| Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 30 :: one page |
|
|
| Author |
Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 10 post(s) |

Salient Soldier
Minmatar Fatalix Inc. Phalanx Alliance
 |
Posted - 2008.04.14 19:11:00 -
[601]
This is from my post which you can read in its entirety here
JUGGARNAUTS & SOVEREIGNTY REVISTED First off, the recent sovereignty changes are little too extreme. Take morsus mihi, an alliance that has turtled itself into Tribute. They have 5 titans, and a huge cap fleet, and a giant jump bridge network. Even if you manage to get a jump on one of their systems with say 200 BSs, and had another 200BSs on standby out of system (because lets face it, these nodes can only realistically handly 200ish people and even then its lagged to all hell) .. you are confronted with 2 choices.. knock out the cyno jammer or the jump bridges. Chances are, you're first fleet is going to get DD, or double DD to oblivion. Well then you bring in your other 200 ships into the lag fest, hopeful to down a titan still hanging around the carnage. Oh but look, theres now 10 MoMs and 20 carriers on grid. Only half your BS pilots load grid before getting wiped out by the shredder pos and fighter pwnage. The rest die soon after. So, 40 or so MM just pwned your 400 guys. A little ridiculous. Yes, the home turf guys should get the advantage in battle, but the scale really needs to be lowered. This is why the role of system sieging needs to be turned over to a mini dread, a ship that needs no cyno, a ship that can mix it up with caps and non caps, a ship that can withstand multiple titan DDs, and that ship is the JUGGARNAUT. Now instead of a laggy 200man BS fleet, you can roll in with a 50man JUGGARNAUT fleet and have some chance of at least clearing the way for your cap fleet. And the currently impossible become possible. The major point is, again, if you want to hold space you should have to defend it with more than your handful of super weapons that your pile of t2 bpo's and legion of carebears has afforded you. AND the experience should be fun and accessible to all.
---
Now i do like the idea of having multiple objectives in different systems to attack/defend. Its the only real way your going to de-blob the universe.

 |

Alski
Gallente Di-Tron Heavy Industries Atlas Alliance
 |
Posted - 2008.04.14 19:27:00 -
[602]
Originally by: Phthonos Nemesis ....Ownership of a system would allow you to build an Acceleration gate to a "complex"...
....CovertOps/BlackOps ships could have modules to decrypt or unlock gates, to allow use by hostiles, or to reverse engineer the target and build a combat portal to the complex....
I love the idea of using deadspace type areas and/or hacking to unlock areas or (in my idea, change the functionality of deadspace areas)
I’m currently working on a very well flashed out sovereignty concept of my own, the basics idea of which is to break up the blob and make sovereignty more based around the actual player to player combat, not shooting pos’s, simply: if you can hold the field long enough to accomplish your objectives you can successfully contest sov.
The breaking up the *attacking* blob I think I have very well sorted, its breaking up the defending blob that’s proving to be much much harder to find a sensible mechanic to achieve.
Phthonos’s idea just gave me a new direction to go in, but my big idea is still far from ready to be posted, so I’m just gonna throw this question out there…
When you have successfully broken up the attacking blob by giving them multiple objectives that have to be completed simultaneously – How do you force the defending blob to break up when the main objective is just going to be “kill the attackers”?
-
 (combat) Patch belonging to CCP hits your drones, wrecking their liberty and freedom.
|

Letrange
Minmatar Chaosstorm Corporation Apoapsis Multiversal Consortium
 |
Posted - 2008.04.14 20:42:00 -
[603]
Ideas for consideration:
Humm let's see. Local may in the future be going bye bye. This will definitely make for some serious changes in game play. The value of the cov-ops and cloaking series of ships will go up accordingly. This will promote good recon work as one of the primary skills in pretty much anything.
One way I can see this working is that local info is basically made up of information that is collated on gate jumping. I.e. if you don't transmit who you are the gate don't activate. Therefore the system you end up in will always know who you are. This is the current situation.
There could be a change of policy that only the controlling entity of a gate would get a list of who's in local that entered thru gates they control. For systems with faction control nobody gets the info (or make it standing based where the corp or pilot needs 8+ standing to get the info for example) For player controlled systems only the players belonging to the gate get that info (this is assuming some form of gate ownership like seems to be under discussion here. substitute gate for system ownership if not going for gate control).
The idea here is that entities in control of a system would have an advantage in local knowledge but people visiting would not. You could tailor the system so that newbies in empire space have a local but if they go outside of empire they loose local. Most of low sec no one would have a local and areas under alliance control would have a local only for those that control the systems.
--- damn this should probably go in the discussion on removing local if it wasn't for the issue of sovereignty effects.
|

Zaiyo Modi
 |
Posted - 2008.04.14 20:55:00 -
[604]
Edited by: Zaiyo Modi on 14/04/2008 21:03:34
Originally by: Alski When you have successfully broken up the attacking blob by giving them multiple objectives that have to be completed simultaneously – How do you force the defending blob to break up when the main objective is just going to be “kill the attackers”?
I would suggest exploring the idea of giving each side tools to deal with blobs when blobs are positioned at certain places. It would be important that the tools are not weapons that can be used everywhere.
Hacking a structure in deadspace to force defending blob to warp off (like a log off warp): How about giving a cov ops pilot the ability to use hacking on some symbolic flight control structure inside a deadspace area, which would force a fair amount (random?) of ships to spontaneously be given emergency warp off orders, forcing some ships to warp off 1 au or so, but outside the deadspace area. By the time they arrive back to deadspace, the blob should is broken up.
The bigger the blob, larger bigger number of ships will be forced to do an emergency warp off leaving remaining defenders alone for the next 2-5 minutes, as the shoo'ed pilots are moving back into the deadspace area and moving to the center on afterburner speed.
The pilot doing the hacking would have to uncloack and quickly hack a certain structure before being targeted and killed. Perhaps a suicide mission by the cov ops pilot.
---
Technical: CCP would have to either accept people being able to cheat this by placing an item on the Ctrl + Spacebar to prevent accidental warp-off, or CCP would have to make sure the ships cannot abort their warp off manouver.
---
If the attackers are doing the blobbing then perhaps defenders can be given tools to use structures at a moon or whatnot, to force ALL ships outside a nearby pos shield (if any)(to perhaps ease server computation?) to make an emergency warp off.
|

