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[December] Ending the deployment of new outposts and upgrades

First post
Author
Andreus Ixiris
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#61 - 2016-12-10 13:50:39 UTC
CCP Lebowski wrote:
Thanks for that response, appreciate you taking the time to highlight that again. I'll bring this up with the team and see if we can get some traction on it, at the very least in the form of an official statement on this subject.

Seriously, for Structures 2.0 to be at feature parity with the old system, I would very much appreciate it if we could get CCP clarification for how the following issues will be addressed:

  • Price point. For the new structures to reach feature parity with starbases, you need to have a structure that does everything that could be done in a small POS in a package that costs roughly the same as a small POS, and the same is true of medium and large POSes as well. Now obviously there's things you can do with the new structures that could never be done with a POS: docking, cloning, tethering, markets, contracts, infinite hangar space. However, you can't scale up the price by too much or you put them beyond the reach of at least some individuals and corps who currently run starbases.

  • Fuel consumption. Heavily related to price point, obviously, but the same principle applies - the fuel cost for what can be done in a POS should be the basis for the fuel cost of what you do in the new structures. By current calculations, depending on fitting, it can cost nearly as much per month to run a small engineering complex than it does to run a large POS. Again, there's not an exact equivalency because it has infinite manufacturing slots and functionality a POS doesn't, but again, if you can't find a solution to this, it's going to shut a lot of people out of private manufacturing.

  • Scalability. Both of the above problems relate in some way to the loss of granularity in the way structures are configured. Starbases could have one manufacturing array or many, meaning you could customise your POS' manufacturing capacity based on what you needed. New structures, by comparison, have either zero or infinite slots, with the only granularity being the rigs and the cap/supercap manufacturing modules.

  • Reconfigurability. Structure rigs, like normal rigs, inexplicably crumble to dust when you pull them out (it might be time to re-examine that entire mechanic, but I won't go into it here). This is a massive issue since a starbase can be reconfigured at no permanent cost - switch out the modules and you've got a totally different starbase. Obviously, new structures can be reconfigured instantaneously which is a distinct advantage over old starbase structures which had a lengthy anchoring and onlining process. However, there is a very significant permanent cost to reconfiguring new structures.

  • Defensibility. This comes down to the fact that citadel defenses are very much weaker than starbases in general, but also more specifically that weapons do not scale. You get (a few) more slots for each size upgrade, but you're always using the same launchers. While I'm not advocating for a system whereby you can create an invincible doom fortress, deathstar POSes allowed smaller groups an equalising element in fights against larger groups. The low defensibility of engineering complexes is particularly worrisome. It also makes sense that economically vital structures have so little defense while citadels - which have little value other than as staging and power projection - have vast defense grids.

I look forward to CCP's address of these concerns.

Andreus Ixiris > A Civire without a chin is barely a Civire at all.

Pieter Tuulinen > He'd be Civirely disadvantaged, Andreus.

Andreus Ixiris > ...

Andreus Ixiris > This is why we're at war.

Leda Hunter
Northern Radiance
#62 - 2016-12-11 08:17:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Leda Hunter
ISD Inekooj wrote:
Все оставшиеся чертежи и предметы, относящиеся к вышеперечисленным группам, не израсходованные до планового отключения сервера 13 декабря, будут компенсированы позднее в той или иной форме.



У меня такой вопрос. Если я скупил за десяток миллиардов ISK чертежей на строительство POS'ов и обвес к ним, а затем полтора года потратил на изучение ME и TE этих чертежей, то какую я получу компенсацию?
"В той или иной форме", мягко говоря, звучит весьма тревожно.
Благодарю за будущий ответ.
Gizzie Haslack
4249003
#63 - 2016-12-12 14:35:20 UTC
CCP Fozzie wrote:
Hey everyone.

As we announced in the Engineering Complex dev blog in October, the upcoming release on December 13th will remove the ability to deploy new Outposts and Outpost Upgrades in New Eden. This is a small first step in the long-term plan to gradually replace these legacy structures with newer Upwell technology. Any Outposts and Outpost upgrades deployed/installed before the December 13th downtime will continue to operate as normal and will not have any bonuses or functionality removed at this time.

