Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The biggest issue with incursions is that very site is known and people prepare accordingly making them too easy. The way to correct this is to add randomness to how things are set up.

First make a number of different spawns possible and have them randomly set in order. This should be something like 15-20 different groups for each site. Each of these should have a different ship class or ewar type. As each site becomes available the spawn order is randomly determined. In programming sense the site would be assembled from a set of options and then spawned into game as a single piece. The trigger for the next spawn should be completely random so people can't trigger spawns when they please. This should not change the total number of spawns in a site. So a site that has 4 spawns now will still have only 4 spawns but which spawns of the options for that site will not be known.

To make the whole system interesting put some spawns on stargates and outside of sites. This will keep people from casually approaching a site and taking their sweet time to get organized for it. This would make the entire system prohibitive for non incursion fleets so a few days warning before the incursion arrives must be given to allow newer characters to escape. Also on gates entering an incursion area give a similar warning to the entering low sec gates. This warning must be seperate since most people disable the low sec one but the new incursion one would be substantially more dangerous.

Make incursion fleets attack players as if they had scanning capability. This would replace the scout systems entirely and be similar in strength to them.

Eliminate the distinction between vangaurd and assault systems. An assault would be the next gate in line after a vangaurd site. A headquarters system would have a number of lesser gates in front of each site as well. A mothership fleet would be roaming throughout the entire constelation and require scanning. The mothershop itself would also try to warp out if damaged down to half armor making an interdictor required to kill it. About every hour or so it would warp to a new spot and to change systems it would be marked as a cyno when it moves to a new system but almost immediately warp off after it jumps in. This cyno would be destroyable as site but the exact timing of the mothership fleet jumping in would also be unknown after the cyno is lit. This would make for an extra rewarding site for a relatively small fleet but said small fleet would be obliterated if the mothership dropped on them.

Also incursions have to be coming from somewhere. Either they enter by a wormhole or they take the long route from null sec. This would make a wormhole site available or have incursions be constantly moving. The wormhole site could be absolutely anything and be continuously spawning and likewise continuously rewarding. That or they could enter the wormhole and into a system that is completely infested. This wouldnt be like a normal wormhole as there would be fleets roaming it that would attack the players as they found them. There would be no bounty for a fleet but they would be very salvageable. These would constantantly be warping around set locations as players with safe spots do. They would also be seeking the players to attack them given some realistic scan time and different for each fleet so they wont all find the players at once. This would make an extremely risky place as single fleets might be manageable to a skilled player fleet but another might find them while they are engaged. Staying on the wormhole would be especially risky and rewarding as everything that is in the invaded system would be moving through there.