Jason Edwards
 |
Posted - 2008.04.14 21:45:00 -
[605]
How about a new starbase down 1/3 the cost of the current starbases they are now but make them very very very strong destructible objects that have the ability of equipping with armaments. Being capable of being equipped fairly easily by jump freighters while perhaps freighters are also still effective.
Sovereignty then is held by the alliance as you have your station. You then can spread out from your sovereignty by strength of forces. Say you have full sovereignty in your capital. You then get 2 jumps from you at second highest *Province*. 2 jumps from that at protectorate and 2 jumps from that you have territory.
Sovereignty tiers include Territory, Protectorate, Province, and Constellation Capital.
If your capital isn't "constellation capital" but rather only "province" then it only goes as far as 4 jumps before you dont have sovereignty.
To extend your sovereignty. You need to build another starbase somewhere. The effect is also slow. It takes awhile before you can obtain top strength. So you can build that starbase and it might be a week or something before you reach out 6 jumps.
Then to challenge and defeat sovereignty. It should be a daunting task. Like seriously a giant 100+ dread fleet pounding the starbase for over a day to even destroy the starbase; or some real long period of time.
Now these are combat starbases. Instead of being invincible and things like manufacturing/science being upgradable... instead you upgrade combat and defensive abilities. These upgrades then attack dreads and are dangerous to dreads.
|

Cailais
Amarr VITOC Chain of Chaos
 |
Posted - 2008.04.14 22:35:00 -
[606]
Goumindong,
I just want to come back at you over this segement of your comment here:
Originally by: Goumindong
It also does bad things to attacking alliances[something we want to mitigate], since you need a critical mass of players living in an area, attacking another area means weakening your hold on everything else you own which lets someone else easily come in and set up shop.
There is no real reason to attack someone if you are also going to lose your space...
The short answer is that its better to design these types of systems to benefit and harm alliances organically than it is to design these types of systems to benefit and harm alliances directly.
Granted attacking one area might mean weakening your hold on another - but isnt that how warfare essentially works? Its a element of risk to devote some of your defensive resources to conducting an offensive attack: that makes sense to me.
It makes more sense when we consider that the organic attack is extremely difficult (even impossible?) to achieve for all the reasons you list.
Granted Alliances may not make large scale efforts to claim territory, rather expand slowly and progressively from their current location (as opposed to leaping half way across the galaxy to nuke a system because somebody made a comment in COAD they didnt like).
Also, and this is pretty key - there's every reason to attack someone if you dont own any space: thus giving reknewed impetus to younger alliances seeking to carve out a niche.
I can see how my proposal wont be very popular with established alliances - but should this system be all about maintaining the status quo?
C.

New Scanner Idea!
|

Cheopis
4 wing
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 00:24:00 -
[607]
There are 21 pages of posts here, chances are pretty good that that I'm about to suggest has already been suggested, but I figure it might lend weight to have more people suggest the same thing so, here goes.
Make Sovereignity more meaningful, that way it's more worth waiting for.
At Sov 2 allow 2 station or gate guns, player manufactured, to be placed at gates and player built outposts. At Sov 3 allow 4 guns at each location. At Sov 4 allow 6 gun emplacements.
Allow sovereignity to be more meaningful in player stations. At sovereignity 3, allow alliances to completely bar non-alliance trade inside their station if they wish to do so. At Sov 4 allow station owners to completely remove all neutral players from stations, and relocate their equipment and clones, ships, etc to the nearest NPC station. If there needs to be a movement charge, so be it, thats acceptable.
Sovereignity means nothing if it means nothing. That was not a miswording - sovereignity means little if an alliance cannot control who resides and destroys the economy in their stations. Sovereignity means little if we cannot emplace static defenses to at least beat off small attacks. Yes, these things can be done by players, but if you want to make sovereignity something worth the time and effort of the average player, then a little more safety and a little more control of the occupancy of stations would be key.
There are benefits to Sov levels, sure, but they are mostly invisible to the average player. Make Sov meaningful to the average player and it will be greatly improved.
|

