EVE New Citizens Q&A

Only thing I know is that they suck money more than a poorly-used ancillary shield booster.

Assuming you're referencing POS's (because how in the world would an Alpha get a citadel) they need fuel. If they run out, I'm pretty sure they're either a sitting duck or they just dissappear. I don't know which. Anyway, that fuel is rediculously expensive. Some of them eat it up hourly. The sense of them is to mitigate the cost by using them as a sort of base-camp, a place to return to and stash/process your stuff at close to where you're operating so you don't find yourself running home a lot to dump your hold out. Same idea with jet-canning, except jet-canning is used when the distance is not so far that you'd generate too much ore to hold in a couple of jetcans while the person running your items back is selling/stashing/processing them.

Basically, they're just there so you can set up a temporary base where you can stash items sort of safely.

Also, I'm not bashing either ancilliary boosts or anything else that consumes ammo over time. They can be useful. Heck, I'm designing a cruiser build around them. (400 EHP vs Guristas a second xD) However, they sometimes are not practical. For instance, if your freighter can make it home and back before you can fill a jet can with your buddies, don't set up a POS or citadel. It's a waste. If you can make it home and back faster than you can fill half your hold with ore, don't jetcan!

Basically, what I said is fine and dandy, but I'm a newbie too, and the most I know for sure is that everything is only really practical in certain situations. Like bringing a Titan into a frigate battle. Sure, you can tank all those puny frigs, but you can't hit them with your overly huge weapons; so why even bother?

So yeah, in other words, it's all situational, so you'd need to clue us in before we could give you decent advice.

Okay so... I get the feeling you want to make yourself a "space castle" somewhere. Let us go over some things.


You should not concern yourself with Outposts. Like... at all.
First, and probably the most important, is that Outposts are currently in the process of being phased out from the game.

This means you cannot anchor and build a new one anymore.
The ones that currently exist are going to be stuck in a form of "limbo" until the DEVs decide what they want to precisely do with them.


Your options are thus:

- POSs (also slated to be "phased out" but there is no word on when this may be)
- Citadels


In terms of abilities and defenses...

- POS:
--- You can anchor a plethora of guns and other forms of Electronic Warfare (see: debuffs) around the outside of the shields.
------------- Like a ship, you are limited by how much CPU and Powergrid the POS has.
------------- Fitting more weapons means you will have less CPU/PG for other things.
---- To function, POSs also require fuel. Like... A LOT of fuel. As in, you have feed it a minimum of once a month... and each fill up costs a hundred million ISK or more.
------------- There is another fuel you will also need to get called "Strontium." It is needed for the defense of the POS (see next point)
---- When attacked, a POS will attempt to defend itself using any weapons that are online. However, unless a player controlling the weapons, they will only have nominal to no effectiveness against an organized group.
------------- Assuming the POS has Strontium fuel in it, When a the shields reach 25% it will enter an "invulnerability mode." Nothing can hurt it, but you will not be able to make any repairs either. With max fuel, this "invuln mode" will last about 1.5 days. Once it is over, you will have to defend the structure and/or fight off any hostiles that show up.

-Citadels: someone else may want to fill the OP in on this one as my knowledge is still pretty hazy on this.
All I can say for certain is that their defensive abilities are FAR higher than a POS, but they have limited ability to fend off hostiles by themselves.


The long and short of it is that you are going to need some form of allied support if you want to make a "space castle."
Hell... to anchor either structure requires that you be a part of, or make your own, player corporations... which opens the door for others to legally attack you through a War Declaration.