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The link cycle times should be reversed, and be separated into two different modules with each having proper T2 versions with the usual fitting and cap use drawbacks to balance their advantages. Numbers used for illustrative purposes only and don't represent months of planning and testing.

Entosis Connector I
range 20km, cycle time 5min

Entosis Connector II
range 25km, cycle time 4min

Entosis Link I
range 200km, cycle time 10min

Entosis Link II
range 250km, cycle time 8min

Higher positional risk, shorter exposure. Doesn't this feel more balanced?

[/quote]Small scale grinding is still grinding - Shoot the node, is grinding - Entosis module, is still grinding but to a fixed timetable.
And seriously, if you think a 14,000 man alliance is only going to send a 50 man fleet, you deluding yourself, just as CCP is for thinking that same way.
Large coalitions will pick their targets carefully and drive them out with sheer numbers, yes there will be killmails. Much like there is today, a 500 man fleet blaps a 50 man fleet.
Only another large coalition is going to be a threat to a large coalition and they won't fight each other because they have no need to. Much the same as it is today; funny that.

RL war is not fought on a timetable to suit the combatants on both sides. Battles do not end after 4 hours nor do they wait until the timer says go to start fighting.
If in fact RL wars were fought along the lines CCP is proposing for Eve, there would be no wars. Just lots of military personal sitting around waiting for the enemy to turn up, then chase and repel them with more Entosis modules.[/quote]


If looking at the trees then this is how it appears, however when looking at the forest then the landscape changes. Your points are valid to a degree however let me throw this out there.

In region A there are 5 alliances, 1 that is reviled by the other 4. But 1 is much larger than the other 4 making them more vulnerable in actuality. This is because groups 2 thru 4 come up with a plan that causes 1 to spread out their forces to deal with multiple fronts at a single time. Obviously group 1 is at a strong disadvantage until the numbers game starts concerning def bonuses vs attacking bonuses. Then depending on where groups 2 thru 4 strike at and their group sizes will determine the eventual outcome depending on the amount of forces that group 1 can field. In some cases sacrifices will have to be made to ensure keeping key territories. If an R64 moon is far into someone elses sphere of influence then its vulnerable depending on force composition holding the system and the moon might have to be abandoned.

Now lets extrapolate that out to todays current situation in null. I'm no expert but there are lots of folks down there looking for content and they will be chomping at the bit to slowly be taking territory from certain named coalitions just for the tears. And this will revitalize the mercenary groups, they will be needed badly by the majority. Hero for one will have a much easier time taking SoV and holding it with the reduced needs for supers. And small gang warfare is much more engaging for the members than large scale fleet battles with massive tidi. I do predict that there will be lots of skirmishes breaking out if this goes live, lots of peeps have axes to grind and are like minded.

As to the big debate on timers I say this, come up with another idea that fits within the rest of the scope of what CCP is trying to do. I understand some will be upset because alliance A's timer is set just after downtime so they have to set their alarm clocks to go do battle, sorry life is tough sometimes, buck up. If you are really so dedicated to the game that you are a full time null player that wants to war then this is a minor inconvenience. Back in the late 90's when Everquest was the king I remember setting alarms to kill boss mobs, if we did it back then, you can do it now.

Edit: Also back then the majority of hard core players were of a similar age as there exists in Eve today. And most of us had jobs that allowed us to play while working, like me working from home. We hated change also, but I thought the adaption period was one of most engaging in the game, never knew what was going to happen, the vast unknown.

But until all of this goes live, or at least to test, its all speculation as we have no hard numbers yet. Only time will tell.

Jeez Jenn, let it go man.

CCP ain't listening to you.

I wrote my thoughts about the system in my latest article ( http://massivelyop.net/2015/03/08/eve-evolved-sovereignty-2-0-needs-some-work/ ) but I'd like to run through the main points here on the forum for more visibility:

Vulnerability windows and reinforcement timers:
There's been a lot of rage about the four hour vulnerability window, but I think it's a great idea. The problem is that vulnerability windows are fundamentally incompatible with reinforcement timers. CCP seems to be under the impression that people will actually defend against the first attack on a structure that knocks it into reinforced mode as long as it's their prime time, but why would they bother?

If something gets attacked in the new system, you can either cobble together a match patch defense fleet within the 10-40 mins before the structure is reinforced, or ignore it and spend TWO FULL DAYS preparing for the exact minute that it comes out of reinforced mode. Tell me which of those sounds more likely to actually happen. The initial entosis attack on a structure is not a credible threat, especially if anyone with a frigate and small tech 1 module can do it. If CCP wants people to defend against attacks during their prime time, they need to give people enough time to respond and some REAL consequences for not responding.


The "Main Event" is artificial and gamesy:
In the new system, why must we capture stuff by playing this new faction warfare style control point minigame? Why do control points magically appear throughout the constellation if we're trying to capture a space station off someone? I'm all for more interesting battles that can split a fleet across multiple targets in a constellation, but this feels really fake and forced.

I take exception to the idea that we even need some kind of special gameplay mechanic spawning control points for us to fight over. Devs have tried artificially creating flashpoints for PvP in the past, and it never works. EVE is a PvP sandbox whose most enticing feature is unpredictable emergent gameplay, why would you sabotage that? We don't need swings and slides, just give us some buckets and spades and maybe a little water for a moat and some tiny little flags.