Dorvil Barranis
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 04:22:00 -
[608]
Goal: The purpose of a game is to have fun. Any revision to sovereignty mechanics should further the aim of making the game more enjoyable. This can be done by increasing the diversity of 0.0 activities, including helping to break up the blob, encouraging a greater variety of players in 0.0, allowing smaller alliances to influence sovereignty and the economies of sovereign powers, and encouraging a greater variety of PVP engagements.
What is Sovereignty?: Sovereignty resents the economic and military control of systems, constellations, and regions. It also gives goals for alliances, and gives them something significant to fight over. Sovereignty should give benefits to those that have it, such as better intelligence and reduced fuel costs, but also require effort to maintain. Tying sovereignty to any one activity or objective is too limited, and will encourage players to sink as many ships and resources as possible in to that one objective.
Proposal: If sovereignty was gained and lost through a variety of activities, this will encourage and reward a variety of play. Such activities would include POS ownership, outpost ownership, gate control, mining, and collecting NPC bounties. Some details will need to be worked out, but this is a general starting point to work from.
Sovereignty Points: A point value would be tied to the various activities that influence sovereignty. This will also allow the system to be dynamic, and subject to periodic tweaks, without having to be completely revised to be adjusted. If you have more then 51% of the sovereignty points (SP) within a system, you hold sovereignty on the system, and get your alliances name on the system. Systems without a clear majority are considered contested. Holding sovereignty of all systems in a constellation give you constellation sovereignty, and all constellations within a region gives you regional sovereignty. The SP you have are reduced by a percentage each downtime, possibly cut in half, and the sovereignty percentages are adjusted. The purpose of reduction is to prevent an alliance that has held a system for a year of having an overwhelming number of SP that a new comer could never compete with. Any alliance with any percentage of sovereignty will be able to view the current percentages of control, and what has scored points for those percentages. This information is only available after each downtime, so that it cannot be used to immediately reveal threats to sovereignty.
Sovereignty Activities: The following activities yield SP:
Gate Control: Camping a gate for an hour gives you control of that gate, which yields SP each hour. Control of the gate may also allow you to establish gate monitors which will provide intelligence about gate activity. I personally don't see to much need for sovereignty linked gate guns, but if they exist, you would have to control the gate to establish them. I strongly object to tying sovereignty to gate control alone, as gate camps are already the most common PVP battle, and the idea is to encourage diversity of play.
POS & Outposts: POS ownership yields SP each day, the bigger the POS the more the SP. However, this will not be an overwhelming number of SP, so that spamming POS or blobbing enemy POS is not the be all end all of sovereignty. Also, move all POS structures except hangers and ship maintenance outside of the shield. This will allow smaller gangs to harass an enemies economy by disabling their moon miners and other structures. Having your POS put in to reinforced mode will cost you SP, as will having your control tower destroyed. Outpost control will also yield SP each day, and losing an outpost will cost you SP.
continued . . . |

Dorvil Barranis
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 04:23:00 -
[609]
Bounties: Collecting bounties also gives your alliance SP in the system. This will allow PVP alliances to feel that they are not wasting time with ratting and complexes, and will give an incentive to go in to someone else's space and tstealv their rats. Drones will also have an SP value in line with bounty based NPCs.
Mining: Harvesting a systems asteroids yields SP. This will encourage 0.0 alliances to admit and protect dedicated miners, and encourage a greater variety of players in 0.0.
PVP Combat: Although it would be nice to give and take away SP for PVP ship kills, any gains have to be kept to a minimum to prevent people from gaming the system, such as by building ships, giving them to an alt, insuring them, and then letting them get blown up to score SP. Also, someone could have an alt join an enemy corp to get their ship blown up 20 times, and cost the enemy alliance SP. SP can be rewarded for PVP kills, but it has to be small enough that economics prevent this from being a viable method of disrupting sovereignty.
Overview: This system will allow smaller gangs to disrupt a larger alliances sovereignty, which will encourage a greater variety of engagements, and let the little guy stick it to the man without getting blobbed by 100 ships every time they do so. Tying sovereignty to 5 gates instead of POS is a step in the right direction, but why not go hog wild, and tie sovereignty to as many activities as possible? To hold sovereignty you have to control who operates in your space, so there is still a reason to gate camp your entrances, but it is not the only thing to do to influence sovereignty, so it is less likely to encourage a blob. Thank you for your time.
|

Conlin
Gallente Sarz'na Khumatari Ushra'Khan
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 16:12:00 -
[610]
I enjoyed the read and liked some of the ideas till I got to the bit where it said , "The defender gets to choose when to defend !!" . I,m sorry but that idea is extremely stupid . Alliances that get to choose when to defend will just decide the timezone when the other alliance is less active . Doomed to fail that one . Since when did defenders ever get to choose when to defend ?. Madness .
|
|

Zaiyo Modi
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 16:19:00 -
[611]
Conlin, where did you read this, can you please elaborate and put it in context?
The strontium levels in a pos these days surely is a way for defenders to dictate the time of a final fight. So concidering this, your thoughs about this or that feel abit unwarranted. Unless you want to add to what you wrote with some more elaborate argument and examples of context.
|

Zaiyo Modi
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 16:33:00 -
[612]
I um also want to express some idea of the way capital ships could be dealt with in the future.
---
I wouldn't mind seeing someone exploring the idea of having the game change focus from building up effective firepower as in that coming from a blob of ships or capital ship firepower, to "mobility".
Blobs and/or capital ships would then not be overpowered, but just an handy asset that can be used to build up a defence or be used in a clever way to gain initiative and strike hard when they are moved around.
Instinctivly, the dropping ships with a cyno would perhaps have to be changed to working in a different way, so that mobility and actual movement is needed to gain an advantage or being necessary to bring weapons to bare at all.
Focus on "mobility" would mean, that the initiative for combat is favouring the party being able to move around.
If building up great firepower is wanted, then they can always do so in defence covering a limited area like a planet/moon, or great firepower could be used as a reward for moveing about cleverly or in luck.
Though the idea of combat from "mobility" would arrange for a more paced combat favouring the ones being able to position themselvs properly, eventually, there would be a blob problem i guess. But the issue of overpowered fleets (when people say "capital ships online") would not be "unfair" when game mechanics are arranged to limit the advantage of powerful-assets, when these powerful-assets cannot realisticly cover multiple locations in space in a short amount of time, to gain superior firepower. I believe the dropping of capital ships and blobs warping around is what makes these things overpowered.
So one aspect of what I would call "fair" gameplay, would mean that if you have lots of assets like capital ships but only small space to protect, then you gain a serious advantage. So a roaming group of lesser ships should not so easily dominate the scene if facing capital ships.
Basicly, imo, big ships should be powerful and encourage fights with other big ships, and not be that vunerable to lesser pieces of assets.
Moving combat off the gates to other places in a system would suit this idea I think, and be necessary, where capital ships/fleets may rule in their glory whereever they go. That way smaller roaming gangs arent faced with doom when moving between system, because stargates are camped by ships with capital assets.
When ships do end up in a blob of ships there will probably be a problem of lag, but then I am sure other tools can be invented to try prevent this or balance stuff.
---
Fairness to me means: - Everyone knows or should be able to learn about the rules of gameplay, but not the tactics - Exploits should be dealt with by CCP, or disclosed within the list of rules for gameplay, like bumping ships. - Bigger ship beats small ship as a general rule, due to isk and skill investment, and the sci-fi plausability we probably appreciate. - Timing should favour the one with the initiative, but a gameplay that allows a group of players to gain lasting control of an area because other groups are offline at the time, such a gameplay lack tools for strategy. Strategy should be complementary to ship to ship combat in the grand scope of the game.
|

