EVE General Discussion

10 players should be able to defend an Astrahaus for a half hour even against a force of triple their numbers so long as that force originates from out system. If the attackers station in system well enough, they can still take it down. It's all about the half hour slots the station is vulnerable (as Ralph KG points out in other threads).

I think the issue why they are still dying is lack of support or players not understanding the tactics necessary to break up an attack against the Citadel. You have to work with the Citadel against the attackers weaknesses, easier said than done, but it can be done if you're smart about it.

Honestly, this is why I'd never put a Citadel in a system with an NPC owned station. Basically your attackers will leverage that station against you when you need time to be on your side. If you can't get the time on your side, you'll need more defenders.

At the end of the day, I'm having a hard time finding HiSec systems along the trade routes that DON'T have a Citadel in them. They are like fast food restaurants... "You want fries with that Shield Mod?"

There has and it died, no support fleet so ...

They had a thread a little while back.

There's like a million of pinatas floating in highsec. Go kill em please.

I would like to think that's true. It would be nice if, even with just a Citadel gunner, and the Citadel goes down, its up for grabs as to who has more kills, in ISK, on the kb. Then they really would be a conflict driver. But, is that actually the case?

Rhetorical question, no?

I don't see the "conflict driver" thing here. As useful as they may be in some respects, they're only stationary ships. I don't know what use claiming sovereignty over a system truly was - as we never had a system where sovereignty didn't change - only presence counted. However, it seems (theoretically) there's more motivation to move someone sitting atop a system, controlling access to minerals or transit, than there is to attack the equivalent of a stationary ship.

As far as I can tell, attacking a ship in high sec, and attacking a citadel there, amounts to the same thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you shoot at a citadel owned by a corp your corp is not at war with (in high sec) you get a Concord response. Situational thinking doesn't allow for willy nilly attacking someone without a war dec (and the mighty gankers player force can't oneshot a citadel LOL brave kids there) they become glorified cargo containers that can "do" things.

I still don't see it. Help me or I might have to remove my shades to take a closer look.

Well, they aren't fully implemented yet. A lot of support structures and such need to be put into place. CCP has said that their eventual goal is removal of most if not all of the NPC stations. This could end up driving an entire new concept of System Sovereignty.

Citadels are just the first step and it's important that we give CCP the time needed to flesh out this new construct.

Yes, it is driving new conflicts, just ask any Citadel Owner that has lost theirs to combat.

No, it's not like attacking a ship as it has structure mechanics behind it. You can't wipe a Citadel out in one sitting (as you pointed out). You can a ship.

As for being glorified cargo containers that can "do" things, yes, you've basically described an NPC station as well. That's what Citadels are replacing. If you reduce anything to a bare minimum conceptual basis, all games would look like lego blocks with the exact same size, shape and color of blocks snapped together slightly differently. You could turn EVE into WoW doing that. Over simplification has it's place in discussions but this isn't one of them where it's helpful.

I think you might be looking for a little diversity in how things work but keep in mind, EVE doesn't have significant damage mechanics. The lack of modeled damage mechanics severely restricts actual perceived differences between ships, structures and other items. All you get is Shields, Armor and Structure. Nearly all MMO's have similar simple hit point systems. It's a function of the K.I.S.S. philosophy that MMO's rely upon.

I can only imagine the whining and crying that would happen if CCP instituted a deprecating systems damage solution within EVE... Those of us coming from Starfleet Battles and Starfleet Command backgrounds would laugh our hind sections off.

They're common in 0.5 systems with no NPC stations. Check the system of Sirkahri, for instance. There's an Astrahus put up by a small 4-man corp - easy pickings.