Flitterby
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Posted - 2010.04.15 13:57:00 -
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Apologies in advance for wall of text. Sigh.
 Originally by: Hirana Yoshida
- Create independent sections/modules on the iHubs (think station services) so that a smaller fleet can forcefully affect system indices temporarily . Will be reinstated upon rebuilding so no time loss from index loss as "normal".
This would be great! An earlier poster said that defending these modules would simply lead to more blobbing, but no, the key here is that the effects of attacking these modules is TEMPORARY. For example, imagine that a 10-man HAC gang could "disable" a mining upgrade module in as little as 5-10 minutes. The system temporarily has its industrial index reduced by 1, and the HAC gang flies off. 24-48 hours later the module re-enables itself for free and everything returns to normal.
These subordinate modules could be indestructible while the iHub survives, and attacking them can only "disable" them, not destroy them. Modules would be randomly placed in the system when indexes are upgraded... either around celestials or maybe they'd have to be probed out.
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Such a mechanic would give small gangs of attackers something to do, but what about small gangs of defenders? As it is now, defenders don't have anything to do except form blobs, because attackers normally stage out of low-sec, high-sec, or NPC 0.0.
1. Create a way for a small gang of defenders to hinder the attackers' operations in low-sec/high-sec/NPC 0.0. Perhaps some sort of espionage activity that results in temporary criminals flags for the targets with the appropriate NPC faction. There have got to be more possibilities as well.
2. Create a way for a small gang of defenders to temporarily defend a system against large numbers of attackers. Example: a deployable module with very few hitpoints that significantly boosts the damage and resists of every friendly ship in the system, with the boost dropping as the number of friendly ships increases. So, for example, if there is one friendly ship in the system it might get +500% damage and +95% resists. If there are 10 friendly ships in-system they might get +200% damage, +50% resists. If there are 20 friendlies, +50% damage, +10% resists. Etc. This module could be probed out by a covops and might have as few as 10k hitpoints.
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The main reason that there are huge blobs is because there are very few things to DO in a war, and they all require blobs. POS/hub/station attacking/defending all require blobs!
CCP: please give us tasks to do that can have a significant effect on our opponents and that do not require blobs! I do agree that permanent changes (POS/hub/station destruction) make sense to be blobby, but temporary status changes should be able to be performed by small gangs.
People want to have options! But right now there is little for a small gang to DO.
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