Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Very interesting. I like the immersion factor, probably more than anything. The idea of controlling colonies really appeals to me, and the integration with DUST just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

SOMETHING needs to be done with SOV, and SOMETHING needs to be done with DUST. Honestly I think this is the best proposal presented to the community to solve both simultaneously (albeit a little complicated, be what the heck, EVE is complicated -- which is why it's so much fun).

I believe this is definitely worthy of discussion. A smart post deserves smart responses.

Interesting ideas, and worthy of further consideration... it'd be more interesting than grinding existing sov structures, at least, and the more valuable colonial structures could serve as targets for roaming gangs.

That said, a couple points. One is that there should be some reason for the governors to be the actual players living in the space, instead of the alliance leadership (notably; it should not be possible for one person in the alliance holding corporation to personally be the governor of all the systems controlled by the alliance). Two, similarly, is that although the proposed system is more scalable than the current system, it still has more to do with control over structures than the individual players involved.

I really like the ideas expressed in this thread and hope they are adopted in some form.

However, going back to controlling the people, this could be done by the more or less benevolent means as suggested here, but there should also be some scope for control by just military force.

This could be done with some sort of planetary garrision force (using all those marine units?), say put in place by a DUST related mechanism and/or orbital bombardment structures which force the planet and system to be under the control of the tyrannical military conquerors.

I like where this is going, but I think it can be refined a bit... mainly in the realm-ish of what Xia is referring to without over doing it. What if you expanded your idea of corruption to decrease your workforce upon an attack? For example if you get the shields of a colony/section/module below 50% you lose x amount of the workforce working on that colony/section/module and/or from that colony/section/module. Then at 25% shields or armor (the numbers are just place holders) you would lose more of that population to corruption. The actual intervals of a loss are who knows what but you get the idea. Basically it adds a more fluid feel to the system and requires constant policing, people actually have to watch all of their colonies or they wont be utilizing them to there fullest. Even a random roams could pose a small threat to sov if unchecked. Death by a thousand cuts? It might make breaking into sov a bit easier... keeping it on the other hand...

Corruption due to attack actually leading to sov being vulnerable would have to be a Goldilocks situation, if possible at all. You would need to loose enough population that your sov could be affected if everything is perfectly aligned and I mean perfectly and someone has to be an idiot, but at the same time you don't want this to be a remotely common occurrence. The idea is to have this be a "hey we dented them! I wonder if we come back in something better how far can we push our luck?" It is a piece of feedback to make people feel as though they are making a difference no matter how small that difference is. The pecked to death should be one of those stories that you hear about and cant believe that they took the castle with only a handful of people and are now local heroes. At the same time though you need to lose enough population that you can potentially affect them and they feel it enough to actually be there next time you come knocking. There needs to be a threat of losing the castle, but you rarely ever do; the thing that every small timer dreams of pulling off, but only one in a million ever does.

The second piece of this is an NPC component.


If you pair the part of Harvey's idea that is shown here with the increase in corruption upon attack stated above, and make NPC pirates attack colonies/sections/modules then there is even a threat to sov inside giant blue blobs... if systems go unchecked regularly. Have them be big, lots of rats of all shapes and sizes, like a whole mission warped on you at once, but your not ready for it and have no warning. If they really go unchecked and a module is incapacitated then you could have some of the cargo spill into space, as a double whammy. A short term loss in productivity/vulnerability to the system as well as a long term loss of product/supplies as a double penalty for negligence.

I personally would shy away from NPC pirates attacking heavy military installations like outposts and focus more on the lower hanging lighter defended colonies. This would limit them to the dead space pockets, meaning that their impact would be limited to the sov mechanic and potentially not obvious as soon as you enter system. This means you actually have to stay in the system longer than a hot sec to know if they are there. Also it is way more inline with what a pirate actually would do.

The downside to this is there is potential for farming and removing bounties on these guys really wouldn't make much sense. This could however provide an income for the guys who are supposed to be on patrol so that it is actually kind of profitable for them, and it would help to "level out" the loss of isk that could stem from the potentially smaller power blocs... the NPC section is the weak link, but the purpose it serves is needed. Ideas?

Are you the same person as the OP?

So with some of the colonies and their extras you would be destabilizing your system for more crops(rats)?

This I like.

