Meytal
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
141
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Posted - 2013.01.18 14:01:00 -
[1] - Quote
The co-existing idea is a good one, and will let you implement new, tight, efficient code while continually identifying the old code for easier removal later. As far as a "lore-based" reason, just say that the Amarr Empress doesn't like the look of all the towers in Amarr space, that they make the place look cheap and trashy, and demands an improvement in form and functionality befitting the Amarr Empire. The rest of the factions will scramble to catch up when they see she wasn't nuts and that the Amarr design was truly magnificent.
As far as what they look like, they should be big, nearly as big as stations for the large new-POS. You could go with the ring design on the Retribution loading screen and make it look really good; that looks amazing as it is, and I'd much rather look at that than the two sticks that I manage right now. The small new-POS could be a single ring that rotated slowly, the medium could be two rings that rotate slowly in the same direction. The large could have the two rings, and a larger ring (or other round-ish structure) in the middle that rotates in the opposite direction. The central core/stick should remain minimal, while all the features are added into fitting slots on the rings.
If you want to show that modules were fitted to the new-POS, you could make the rings skeletal, adding structure as modules were added. Or you could just make the whole thing full and solid. It might be faster to start with the latter option, so you can focus on getting the mechanics right before adding bells and whistles. Ultimately, it would still be important for the neutral or hostile observer to know what is installed at the POS without having to decloak.
I'm envisioning a system where you use a fitting screen, much like fitting a ship, to reconfigure the POS. Individual service modules would need to be offline, like with ships, before you could manipulate them, and the modules would need to be loaded into a cargo bay in the new-POS before they can be fit.
For starters though, working on a new access control list similar to those used in IT Security and adding audit logs to SMAs and CHAs would go a long way to making the current POS situation much better. Then allow us to assign rights to rearrange reaction chains, and I personally would be quite satisfied with POSes. Assembling and reconfiguring T3 cruisers could be done at a point release, if new tech needs to be added to support them. Or that could wait for the new-POS, to avoid touching the old POS code too much.
POSes are a huge, vastly important mineral sink. In Hisec, they are also ISK/LP sinks, due to the charters. If more people were able to set up a POS, more resources would be removed from the economy, and potentially more POSes would die. To facilitate this, add a new option for POSes to Launch for Self. The permission to do this lies with the corp management: if the corp allows members to launch personal POSes, they can do it. Once the Empress sees how aesthetically pleasing the new-POSes are, she may want them everywhere, and order the NPC corps to open the floodgates and allow individual players to set up a POS. Player corps would have this option turned off by default. Naturally, others would follow suit, or perhaps the Gallente or Caldari might be the first ones to push for this.
If POSes go dormant -- lack of fuel for an extended period of time, offline for an extended period of time, etc. -- then they could become hackable. A new status indicator for POS System Security that decreases over time as it is hacked by one or more players that counts down to zero. At zero, the POS can be unanchored and scooped, or the attacker could initiate self destruct, receiving some components that were used in its creation. If the POS is onlined or refuled, then it begins to regenerate the System Security until it reaches full status. Friendlies should also be able to hack it and choose an option to repair the System Security.
Perhaps make the hacking process require consumables, for a total cost of half the original build price of the POS itself, thus double-dipping with the sinks.
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