Warfare & Tactics

I agree that the introduction of Citadels into FW space will massively change the nature of FW.

1. Citadels will make ownership of station systems close to worthless. The battles over key station systems drives the major fighting in FW. In the past year, the Battle for Hasmijalaa in January generated 3+ weeks of content across all the TZs. The Battle for Kehjari over 4th of July weekend generated 4 days of virtually non-stop fighting. These battles were over Caldari Fortress Systems. They were fights to preserve docking rights in strategically located systems and assaulted for the same reason. Citadels with the announced capture mechanics will significantly devalue station systems in FW. As the defender, I just put up a large citadel and continue to operate. As the attacker, I put up a large citadel and operate in hostile space unimpeded; why bother with plexing? Many will correctly point out that we can already do that with a POS. True, but a POS is vulnerable to being RFed 24/7 a Citadel once anchored & repaired is not. Lose your POS lose your stuff...Citadel goes boom your stuff is moved to an NPC station for your neutral alt to liberate. Finally, as Andre points out, operating from a POS has huge limitations for the attacker and gives the defender a significant home field advantage as it should. Citadels eliminate the defender's advantage.

2. The current destruction mechanics for Citadels make them to hard to attack in FW. A medium Citadel is vulnerable 3 hours a week compared to 24/7 with POSs. Any effective assault on a home/fortress system in FW requires the attacker to reship in system. System owners scan the moons daily to locate new POS towers and schedule STRATOPs to eliminate them as quickly as possible. The 24/7 vulnerability of the first timer on the POS enables the system owner to pick his best time to attack. The 2d POS timer enables the POS owner to pick the best time to defend. Citadels have eliminated this balanced vulnerability. Instead the Citadel owner dictates a vulnerability window of 3 hours a week vs 168 hours for the first POS timer. An FW example, I anchor my medium Citadel in an enemy system Sunday at 0700eve against a foe with few AUTZ pilots. On Monday, I have a small fleet sitting on my Citadel at 0700eve for 30 minutes. The repair cycle completes and I have a fully functional Citadel in an enemy system. I set my vulnerability window for Monday 0400-0700eve. I can now spend my week jumping in ships and stocking my Citadel to start my assault on Friday secure in the knowledge that my Citadel is completely invulnerable until after the weekend assault. The defender misses his 30 minute window on Monday at 0700eve and has NO COUNTER FOR A WEEK.

I agree that Citadels are a massive positive step forward for Eve. I am looking forward to their introduction into the game. I want them to work. But as a member of the FW community, I fear they will not only change our meta (change is good) but because of the 2 reasons explained above they will destroy the balance in our part of eve. The station lock out mechanic and station ownership in FW drives our meta. Citadels, as currently planned, reduce the effect of these mechanics to virtually zero.

In the interest of providing more than just negative feedback some potential solutions that need to be vetted by minds more devious than my own:

1. Increase the vulnerability windows, repair cycle times and/or reduce the EHP for Militia Citadels in hostile space. Of course, as already mentioned, this can be countered with neutral alts building the Citadel and providing docking rights to the Militia. Counter that with Militia pilots can only dock in Militia owned Citadels?

2. The contents of a Militia Citadel in hostile space are destroyed. This raises the risk when assaulting systems or establishing forward operating bases in enemy systems you don't plan to capture. For the defender, the option to anchor a citadel in system as a fall back position now comes with significant risk if you lose system control. This restores some (not all) value to system ownership and by extension plexing.

3. Use the POCO model for vulnerability. An attacker can bash the Citadel's shields at a time of his choosing. The attacker bashes the shield to zero. The Defender has pre-set the time window for the bash against the Citadel's armor and hull. If the Attacker fails to return for the Armor timer, the repair cycle is executed as presented in the DEVBLOG.

That's enough for now. Tear my ideas apart as you like. It makes this process work best and hopefully identifies some credible solutions. Citadels have lots of positives but for FW these 2 negatives need to be solved.

The docking restriction should be by restriction of sov and not ownership. Being the only ones restricted from docking in ANY other Citadel that is non-FW could impede participation in non-FW fleets that have nothing to do with FW.

tl; dr: Would the Pavanakka campaign have taken place were Citadels in effect?

We very nearly had heated discussion about this in comms the other night (or morning?), but we were quickly hushed by our superior FC. Good ol' Jetstream seemed uncharacteristically edgy this campaign, but our FC's pulled us through some great fights. Mad respect.
Anyway, the argument began about enthusiasm for Citadels. As surely as the sun rises, I pounce as the devil's advocate and comment about this entire campaign not existing were Citadels in place. I was quickly refuted, but with yet again fruitless arguments without any substance.

The points I would have made, had the Algos WT fleet not put us into battle comms for the third time of what would be five engagements that hour:

What is the difference between Pavanakka and Hasmijaala when Citadels drop?
Did we, or the Squids, ship out of towers (which were in place) during this campaign?

Location was everything. Pav was a choke point to secure backwaters and an excellent invasion system. Boosters were used and boosters were killed (go Than!). JF's were once again pivotal in resupply. They still will be after Citadels, but I feel much of what makes all of the rest of this tick will no longer be present without the tock: Placement; geography; lockout's

I've tried my best to dump on what I think of Citadels, as they seem atm, Lord knows. I think they are awesome. Just not awesome for FW as they stand. I will continue to bad mouth 'em til I see them presented in a way I feel will be symbiotic with FW (as opposed to collateral objectives with probable, resilient, pita bonuses), and the great fun we are having during these pushes.

In a way, you may be right. Mostly, I believe, because of the emotional attachment many of these systems have for us, but for no other reason. Once this begins to dawn on others, home systems will start to lose significance, unless the docking restriction is set in place. Even then, losing a system, and, consqeuently, docking rights to your own Citadel, will be laughably lame. They will be placed in bordering lowsec non-fw systems to avoid this when possible, and then what would be the reason for this thread? As I've said, there is no real solution to the docking restriction, and even though we all want one to be present, chances are the system will be free-game. That will be the worst outcome for FW related sov fighting. The most significant geographical (astrographical?) significance after Citadels will be cyno jump range.

+1 for iHub Hats. It's the only way!

POS

@Rinai
Once again, so many alternatives must be considered, so many circumstances and loops, restrictions and added work to make sense of these having the ability to drop anchor just anywhere.

With a mind for the future, what are peoples thoughts on it when they are greenlit for Null, or other parts of space? Much like what happened with assault frigates when T3D's came into FW, I fear that Eve will shoot itself in the foot with its new toys. PoS will serve only for moon mining? A smaller specialized structure is then requested. Stations people were proud to build, irrelevant after Citadels unless you require one to be present in system for item relocation. I'm sure so many people are eager to get out of their capital coffins, but this is a critical step that can dull everything by outshining it, or become a central force which all things encircle.

Citadels can be huge for Eve. Placement over the ihub (in FW or Null) like an alien superstructure over a pyramid, makes everything so much easier to understand. The progress to their vulnerability transparent and bearing a sense of finality that vulnerability windows can never offer.

iHub Hats is the only way.