The guardians going suspect accidentally was certainly entertaining for the couple hundred spectators.

Otherwise though it seemed like the attacking composition was easily immune to the citadel itself by a large margin.

Will be very interesting to see going forward, just how refined an attacking doctrine can be made.

It seems that even just two guardians would have been more than enough.

Highsec citadels defences are a joke. It's really only the defending fleet that matters in highsec, not the citadel itself.

and thank bob for that

Yes, thank bob that blob superiority is maintained, and that small defending corps have no chance in owning a citadel, only the mega corps.
No wait.... That's actually utterly terrible. A Citadel is meant to be a space fortress and act as a significant force multiplier allowing the defender to fight outnumbered. The joke result of citadel high sec defences means that it's badly missed it's aim in an entire sector of space.

I didnt see the fight, did the defending station have weapons or did it get taken down too fast for subcap launchers, rigs, and whatnot

Will be interesting then when we get market citadels going up... they will get attacked nonstop

When we see the first Fortizar go down then we will know.

Thanks to whoever anchored this in Perimeter, you certainly have created alot of content for many players!

Defences for the Fortizar and Keepstar are essentially identical to Astrahaus in high sec. We reported it in the feedback thread prior to release, but it seems pushing a half baked feature was priority.

It was clear from the beginning that - other than a POS - a citadel would not be viable for single players or small corps.

Perhaps owning a citadel, but using a citadel is open to every player.

If you cannot defend your structures, you shouldn't deploy one and just pay to use one which is owned and maintained by someone else exactly like POCOs are today. This design is nothing new and part of putting more of the universe in the hands of the players.

Not every player needs to own a space station. If you don't want to bother with defending one, pay someone else and just use theirs.

But really, I am not sure this battle should be taken as typical. There are some nasty features on citadels that will allow a defensive fleet to get the drop on an attacker (and no defensive fleet showed up). Further, there isn't much of a loot reason to bash one, especially given that the attacking fleet is committed and at risk for at least a minute (does it make sense to risk hundreds of millions in ships for a few hundred million ISK in minerals and salvage?). It will take some time before we see how New Eden adapts to these structures and we see how vulnerable/invulnerable they are. Larges will be significantly tougher, and XLs will be impossible to kill so there is also that to consider.

All this says is that an unsupported or unmanned medium Citadel is not much of a concern for a small fleet which we already knew was the case.

I really hope CCP is going to change wardec mechanics before the rollout of all structures is complete, because at this rate not many high sec structures will ever exist. Current war dec mechanics were already broken before this, but they are highly incompatible with the way structure vulnerability works.

Because of the pricetag POCOs while not cheap, are not even in the same league as Citadels.

Poco killmail...meh
5 or 10bill citadel.... that will be wanted, and thats the cheaper end of the spectrum

They had some ships in space which died, three Navy Domi's.

EDIT: The defences look chickenshit to me which is rather sad, what's wrong in having a challenge in this game, must everything be easy?

I really hope CCP is going to change wardec mechanics before the rollout of all structures is complete, because at this rate not many high sec structures will ever exist. Current war dec mechanics were already broken before this, but they are highly incompatible with the way structure vulnerability works.

The problem in highsec, is simply that the sort of stats you would need to give a citadel to allow it to survive in the hands of a small indy corp, against the indiscriminate war of the major merc alliances, would be entirely over the top..

inaccurate, they lost 2 navy domies in transit much earlier while the citadel was still invulnerable, I have no idea what the hell that third one was doing. The defenses are absolutely non-trivial, throwing random junk at it isn't going to work out well for you, but it's no a substitute or an actual organized defense.

Also broken in regard to citadels in that the anchoring timer is the same length as the timer for wars becoming active, making it nearly impossible for anyone to attack a citadel when it enters its first vulnerability window when it finishes anchoring.

The obvious solution would be to either increase the anchoring timer or reduce the timer for wars becoming live. Obviously carebears would totally lose their **** at the idea of either of those things, because like usual they don't really care about balance or actual gameplay considerations, they just want things.