Goumindong
Amarr Merch Industrial GoonSwarm
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 17:28:00 -
[613]
Edited by: Goumindong on 15/04/2008 17:30:08
Originally by: Cailais Goumindong,
I just want to come back at you over this segement of your comment here:
Yes, but the degree of this occurring is not such a linear result. It would be like saying "Alliances have an allocation of 1 POS per 10 players in the alliance". CCP has dedicated a lot of effort to ensure that there is not a hegemony of the rich and old. But they cannot simply let the game become a hegemony of the many as well.
The two most powerful alliances in the game after such a change would be Goonswarm and Bruce[Assuming even play time]. And it would be based solely on the number of people we could plunk down in any given area. Numbers need to mean a lot[Because otherwise you get a hegemony of the rich and old], but they should not be everything.
The system which directly penalizes alliances for making pushes against other alliances is not a good one. If new alliances are having a hard time moving against older alliances then the problem lies in the mechanics of POS warfare being too difficult and having too much benefit.
Quote:
I can see how my proposal wont be very popular with established alliances - but should this system be all about maintaining the status quo?
No, it should not be about maintaining the status quo, but the variable sov system which relies on ratting and mining and camping gates et all simply replaces the current status quo with a worse one. The change should be about making the game better first and foremost, any other considerations, including changing the status quo for changes sake should take a back-burner to making the game better. There will be more people in 0.0[because of the density required to hold space], but there will be less combat[because people will be grinding sov instead, and PvP kill/death ratio numbers are easily exploitable as well would discourage the creation of new FCs], and there will be less change of sovereignty[because its so hard to attack when you don't own a system and because you must necessarily reduce your hold on systems you already own in order to do so], with maybe a few patches of rolling sovereignty where alliances take space and then abandon the space they leave behind.
Originally by: Conlin I enjoyed the read and liked some of the ideas till I got to the bit where it said , "The defender gets to choose when to defend !!" . I,m sorry but that idea is extremely stupid . Alliances that get to choose when to defend will just decide the timezone when the other alliance is less active . Doomed to fail that one . Since when did defenders ever get to choose when to defend ?. Madness .
Defenders have gotten to choose ever since the players and CCP decided that station ping pong was not fun.
 Vote Goumindong for CSM |

Conlin
Gallente Sarz'na Khumatari Ushra'Khan
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 18:09:00 -
[614]
Page 16 . And yeah I know all about reinforced pos,s , defenders do choose once the attack has been initiated . I was hoping for a change in that area as pos warfare atm is more balanced towards defenders and it dont work as it is .
|

Goumindong
Amarr Merch Industrial GoonSwarm
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 18:58:00 -
[615]
Originally by: Conlin Page 16 . And yeah I know all about reinforced pos,s , defenders do choose once the attack has been initiated . I was hoping for a change in that area as pos warfare atm is more balanced towards defenders and it dont work as it is .
It not working has nothing to do with the defenders picking the time of final engagement.
 Vote Goumindong for CSM |

Cailais
Amarr VITOC Chain of Chaos
 |
Posted - 2008.04.15 21:06:00 -
[616]
Originally by: Goumindong The two most powerful alliances in the game after such a change would be Goonswarm and Bruce[Assuming even play time]. And it would be based solely on the number of people we could plunk down in any given area. Numbers need to mean a lot[Because otherwise you get a hegemony of the rich and old], but they should not be everything.
I see what youre saying, but then in order to thrive a larger alliance needs more space (you couldnt pack all of GS into 2 or 3 systems) so the larger alliance spreads out. Population pressure and density would then define when an Alliance needed to go to war to secure more 'living space'.
Quote:
The system which directly penalizes alliances for making pushes against other alliances is not a good one. If new alliances are having a hard time moving against older alliances then the problem lies in the mechanics of POS warfare being too difficult and having too much benefit.
It doesnt penalize an Alliance, rather it stops rewarding it for holding more territory than it can possibly use, or needs.
Quote:
My edit There will be more people in 0.0[because of the density required to hold space], but there will be less combat[because people will be grinding sov instead,
...not if theyre grinding sov down: not up, a key point.
Quote: ...and PvP kill/death ratio numbers are easily exploitable as well would discourage the creation of new FCs], and there will be less change of sovereignty[because its so hard to attack when you don't own a system and because you must necessarily reduce your hold on systems you already own in order to do so], with maybe a few patches of rolling sovereignty where alliances take space and then abandon the space they leave behind.
Well this in my view actually creates, not diminishes, strategic planning and operations: the concept of 'we're sacrificing our hold over XXXX in order to capture YYYY'. Is 'rolling soveriegnty' such a bad thing? It suggests a dynamic and interesting universe to me with alliances being more nomadic and less entrenched.
If you have sufficient numbers to spare to reduce control of a system great - but then you have to hold it. Sure Large Alliances will dominate but then they do this anyway - at least using my suggestion they will need to leave some of their number 'at home to guard the fort', rather than rely of reinforced POS's to do the job for them; even against smaller gangs.
C.

