Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Nullsec... I was there.
I had to move my stuff once every month because of wars.
It was exciting, and exactly how nullsec should be. You conquer, you settle. Then the other guys take revenge, and you fight, but then have to flee the area.

But now, it's just way too calm, except perhaps at the borders of your sovereignty.
People have no reason to fight if they have everything already, have a huge amount of manpower, and have an income of billions of ISK.
I also think it's nearly impossible to contest big alliances/coalitions, because they just have so. much. manpower.
That's great and all, but more manpower would also mean they can respond faster, right? So my question is: what the heck do they need the reinforcement timers for?

I suggest we make it way more faster to capture a system, upgrade it, and thus making conquering a lot more faster and unforgiving. How would you react if you realise your entire territory was conquered overnight while you were asleep?
This is"pretty much impossible right now. But what if it became possible? Wouldn't that result in some great dynamics of null with constant conquers and fights over sov?

Give people the ability to destroy and conquer faster than now, and we will see more of the smaller alliances being able to take the stuff of bigger alliances, by just having the right tactic, time, and firepower.
Make it more dynamic, as I think the time needed to capture is WAY too long and gives way too much time for alliances to set up a proper counterattack. Don't give them that time.


So this is how I think it should work:

1: Anchoring stuff takes 1 minute. Onlining stuff takes 5 minutes. This is especially needed for SBUs, TCUs and Ihubs. I don't see why it needs so much time except to give the enemy time to react on it. This is unneccesary for EVE, it just doesn't fit in a game that's all about fast-paced PvP action.
A LOT of systems are already unpopulated so people wouldn't notice SBUs for a while. So yeah, you can take sov of it, but the moment when 1 pilot of the enemy sets foot in that system, they can set up a counter attack. I'd say: you must be vigilant and aware ALL the time if you wish to keep sov of the system, not have a scout visit it once in the 3 hours to make sure there's no SBUs being onlined there. It's basically the same as AFK mining; these systems are probably used by POSes that passively mine moon goo and are being emptied once a day or so.
To prevent abuse of the downtime though, you can't build SBUs or TCUs 1 hour before and 1 hour after downtime.

2: Reinforcement timers are nerfed, based on the amount of pilots that are friendly, and the amount of systems you have altogether. This means everyone who is set to +5 or +10, is in your corp, in your alliance, or allied with you in a war and the amount of systems you and your friendlies hold sovereignty over. The more pilots and systems you have at your disposal, the more the reinforcement timers are nerfed for your assets, down to complete removal of those timers.

3: Strategic upgrades will be made so much faster too, because conquering is faster, it becomes harder to hold sovereignty:
Level 1: Sovereignty held for 1 day.
Level 2: Sovereignty held for 2 days.
Level 3: Sovereignty held for 5 days.
Level 4: Sovereignty held for 15 days.
Level 5: Sovereignty held for 45 days.

Strategic upgrades will also limit which other upgrades you can install on your IHub. ie: if you have strategic upgrade 1, then the military and industrial upgrades can also only be at level 1 maximum.

4: Industrial levels will now be needed in order to install moon-mining arrays.
This must be enabled with an industrial upgrade, which must be installed on the IHub to allow moon mining: Moon Prospecting.
The higher your Moon Prospecting array, the better the rate at which your moon mining array works.
This means you need *gasp* mining activity in the system to get moon mining abilities! :o
Unless you go to an unclaimed area.

What this does is:
It counters the huge sovereignty areas.
Sure, this is a multiplayer game that means you have to cooperate with others, but when this is taken to extreme, it just doesn't work well, even if it's quite impressive to see multi-thousand player alliances/coalitions out there.
What is happening with EVE now - creating super-coalitions to hold as much space as possible - is something I've seen actually happen in an other game, where there are just 2-3 major forces now, and that game went stagnant the moment it went from small group warfare to large group warfare. And EVE is going the same way. Eventually, large group warfare just becomes way too much effort for the reward, so people just stop doing that and get bored.

Dividing a large group into smaller groups will be a smart thing to do, as it makes nullsec more of an anarchy in regards to sovereignty... everyone for themselves. New alliances don't have to join super-coalitions to be "safe" in null, as null should not be safe for anyone, including these super coalitions, period.
Make it faster and more convenient to conquer sovereignty, creating much more dynamic between the corps/alliances in nullsec, and trust me, people WILL go to nullsec just for the heck of it. It becomes the true hardcore game environment of EVE, which changes rapidly and you WILL lose sovereignty overnight, up to you to take back what is yours.

The end result is probably this:
- an anarchist nullsec, everyone for themselves. Not much super-coalitions to speak of, and if there are, they are first to be attacked, as they become easier prey by the smaller alliances/corporations.
- more systems not being claimed, allowing for more alliances to settle in null and take the fight to other alliances. Easier transition from highsec to null, too.

Such a new mechanic would be harsh, unforgiving, and hardcore. That fits the spirit of EVE.
I hope you like.


Regards,

Singoth

That already happens, so I don't see what your point is.

With my idea, small/med alliances will have reinforcement timers, meaning small alliances get more time to organise a counter attack, remove their assets from the system, or to distract the attackers by attacking the attacker's sovereignty.
Large alliances would have systems that can be insta-captured. (with my idea, one such a capture would take about 20 minutes.)

As it stands, small/med alliances ARE already being attacked for fun and stand no chance against the big alliances when they are near their space, resulting in many of these alliances becoming part of an already stagnant super-coalition, resulting in less and less targets to shoot for everyone in null.
Eventually, all of nullsec could become one single entity in the future... I aim to prevent that with this request.

1.) RF timers are not entirely a bad thing. They are used to get big fights. Yes, this leads to blobbing, but without RF timers the opportunities for 1000 pilot fleet battles would almost cease to exist.

2.) There are many problems, in my mind, with the current sov system, and you're proposal does very little to nothing to solve them:
-- Every system is vulnerable, at any time (as opposed to the risk like conquering system, where you have to start at the edge and work your way in)
-- Holding a system requires no actual pressence/activity within the system.
-- Taking or defending a system is entirely based around shooting huge structures with lots of HP. This means bigger is better... which is not the way of EvE.

3.) If moon mining requries sov indy upgrades, wtf is going to happen to all those juicy tech moons in low sec?

So basically, goons (Heavy US TZ presence) should be able to take everything solar (Heavy russian TZ presence) owns in one night, then solar do the same to goons the next day, repeat ad infinium?