Black Pedro you may be right in that after a while there may be loads of them, but then again there is no real reason to put one in space. There is part of me which does want to put one up just because I can, but the other part is along the lines of what the hell benefit do I get. I am going to be given the BPC's to make one and I can easily gather, produce or buy the stuff to make one, but I can't see any real reason to do so. OK maybe I will because its an objective to have my own space station, but maybe I will just keep the BPC's and the stuff to make them until there is a limited market in the Medium...

Thank you for your wisdom oh exalted one.

I was by the way referring to all citadels, and if you for 1 second think people wont want a large or xl on their killmail, i guess they dont want capitals or titan killmails either do they?

From what i am reading l and xl hit for about the same as a wet noodle.... do i know that? No but i was reading stuff from the test server, IF they are correct then they will be killed for the killmail, as well as the lulz

Also if a corp takes the time and sets up a decent market center, and the L is a easy target like i am hearing then they will also be destroyed just for the tears.... if you think differently then what game have you been playing?

Now as for the mediums, if prices drop as you say then yes you most likely are correct.

If what ive been hearing is false and the L and XL do pack a punch worthy of their pricetag then again you are probably correct.

But as a whole ive heard more ppl say that all citadels are weak then i hear they are gonna be strong...so we will have to wait and see, personally i hope your right but we have no way of really knowing outside of what ppl are saying from test server and speculation.


Now that ive explained my point you can go back to explaining why im afraid of killmails and how irrational I am..


PS Im not complaining about wardecs... im complaining about weak citadels... assuming that they really are.... i want them killable, but want them to live up to their price tags when it comes to defense

Why not put one up? You probably fly ships worth as much and worst case, you get a fun fight and a battlestation to play with and can watch as it explodes. They will cost less than a PLEX or the freighters people have no problem AFKing around highsec.

The people YOLOing and putting these overpriced gank magnets right now aren't doing it for utility. They are doing it for content they will generate and the fun of playing with a new toy.

But if you have absolutely no need, then just find someone else's Citadel and help defend that. Sell your BPC and you'll have enough to wardec all the Citadel-aggressing corps. If that turns out to be fun, maybe you could form an AG corp for the express purpose of helping to defend Citadels in highsec.

Incorrect, all you had to do was keep suicidng a bit of DPS every 14 minutes and 59 seconds and the repair does not start, I was surprised no one did it....

EDIT: That changed its a rolling 10% threshold so that explains why no one did it.

But do you really want such an easy kill?

They aren't weak, though. They're actually pretty powerful, their EWAR is very effective, they neut a ton, are completely immune to electronic and capacitor warfare, do more dps than any sub capital ship that exists and they don't require any skills to use. The problem being experienced by this defender is that strength is relative to the threat.

When the threat is twenty guys with a coherent fleet of battleships and logistics who know what to expect. It's like sitting in space in a capital and expecting to be able to solo a twenty man subcapital fleet unsupported.

I may join a coalition in defending one and have already been suggesting this as something to do. But there is no point with a Medium, no benefit at all. If they are so weak then its an expensive kill mail and a waste of effort, not that I care about losing ships and all, but you want to do something logical and needed in a logical game, not put up something with no functionality that is likely to die if someone sneezes on it.

Anyway I am waiting for a Large to join in on, a Medium is wasted effort...

I find your motivations hard to comprehend. You have no problem spending your game time coming to the aid of completely unarmed freighters, whose armament is non-existent and which can be exploded in 20 seconds, but somehow aiding an armed battlestation which (will) have a cost less than a freighter, and takes a minimum of 90 minutes to explode, is not worth it? It can't be the success rate as you often fail at saving a freighter (but granted, you succeed from time-to-time). Why would defending a Citadel be any less logical than defending a freighter?

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I just don't quite get it. Content is content. If you are fighting bad guys for fun, Citadels should be a great place to do that the structure itself auto-points the attackers so you can get the drop on them and their support capabilities are significant. Ultimately, who cares if you can't save every citadel, just like you can't save every freighter, as long as you are having fun.

Larges should generate bigger fights, but I also bet those who put them up are more able to defend them, especially if they are offering market services. Those would be fun to fight over too, but you might make more of a difference helping small corps defend their mediums.