As part of this release we are also ending the NPC market seeding of Outpost Construction Platform blueprints, Outpost Improvement Platforms and Outpost Upgrade Platforms, and it will no longer be possible to build new Outpost Construction Platforms. Any remaining blueprints and items in these groups that are not consumed before the December 13th downtime will be eligible for a form of reimbursement in the future. More information about this reimbursement plan will be provided at a later date.

If you or your alliance plans to deploy a new outpost or outpost upgrade, we urge you to do so before December 13th.

This thread will serve as the place to ask questions. Thanks!



Is this to do with the rumours of CCP selling bits of the game to new providers? I'm not opposed to new blood, as new blood is new ideas; I'm just being nosy is all.

The EVE platform is top notch. But new ideas are always handy. As long as the game survives I'm peachy :)
Cade Windstalker
#64 - 2016-12-12 15:06:51 UTC
Petrified wrote:
Most POSes serious about defense have multiple weapon modules offlined and ready to online should they be needed. Additionally, modules can still be anchored and onlined (once the reinforce period is over) even during battle. Anyone throwing away the first defense of their citadel by not being there is not serious about defending their citadel or simply baiting for a fight.

Additionally, there is no such thing as this: "maximum industry and then re-fit for combat" as far as modules are concerned. Rigs, yes. High Slot, Medium, and Low Slot: no - they have 0 impact on industry. Service modules, no - they have no impact on citadel defense - except cloning.

So lets fine tune my gripe to be more precise: High, Medium, and low slots should be changeable despite damage to the struture - they simply cannot be changed while you have a weapon timer. Rigs and service modules are locked into place while the structure is damaged. Now you have a structure where you can change between defending against capitals or sub-capitals etc. but if they were industry minded in their Rigs, they are locked in and they cannot 'save' their service modules.


If you have a bunch of offlined POS guns sitting around then on the first pass I'm just going to pop the guns before I leave, since almost no one ever defends the initial attack on any structure, POS or otherwise as I said before (use of the term "first timer" was unclear, my bad)

Yes there aren't currently any industry focused high, medium, or low slot modules, but that doesn't preclude anything like that being included in the future. It also doesn't invalidate my point which is that I think CCP are doing this to make Citadel fitting decisions matter more. If you've fit one way you shouldn't be able to just spontaneously re-fit to another setup because your scouts say the enemy is bringing something else.

Having this sort of locking makes the fitting decision matter more the same way that combat refitting for Caps was nerfed to make fitting decisions matter.
Cade Windstalker
#65 - 2016-12-12 15:22:01 UTC
Gizzie Haslack wrote:

Is this to do with the rumours of CCP selling bits of the game to new providers? I'm not opposed to new blood, as new blood is new ideas; I'm just being nosy is all.

The EVE platform is top notch. But new ideas are always handy. As long as the game survives I'm peachy :)


At the risk of going off topic, this rumor seems to have grown weird mutant legs. Nothing has ever been said about CCP "selling bits of the game", the various private companies and individuals that own bits of CCP (as a whole and entire company) are apparently considering offers to buy their stake in CCP.

CCP as a company has basically no say in any of this except possibly the option to buy up the held stake.

Andreus Ixiris wrote:

Seriously, for Structures 2.0 to be at feature parity with the old system, I would very much appreciate it if we could get CCP clarification for how the following issues will be addressed:

  • Price point. For the new structures to reach feature parity with starbases, you need to have a structure that does everything that could be done in a small POS in a package that costs roughly the same as a small POS, and the same is true of medium and large POSes as well. Now obviously there's things you can do with the new structures that could never be done with a POS: docking, cloning, tethering, markets, contracts, infinite hangar space. However, you can't scale up the price by too much or you put them beyond the reach of at least some individuals and corps who currently run starbases.

  • Fuel consumption. Heavily related to price point, obviously, but the same principle applies - the fuel cost for what can be done in a POS should be the basis for the fuel cost of what you do in the new structures. By current calculations, depending on fitting, it can cost nearly as much per month to run a small engineering complex than it does to run a large POS. Again, there's not an exact equivalency because it has infinite manufacturing slots and functionality a POS doesn't, but again, if you can't find a solution to this, it's going to shut a lot of people out of private manufacturing.