New Scanner Idea!
|

NvyoU
 |
Posted - 2008.04.16 00:19:00 -
[617]
Edited by: NvyoU on 16/04/2008 00:23:46 Edited by: NvyoU on 16/04/2008 00:22:04
Originally by: Alski
Originally by: Phthonos Nemesis ....Ownership of a system would allow you to build an Acceleration gate to a "complex"...
....CovertOps/BlackOps ships could have modules to decrypt or unlock gates, to allow use by hostiles, or to reverse engineer the target and build a combat portal to the complex....
I love the idea of using deadspace type areas and/or hacking to unlock areas or (in my idea, change the functionality of deadspace areas)
I’m currently working on a very well flashed out sovereignty concept of my own, the basics idea of which is to break up the blob and make sovereignty more based around the actual player to player combat, not shooting pos’s, simply: if you can hold the field long enough to accomplish your objectives you can successfully contest sov.
The breaking up the *attacking* blob I think I have very well sorted, its breaking up the defending blob that’s proving to be much much harder to find a sensible mechanic to achieve.
Phthonos’s idea just gave me a new direction to go in, but my big idea is still far from ready to be posted, so I’m just gonna throw this question out there…
When you have successfully broken up the attacking blob by giving them multiple objectives that have to be completed simultaneously – How do you force the defending blob to break up when the main objective is just going to be “kill the attackers”?
Some great discussion here! 
Just wanted to pick up on this last bit Alski; Surely the problem you mention is a fix in itself? By virtue of the attackers having to attack mulitple objectives at the same time the defenders have to act accordingly or risk losing the overall fight. It sounds daft but the defenders main objective isnt killing the attackers its defending and by that virtue - killing the attackers.
So, you can have 10 varying objectives - ranging in fleet compositions and size requirements which maintain or increase the global objective timers for either side. Its in the best interest for the defenders and attackers not to blob up because:
A) Each fleets composition and size may be enough to maintain or incriment the global defence/ attack clock based on a group of objectives. Brute force no longer becomes and option when mass no longer gives the advantage?
B) If you do blob in one area any global timer would still incriment against you quicker - playing cat and mouse with two big fleets is no longer viable - the global flag rewards those who chooses to disperse and fight.
The ebb and flow of battle comes from region wide faints, pincer movements, reserves and reinforcements being brought in to play?
There are many elegant solutions put forward here that need to be tied together, I feel Sov should be claimed by fighting for many objectives (existing game mechanics and new) defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world.
Thoughts?
|

Zaiyo Modi
 |
Posted - 2008.04.16 00:29:00 -
[618]
Originally by: NvyoU There are many elegant solutions put forward here that need to be tied together, I feel Sov should be claimed by fighting for many objectives (existing game mechanics and new) defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world.
I do not understand, what you mean by "many objectives defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world." ?
|

NvyoU
 |
Posted - 2008.04.16 01:22:00 -
[619]
Edited by: NvyoU on 16/04/2008 01:22:50
Originally by: Zaiyo Modi
Originally by: NvyoU There are many elegant solutions put forward here that need to be tied together, I feel Sov should be claimed by fighting for many objectives (existing game mechanics and new) defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world.
I do not understand, what you mean by "many objectives defined by players within a framework thats grounded in the game world." ?
I'm saying we need Sov mechanics that fit in with everything we as alliances - corperations and players achieve within Eve.
Territory and resources are fought over because they are strategically important and mean something to either side. Alliances/ corps invest in assets - giving them degrees of importance which should be reflected in objectives set out too gain and hold Sov by other Alliances.
|

Alski
Gallente Di-Tron Heavy Industries Atlas Alliance
 |
Posted - 2008.04.16 04:32:00 -
[620]
Originally by: NvyoU
So, you can have 10 varying objectives - ranging in fleet compositions and size requirements which maintain or increase the global objective timers for either side. Its in the best interest for the defenders and attackers not to blob up because:
A) A sub fleets composition and size may be enough to maintain or incriment the global defence/ attack clock based on one of a group of many objectives. Brute force no longer becomes and option when mass no longer gives the advantage?
B) If you do blob in one area any global timer would still incriment against you quicker - playing cat and mouse with two big fleets is no longer viable - the global flag rewards those who chooses to disperse and fight.
Thoughts?
That’s a very very interesting idea, and wasn’t exactley the direction that my own idea was heading in the thing that’s really tough for me to figure out – and this comes back to my original question - is what kind of objectives could you have that require both the attackers and defenders to split forces?
Perhaps having a fleet of a certain size on a grid, and holding that grid as well as several other grids… and once all grids are held by the attackers all the other grids have to assaulted simultaneously by the defenders?
Things like that sound easy in practice… but what kind of mechanics can you have that will severely disadvantage the attackers if they decide to just hit one grid with 30 people on, with there own 100 people?
In my own idea I was looking at interlinked dreadnaughts or maybe a new class of ship altogether, that would somehow “protect” the smaller attacking gangs from overwhelming firepower, as well as both having to be assaulted at once in order to drop this protective field or whatever it could be.
The “global timer” though is an intriguing idea I wish I’d had kicking around before, the problem I see though is that it would have to have some kind of starting trigger, and possibly a reinforced type of mechanic or else an attacking alliance could just invade at an off-peek timezome for the defenders and just sit and hold objectives without a fight… it’s still a nice idea, but in a real-time 23/7 MMO balancing it seems incredibly tough, I’d love to hear some ideas on it though. -
 (combat) Patch belonging to CCP hits your drones, wrecking their liberty and freedom.
|
|

