Both ideas have some merit, however with their current push for new structures this is an idea that might be on the back burner until more structures are out than just citadels.

The second idea is actually a better one because of my argument against the first. They're already making new structures and I assume the coding would be far easier than a ship that turns into a structure like your first idea. Plus these would be far more engaging defensive structures than turrets and require a higher skilled player to use them.

I like this. Especially if it fits through wormholes. And has a Clone Bay. And a smaller, t2 version with some sort of cloak or hiding thingy.

And also: the ability to dock ships in caps.


It also offsets jump fatigue a little, without allowing for instant force projection.

This guy gets it.
So many irregular tactics to employ. However, I think if you leave the ship the cloak should deactivate. IMO this is what outposts should have been.

Saying what you have I feel you don't understand that a lot of these structures can be used similarly to the MCV. The deployable structures for one allow any ship with a decent cargo bay the ability to travel and set up a campsite so to speak. If more come in the vein of the proposed structures you would have more than enough to set up a small base of operations. Most medium structures (the small mostly being deployables) are similar to these townships you describe. But you have to realize, if a couple 20 person townships get together they're going to want to build a small city, and if a few small cities get together they're going to want to build a metropolis.

If it were to be a ship however, I would guess something like the rorqual or a T2 version of it. Something that sets up quickly with no outside help, gets a few hour reinforce timer when in structure mode, allows for storage and swapping of fittings while giving protection to X number of ships (perhaps a module so it can only be used on 1 ship per module and only ships the T2 rorqual has locked.

This means a small forward operating base with slight protection against attacks. Because it's technically a capital ship it's not cheap enough to be used in mass. It's slow speed makes it vulnerable but it opens up strategic attack of enemy bases so long as you knock out their cyno jammers. It would also help budding WH space goers tremendously as well.

As an additional weakness against it, it would need fuel to allow for it to be reinforced, without fuel it would just die like anything else. With fuel it can reinforce itself for up to 2 hours at the most. Ships locked an protected by this ship are able to move but not lock anything and can only warp when the effect is is canceled via the module.

Actually, I was thinking something similar but on a different line.

I was thinking this could be the first T3 Industrial ship based off an individual faction's industrial line that carries over bonuses respective to a race and uses their type of jump fuel but also has a stront bay. Pricing should be around ~300 to 400 mil as it can function as a line between DST's and Jump Freighters. What this could also do is give new players some experience figuring out how some of the jump functions work while being within a reasonable margin of pricing. Of course putting it as a T3 basically creates the curve of supply and demand as well keeping a supply overall low.

Also for all intents and purposes, if it enters into a fortified status it should follow the same rules as a POS tower. I'm relatively new, but I"m not sure you can scoop up a POS tower if it becomes reinforced.

What I would also love to see is to possibly have a small CPU and power source to run maybe one or two various structures. Need a mining outpost? Well launch a refinery. Need a bit of a breather? Send out a few EWAR/Gun structures. Need a hopping laboratory? Launch a lab. It should consume slightly less fuel than a tower as it's output would be seriously limited (to provide incentive to utilize POS's). It should consume fuel the moment you deploy it and maybe have a projected shield? Maybe yes maybe no depends on what folk think is fair.

BUT MAKE SHIPS ABLE TO BE DOCKED!!!!! In regular caps too!

That's called a "Ship Maintenance Bay" in EVE linguo. All capital ships already have one.