CSM Campaigns

Why? Applying FW-like capture mechanics to nullsec could potenitally lead to the following:

a) Make it feasible for smaller alliances to take space
b) Encourage small scale PVP
c) Use of different ship types in fleets
d) Discourage the current blob mentality fights that are common to nullsec.
e) Could potnentially be used to tie in DUST to nullsec sov warfare.
f) Make nullsec entities actually have to defend ALL of their space.

I'm not opposed to your bullet points or the overarching concepts behind the. Rather, it's the mechanics of FW buttons that I'm opposed to in particular. "Fly to point and faff around while a timer runs down" is barely more engaging than grinding structures is now, and there's little in the way of strategic or tactical depth, quite possibly even less than the current "handful of high EHP structures" system has. Plus, as we've seen so many complaints about lately, there's actually significant disincentive to stand up and fight in the FW plexes. So, while the general concept could be used as the basis for a new sov system (there are, after all, only so many archetypes to determine "control" to choose from), a straight port of the system or even a straight port with only minor adjustments is a laughably atrocious idea.


To some of your bullet points in particular:
a) Good thing in concept, not at all the only way for it to happen. If anything, while a smaller group could possibly take space in such a system, they'd also likely be severely disadvantaged against a larger one. More manpower means the ability to do more plex at once, or do some plex and also camp the smaller group into the station, or whatever.
b) Also true but again, definitely not the only way for small gang pvp to be encouraged or to matter.
c) With the notable exception of the Archon fleets that saw extensive use of in the Halloween war, this is a thing - a monochrome fleet is going to get hell dunked by a a fleet that brings proper support in the form of logi, dictors, tacklers, etc. Or are you thinking more along the lines of how plexes in FW are size-differentiated? If so, my reflexive response is one of distaste... but it's probably possible to allow for or even require more variety in ship sizes.
d) "The blob mentality" is, at least in my mind, the fact that going it alone in the current system is nearly impossible, that coalitions of many thousands are required these days. It's a pretty good goal, and if that's what you're getting at, great, I agree. That said, while I'm obviously biased on the subject, I don't think it means that large corps or alliances are bad. I also don't think that it means diplomacy should cease to be a thing, with the understanding that 'diplomacy' does not mean 'maintaining a huge blue list.'
e) Virtually any system can conceivably have DUST tied into it, FW mechanics aren't necessary. For example, in the existing system, mercenaries could fight to board the IHub or other structures, with victory for the attacker allowing them to do things like move the reinforcement timer, reduce the EHP, etc.
f) Technically this is the case now - if someone shows up in your sov, starts the process to take it, and you do nothing, you'll lose it. I'm pretty sure I do get what you're getting at, though - the idea that everyone in null has these huge swathes of unused space, which is sort of true, but also sort of false and has some flat out exceptions - take a look at Deklein on Dotlan sometime, you can't deny that it's some of the most heavily used nullsec in the game!

Coming back to the point, though, I refer back to a concept I expressed earlier in the thread. The mechanics should support both opting to go 'wide' as is the case now, or go 'tall', eg willingly choosing hold less space by being able to develop and improve it to be just as valuable. Right now there wide is the only option, and are neither reasons for nor advantages to choosing to go tall. That's what drives "the blob mentality", large scale fleets being all that matter, the taking of large (but mostly unused) areas of space, etc.


I'll have to catch the rest of the posts later, as lunch is over.

Specifics depend on both the renters and the landlords but are fairly irrelevant. The difficulty in countering it comes down to the fact that AFK cloaking is a key component, and roams & defensive patrols are of limited use against cloaked campers & intermittent hotdrops; even if the camper is at the keyboard, they have complete control over when to engage. Dealing with it means putting a plausible looking baitship out there (which can be tricky itself, given the wide gap between fitting for PvE and fitting for PvP...), hoping the camper is active and takes the bait, and having enough people standing by for potentially hours to deal with whatever hotdrops... and if they're not active or don't take the bait, you've wasted potentially hours of several people's time.

Through watchlists & such it's possible to narrow down when the camper (and more importantly, when his friends) are active and whatnot and so better plan both traps and when you can safely go rat, but the whole thing does highlight one of the problems with AFK cloaking as a mechanic & tool, which I'll borrow someone else's label for - "asymmetry of effort". That is, working around and dealing with a camper & the implicit threat of his presence requires dramatically more effort than actually camping & occasionally hotdropping does. In that sense it's the ultimate guerilla warfare tool and while such tools aren't bad, it is possible for them to be too imbalanced. After all, one normally has the option to proactively try to root out the guerillas instead of just wait around and react to them.

And of course, mechanics that encourage people to go do something else instead of EVE are pretty bad, too. I could segue off that line into all kinds of other topics, but I digress. The above couple of paragraphs shouldn't be taken to mean that I'm saying "just remove AFK cloaking". Fundamentally, the tactic is a reaction to the fact that a pilot engaged in PvE is ill suited to engage in PvP (because of the requisite specialized fits), has no need to engage in PvP (because he loses nothing by fleeing), and is informed of the need to flee (because local functions as instant intel). Change all three and cloaked camping may well diminish as a tactic on its own, or could be forcibly addressed... to use a line that I think came from CCP Fozzie at EVE Down Under, it'd be implementing "options to increase interaction."



Some do. Some do other things entirely. Conversely, I know at least one corp renting from us actually came from a wormhole. The straight isk value is hardly the only factor in what people decide to do, after all. I've heard quite a few interesting and unexpected reasons for why people rent in the seven months I've been running our program.

