Mcon99
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Posted - 2009.11.19 21:38:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Nobani
If the per system cost is based on the number of systems you own, an alliance will create a bunch of shell alliances just for the purpose of claiming sov, and still nothing will change.
Correct. Which is why that method of trying to shrink the size of alliances will fail, therefore, better for everyone CCP did not waste their time implementing it.
All the threads about the changes in Sov have had me thinking for a while - what would be the best way to generally shrink the size of existing alliances? Goons, Atlas, they keep saying they want less space, but yet the same number of members, and yet still have small entities living next door. This doens't seem believable as they would have the overwhelming firepower to crush their new neighbours, even if the upgrades can provide for their members (which I fully believe they can).
The solution? It's actually quite simple. Make an exponetial cost tree and a bill to be paid by a corp/alliance for BLUE standings. What do I mean? Lets say a 100 man corp sets another 100 man corp blue. There would be a small, monthly cost associated with that standing, automatically billed. Both corps would be billed, the same amount, for setting each other blue. Now lets say a third corp joined the fray, another 100 people, and all 3 corps were now set blue to each other. The cost would go up for each corp to reflect the fact there is now 300 blues in the 'tree', but it would still be affordable.
Now, for the Goons, Atlas, Razor, Legion, Shadow, Tau Ceti, etc, who have 1000+ members, the cost tree would basically make it insanely unaffordable for them to EVER set anyone else blue, or blue to them. So, if the Goons had no blue standing to anyone, their monthly bill for standing would be 0 isk. The minute they set one other alliance or corp blue, even if that corp is only 3 people, the billing would be massive, hundreds of millions at least if not 10 of billions per month. By the flip side, if I tried to set Goons blue to me (whether they are my friends or not), I would suddenly get a bill for that same huge sum of money.
This would effectly prevent things like Goons and NC from ever working together, heck, it would make the entire NC 'block of blue' completely unaffordable. You want to be a large alliance? That is fine, there is no direct penalty for that, but you have to bring people into your corps under your flag. Large alliances would be forced to operate alone - the idea of the entire side of the map aligned against you would be broken.
It also could stop the issue with exponetial sov costs, as setting up alt alliances would be no longer practical as you could no longer set standings between the alliances, regardless if all the alt alliances only had 2 toons. All that would matter would be the total sum of the blue 'tree'.
I would say set the exponetial costs to really take off once the blue tree was around 750 people. That still leaves room for decent sized alliances holding a few systems to work together, but totally nerfs the ability of any of the large alliance to ever work together again. Perfect!
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