Quote:
Also constellation wide cyno jamming makes this seem like a stealth nerf hotdrops and logistic operations of moving supplies thread


With the frequency it would occur under the proposed cost/restriction, it certainly is (doubly so the logistical side of things, which will make or break an attack/defence). Assuming both militias had two incursions running at once in different constellations, that's a massive chunk of the war zone locked out. Honestly, I'm of the belief that third party intervention stifles FW, as large scale engagements become a matter of who has the bigger bat phone. Anything that encourages large low-sec entities from either engaging in FW or moving out of the warzone is a good idea in my books. These proposals are a little too extreme though, as it would be theoretically possible to perma-jam four constellations until the servers go down.