For me a Citadel should be a force multiplier for a defending fleet and my initial feeling was that it was about right, people gave the impression it was easy which is why I called it chickenshit level, but if it requires 5 BS and three logi then that is the correct level to me.

That's exactly what it is. Fighting that and an actual competent defense fleet at the same time would be horrendous without having a huge numerical advantage. It's like having the mutant spawn of a Scorpion, Armageddon, Lachesis and torpedo spewing typhoon fleet issue on your nuts the entire time, except it's also invincible.

It gives the defender a tactical advantage that is huge in a small scale fight, but the advantage diminishes as the scale of the fight increases and the attacking fleet gains more power and redundancy. When you reach the point where you can tank the DPS of the citadel and have enough redundant logistics (no less than 3) that the jams are not affecting your ability to tank the advantage of the citadel is almost entirely negated and you need to bring a fleet.

There is another problem in that there is absolutely no value in putting a Medium up period, unless you want it as a a force multiplier. I mean I would do it for that if all my corp mates were active that is...

They're pretty much only useful for refining as far as I'm aware, that and getting people to declare war on you.

Most stupid comment of 2016 award given.

War dec mechanics are only broken for us mercs who cannot hunt targets who keep jumping corp/alliancr.

I am always right about war decs.

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT

They're pretty much only useful for refining as far as I'm aware, that and getting people to declare war on you.

I dont think anyone should argue that a medium citadel should be able to withstand 5 battleships and 2-3 logi without a defence fleet. If it did then they would be too powerful in lowsec/wspace.

I think the issue rather, is simply that such a force does not need to be paid for, and the fleet formed, soley to exact revenge upon a single citadel. With indescriminate mass wardec mechanics, such a small force could reinforce and destroy a dozen citades or more a day, and there needs not be any other reason for doing it than simply the 1bil killmails.

The killmail is the payment, the reward, its the sole reason that billions get spent on wardecs each and every day. Theres not dozens of people waiting outside jita just for you, they are there to farm hundreds of people, citadels are no different.

Just need someone with a notepad of all their vulnerability times and away you go reinforcing every single one that cant mount an equal defence.

They dont have to be probed down or hunted for, they are all visible in space and on the structure window.

I dont think anyone should argue that a medium citadel should be able to withstand 5 battleships and 2-3 logi without a defence fleet. If it did then they would be too powerful in lowsec/wspace.

I think the issue rather, is simply that such a force does not need to be paid for, and the fleet formed, soley to exact revenge upon a single citadel. With indescriminate mass wardec mechanics, such a small force could reinforce and destroy a dozen citades or more a day, and there needs not be any other reason for doing it than simply the 1bil killmails.

The killmail is the payment, the reward, its the sole reason that billions get spent on wardecs each and every day. Theres not dozens of people waiting outside jita just for you, they are there to farm hundreds of people, citadels are no different.

Just need someone with a notepad of all their vulnerability times and away you go reinforcing every single one that cant mount an equal defence.

They dont have to be probed down or hunted for, they are all visible in space and on the structure window.

The corp who put up the structure can also undock and fight. It is Eve after all.

CCP made a gross error in making these Medium Citadels useless.

The failure of CCP to provide either content driving objects and resources in highsec or mechanics that enable content creation is pretty legendary at this point.

There's two distinct factors there, things that create conflict and mechanics that enable it. CCP is worse at the later, the general desire to blow things up compensates for the former to some extent.

The problem is there's the more than one group of people who perceive anything pertaining to PVP in highsec as being inherently bad for various ridiculously ill-conceived reasons. So when someone says something like "CCP should remove faction police because that would actually enable a massive amount of anti-ganking/criminal hunting player-enforcement gameplay like people keep saying they want" all the people who don't actually care about highsec PVP gameplay and just want characters who have low security status for whatever reason to have as many penalties stacked on them as possible all whine relentlessly about it. And that's before you even get to the people who think all highsec gameplay should just be straight up bad (I've literally seen people straight up state that it's good for highsec to have bugged, unintuitive gameplay), because they're elitists about the kind of space they live in and think everybody should be there.

