Player Features and Ideas Discussion

SOV is dominion over a system. Right?
Owning structures isn't really ownership of the system, it is an artifact of it, but I'm not sure it is the best definition.

Presence and defense are the actions that earn and keep a system.

Presence is simple, flying an uncloaked ship outside of POS shields and ideally doing something. We'll call this factor pilot-hours.
Defense is also simple, PC ship-kills. Alliance X killed N Non-Alliance X ships.

If your alliance is dominating both numbers for about 48 hours, your alliance gains the system.
If you have the system and at least one of the numbers, you cannot lose the system.
If nobody has either, the system goes to NPC/none.

There should be a minimum threshold for pilot-hours to prevent wanderers from claiming random systems that aren't really busy.

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Edit 1:
How it would work:
Each clock hour would be a unit (12:00 to 12:59:59 is one block, 13:00-13:59:59 is the next, etc).
Any hours with downtime would simply not count (not valid).
The server would track 96 real hours (To have enough hours for downtime) or more if resources allow.
You win SOV when your alliance has 48 of the last 72 valid Presence hours and your alliance Defense Hours plus zero-kill hours are 48 of the last 72 valid Defense hours.
You lose SOV if both of these metrics fall below the win-threshold.
You maintain SOV while at least one of these metrics remain in the win-threshold.


Shuttle kills and Pod kills should not count toward the Defense stat. Don't need to allow killing alts to inflate numbers.
Cheaper ships should count less than larger ships to the Defense stat.
Each second a pilot is in space outside of a POS shield and not cloaked should count towards pilot-hours. (Divide by 3600 after adding them all up for display.)

The numbers could need tweaking, but that's the jist.

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Edit 2:
The defense score should also have a few points awarded to it for NPC ship kills, but not so much that an actual large war could be defended through these points.

If more time is needed, adjust numbers up to 112 hours (4.6 days) claimed over 168 hours (7 days).
SOV is not automatically awarded, you must anchor SBUs and a TCU before it is formally awarded.

TCU are placed after you have dominant time. TCUs provide 1/6 requirement (8 or 19) free Presence hours, enough to help off-hours but not enough to keep it out-right.
SBUs deny the free hours and allow the owners of the SBUs to place a TCU if they have the option to claim.


Also, remember, you need different hours to win SOV. a 60 man fleet for 1 hour only wins you 1 hour. If you come in, put the station into reinforcement and leave, you will eventually just take the station. You will need to maintain a larger in-space fleet in the system for as many hours as you can. It might be as few as 1 person if everybody flees. Being inside of a forcefield doesn't count. For pilot-hours to accrue, you need to be somewhere that you can be attacked which means fights. And since you need lots of distinct hours, that means lots of different fights.

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Edit 3:
Add a Surrender button to the Outpost management screen that transfers ownership to another alliance. If the other alliance accepts the surrender, they can select a number of hours of peace. During this peace time, All activity by the first alliance counts towards the second alliance's SOV requirements. The new alliance cannot deny docking access to the Outpost during this peace time. It could be set between 24 and 168 hours. The surrendering alliance could set a minimum and the conquering alliance could decline the surrender.

This way, transfer of the outpost could occur without slogging through the HP and the defeated alliance can attempt to go away with some stuff, take down towers, and basically clean up. The expectation is that the conquering alliance grant temporary blue status during the peacetime and everybody can start recovering quickly without tediously going through pointless structure killing.

Also
Ties for pilot-hours do not count for anybody. Pilot-hours are whole numbers rounded down. If an alliance does not accumulate 3600 seconds of pilot-time, they are awarded 0 pilot-hours for the hour. Thus, transit-only systems must be very busy to maintain their SOV.

If the solar system is that quiet for two (online every minute vulnerable to scanning down and killed) or three days (on 16 hours/day), yes. But if anybody brings a small gang in and kill you...

I was considering the possibility that NPC ship kills should count at PC frigate kills to ensure some value of "Defense" could be accrued.

It would also make the SOV owners come out as turtling up in the outpost would take them out of the running for the pilot-hours race.

SOV isn't having structures (POS warfare of old or TCUs of late) as you can get those set and do nothing with them until they get attacked. SOV is USING the system and active defense. Track that activity and let defacto SOV become dejure SOV.

Which came first, the chicken (Structures) or the egg (Activity)?

The SOV is always under attack in this system even if it is just against unclaimed. I like the 3-day time frame as it would be a long weekend to take the system. As for the TCU, instead of automatically gaining SOV after getting the 48 hours, you get an indicator that you have the option to claim the system. Your TCU will go offline if you fail to maintain the requirements and lose SOV. Your SOV is based upon activity, the TCU is there to broadcast it.
Perhaps SBUs would be required if you're trying to gain the option of keeping the system, but they would not be required if you're just trying to take SOV away (you might quickly get a SOV gain indicator as soon as you drop one though if you qualify, but the fight is probably long over by that point.
If the fight needs to last a week, then up the numbers to 112 hours out of 168.

You do NOT need to kill their POSs nor beat the Outpost before gaining SOV. These may be artifacts of victory, but they are not criteria for it. The system will go contested before these structures fall. If the original owners win, they'll reclaim SOV quickly enough. If the new alliance wins, then SOV will come quickly enough. My thinking is that during a war, the hours are going to be fairly 50/50 in ownership (thus the 2/3rds majority for ownership.) If the alliance is really strong, they'll never lose SOV (lots of kills or lots of pilot-hours).

Bump