  • Scalability. Both of the above problems relate in some way to the loss of granularity in the way structures are configured. Starbases could have one manufacturing array or many, meaning you could customise your POS' manufacturing capacity based on what you needed. New structures, by comparison, have either zero or infinite slots, with the only granularity being the rigs and the cap/supercap manufacturing modules.

  • Reconfigurability. Structure rigs, like normal rigs, inexplicably crumble to dust when you pull them out (it might be time to re-examine that entire mechanic, but I won't go into it here). This is a massive issue since a starbase can be reconfigured at no permanent cost - switch out the modules and you've got a totally different starbase. Obviously, new structures can be reconfigured instantaneously which is a distinct advantage over old starbase structures which had a lengthy anchoring and onlining process. However, there is a very significant permanent cost to reconfiguring new structures.

  • Defensibility. This comes down to the fact that citadel defenses are very much weaker than starbases in general, but also more specifically that weapons do not scale. You get (a few) more slots for each size upgrade, but you're always using the same launchers. While I'm not advocating for a system whereby you can create an invincible doom fortress, deathstar POSes allowed smaller groups an equalising element in fights against larger groups. The low defensibility of engineering complexes is particularly worrisome. It also makes sense that economically vital structures have so little defense while citadels - which have little value other than as staging and power projection - have vast defense grids.

I look forward to CCP's address of these concerns.


Just my .02 USD here.

While I think price point is a very valid concern, and I think structures should probably be expanded in a way that allows a lower price point for some feature, I don't think there's a need for a 100% match in functionality and configurability with POSes.

Specifically I like that fitting decisions on a Citadel matter more than on a POS both for Rigs and the regular fittings. IMO that gives CCP more freedom with their design and makes the game more interesting because now we don't have the possibility of spontaneously swapping things around between fights or even mid-fight.
Gizzie Haslack
4249003
#66 - 2016-12-12 15:32:36 UTC
Cade Windstalker wrote:
Gizzie Haslack wrote:

Is this to do with the rumours of CCP selling bits of the game to new providers? I'm not opposed to new blood, as new blood is new ideas; I'm just being nosy is all.

The EVE platform is top notch. But new ideas are always handy. As long as the game survives I'm peachy :)


At the risk of going off topic, this rumor seems to have grown weird mutant legs. Nothing has ever been said about CCP "selling bits of the game", the various private companies and individuals that own bits of CCP (as a whole and entire company) are apparently considering offers to buy their stake in CCP.

CCP as a company has basically no say in any of this except possibly the option to buy up the held stake.



Oh, I get that. I'm fine with that. New blood can often work out :)


Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#67 - 2016-12-12 16:00:48 UTC
CCP Lebowski wrote:
Tom Stonehoof wrote:
There are changes that much of the playerbase did not think relevant to the gameplay or longevity of this game.
If you could point me towards all this negative sentiment towards removing POS's and Outposts I'd be very interested to read it. For what I've seen the response have been mostly understanding.


I agree. Eventually under the old one-station-per-system rule, every sovereign nulsec system would have an unalterable and indestructible station in it. Then what? Stagnation.

Changing to a new destructible system that is not limited to one station per solar system is far superior. imo it is worth the additional work to make it happen.

Still waiting on Drilling Platforms though. I am very curious to see what CCP has planned for moon mining and reactions.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY

Ripard Teg
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#68 - 2016-12-12 19:05:43 UTC
CCP Lebowski wrote:
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here! P

I think the real question that is not being answered: "What is the rush?"

Why is there a rush to remove the ability to anchor outposts when you don't have a replacement for some of the functionality that outposts provide, except "live somewhere else"? Why December 13, and not "next summer" or at some later point when the new structures are more functional and more polished?

aka Jester, who apparently was once Deemed Worthy To Wield The Banhammer to good effect.

Retar Aveymone
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#69 - 2016-12-13 00:34:48 UTC
Ripard Teg wrote:
CCP Lebowski wrote:
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here! P

I think the real question that is not being answered: "What is the rush?"

