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Hardly.

The entire concept is a clever wrinkle to the risk vs reward concept.

Few people are arguing for the percentage of risk to be adjusted... instead they would prefer the concept be abandoned if there is any element of risk involved what so ever.

However if this provided bonuses only, the majority would be strongly in favor of it.

It puts the entire debate into perspective.

Personally I feel the level of risk should be adjusted, but the concept as a whole is very sound... although there is the strong potential for the module to see use more often for other purposes than intended. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Reasons I like it:

It is an objective that can be raided by a solo pilot. It is not some uber structure you need capitals and/or a medium+ sized gang to attack.

It is not vulnerable to timezone warfare: You deploy it when online, and you take it down when not using it.

It is rewards players flying in space: It doesn't do anything for you unless you are flying around shooting red crosses.

It's rewards are proportional to those investing in it. 1 ratter means it's potential rewards aren't as high as with 3-5 ratters. This also means attacking the solo ratter with a 5 man group is not as profitable as attacking the 3-5 ratters with your 5 man gang.

It is optional, meaning if you don't feel like risking your ratting bounties, you don't have to.

It requires a timely response, putting pressure on the ratters to respond quickly if they wish to defend it (although more time is reasonable).

It is potentially worth defending. If 3 ratters making 60m an hour are suddenly interrupted by a 5 man interceptor gang after ratting for 3 hours may suddenly find 100+m isk in bounties is going to be lost if they don't' defend it.

That is a lot of positive features about this unit that are really well designed. As far as farms and fields go, it really hits the nail on the head. The things that are missing/less than ideal are tweaks to the design, but not major design flaws.

Is "not going to work like you want it to" not a design flaw?

Anyone can loot at dotlan maps, see where someone is ratting, go there in an interceptor and force the ratter to scoop his ESS (if he can). If it gets scoops mt interceptor alt can drop a depot, fit a cloak, and sit there forever (or more easily bring in someone else to cloak or whatever.

As a player your choice is then keep doing that ad nauseam or gain your isk someplace less disruptable. For many, isk is a tool to use for other more fun things, the acquisition of it isn't for fun or adventure and is thus done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

A ratter can't be caught in null if he ain't in null man. We have a historical occurrence (the anom nerf) from which to judge the potential outcomes here. i don't know why you ignore that.

EVE is interconnected. What affects one affects all.

If you were a game designer, would you deploy something into you game that seemed like a pretty good thing until it interacted with the reality of your game? The reality is that the existence of other ways to earn combat pve isk make the probable outcome of the deployment of something like the ESS LESS pvp oppurtunities.

It's just backwards thinking. The only way something like the ESS (even without the small 5% nerf to income) work is if you nerfed the ever loving beejesus out of every single other combat pve isk making activity leaving players no choice but to fight over "farms and fields" to make decent isk.

CCP: "Here's a broken thing. Fix it or you get stuck with a broken thing."
Me: "No, get rid of it entirely."

And I'm irrational.

We are both wrong. The new base payout is 95 of stated payouts. That is the baseline for determining the reward of the device.
So, killing 100m worth of NPC's will net you 95m isk without this device.
With this device, you earn 80m isk off the bat, and risk 15m isk.
The device then pays out 20-25m isk when instructed to do so.

So, you risk 15, and get payed 20-25.
Alternatively, you could say you risk 15m isk to gain an extra 5-10m isk.




I could probably fill 68 pages myself flushing out the potential issues with nullsec and the sov system, and thoughts on how to improve it. Describing my experiences on what works, what doesn't work, from the perspective of a fairly nomadic NPC Nullsec corp. Trust me, nothing makes me happier then to encourage more players flying in space in nullsec. I want it to be a home available to small groups and large groups (with large groups regularly smashing castles and small groups smashing farms).

We look at dotlan now... fly out to systems that show ratting activity, and shotgun the system to catch ratters. Many people put cloaky alts in busy ratting systems in order to extort money from locals, in order to hotdrop ratters, and often just to disrupt ratting. Nullsec residence already deal with these interruptions and difficulties, and the ESS isn't going to alter that. Many of these groups, that already deal with these roamers, will easily utilize the ESS to boost profits. And if they can't, so what? They don't have to use it.

As I already stated, there are tons of excellent attributes to this mechanic, and it has excellent potential to be a good addition to the game!

C. assign drones then go to sleep.

1.) So get a story righter to explain the device in lore terms. I honestly don't care about the lore aspect.

2.) It doesn't break anything. You can choose not to use it and nothing is different for you (in regards to the module). The nerf to nullsec income is independent of the ESS.

3.) Serious effort is rewarded. If you can defend it, and you use it, you get more isk. If your system generates 100m in bounties an hour, this rewards you with an extra 5-10m in bounties.

4.) It is a pretty simple concept: Deploy it, and 15% of your bounties are confiscated. Access it and you can recover 20-25m for every 15m put in.

This generally wont cause you to lose sleep. It wont cause you to risk more then you choose to. It shouldn't have any effect on your relaxation, unless you choose to utilize it but can't cope with someone else usurping it.

Your grasping at straws, as your counterpoints are pretty thin!!!

If you use the ESS, you need to defend it. Your complaining because you have to defend it if and only if you use it? If your losing too much precious manpower utilizing it, then dont. I'm certain there are plenty of ratters out there that will find a means to utilize it.

And raiders can use it as a log off trap? If hostiles deploy it in an unsafe area, the blow it up! Use a sniping ship if you fear some log-on trap.

Have you thought about the traps you can set with it? Put it on grid with your POS, as well as a catch bubble, such that anyone warping to it from the ingate will land in a bubble next to a deathstar. Bubbles pull as far as the grid, so this is very easy to setup.

At the end of the day, if you don't' want to use it, you don't have to. At the end of the day, if you think missioning for SOE is a better use of your time, that has NOTHING to do with the ESS.