Jita Park Speakers Corner

Hey all

Thank you for your participation in this discussion.

First, let me spell out what we agree on in CCP:

• The current starbase system has a number of usability problems and design issues that cause pain for pretty much anyone who uses a starbase.
• People use starbases for a number of different purposes in the game, and many of the areas of the game where they form a key part, are ones we haven't iterated on in a long time - or the starbases are so fundamental to a type of gameplay, that the shortcomings of the existing system are felt daily.
• Lots more people are affected by starbases and starbase-related mechanics in the game, than just the people that manage them - and there are many cases where they are managed and used by "Enablers" and "Instigators" who use the capabilities of the starbase in the schemes of a larger group.
• Structures that players create, own, build and do stuff with is a very cool thing. We can see tons of potential in how a re-vamped system could both fix the stuff that's broken about the existing system, and open up for all kinds of exciting new things for both new and old players to do in EVE.

For all of these reasons, we wanted to create a new and better system, and started work to design and prototype an approach dubbed "modular POS:es" last release - the system you have heard about in various places.

The result was design work and a prototype, where the prototype and art requirements were centered on stuff that was very cool for the person creating the starbase. This was not the entire ambition of the design, but it was where the prototype and art requirements were focused. Because there were too many open questions around the functionality outside the features for starbase creation, we could not responsibly green light the design to go into production for the summer expansion. When we talk about "the POS system" only affecting a "small portion of the community", we are referring to the focus of the prototype, not to the current starbase system or the concept of the full "modular POS system" - but this does not come across well in the CSM Summit minutes.

The potential for player created and owned structures in EVE is great. But just like both me and CCP Unifex talked about in our recent devblogs, and in the summit sessions, we need to work out how we can realize each piece of that, using our new processes. One expansion worth of work won't be able to address all the problems with the current system, while also giving us all the new possibilities. While we weren't ready to commit to implementing the prototype we have at the moment, we are not abandoning either starbases or their potential.

You will see the first results of our new way of planning expansions towards the end of February, and you can follow the process through the CSM participation and also some updates I'll be giving. I can't and won't promise that specific features or fixes will be part of the summer expansion until we have gone through our pre-production phase.

Thanks for reading this, and for engaging in this discussion.

I've tried to stay off of EVE-O forums for a long time, but this one made even me come out of my lurking.

I'm one of those old guys who's been around basically since the beginning, I watched 0.0 open up when there weren't names for the regions yet. When the npc conquerable stations were created to give us a place to live BESIDES POS's because POS living in all of 0.0 was quite annoying. This was when litterally every single 0.0 dweller lived out of a POS, only those able to live out of NPC space in 0.0 were able to have the comforts of a station.

I say that to let you know I've worked with POS's, not a little bit, not a small bit, not a medium amount, a metric TON worth. When I hit my 2,000th POS I setup in 2012 I stopped tracking it, it wasn't a matter of pride anymore it was the most annoying thing I've ever done in a game ever. Remember when EVERY module took 10 minutes to anchor and 10 minutes to online? And if you didn't link them correctly you 'just' had to clear the links and reonline them again for another 20 minutes? Yeah.... that was awesome. Immersive even.

At my height I've run almost 70 POS's at once, and every day since 2005 I've run at least 1 Caldari large in empire, now up to 4 Caldari larges for my 19 alts. How people make decent money WITHOUT being effected by POS's I truly don't understand.

Almost anyone that plays for longer then a few months works up to tech 2 items, whether that item is a tech 2 gun, tech 2 drone, tech 2 mining laser, tech 2 tanking mod or tech 2 hull they get into tech 2 to some degree. Every single tech 2 item EVER made has come from a POS, whether it's the raw moon minerals minded, reacted, combined into components, built into the tech 2 item or the vast majority of invention I believe takes place in a POS lab to gain the bpc's. POS's are something hate to deal with, my entire corp has a meme of "Ban loves POS's!" or "Ban will show you how to setup a reaction chain" simply because I've given POS's the finger in the last months, it took almost 8 years but it finally broke me. I just can't handle them how they are anymore, I gave up a 70+ moon chain to an ally alliance and begged the corp not to moon mine as a corp anymore. Yup, it got that bad.

Now with all that said, and sorry for the length of it. I would love to see a POS rework with some of the very good suggestions I've heard from CCP and the community. Yes, even a bitter old vet like me still believes there is a good way to fix things and make another segment of the game a feature that people enjoy instead of despise.


If you are going to 'fix it' please remember the following things (snip).

1. XL POS's for carebearing but NOT a bigger weapons array would be nice.
2. Being able to dock in a POS like we do in a station, even if everything is lost if the POS dies is something I doubt anyone would disagree with.
3. Modular POS's would be awesome, something that is like a lego set would be much better then the clunky system that has been the same for almost 9 years now.
4. Please enable a SAVEABLE POS setup, so if I deploy a POS, online it and put all the modules in the field it would begin setting up those modules like my saved configuration. However it would NOT arm any weapon. Please, setting up 12 large POS's during a regional invasion across 3 systems on 3 characters on a Friday night was the first time my wife called me 'a giant nerd for that boring crap.'
5. Please make it easier to open up POS usage to alliance mates or even the general public if we so chose, research slots, build slots, invention slots, copy slots, please make it better then just ME and PE slots we can share currently.
6. A smoother interface would be much appreciated - P.I. has the means to make POS links, routing, roles and such very easy please consider parts of it into the new POS system, however please remember 'the less clicks the better."
7. Please for all that is holy make it easier to move items around a POS, I have a tower in empire with 16 equipment arrays on it, even with the most ideal configuration it can take me close to 10 minutes to move my freighter around the arrays to gather the 96 jobs. I don't see a reason why having limits within the POS shield for moving items or gathering jobs is needed anymore, please, please, PLEASE remove it. If it's not combat related, don't make it 'take so much time' anymore. You want us to pvp more, reduce the clicks!
8. Want more people to use POS's, enable some way for corps to be able to allow any member to anchor a deal with his own POS, without A. spamming the corp with his fuel messages. B. Forcing us to trust him to give him the roles to be able to setup his OWN POS C. Know the very detailed corp system that would enable us currently give a single character roles for his own POS's that is a clockwork nightmare to deal with currently.
9. Open up anchoring in 0.8 to 0.9 for some faction of players that are for 'their faction only' give em rewards, open more moons, everyone wins.
10. Create tools that would allow players to turn POS's in empire systems WITHOUT STATIONS to make those systems usable towards that holding npc empire. Think of the vice-roy idea you guys mentioned to us and we've never heard of again in almost 4 years, it's not as over powered as allowing low sec stations to be controlled, but if someone put up a POS and fueled it for a good long time in a empty 0.6 and players wanted to take advantage of it and pay the owner for the privilege, hey good on them and let em do it.


Yes, I get wordy, that's my thing. I've been dealing with POS's far too long and would love to see them become as easy as certain structures or 'bases' in other games. Owning space or something IN SPACE drew me to EVE and if I could recapture that feeling of building up something in space I'd love to see it draw in others.