Go2
Capital Industries Research And Development
Fidelas Constans
5
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Posted - 2013.01.25 18:16:00 -
[1] - Quote
For a theme to work it needs to touch many aspects of Eve all at once. It needs to add something special and be something you can market around.
GÇ£HomeGÇ¥ is my idea for a themed expansion.
Each corporation would be able to build a large ship (for our purposes just called a GÇ£Base ShipGÇ¥).
In many ways, the Base Ship would act like a other capital ships - having a deployed and not-deployed mode.
When not-deployed the ship would have the attributes of a very large capital ship, including fittings of high, medium and low slot items specially designed. Initially there would be a very limited set of modules available, with the options expanding as time goes on.
The module layout is one of the things that would differ depending on which variant of the Base Ship was built. The ship should not be able to be refit without returning it its Foundry
(Base ships cannot dock.)
Building
Base Stars should be constructable only at a POS with a GÇ£Base Star FoundryGÇ¥ - once a Base Star is made, it is forever linked to the Foundry that created it. Construction costs should be attainable by corps of modest means, but weekly maintenance costs (isk) should scale with the number of members in a corporation.
The specific attributes of the Base Ship would vary depending on where you built it. There would initially be 4 distinct versions; one each for Empire, Wormhole, Low-Sec and Null Sec (variant). Specialty variants could be introduced for further expansions.
Modes
Base ships should be able to enter long duration modes similar to Siege Mode, Industrial Reconfiguration Mode or Triage Mode. Modes could consume specific resources or fuel and have an extended duration (30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 8 hours etc).
Combat
Base Ships would be able to engage in direct combat, with limited capabilities. thematically and balance appropriate abilities like AOE armor / shield / cap boosts, AOE Smart Bombs, and limited direct fire weapons could be fit.
When a Base Ship is damaged sufficiently it immediately jumps (regardless of distance or location) to its Foundry where it must recuperate for a fixed period of time (at least days). While it is docked in its Foundry none of its services are usable, it is immobile and if the POS containing the Foundry is destroyed so is the Base Ship.
Base Stars can deploy guns (like POS guns) that can only be fired by other capsuleers. By this mechanic many players could participate on combat. The deployed but remove commanded guns and modules are key to the concept. A Base Star should be able to deploy these modules in many applications, including PVP, PVE and Industrial.
Missions
Base Ships would act as an enabler for certain missions in Empire, Lowsec and High Security. Certain very dangerous missions would require a base ship to unlock objectives, hack gates or even act as objectives themselves (protect the Base-Star for X minutes).
Base Ships could also cause sleeper escalations (above and beyond capital ships) in wormhole and possibly even K space anomalies or complexes.
Industry
Base Ships would, via high slot modules, be able to collect special resources used in the construction of base ship modules / upgrades. Base ships could equip a base-ship specific industrial module like the rorqual and compress ore.
Movement
Base Ships would move in-system like a very large, unwieldy capital ship.
Movement between systems would occur by an anchorable beacon (weGÇÖll call it a HyperCyno), only able to be anchored at the sun (and destroyed upon use). Once the HyperCyno is activated and the Base Ship links to it the Base Ship will go through - there is no preventing it. The Base Ship would be able to bridge ships to travel through with it.
Base Ships movement in Wormholes is something IGÇÖm not sure of yet.
Upgrades
There are several potential upgrade mechanics. The most simple is the moduleGÇÖs, which could be upgraded to better versions, either via finding rare resources (rare BPC drops) or direct acquisition (Officer Modules?).
Other potential upgrade paths could include players training a specialty skill that, once maxed out, is then fed to the Base Star. Much like T3 skills that drop one tier when you die in a T3, once you maxed this skill you would fly to the Base Star in a pod and it would GÇÿeatGÇÖ you, reducing your skill level in this special skill would decrease and the Base Star would get incrementally better. (I know there are balance issues with this, but I think the idea has merit.)
Thats the idea. I know the terms are cheesy and I know there are some balance issues. But IGÇÖd like to hear your thoughts.
I think this could act as a good mid-point between where we are now and a full on POS rework. It also touches many aspects of EVE and has tremendous marketing potential. |