Heaven forfend that all types of space might have good gameplay opportunities.

Even if there were more things of value to shoot you'd still be limited by the fact that the only way to do anything whatsoever to structures is war declarations, which are a rich man (and his friends) game. A better highsec PVP environment would require more mechanics facilitating PVP and those ideas won't gain traction because they always face huge amounts of opposition from people who don't have or want to have any involvement in highsec PVP, but think it shouldn't exist.

I have seen people getting upset because the old mechanics which often resulted in a confused carebear being shootable for no explainable reason were replaced by crimewatch 2.0. I saw a lot of people completely bemused how they ended up being shot or got CONCORDED. And people bemoand that change, are they serious...

I have a feeling location may be part.of the survivability of a citadel. It's no different than mining. Mining in the ice belt closest to jita means you will probably be ganked. Mining out in Khanid Kingdom and you'll have plenty of belts to yourself with nothing but rats to keep you company.

As for use of a medium citadel, aren't there unlimited storage space? Do they not have some repair functionality? Use depends on your need but a medium may be a nice step up from a POS in a stationless .5 system or in a system where you want a station nearby but the closest is 94 AU away?

First and second paragraph I agree with.

The problem is that anyone who criticises bad mechanics gets labelled straight off as a whining carebear, for example the risk free bumping issue, which is a poor mechanic and bad for game balance because there a bumper can hold someone in place without any real consequences. People saying this was wrong got unfairly labelled as such. I have pushed for docking penalties because I want CODE and other gankers to have to have a Citadel in space or a POS, you see where I am going with this, its to create meaningful content, not because I want to punish them and yet I have been accused of stacking penalties because I don't like their game play. That was not a whine but many people will accuse me of whining.

Earlier on the AG channel I bemoaned the fact that the collateral system had no mechanic to control that amount of collateral against the value of the items moved, to me it just seems stupid that people have to take this on blind trust, because its not realistic, yes its a game but its more fun if its realistic at least to me. As a result some guys made 200bn with no risk at all. A number of people in the AG channel said it would not be Eve and they are right, it just annoys me that its such high return low risk.

I have seen people getting upset because the old mechanics which often resulted in a confused carebear being shootable for no explainable reason were replaced by crimewatch 2.0. I saw a lot of people completely bemused how they ended up being shot or got CONCORDED. And people bemoaned that change, are they serious...

I want you war dec corps and alliances to have meaningful targets and battles and loot, which is why one has to have something in space that needs to be defended, the Citadels could change all that, and a Large or XL will certainly create some fairly interesting combat as long as the people who put it up get the support of enough people against the war decs that are sure to come.

But I really do not think this hub and pipe camping is really fun at all for both sides, I do believe that war dec's will have more meaning with these new structures but only if they are useful, can be defended or cheap enough that it does not matter.

It is all a question of game balance and what I found refreshing about the AG channel is that the majority of people in there want PvP and ganking in hisec, but they want it to be balanced and that is not whining or moaning.

The key thing to make war decs meaningful is to have something worth defending, the rest is utter rubbish...

The idea that the old aggression system was hard to understand is just a talking point CCP Greyscale shat out to justify him leading a big project he could brag about and was supported by the ignorance of non-highsec players and carebears who had literally zero understanding of the system and still don't understand the current one.

The old system was actually extremely simple. If you steal from a can you get flagged to the corp, if you rep someone who stole from a can you get flagged the corp too. Same goes if you remotely assist someone at war, you inherent the flag the person you're assisting has. Timers related to individual characters were identical to limited engagements but lasted 15 minutes. All flags have the same duration and work the same way.

That's seriously the whole thing. The only part that was worse was the fact that criminal flags could propagate through a rep chain without warning, which was a bug because there was meant to be an dialog box which didn't always trigger before the flag propagated.

Whereas new crimewatch added multiple different flagging types of different function and duration and which interact with each other and with the safety system in unexpected ways. My favorite is how allies in a war can't remotely assist the people they're allied with or vice versa without becoming suspect flagged. It also didn't even bother to fix logistics repping awoxers not becoming flagged, which is not a bug and is still normal gameplay. Also it eliminated clan flipping from the game, which was a great low-investment way to introduce new players to PVP in a controlled environment and actually generated conflict (my first war against an alliance much larger than my corp happen when they declared war on us because I was can flipping them) and replaced it with suspect baiting which is far less interesting and accessible.

