There are two things that have to happen in concert for eve to be re-invigorated. There has the be an occupation vacuum for new players to fill and task complexity (not time consuming) enough to require coordination of multiple people.
This is part two.
TL;DR
•remove current 3 stage timers and reinforced modes from classic citadels to lower pollution.
•Introduce Sovereignty Citadels with an amount cap tied to amount of systems under your control. The limited number and purpose will allow tolerance for timers.
•Utilize all “occupations” in eve to conquer and defend Sov.
Citadels over population don’t hurt performance of the servers or client. But does harm the player Echo System. Eves player echo system put simply is;
I want X.
V
Players are needed for X activity.
V
I need to get Y amount of players.
V
Those players want Z.
V
Other players want X and Z also.
V
X evolves to defend X and provide Z.
V
X moves or depletes.
What I just described is how recourse should affect the game. However it sounds like CCP is going to work on this so going forward I’m operating on the assumption that it is implemented or going to be.
When citadels first came out. We all ignored or voluntarily were ignorant of the obvious problem they had with over saturation. This oversaturation affects some parts of space more than others. Faction Warfare and Null Sec are the biggest to have been hurt. And realistically there is no way to rip that Band-Aid off. Unless there is a system or set of systems in place to facilitate it.
Right now there are three options.
-Keep asset safety, make citadels more easily removable.
-Remove asset safety, keep citadels how they are.
-Remove asset safety, make citadels more easily removable.
None of this will actually recirculate life into the game.
Sovereignty citadel’s could facilitate fixing 1st Gen and Industrial citadel’s and bring life to the game.
I suggest along side the release of Sov Citadels implement option 3. Remove asset safety and make citadels more easily removable .
(I’ll address the effects on the other majorities of space affected by the change and how to avoid the concerns later)
Without going to to much detail and for the sake of simplicity I’ll use these values as reference.
Sov Astrahus- Small amount of systems
Sov Fortizar - Medium amount
Sov Keepstar - Large amount
The Sov Keepstar will act as a territories capital system. 1 per Corp.
Sov Fortizars are limited but the number is dependent and balanced according to number of systems you control.
Sov Astrahus are not limited in number. Just usefulness. The are used to expand territory, can not be place more than X systems away from your sov, can not be dropped in non ally Sov. And probobly as squishy as reworked Astrahus.
Sov should be structure based and still utilize entosis links but the target should be these Sov Citadels. The details of how one would attack these structures is plentiful and debatable. But the important part is that they are the target to control the space. And more difficult to get rid of while standard citadels are not so durable.
Where standard citadels fall in to place is that being squishy(er) means they and the space they’re in have to be defended. If a citadel is used for staging well. No worries when it dies. If it’s abandoned. Meh.
But what about asset safety? If we insist on asset safety the SovFortizars is where they should go.
And finally what about the rest of space. High sec, low/faction war fare and faction null the answer to security is Faction Standings and having them as allies.
In high sec you have concord and the 4 races. Low sec the pirate factions, and faction warfare you have the militaries. Yes it would mean an increase of PVE in those areas but…that’s what they want.
Wormholes? They need special citadels also.