Shadowsword
COLSUP Tau Ceti Federation
 |
Posted - 2008.04.16 06:22:00 -
[621]
Imho, the only way to break up the blob in the case of simultanneous objectives, is first to break up the capacity for that blob to travel quickly.
If you remove jump bridges and create a new ship that can reprouce the effects of a cnyo-jammer for a whole system, it might just work... |

xttz
GoonFleet GoonSwarm
 |
Posted - 2008.04.16 07:32:00 -
[622]
I think a key part of breaking down the blob lies in the current soverignty mechanics. Or to be more precise, sov levels.
Before Revelations 2, multiple-week fights over a single system (or several systems at once) were common, resulting in system control shifting constantly. With the level-based sov we have now, its very easy for defenders to just give up if the other side throws in a single blob at their weakest time, reinforces every tower, and opens the potential to remove all defending bonuses within 2 days. Losing the highest level of soverignty is the current indicator to abandon a system, as it takes 5 weeks to reclaim. This results in a mechanic where a single huge blob of capital ships can login twice a week to conquer one and never need risk other combat. I'd like to see this spread out to see which side can control a system for a more sustained period.
Soverignty levels should instead be based on alliance control / presence in a system, rather than just time. The best current example of this is that an alliance can place a single small tower in a neutral system and gain the bonuses of sov3 by simply waiting 5 weeks. This does not lend to risk/reward, as Sov3 systems are valuable tactical tools while small towers are practically disposable to larger alliances. Instead I would suggest that sov levels can only reach a certain 'ceiling' depending on the quantity/size of starbases in the system, along with other factors like the proposed gate control or neighbouring system sov. It should be possible to reach high levels of soverignty faster, at a higher risk/cost in fuel. This encouarges more focus on true provinces and capitals, rather than having alliances drop single cynojammer towers in every single nearby system. I believe you will see less 'hard borders' of dozens of sov3 jammed systems by making it more expensive to maintain those borders.
In a similar vein, sov in contested systems should rise and fall in a more fluid manner. A focused, all-out attack could chip off the highest level of sov and remove the best defense bonuses, but defenders would still have something to work with rather than rushing to assemble a blob defense within 2 days. It should take at least a week of fighting to remove all defender benefits from a system, resulting in larger numbers of smaller fights. If neighbouring system sov affected a contested system, this would encourage the tactical capture of these weaker points first. It would also mean that defenders who lost all their starbases in a system in a very short space of time (due to a focused attack, poor stront timing or simply spies) would have a shot to fight back - neighbouring systems would conribute to defense bonuses.
Bonuses provided by sov levels should also be changed to reflect this, in order to prolong system invasions into multiple smaller engagements. Uncontested systems could have invulnerable starbase towers or longer strontium timers, but those bonuses can be removed at the next downtime by a focused assault to capture gates. As hostile presence in a system increases, the defenders gradually lose their defense bonuses. Conversely, they can regain these bonuses faster by beating back the attacker. As well as the level-based structures such as jump bridges and cyno beacons, why not adjust starbases to be more powerful based on sov. Tweak the tower bonuses to apply per level of soverignty. For example: Amarr towers have a 25% damage bonus to lasers. Adjust this to 15% per level of sov. Starbase defenses now scale well to the larger forces that will be attacking them, but are weaker in under-developed systems with small numbers of starbases.
|

Mithfindel
Argent Group
 |
Posted - 2008.04.16 10:06:00 -
[623]
Stealing from Gaven of PIE from another thread, I'd personally like the "magical" sovereignty be replaced with infrastructure-based effects. Leave the sovereignty flag there to mark who owns the system. However, base the effects on what has been installed in the system.
Example: In addition to basic (current) POS, there are industrial POS (weaker defense, bonuses to industry, can mount several industrial POS modules) and defense POS (stronger defense, not much use to produce anything, can mount several defensive modules, possibly slightly more expensive).
As an example, to have a Capital Ship Assembly Array you currently need sovereignty at level X. In the infrastructure-based system, you'd instead need an industrial POS with a "power generator" bridged to the Cap Yard POS. Since the two towers are industrial ones, and you don't want them to go pop, you'll need two defensive towers anchored with a "remote tower reinforcement" module, making the target (industrial) towers invulnerable as long as their defense POSes are online.
Another example of a magical sovereignty effect based on waiting X days is the constellation capital invulnerability. Instead it could be implemented with "remote system reinforcement" modules that target an entire system in the same constellation (perhaps with a limitation that the target system must have an outpost or a conquerable station). Only one system reinforcement module anchorable per system, each adds certain % to remote system POS shield resistances, and the POS supporting these would require a chain of "power generators" or equal modules supporting them (advanced versions of which might require a station in the system).
Similarly POS fuel efficiency could be done by a POS module to be anchored in the system, for example a "Starbase Process Control" module. Outpost invulnerability? POS module for that, a la Death Star Shield.
The system can be balanced to avoid impenetrable fortresses, for example by making it so that system that reinforces the capital cannot be reinforced (or a POS-reinforcing POS cannot be reinforced by other POS), but the need to chew thru the supporting systems means that the capital is still safe for a moment.
Also, the system can be expanded to include regional sovereignty, if such thing is found necessary: Make a module that can be anchored only into a remote reinforced (constellation capital) system, and require a certain amount of these modules to target a (constellation capital) system in another constellation to make it the region capital.
Additionally, if wishing to avoid things going "too fast", the effects provided by some modules could possibly require a downtime to be activated/deactivated.
The cons in the system: - More complexity to the game The pros in the system: - Provides a simple in-character explanation to the sov effects - Gaining the benefits from sovereignty means that you actually must use the system - Assuming a high moon count system, technically allows it to be shared by two alliances if there's enough space for both to build their infrastructure.
Individual starbase level, tier 1: Support other POS in same system - basic "jack of all trades" POS (current - legacy POS to avoid problems) - industrial POS (basic industry, may provide power to other POS, can be remote reinforced) - defense POS (may provide shields/invulnerability to other POS, cannot be remote reinforced) System level, tier 2 (supported by tier 1 POS, require remote power source): - industrial POS (advanced manufacturing, provide power to other system) - defense POS (provide shields/invulnerability to other system ("invulnerability field transmitter"), can make in-system station invulnerable, can possibly be remote reinforced) Constellation level, tier 3 (supported by tier 2 POS): - industrial POS (cap yards, possibly advanced refining/assembly) - defense POS ("invulnerability field receiver", generates the constellation capital immunity) Next level, what..
|

