tohs togi
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Posted - 2011.01.18 11:57:00 -
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IÆve been wondering about whether CCP knows what they want to do. What caught my eye spesifically in that regard was the thing about wanting small alliances to be able to hold their own in nullsec, and removing jump freigthers. The smaller you are, the harder it seems to me that logistics become. If you are a big blob like the MM, IT or Goons it seems possible to have a large freight op going down from high sec. This is, however, a major operation. You need to lock down many systems in front of the freight run to be sure hostile gangs have not got themselves in there. And given size of the participating ships you are vulnerable to cloacked bombers etc. (IÆd imagin there be a lot of freight operations that would take days as one would get part of the way before having to abort and log off the freigthers and industials.) And the deeper you get in nullsec the more difficult this will get. Fortress Delve will be even more of a fortress.
It would seem to me that a small alliance wanting to operate in nullsec have two major challenges. A relative secure base and resupplying. Jump freigthers help with the latter. Also ease of resupply help with the willingness to fight in terms of sov warfare. If getting a new drake is hard then youÆll be less willing to commit it unless you know youÆll come out on top. (Though I accept that without JFs weÆll se more gatecamps, especially if JBs are removed too.)
To me then removing jump freigthers seem to have only benefits for the already established big alliances, and be counter productive to fights. Neither of which I found on CCPs list of wanted outcomes.
If we start from the premise that we want the smaller guys to stand a chance in the soverignty end of nullsec (which I have understood as a goal) could rentable moons be an option? What I am thinking is that in sov. capable nullsec space you get your alliance in. And to make a safe base to operate from (where the undoc canÆt be permacamped like a station in NPC space) you toss up a POS, and choose to pay whatever is charged in moon rent to the local pirates. That POS is then invulnerable. It can be taken down only if you (a) stop paying the pirates, (b) he POS runs out of fuel and the forcefield goes down and (c) if soverignty of the system is claimed by a player corp. In all of these cases the POS would be vulnerable in the same ways as it is today. This would make it easy to establish a safe base to start from for a smaller alliance. It would require a tweaking of sov mechanics I think, to make it harder for (c) to take place. (Which must, of course be balanced with the reward for so doing.) I donÆt know, it is just a suggestion. It might very well be a bad one.
As for super proliferation, could the build rate be slowed by making them easier to abort? Sturctures to build must be placed in proximity of a POS, but outside the shield? We canÆt have them killed in one go, but a not too high amount of HP (should be possible to kill by a Black OP BS and bombers) and a reinforcement timer that can be preset by the corp setting it up? I know, this is more stucrure shooting, but make them killable by something smaller than a super blob and quicker than a POS shoot, but still with a chance to counter by the producers. It could make a few more die before leaving the production stage. (I honestly donÆt expect this idea to get any love, IÆm just trying to see if we can think of ways that smaller than supers and smaller than the blobs can impact and be actionable.)
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