My favorite was probably "We've got a bunch of newbies in our little corp and want to give them an adventure." "We want a place to call home" is another fairly common one, occasionally accompanied by a request to build a station. "We want to get away from wormholes", which was an amusing contrast to part of Veskrashen's question.

Really, two things are true: The reasons are just about as diverse as the corps that rent, and the stereotype that all renters are just a bunch of (often botting) isk farmers would be hard pressed to be further from the truth.

Thanks as always tor your responses. As a (nearly) year-long FW resident, I find myself entirely unsympathetic to those that cannot PvE in an environment with hostiles. I disagree that you can't PvE in PvP fit (or at least PvP capable) ships, and have zero sympathy for people who hide from cloaky alts.

But that's me, and I can totally understand folks not wanting to bring out the bling when there's a possibility of loss. It's part of why I'm a bit skeptical of the theory that nullsec has to have the best rewards, because ::Risk::. If an environment is supposed to be ::Risky:: to merit such amazing rewards, risk averse persons probably shouldn't be able to make a good living there.

As far as "encouraging increased interaction" goes, I'd love to see measures that made it possible for a fast, cloaky PvP pilot to have a chance to grab that unsuspecting PvE boat before local allows him to run away. If you're on the ball with d-scan, you should be fine, but otherwise it's too easy to avoid action.

That has some merit, I must say.

My ideal situation would be, that it requires it's own kind of probes, first of all. It doesn't show signatures as being anything besides "Cloaked Ship" until it's fully scanned down, at which point the person is decloaked. (and possibly given a popup to that effect)

Interestingly, we could also add in a bunch of "cloaked sites" or something of the like along with such a mechanic, to add another dimension to exploration.

Yep, plenty of minor adjustments that could be made. Don't think going out of the way to intentionally make it require several probe attempts is necessary (I read this as "sometimes you'd just flat out miss even if you shouldn't", correct me if I'm wrong?) if we're already talking about a couple of minutes duration on the scan time, since having to start at long range just to get the general location in system, step down from there, and still probably have to do another scan cycle or two by the time your probes are within dscan range is quite a lot of time for the cloaked prey to hit dscan and get out of dodge.

Open minded and clearly focussed on the future of eve. I really like your thoughts on pretty much everthing. +1

While there is something to be said about AFK cloaky campers in nullsec, from some of the video's I've seen some smartbombs or perhaps ECM burst, should have helped these defenceless carriers against the bomber/cov-ops tackling them and Cyno'ing up.

But regardless I think the balance of hunter/hunted in null is wrong atm. When I go hunting for ratters in null in a fleet, and I'm scouting in my interceptor the chance to catch anything is incredibly low. Generally the second local goes up the ratters warp off and I have seconds to warp to the correct anom or belt to catch them while they are aligning. Given that most upgraded systems have 20+ anoms this is more or less like throwing a die whether or not I will catch them. Sure there are methods to use d-scan and common sense to determine where a ratter is, but that simply takes time that I as the hunter do not have.

Even as recent as two years ago it was much more feasible to catch ratters. At least in my perception. I don't know if ratters have simply become more skittish or if something else changed that has tipped the balance. But only on the rarest of occasions have I been able to catch a ratter in null in recent time.

As such it's no surprise that people who specifically want to catch ratters have resorted to a technique that has a much higher chance to catch ratters. i.e. AFK cloaky camping.

In a similar vain we have a bunch of gate campers in our region that will always run away when we try to fight them. So we started BLOPSing them because that's the only way for us to force the issue.

I'm not implying this is the primary reason, but I do think there is a correlation.

There is also no incentive for the ratters to fight us. We can literally do their anoms and plexes and they will logout or wait for us to leave. Because they know we didn't go there to do PvE we came there for fights, and the second they give us a fight we will be back some other day.

Now there is of course the point to be made that they don't owe us anything, if it's more beneficial for them to stay docked up then that is exactly what they will do.

But it does pose a conflict with the perception that there is supposed to be risk in nullsec. But for the ratter there is no risk, just an opportunity cost while safely docked.

Now this no doubt segways nicely into farms&fields, but so far the ESS has done very little in this hunter scenario. The locals are still better off staying docked.

Now to boil this down to some hypotheticals.

Would you like to see nullsec become more dangerous for PvE centric null players? Perhaps not trough a direct change in the balance versus hunter/hunted. (because honestly the answer to that would be just for the hunted to dock up sooner rather then later)

But perhaps via stimulants for the hunted to undock and defend. Like say if a small gang with a combined DPS of 2k or 5k or something could for instance "disable" the anom spawning sov upgrade, resulting in a 3 -6 hours timer where it's not active. (With the sov upgrade thingy having a high enough HP regen to ignore low-DPS. but only enough HP to take a 2K or 5K DPS fleet 10 minutes to disable.)

Then they can still choose to stay docked up, but the opportunity cost will become much larger. The "stakes" of undocking now becomes the average income for the next 3-6 hours, instead of just the time the hunters linger in system.

This if not a concrete idea or anything, but just a illustration of the type of balance shift I would like to see.

In other words, 'I agree'.


With respect to your hypothetical though... that particular style of mechanic gives me pause since, as with many things, it's just begging for people to get ****ed by timezones. Oh what's that, you're in a USTZ-centric alliance and some EUTZ raiders came through just before your people started getting home from work and you couldn't stop them? Hope you didn't want your primetime ratting hours! Still, in general overall concept, we're basically in agreement.