An alternative sov system:
Here's a much simpler and more intuitive sov system that still uses most of the proposal:

• There are NO reinforcement timers on any structures. Instead, they're vulnerable to capture during your alliance's vulnerability window.
• Each structure has an ownership rating out of 4 or 5.
• Using an Entosis module to capture a structure takes about 40 minutes and reduces the ownership rating by 1 point.
• Each structure can only lose a maximum of 1 point per day.
• If ownership drops to 0, the structure becomes neutral and can be captured the next day, or ownership switches immediately to the attacker.
• Every day that a structure isn't successfully attacked, it regains 1-2 points of ownership automatically.
• Split the Entosis module into a small Defensive version anyone can use to block capture and a capital sized Offensive version that's required to capture something.

There's a simple, easy to understand and completely self-balancing system for territorial warfare. Instead of knocking someone's station into reinforced and then waiting 48 hours before taking on some bizarre control point PvP minigame, you would form up daily fleets during the target alliance's vulnerability window and try to capture as many objectives as possible. It would be a great way to draw out fights as alliances will be forced to defend their space for those four hours per day or at least block capture with entosis ships, and if someone wants to legitimately threaten your ownership they have to put at least one carrier on the line.

The end result will be daily battles for at least five days, each of which could be a really good fight and has the potential to escalate because there's a capital ship locked down for 40 minutes and it can't be remote repaired. And this system should naturally lead to emergent strategies like splitting your fleet to hit multiple targets at once or keeping an enemy fleet busy in one place while you try to capture another because it's more efficient since we're using single entosis links rather than combined damage now. We don't need CCP's fake constellation-wide battles to force people to do this.

Before anyone kicks up a stink about removing reinforcement timers, keep in mind that with this system you'd have to capture a structure five separate times on five separate days before it'd be yours. That gives the defender a lot more heads up than the current system about the fact that they're going to lose a structure unless they organise a defense fleet, the only difference is that the attacker could hit the structure at any point during each four hour period. Removing reinforcement timers means also alliances will find it difficult to hold onto star systems they don't actively use since they'll need to respond to threats within 40 mins or so.


Other ideas: Jovian Listening Posts
As the devs are unlikely to toss their constellation-wide PvP idea out the window, I would suggest that it be reappropriated for another purpose. Give each nullsec constellation a Jovian Listening Post structure in a central system, which can be captured to give your alliance control over the local chat in that constellation. We could be allowed to set the constellation to delayed mode, for example. Or we could get access to a constellation channel or a new intel pane that shows all pilots in the constellation. It makes sense to be fighting over control nodes throughout the constellation if it's linked to a constellation-wide service, and this ties in with the current storyline.

Variable vulnerability windows of some kind would definitely help small alliances, it's really a question of what factors it should vary based on. Alliance size is one option, though it may just encourage alliances to break apart and work together unofficially. Another option would be to give each structure a separate 2 hour timer and disallow overlapping timers within a star system. That way a very small alliance could claim only the station in a system and keep watch for only 2 hours per day, but full occupancy (station, ihub and flag) would require 6 hours.

Personally, I think some kind of system where you gain a tangible benefit but it costs you extra vulnerability hours is the way to go. Start the system out on 1 or 2 hours and add an hour for each major ihub upgrade. Or start it at 4-6 hours and add pairs of mutually exclusive options to the ihub/station/flag where one of them is reduced vulnerability time by 1 hour and the other is a big tangible benefit. I'd lean toward the second option there as the first one makes empty systems easier to defend and that's counter-productive.

Either way this is just balancing numbers, the important part is the core sov gameplay. If what's in the the devblog turns out to be CCP's final design (and I suspect it may be based on how much effort was put into it), it's not going to work.

I really like the tug-of-war aspect of this, akin to the old POS-based system but without endless structure shooting. This makes it possible for an attacker to make gradual progress without being dropped back to square 1 for losing a single fight.

The simplest metric here would be to re-purpose the current Strategic Index, and have it increase by 1 for each 24 hour period it's not successfully attacked. As this index is tied to the capture timer, this creates an increasing sense of urgency as each day of failed defense makes subsequent days harder.

The one part I would object to here is the special capital-sized link being required. By far the biggest flaw in both previous sov systems has been the reliance on needing the biggest ships, especially capitals and supers. This sets a barrier for entry into nullsec for smaller groups and implies only the richest side should win.
I would however argue that there should be an element of risk/reward for using more costlier hulls. How about a capture time modifier based on hull type? Low-risk frigates would take twice as long to capture as a battleship, with a slight bonus (perhaps -10%) for capitals. This provides an incentive to use larger ships without making them essential.

Well after looking at the launcher this morning, it is blatantly obvious that CCP is in full on Greed is Good mode and is not open to any feedback that does not tell them what a great idea it is.

Looks like a summer of making high sec burn is on the cards once more.

I love you Eric.

Eric4CSMXI

CCP if you're listening:

Delayed local in Null
No Fleet Warps
Supers that have no real DPS use
SOV that can be taken by a frigate

if those are goals that become reality then I'm out.

If they're interested, or if they're counting, I'm sure they can see the accounts I pay for. With all the changes over the years I have never posted a "or else I'll unsub threat". Idle threats are useless.