I know that for many years it has been mooted that pos’s are going to be replaced by the new citadels and engineering stations, but I think that the POS still has a huge part to play.
My suggestion is that the POS’s be renamed tactical staging posts (TSP) and some of the mechanics be changed to suppliment this.
The idea is that the TSP’s are used to stage into a new system and be used as a temporary base of operations. The PTSPwould still function the same as it does currently as a POS with all the existing mods, however it would have a few slight changes.
1, the TSP does not require fuel because this is readily supplied as part of the tower.
2, the TSP will have a finite time limit for operation. After 30 days of anchoring the TSP will automatically expire as it succumbs to the effects of space. After all it is only a stick with a shield. This is why point 1 exist so that the TSP fuel cannot be topped up to prolong it’s use.
3, when the TSP is destroyed or expires any onlined/anchored modules automatically unanchor. This would give people a reason to attack the pos as much as removing it from the battlefield.
4, the anchoring and onlining will take place in the same cycle, Once it starts the pos gains shield hull and armor. The hull comes online first, then the armor (you get the point). but is attackable throughout the onlining process.
5, reduce the anchoring/onlining process time. This will allow people to get a TSP up in a reasonable time as you would want to if your invading another players space.
How much would these cost and what is stopping someone from anchoring these onto their own Moons every 30 days to prevent a would-be attacker from anchoring their own?
I think that the price would have to be dictated by the market realistically, especially if players can manufacture them.
As for anchoring on moons I think this is another area that should be changed. Similar to the citadels allow them to be placed in space. This negates the idea that people can put up pos’s at every moon, and allow people to strategically place TSP’s where it would be less noticeable etc.
well the idea is that they can be placed in an opponents space and allow you to stage attacks out of them or put up your own citadel whilst having somewhere to fall back to should things go pete tong.
I know for example this is how they are used in wormholes currently when people put up a new sitadel, they simply online a pos and use it to stage out of while they defend their onlining structure.
The 30 day limit means they aren’t permanent therefore if players want to perform a full on invasion they will have to bring in more tsp’s (which could become costly) or upgrade to a citadel.
The rationale for removing POS has nothing to do with utility and everything to do with legacy code - the restrictions it imposes on future development and the maintenance burden.
I suspect we’ll see additional FLEX structures for specific use cases but the POS code will likely be retired this year.
If it’s a case of old legacy code then surely it would make sense to keep the same idea for future structures as they have with the current POS. If it was just a case of adapting the new code to the current structures it could reduce the need to implement new structures for everyone to have to swap over to.
The new Upwell structures are orders of magnitude superior to POS in most respects. Even as a solo industrialist, moving stuff between arrays was a pain and managing the ACLs so other corp members could use the structure without having access to everything was a lot of work.
That said, I still miss my small POS. It was cheap, portable, burned 1/3 as much fuel, and a lot more flexible - I could offline a lab for a few minutes while I reprocessed some ice without losing anything. I doubt CCP will give us a FLEX structure with that kind of flexibility!
That being said I think that the idea of having a portable tower that can be used as s staging post, maybe without the additional research mining modules would work pretty well, after all if your invading all you need is somewhere to store kit and ships that’s secure. The TSP’s would achieve that easily, and if they used the same code as the upwell and flex structures I’m sure that could be achieved.
The fact the defenses are modular also allows people to customise their defenses of the TSP’s to the types of fleets their opponents choose.
