Warfare & Tactics

As a noob, please feel free to comment constructively, but please refrain from pooping from the mouth instead. The problem as has been laid out numerous times is that SOV grinding is horrible for all. An alternative needs to be developed is what I keep reading on the forums and hearing on podcasts. The solution to the problem that people like is rewarding people for actively using space and punish those who do not actively use space they have claimed. How do you accomplish this? Well the answer is simple. Reward people for actively using space and punish those who do not.

Here is my thought. Make every system into a giant game of King of the Hill. I have read the rewards are for players that have I-Hubs with upgrades, POS's, and other important ISK generating structures. Well the fight is over how to manage SOV without the grind through large areas of boring space and never any fighting. Currently high EHP on these even in systems that are nearly abandoned for extreme stretches of time, make this a nightmare by everyone's account.

So back to my solution, reward players for being active in Null space and punish those who are not. So my solution would have a ticker. Basically for any undocked and uncloaked pilot in a system the ticker raises. But what does the ticker have an affect on? That would be the EPH and the resists of the expensive and important structures as well as SOV. Don't have any one in the system, or an enemy comes into the system, not only does the ticket stop, but even have it start to drop. Enough time in the system and the I-Hubs or POS's or whatever build up to a high level. They can be attacked and destroyed anytime, but activity will actually strengthen them. Empty space, or more enemies in the space and they start decreasing. Have them go extremely low with no activity, or more enemy activity, to the point, that over enough time a five man small gang could Waltz through and destroy billion dollar system infrastructure in just a few minutes.

What does all this do? Put butts in their seats to make money, put butts in their seats to kill those who are making money, put butts in their seats to defend them, put butts in their seats to escalate it into bigger fights.

More fights are a given, unless the space really is not important to you. New Corporation wants to own SOV space and the rewards that come with it? Better be prepared to spend time in it to use the space not only for ISK rewards, but to strengthen the structures that improve it. Are you a large Coalition that has space that is unused simply because you can blob a smaller entity? Great! With this system it won't do you any good in the long run if you are not using it. A smaller entity that is using a space can actively work the EHP and Resists to the point where a grind is what taking a capital system will be, while unused areas can be taken over in minutes.

This will lead to strategy and careful evaluation of your own-limits being more important than I have the bigger blob, I win and now I can passive-income-earn with no threats because my 400 inactive pilots will log in for the potential of a fight that will just get blue-balled under the current system.

*Edit* The best part of this system is that it would be simple to implement. Flagging the system a ship is in should be cake. Making a ticker (multiplier) based on total flags for the system just as easy. The biggest balance issue is the level of multiplier for numbers of pilots in the system, multipliers for length of time active in system by numbers, multipliers for doing certain activities (mining, ratting, etc..) and how fast the decrease goes. If incomes of activities need to be adjusted you could do that, but you could also make it so the timer's are based on the existing income of an area, so as a group outgrows an area they can focus on more. If they overextend, they can't keep the ticker high enough.

Rewards can be based on the ticker as well. Higher ticker systems naturally generate more minerals, more enemies, or higher loot from enemies when ratting, or even a tax or instant income that increases for those who run the corp. or alliance. That will enable benefits for more active corps. and alliances.

Get rid of timers. Make everything true pvp.

I have to agree that PvP has to be the back bone for nul. And adding in more timers to manage and more tickers to grind up is the last thing anyone wants.

But no timers at all? I think that is a recipe for one well organized cap fleet to wipe out whole regions in 5 min dred cycles just before down time. Thus even fewer folks flying in nul resulting (I fear) in nul being even more desolate than low is now.

I personally am of the camp that to get more fights in low/nul CCP needs to push pilots there with their wallets. Stop the manipulation of PLEX prices and let tweek the index so that if you are trying to pay your accounts in hisec alone it becomes a full time affair. Then make low and sov space able to pay those bills quicker and you will see the farmers in there. And for the casual that don't want to go they then have to spend real money on accounts and CCP will boost revenues on subscriptions that otherwise don't pay them.