Drethon
Gallente Selinir
 |
Posted - 2008.04.16 13:12:00 -
[624]
Something that seems interesting to me is have gate control be a hacking type of thing. Any ship equipped with a hacking device can take control of a gate after say an hour. Once control is gained the corporation that now controls it can make the gate accessible or inaccessible based on standings, war, etc. Meaning a corporation can leave the gate as a public gate or lock down the gate as desired.
When unlocking the gate it can be made publicly accessible in a half an hour but another hour after that is required for the new corporation to lock down the gate for themselves.
When a corporation has control of enough gates that they can lock down a system/constellation/region jump ships start to become useful. Of course the gate can still be unlocked from the "free" side of the gate blockade but a ship can also jump into the locked down space an unlock a gate from inside.
This will require a change to perhaps the covert ops frigate to allow them the ability to sneak through locked down gates or possibly use a mini jump drive that can jump between locked down gates.
What I envision is a large alliance locking down an entire region. An attacking corporation sends a scout into the region to locate a quiet system. A Black Ops battleship is jumped into the system and uses a Jump Portal to bring the fleet into the system. While the fleet works to defend the gates in the system the scout ship sneaks off into another system. As the battle continues the scout ship locks down all of the gates into another system. The fleet then jumps in to defend the newly controlled system.
This is only a half thought out idea but I really like the idea of working the sovereignty system like castles. Once the wall is built it is difficult to knock down but there are different options ranging from all out siege assault down to covert attacks they may not even be detectable until they are over. ____
"I may not believe in what you believe in but I will fight to the death to protect your right to believe." |

Zaiyo Modi
 |
Posted - 2008.04.17 12:17:00 -
[625]
Edited by: Zaiyo Modi on 17/04/2008 12:19:26
I started drawing on my deadspace idea, a png image can be viewed with the link below:
Example with one entry gate
|

Aldyn
 |
Posted - 2008.04.17 20:11:00 -
[626]
Edited by: Aldyn on 17/04/2008 20:12:37 Edited by: Aldyn on 17/04/2008 20:11:54 I'd like to throw my support behind Dorvil's posted ideas, they are found here:
Post 613
and here:
Post 614
|

Papa Digger
OEG Red Alliance
 |
Posted - 2008.04.18 07:38:00 -
[627]
It's all about borders and pipes. :) Some basic definition and rules: Outposts are source to ally sov "spreading". NPC space is source to neutral sov spreading. Sov stations (SS) - sturcture which allow spread sov from outposts to another system. SS can be build only one per ally per system on planet orbit. It NOT required fuel to operate, but required high-lvl minerals (zyd/mega) to build . SS can be reinforced by 20?50?100? BS gang. SS have defence guns/devices. SS can be build only when no other active (not reinforced SS) in system. SS invulnerable if ALL nearby systems have same alliance sov (it mean you can't reinforce SS in the middle of region, you need to reinforce all SS "pipe" from border to region center). SS still claim sov while reinforced, but not "spread" invulnerability to nearby systems. To take outposts attackers need build thierown SS pipe from their region or empire space to enemy outpost. Defenders can easily destroy enemy SS pipe if they somehow cut it from source (for expamle cutted SS can't enter in reinforce mode) So sov warfare is a play to build and cut sov pipes. Attackers need to spread forces to keep pipe alive, defenders need to spread forces, to protect attacks from different directions. This is just a general idea, ofc it must be balanced in terms of sov spreading time, SS stats (build cost, hp/firepower), bonuses from constellation sov, reinforce timers etc.
---- ex-CEO. |

Succubine
 |
Posted - 2008.04.20 02:24:00 -
[628]
Key words in the original post I can relate to: time consuming. Any activity repeated as often as needs to be in order to dispute sovereignty will become boring.
Starbases: Similar to what others have mentioned, I think a single Battlestation per system to claim sovereignty would be ideal. But, instead of simply having two massive blobs meet on the battlestation for a great laggy, node crashing battle, secondary objectives could be added.
Shield power generators (um..Star Wars?) in adjacent systems (two total) to the battlestation would both need to be incapacitated before the battlestation could be damaged. The shield power generators could be repaired by the defenders at any time to once again make the battlestation invulnerable. This spreads the conflict across three systems, but would only require a single victory to take a system.
Titans are also quickly becoming a problem in sovereignty wars as well as day-to-day conflict. I would suggest modifying the doomsday device to only work once per hour per system or perhaps remove it altogether. It ruins the enojyment of many and appears to have no counter when used in numbers.
|