It's worse in pretty much every respect with regards to its stated goals. It didn't eliminate edge cases at all, in fact they failed to realize that in the first version there was no way for neutral logistics involved in a war to gain any kind of flags at all and there was a period of about 30 days post patch where neutral RR could not be legally attacked at all. This was a glaring logical error that illustrates the total lack of thought and care put into the system. CCP didn't consider the "edge case" called "wars". It's also not easier to understand, see everyone BAW has ever killed because suddenly all of their logistics shut off in the middle of a fight because they don't know what is and is not considered "neutral logistics" or what happens if you remotely repair any character that has an LE with anyone.

It doesn't affect me negatively because I'm not new or inexperienced and am generally the one in a position to leverage it's bizarre behavior to screw over people who are, but I absolutely hate the design of the whole system, it behaves very strangely and has a distinct anti-combat flavor to it.

I don't know, I saw some very odd things happen, but there are certainly some bad mechanics in this one, for example the inability to rep alliance mates is crazy, or those in the same war, it makes no sense and I wish CCP would sort it out. Using logistics in hisec is an utter nightmare, like last night for example.

Can flipping was rather naff because someone was shooting in the main ships that could not fire back, its like baby seal clubbing. Suspect baiting is actually likely to get real fights, but some of the baiting is just rather silly at times...

Generally I prefer the clarity, it would be impossible to do anti-ganking with the old system that is for certain.

But sometimes I wonder why CCP does not just start teleporting people past a certain SP out into the middle of nullsec as a means of getting a point across.

I recall the days of "Aggro Fu", when an alliance called TEARS was active.

On the surface it just plain looked bad. It was a gotcha game, "Oh you don't know this one loophole to the addendum of the agro rule that was updated then patched then changed and patched again last week" and blap goes the space ship.

Crime Watch and the ability to abandon loot (and set drones to passive) was the end of that. It did not fix Aggro Fu, just made it avoidable.

And out of anger the Aggro Fu black belts started bumping miners. The rest is history. But sometimes I wonder why CCP does not just start teleporting people past a certain SP out into the middle of nullsec as a means of getting a point across.

I recall the days of "Aggro Fu", when an alliance called TEARS was active.

On the surface it just plain looked bad. It was a gotcha game, "Oh you don't know this one loophole to the addendum of the agro rule that was updated then patched then changed and patched again last week" and blap goes the space ship.

Crime Watch and the ability to abandon loot (and set drones to passive) was the end of that. It did not fix Aggro Fu, just made it avoidable.

And out of anger the Aggro Fu black belts started bumping miners. The rest is history. But sometimes I wonder why CCP does not just start teleporting people past a certain SP out into the middle of nullsec as a means of getting a point across.

What changes to wardecs do you think CCP should make to fix this perceived "incompatibility"? How should one go about shooting a structure in highsec?

POCOs were implemented with the exact same rules regarding vulnerability to wardecs and transferability while under a war declaration. I still see POCOs on essentially every planet in highsec and while they do change hands, it is rare to see one actually reinforced. Why do you think this new batch of structures would be any different?

The failure of CCP to provide either content driving objects and resources in highsec or mechanics that enable content creation is pretty legendary at this point.

There's two distinct factors there, things that create conflict and mechanics that enable it. CCP is worse at the later, the general desire to blow things up compensates for the former to some extent.

The problem is there's the more than one group of people who perceive anything pertaining to PVP in highsec as being inherently bad for various ridiculously ill-conceived reasons. So when someone says something like "CCP should remove faction police because that would actually enable a massive amount of anti-ganking/criminal hunting player-enforcement gameplay like people keep saying they want" all the people who don't actually care about highsec PVP gameplay and just want characters who have low security status for whatever reason to have as many penalties stacked on them as possible all whine relentlessly about it. And that's before you even get to the people who think all highsec gameplay should just be straight up bad (I've literally seen people straight up state that it's good for highsec to have bugged, unintuitive gameplay), because they're elitists about the kind of space they live in and think everybody should be there.