Otherwise it becomes a handful of gangs roaming around with little hope of bumping into each other.

when it comes to timers, I wonder... obviously reinforcement times are pain and obviously without them sov is too vulnerable to out of timezone attacks and similar metagaming, however how about:
- change timers from reinforcement ones to same ones + 'vulnerability window': basically you leave reinforcement times identical as they are now but also add a weekly (?) window of 2-4 (?) hours during which your PoS / Outpost / hub / whatever is full vulnerable to attack (it won't go into refinforcement and is subject to being destroyed in single attack session);
-> basically idea here is to allow 'prolonged siege' with timers of pain as it is now, but to also allow attacker to crack down entire thing at once if he can coordinate attack during your vulnerability window; of course you have total control how you want to set it as long as you follow X hours in Y time period rule, so you are free to prepare it in time windows during which you can stage best defense (or during which your worst opponent sleeps if you choose so or whatever)
-> needless to say, X and Y are subject to balancing
-> also needless to say, this is nerf to defenders and might have to be balanced in some other ways if needed (silly example: your starbase turrets get really angry during vulnerability window and deal *A damage :) )

We have slightly different defenitions of PVE, I ment such that shooting anything that is not player owned/controled is PVE (perhaps PvN(pc) would be more apropriate), the very defention of sov is 'plsyer controled space' therefor shooting things that arent player controled should have nothing to do with it.

I understand that many may disagree on this however I have always been of the opinion that 'Guerilla Warfare' should have no effect on the soverignty of a system, however it should be able to make that systems use nearly impossible. What many people don't realise is that this is the case at the moment, it is possible to shut down all PVE activity in a 0.0 region with ~30 (depending on the size of the region) dedicated people, even if they only have one character each.

Why not?

'Farming' isn't necessarily the reason an alliances holds sov, for example there are some systems we hold purely for jump bridges or cyno beacons, just because no farming happens in those systems doesn't mean we aren't using them. PL holds 4 or 5 stations just so their renters in the drone regions have a jump route to empire, why should they have to farm there to keep them when they can defend them from anyone trying to take them?

This is the main problem with 'activity based sov' ideas, not all activity is quantifiable and we should not be forced to farm one aspect of it when we use the system for something else.

There has been many threads on this subject and in truth the sensible course of action is to tie in the EHP's to the usage of the system. The reasoning is that there are pirate factions in the system, so if they are not kept in check then the sov becomes more vulnerable. So reducing the EHP of the Sov modules to take that into account works for me, but timers should stay due to TZ issues. This makes it much more possible for smaller entities to harass larger entities and especially JB systems as detailed by a Goon, my suggestion would make them harder to defend if there is no activity and that will be a benefit to the game.

But its not the full story, because logistics are the next issue, there is no way to maintain yourself unless you are close to low sec, high sec or NPC 0.0, or have perfected using WH's to do this. You put up a POS, it gets reported immediately to the sov holder and bang, its taken out, also within your mechanism is the need to remove that notification. However as POS's are linked to moons, they cannot be hidden, so that means you really do struggle to operate in deep sov space. That is why so many of us were very interested in the new POS system that had been proposed.

I read your post and rejected your post as being irrelevent!

You obviously did not read any of what I suggested, ratting keeps down the NPC pirate faction in the system, so as an abstract that they are not going to be controlled weakens the EHP of the sov modules. All timers are the same as before and it still needs a fleet to come along to reinforce it, the only difference to now being that if you do not keep the local pirates down then it gets to a stage that a single Dread using a single siege cycle can RF an IHUB.

Incorrect in terms of Malcanis law, first of all I am not an old old player, nor am I a member of any large entity, my vision is to create areas of space with lots of small alliances holding space and using it, so they get maximum defence potential from their sov modules.

I don't want to harass your jump bridge system with this, I want to take that system and hold it by using it, that you have a JB there is of no interest to me at all and while your using it you are not keeping the pirate menace at bay and thus your hold is not very strong...

As you did not read my post, I will repeat the suggestion in terms of the POS reporting, the local pirates reduce your level of system control, get it? Please try to keep up! Damn is this what Fawlty has to FC, damn!!!

You are repeating yourself and ignoring the argument.

Non player characters and by extension ratting/other PVE should have no effect on sov. I don't care that you have a shiny lore explanation as to why they might, it is still a bad idea.

Small alliances will still not be capable of holding sov under these changes as they will be shat on by large alliances to the extent that they are unable to do anything at all until they leave 0.0. It would basically be a completely pointless change in terns of the goals you say you are trying to achieve. You will also not be allowed to take that system in the first place. You still have to fight on the timers, which you will still not win.

I asked why not how, why shouldn't the systems owners be told that a tower has been put up in their space? I don't care about the lore tell me why this intel tool should be removed from players.