Alski
Gallente Di-Tron Heavy Industries Atlas Alliance
 |
Posted - 2008.04.20 11:41:00 -
[629]
New(ish) and EXCESSIVELEY Detailed sovereignty idea.
I’m just gonna throw this out there…
Beware, this is a ****ing long post (5 pages) could be wayyy over complicated, but hey information is free and forum posts cost nothing, this is a work in progress and its main outlook on how sovereignty needs to change is that it needs to break up the blob, give everyone on both sides objectives and more things to do, and to increase the tactics and co-ordination required.
Please note: this idea is not complete, IMHO it does quite successfully break up the *Attacking* blob, and accomplishes the other objectives I just mentioned, however the mechanics for breaking up the Defending blob are far from complete and various other aspects of this idea such as the mechanics and time windows of an equivalent “reinforced timer” definitely need more work, I am not claiming this is a good idea, or even my own ideal vision of how sovereignty contention should work, its merely a set of mechanics I arrived at after picking a direction and just running with it.
Stuff in italics are my little notes of other aspects of the idea, ignore them if you want. ____________________________________
The basics: instead of making gates or POSs the objective area, make something at a beacon in the middle of deadspace, something like a POS but not… we’ll call it a tower for now) yup, this sounds very familiar but bare with me…
It would have a shield bubble but only a very week one that say 10 BS would take down in 5 minutes or so, and will come back up at full health five minutes after it was either shot down (the reasons for which will become clear later) a few cruisers / BCs worth.
It provides a VERY tempory safe haven for the controlling alliance, and while under the control of an alliance can store a small amount of ships and cargo in the usual way (like on Carrier’s SMAs and CHAs)
Important bit: It is also LINKED to another “tower” in an adjacent system, the information on which two systems and towers are linked is not publicly available, and each DT there is a small chance that some systems will switch, making mapping of this link impossible, this is information that will have to be gained by ingame methods. BOTH “towers” have to be assaulted simultaneously in order to challenge sov of that “system pair”, for constellations with odd numbers of systems, there will be a three way link, and all three systems will have to be assaulted at once.
(technical note: CCP could if possible redistribute nodes, so no adjacent system in Eve is on the same node, thus further insuring less lag, note I have zero idea how nodes are “clustered” together in Eve with respect to solar systems, perhaps it would cause excessive node to node network traffic? Would infiniband cope with this? would there be other performance issues? Etc, sounds good in theory though.)
Aside from the fact that both, or three systems/towers have to be assaulted simultaneously, I’m thinking the process of attack and sovereignty could work something along the lines of what follows… Warning… Crapload of bullet points follow:
-Hostile fleet enters system and warps to the Tower.
-Hostile fleet shoots the towers OUTER shield (a separate lockable on the overview) the shield go’s down very fast, and its emitter module will we taken into armor, putting it offline.
-Now the tower can have its own “classic” shield shot down (its own shield bar on the targeting menu) however no amount of firepower will take it down, because the tower in the 2nd adjacent system is projecting a energy beam to it or some such roleplay stuff… and creating a massive gravitational field around the tower that bends incoming energy and matter around it, making it extremely difficult to hit (it makes its sig radius very very small so BS guns, carriers and dreadnaughts can not hit it and thus kill it more quickly than intended. )
-
 (combat) Patch belonging to CCP hits your drones, wrecking their liberty and freedom.
|

Alski
Gallente Di-Tron Heavy Industries Atlas Alliance
 |
Posted - 2008.04.20 11:42:00 -
[630]
Page 2
-At this point, a specialised ship such as a covops/recon with a dedicated module would run some kind of scan – nothing intensive, 60 seconds at most - and then finds the location of the next tower (ie: which system they have to hit next) it can only find this information when the first tower is in “defensive mode” or in other words has its outer shield taken down.
-The outer shield emitter (the separate lockable) must have at least 1000 DPS of firepower put on it for at least a few seconds every 4.9 minutes, if this does not happen with the outer shield down, the outer shield bubble emitter will repair its armor damage, and recharge after 5 minutes of last being shot – this forces a gang to be left in position. (note: the 1000 dps and 5 minute figures are just an example and would of course need to be well balanced)
- Now the attacking gang must split again, whereas before they had a gang covering the inbound gate, and the gang hitting the tower, now they will have Three separate gangs. The third gang will have to move to the adjacent solar system and hit the first towers “partner tower”
-When the third gang is at the 2nd tower in the adjacent system (and by this time I would expect elapsed time to have reached 10 minutes or so after the gang first entered system) it would begin to hit the second towers outer shield bubble, 5 minutes later its down.
- Both towers are now in “defensive mode” as both there outer shield bubbles are offline, they are now both projecting energy to each other to create there sig radius reducing gravitational thingy.
- Now that BOTH towers are in defensive mode, a new targetable item on the tower becomes lockable, this new lockable item is the device that beams power to its partner tower, we’ll call this item “the emitter array”
( if you want the roleplay… how about two energy beams of such high power being fired towards each other creates a cancellation effect in the localised area of the emitter and nullifies the gravitational field making the emitter vulnerable, this effect only happens when both towers are in defensive mode)
- The “Emitter” is a player built item and must be replaced, should probably be vaguely expensive as well, say 50m, but lots of these will die.)
- The attacking gang shoot the Emitter, it is a highly complex device and not particularly happy with being shot at.. it very quickly explodes and drops some nice loot… T2 components that it was built from perhaps.
-The other gang in the other system does the same, as both emitters die, the towers are now vulnerable, around 20 minutes have elapsed since the gang first entered system.
-Both gangs are now able to shoot the towers primary, or inner shields down, this should take about 15-20 minutes or so with the gangs current firepower… however with the gravitational fields offline, the towers sig radius is now much larger, and capitals can actually hit it for a respectable damage, thus disabling it much quicker than 10-15 minutes.
OK… this part I kinda pulled outa my ass, because tbh I had a hard time coming up with ideas about what roles capitals should do in this system, there should also be methods for preventing capitals from being able to do this all on there own, partially Carriers, IMO Capitals should be kept out of the first part of the engagement, as the 20 minutes its taken to get this far could be enough for the defending fleet to form enough strength to repel the attack at this stage, if Capitals could be kept out of the stages prior to this one, then there would be much more opportunity and advantage in the defenders launching a smaller, sub-capital only defensive action. -
 (combat) Patch belonging to CCP hits your drones, wrecking their liberty and freedom.
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 30 :: one page |
| First page | Previous page | Next page | Last page |