While you are correct that there are a "dozen" structures that you have to hit, I don't think they would have the hp buffers that there are now and you wouldn't actually have to pop all of them to take a system. By having a population mechanic you can chose to pop them all and replace them, or you can simply force them into reinforcement. This system takes away the hp grind and moves to a system wide fight. It turns it from a time/hp grind and into a mobile warfare game. As a defender you can predict where your opponent will be and set up before hand or your can drop on them where they are if you have forces near by. By adding colonies and modules the system has a way to hinder your opponent if you don't have the man power to drop one of the higher valued targets and still have an affect on the sov game, or to force him to spread out his forces because there is actually a meaning to the term raiding party now that will have a lasting effect on the system. So it is a constant struggle of how to allocate forces and manage the space that you own. If things happen quicker, but you can predict the next few possible outcomes then more people will do dumb things and people can then react to those dumb things quicker, this forces more fights and a better game in general IMHO. The downside to this is there is little time for bat phoning. So that last battle for control should take a while to allow full force deployment if needed and give the blobs a chance to assemble... hmm still a WIP.

As for the uninhabitable planets bit it could be balanced by an increase in sockets for colonies in these systems. You would need to invest the extra sockets towards population increasing modules and sections which would make them in line with the other systems, seeing as you need population for many colonies to work if I understand the system correctly. While the population on gas, plasma, lava, storm, and barren (although you could argue this one...mars) would be low think about an indoor colony setting similar to a giant station just on/floating on the planets surface. It provides enough room for dust and population. As far as your argument for half of these, PI makes 0 sense on these planets if true. Think outside of people strolling around on the surface; we are flying around at faster than light everyday in clones that can dump their cognition into another body... lava is a piece of cake.

This would however draw attention to the population colonies in those systems... That said there needs to be a mechanic that forces more fights to the colonies in all systems or they will become extremely low value targets that no one really goes after. I thought that by adding the whole corruption via attack it would entice some of the fight away from the POCOs without negating it.

Dust invasions of these colonies would be an amazing way to strengthen the link between the two games and would give an more meaningful reason to transport dust mercs in eve ships. Heck there is even potential for Valkyrie integration if 2 different dust merc groups hold 2 sections they could launch the the ships and fight around the colony.

This might be a situation where the numbers that were put in as placeholders are the sticking point... but...
I think what Radhe is getting at is there are systems out there with just a handful of gas and a random lava or plasma/other low population planet. If the population in a system is to low then how do you deal with it? There are systems with only like 6 or 7 planets in the situation above, if the system has a population of around 30 and can't even support 1 DeCo properly then what is the point to it? While that could be by design to enable more war mechanics for fights over better systems, there comes a point when a system just isn't worth the effort. There would need to be a way to upgrade these worthless systems, and adding planets isn't going to happen.

You kind of already have a solution in place in your population colonies, but they would either have to increase the population by large numbers or the number of colonies allowed in theses "worthless systems" would need to increase so that more population could be built. I would go with more dead space areas in these systems because otherwise you could build the larger population boosting colonies in every system and the same problem occurs just with bigger numbers. If this route is chosen alliances would have to invest more in these systems to make them more profitable and they would be more vulnerable not to sov conquest but rather to the destruction of infrastructure. They would still be less desirable due to the extra resources and time but not worthless.

Would population be increased in the module/section or in the colony itself?

Also it might be an interesting idea to add a tax system to colonies, kind of like ownership of a poco. Maybe not taxes, best I could think of, something that makes it so you can use the existing colonies in your system, but you would be better off if you destroyed it and put up your own. I'm trying to work through a scenario where it is a good idea to actually knock out an opponent's colonies if you intend to live in the space afterwards. They work great for the little guys trying to break into the big game and nip at heels, but for the established groups, aka the bulk of the clientele, it would be smarter to just leave them untouched and waltz into a fully functioning system. There needs to be some reason to actually blow these things up not just incapacitate them, but at the same time the incapacitate mechanic is a good one... or am I misunderstanding something?

What would be needed to better develop this idea would be some input from someone more knowledgeable than me in alliance sized fleet tactics on if and how it would influence siege fleets and system defence with sovereignty implemented like that.

After all, while dog piles make great news, they tend to be awful in the fun aspect for the participants. A sovereignty system should discourage dog piling by being tactically unreasonable, if that is even possible with current fleet and combat mechanics.

With the industry changes the benefit of installing Industrial Complexes or Science Stations would require some adaption.

One way could be that every such DeCo will count as another station in the system for workforce costs or even for every module dedicated for that purpose. Reinforcing the modules would then remove the associated benefits.

Another possibility would be to allow production lines at the DeCos and define the situational costs and benefits through the modules at the station with the risk of losing any production or stored items should the Section get reinforced and open for looting.

System wide benefits from modules would probably the easiest way to go about with it.