Heaven forfend that all types of space might have good gameplay opportunities.

Even if there were more things of value to shoot you'd still be limited by the fact that the only way to do anything whatsoever to structures is war declarations, which are a rich man (and his friends) game. A better highsec PVP environment would require more mechanics facilitating PVP and those ideas won't gain traction because they always face huge amounts of opposition from people who don't have or want to have any involvement in highsec PVP, but think it shouldn't exist.

The idea that the old aggression system was hard to understand is just a talking point CCP Greyscale shat out to justify him leading a big project he could brag about and was supported by the ignorance of non-highsec players and carebears who had literally zero understanding of the system and still don't understand the current one.

The old system was actually extremely simple. If you steal from a can you get flagged to the corp, if you rep someone who stole from a can you get flagged the corp too. Same goes if you remotely assist someone at war, you inherent the flag the person you're assisting has. Timers related to individual characters were identical to limited engagements but lasted 15 minutes. All flags have the same duration and work the same way.

That's seriously the whole thing. The only part that was worse was the fact that criminal flags could propagate through a rep chain without warning, which was a bug because there was meant to be an dialog box which didn't always trigger before the flag propagated.

Whereas new crimewatch added multiple different flagging types of different function and duration and which interact with each other and with the safety system in unexpected ways. My favorite is how allies in a war can't remotely assist the people they're allied with or vice versa without becoming suspect flagged. It also didn't even bother to fix logistics repping awoxers not becoming flagged, which is not a bug and is still normal gameplay. Also it eliminated clan flipping from the game, which was a great low-investment way to introduce new players to PVP in a controlled environment and actually generated conflict (my first war against an alliance much larger than my corp happen when they declared war on us because I was can flipping them) and replaced it with suspect baiting which is far less interesting and accessible.

It's worse in pretty much every respect with regards to its stated goals. It didn't eliminate edge cases at all, in fact they failed to realize that in the first version there was no way for neutral logistics involved in a war to gain any kind of flags at all and there was a period of about 30 days post patch where neutral RR could not be legally attacked at all. This was a glaring logical error that illustrates the total lack of thought and care put into the system. CCP didn't consider the "edge case" called "wars". It's also not easier to understand, see everyone BAW has ever killed because suddenly all of their logistics shut off in the middle of a fight because they don't know what is and is not considered "neutral logistics" or what happens if you remotely repair any character that has an LE with anyone.

It doesn't affect me negatively because I'm not new or inexperienced and am generally the one in a position to leverage it's bizarre behavior to screw over people who are, but I absolutely hate the design of the whole system, it behaves very strangely and has a distinct anti-combat flavor to it.

Someone still remember how it was possible to put a criminal flag on a miner grabbing the ore in a jetcan but not moving it to your bay.
It become "owned" by the player grabbing it, but he didn't received a flag as he hadn't moved it, but as soon as the miner or the hauler removed it they got the flag, for removing their ore from their can.
Sorry, but the old system was full of bugs.

They aren't weak, though. They're actually pretty powerful, their EWAR is very effective, they neut a ton, are completely immune to electronic and capacitor warfare, do more dps than any sub capital ship that exists and they don't require any skills to use. The problem being experienced by this defender is that strength is relative to the threat.

When the threat is twenty guys with a coherent fleet of battleships and logistics who know what to expect. It's like sitting in space in a capital and expecting to be able to solo a twenty man subcapital fleet unsupported.

They are quite weak. People are easily killing them left and right, without even trying hard.

They are quite weak. People are easily killing them left and right, without even trying hard.

Does anyone know if the battles where the citadels were online had the fighters from the citadels out hitting things? I'm seeing everyone mention the missile launchers, but none about the fighters. At least according to the stats, the citadel can launch an equal amount of fighters that a carrier can.

The bounty Hunter role in eve does need an update as this system currently does not work the way I think many would like it to. As for how to fix this or suggested updates, I'm not sure!

Well, here's my suggestion on how to redo the bounty system...