Why is there a rush to remove the ability to anchor outposts when you don't have a replacement for some of the functionality that outposts provide, except "live somewhere else"? Why December 13, and not "next summer" or at some later point when the new structures are more functional and more polished?

because all of 0.0 has way more than enough outposts for all your ship insurance and module repairing needs
Cade Windstalker
#70 - 2016-12-13 01:24:00 UTC
Ripard Teg wrote:
CCP Lebowski wrote:
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here! P

I think the real question that is not being answered: "What is the rush?"

Why is there a rush to remove the ability to anchor outposts when you don't have a replacement for some of the functionality that outposts provide, except "live somewhere else"? Why December 13, and not "next summer" or at some later point when the new structures are more functional and more polished?


I'm going to go with a desire on CCP's part to free up resources toward other endeavors. As he said in the same comment, this will actually free up resources towards development of the new features, probably because they won't be as pressed to deal with potential issues with the old ones.
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#71 - 2016-12-13 01:50:49 UTC
Ripard Teg wrote:

I think the real question that is not being answered: "What is the rush?"

Why is there a rush to remove the ability to anchor outposts when you don't have a replacement for some of the functionality that outposts provide, except "live somewhere else"? Why December 13, and not "next summer" or at some later point when the new structures are more functional and more polished?

How many months do you want from the last anchored outpost to when it is deleted. How many months does everyone else want. If they wait until feature parity then outright removal of the outposts will either be very soon, or delayed further than it needs to be.
marly cortez
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#72 - 2016-12-13 12:38:16 UTC
The whole idea of removing 'Stations' did not make any sense when first promoted and makes even less now, Systems are being filled with utterly under utilized structures serving little or no purpose other than as ISK sinks, when is enough going to be enough.

Humanity is the thin veneer that remains after you remove the baffled chimp.

Eric Lemmonte
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#73 - 2016-12-13 20:38:24 UTC
I'm mostly indifferent about the phasing to Citadel/Complexes as it has most of the same features of POS and Outpost. There is one issue that does bother me though.

We already have Medium, Large, and Extra Large class structures. The price tag of the Medium is already leaps and bounds higher than any standard control tower. I enjoy the freedom to setup and take-down a tower in a single sit-down playing the game.

Why not introduce a "Small" size that is comparable? A structure that would be considered small wouldn't have much in the way of fittings and would fill the niche for solo, day trips, and small corps to various areas. You could even limit them to having just one service, no offence, and few other options. Just make it so it can be deployed and taken down within a day. Maybe you wouldn't even let anything actually dock that is battleship or larger as another balancing aspect?
Drago Shouna
Doomheim
#74 - 2016-12-13 21:19:11 UTC
Soldarius wrote:
CCP Lebowski wrote:
Tom Stonehoof wrote:
There are changes that much of the playerbase did not think relevant to the gameplay or longevity of this game.
If you could point me towards all this negative sentiment towards removing POS's and Outposts I'd be very interested to read it. For what I've seen the response have been mostly understanding.


I agree. Eventually under the old one-station-per-system rule, every sovereign nulsec system would have an unalterable and indestructible station in it. Then what? Stagnation.

Changing to a new destructible system that is not limited to one station per solar system is far superior. imo it is worth the additional work to make it happen.

Still waiting on Drilling Platforms though. I am very curious to see what CCP has planned for moon mining and reactions.



You're going to be waiting a long time for the drilling platforms..

They just got moved to "Fall 2017"

Solecist Project...." They refuse to play by the rules and laws of the game and use it as excuse ..." " They don't care about how you play as long as they get to play how they want."

Welcome to EVE.

CCP Lebowski
C C P
C C P Alliance
#75 - 2016-12-14 16:39:21 UTC
Thanks for all the replies here,

I just want to clarify my statements on feature parity in the context of Structures, as I don't want anyone to feel like they've been mislead! When I'm speaking about feature parity I'm generally talking about the broad high-level functionality. Let me give you a few examples of what that means:

- Provide storage for individuals, corporations and alliances.
- Allow the insurance of ships
- Allow the manufacture of T3 ships
- Allow materials to be harvested from moons

These are all examples of functionality that we're looking to replicate. You will no doubt note that these types of high level functions make no mention of details such as cost, timescales or security, to name a few. While some of these things may be matched, these aren't what we are discussing when we say feature parity. Such details are often things that we need to be able to change for balancing purposes.

I hope this makes sense to everyone. We really appreciate the passion that people have for structures old and new, and we hope to provide exciting, engaging and balanced gameplay for all, even if it won't always precisely match the way things were.

Thanks again

CCP Lebowski | EVE Quality Assurance | Team Five-0

@CCP_Lebowski

Cade Windstalker
#76 - 2016-12-14 17:21:49 UTC
CCP Lebowski wrote:
Thanks for all the replies here,

I just want to clarify my statements on feature parity in the context of Structures, as I don't want anyone to feel like they've been mislead! When I'm speaking about feature parity I'm generally talking about the broad high-level functionality. Let me give you a few examples of what that means:

- Provide storage for individuals, corporations and alliances.
- Allow the insurance of ships
- Allow the manufacture of T3 ships
- Allow materials to be harvested from moons

These are all examples of functionality that we're looking to replicate. You will no doubt note that these types of high level functions make no mention of details such as cost, timescales or security, to name a few. While some of these things may be matched, these aren't what we are discussing when we say feature parity. Such details are often things that we need to be able to change for balancing purposes.

I hope this makes sense to everyone. We really appreciate the passion that people have for structures old and new, and we hope to provide exciting, engaging and balanced gameplay for all, even if it won't always precisely match the way things were.

Thanks again


Thanks very much for the prompt and informative reply.

Could we get this added to a dev-blog or something though, so that people will actually see it?

My experience with Features and Ideas Discussion has been that there's a core group of users that frequent these forums and then everyone else just runs here on patch day when they see something in the patch notes they don't like. It's highly unlikely that the majority of people invested in the new structures will see this reply and it very much should be seen since it outlines a pretty key details of CCP's high level vision for Citadels and the replacement of POSes.
CCP Lebowski
C C P
C C P Alliance
#77 - 2016-12-14 17:39:09 UTC
I'll certainly try and make sure we're clear about this in future dev blogs, and I've linked to this on Twitter at least (I know that not exactly full coverage!). For now that will have to do.

Feel free to spread the word in any way you see fit, or link to this post when you see misunderstandings.

CCP Lebowski | EVE Quality Assurance | Team Five-0

@CCP_Lebowski

Oddsodz
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#78 - 2016-12-14 18:09:32 UTC
All I want is to be able to repair all the Lootz I get from spolding folks without having to fit said lootz to a ship and then undock and wait for tether repair. When you get a lot of lootz. It takes very long time doing that. Hope it will be addressed soon (or I am a noob and missed something about repairing modules in citadels)
Cade Windstalker
#79 - 2016-12-14 18:16:33 UTC
Oddsodz wrote:
All I want is to be able to repair all the Lootz I get from spolding folks without having to fit said lootz to a ship and then undock and wait for tether repair. When you get a lot of lootz. It takes very long time doing that. Hope it will be addressed soon (or I am a noob and missed something about repairing modules in citadels)


Someone can correct me if I'm hallucinating here but I believe there's already a Repair service that is attached to one of the already existing (as in, before this update) Service Rigs. I'm like 99.9% sure I've repaired things inside a Citadel before it just costs a small amount of ISK like in any other station.
FearlessLittleToaster
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#80 - 2016-12-14 22:48:58 UTC
Oddsodz wrote:
All I want is to be able to repair all the Lootz I get from spolding folks without having to fit said lootz to a ship and then undock and wait for tether repair. When you get a lot of lootz. It takes very long time doing that. Hope it will be addressed soon (or I am a noob and missed something about repairing modules in citadels)


You know what I'm going to do now? I'm going to find you with a locator agent, then fit a horrible ship really poorly (Armor Caracal or something) and deliberately overheat stuff until all the modules are damaged. Then I'm going to put those modules in cargo and do the same thing with more. I mean like get four or five whole fits in there. After that I'm going to fly to where you live, let you kill me, and enjoy the most epic passive aggressive victory in the history of Eve.