Since the start of Eve war dec’ing other corporations have seemed a one sided affair. If you have the money you could dec anyone without really putting anything on the line excepted ships fitted for pvp and players ready to fight.
If the corp which has been wardecced can muster any kind of force, the aggressor can simply dock up or log off until the organised response gets bored or returns to their normal gameplay.
There is never anything left for the defending corp and their organised fleet to aggress back once their enemy has disappeared.
The (possible) answer…
Any corp that wants to war dec another corp should have to put something on the line for the dec to be valid. It would seem fair that if you intend to enter into a war with someone it should be over something. I suggest that when selecting a corporation to war dec the attacker first must select an anchored citadel they own (corp or alliance) and then select an anchored citadel of the corporation they intend to fight.
This citadel must be located in the same region, so no one can select a structure in null or one that is hundreds of jumps away from the fighting. The citadel selected must also be of the same size and type as the attackers, so both structure put on the line are of equal value. Once either of the citadels have been destroyed the war dec will become void and a winner decided.
This allows the defending corp to focus their efforts on removing the structure to end the war dec, instead of having to wait for the aggressor to get bored of paying the bill.
This would also fit in with the current mechanic of corps offering assistance to a defending corp to help destroy the attacker’s structure. Making corps who offer their assistance more focused and easier to value the service they are providing, as opposed to the current situation of having to pay people for the odd kill which amounts to nothing.
So we would have…
War decs that have objectives and winning conditions
Corporations offering assistance have a clear and focused understanding of the services they are selling
Attackers can define which part of a target corporation or area in space they wish to fight over
Defenders know exactly what needs to be done to remove the war dec
What if the defender doesn’t have a citadel?
What if the defender and attacker don’t have structures of equal size/value?
What if defenders have an industrial structure and the attackers have a deathstar?
If the defender doesn’t have a citadel then you can’t war dec them. It would allow smaller corps to grow until they are big enough to have structures and be in a position to defend them
If the attacking corp wants to throw their weight around it would seem right they would have a number of structures different types up already. Or if they have a corp they really want to fight, then they would have to anchor the appropriate structure before.
Again the structure must match. If you don’t have the right one, anchor the one you need.
Corps offering assistance to defenders would work as they do now.
If one more corps dec the same defender corp, each attacking corp has to select a citadel of the same type and size before the war begins.
War decs would be removed as each attacking corp structure is destroyed. Unless of course the defending structure is destroyed and all war decs finish.
Of course eve is not and never has been fair. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Take risks to gain benefits. Oh wait… War dec doesn’t need risk. Lets just call the whole thing off.
This seems to give too much safety to the largest groups that need it the least. Why should people with the largest structures be immune from attack from everyone smaller/poorer than them?
I’m for setting some small bar to declare a war so that there is actually something in space to counterattack, but that rule would kill asymmetric wars completely and give free CONCORD protection to groups who have no business being awarded free protection.
The ability to anchor structures is only one of the benefits of player owned corps.
Setting your own tax rates, Corp contracts, easier organisation through chat, corp evemails, calendar events, the ability to rent offices providing access to Corp hangars, etc.
All of that comes at a risk of being wardecced. It isn’t just about structures.
The biggest richest corps don’t always have structures. And why should players who don’t have structures benefit from all the other perks of being in a player corp whilst being immune to wardecs?
So the cost of a wardec is a structure of every size plus wardec fees? ■■■■ new players who want to dec right?
Just adding silly rules to make it as hard as possible to dec.
Ah - the weekly wardec thread. This time I don’t see any complaint about new player griefing - which I consider the only valid reason to change wars.
Your haulers should be in NPC corps. This means they can ignore wars, it also means they won’t be flagged as a potential war target by scouts stationed in trade hubs.
War targets are clearly visible in the overview. If you maintain situational awareness you have plenty of time to dock up when they enter the system. If you’re AFK, I have no sympathy.
If you don’t want to place a structure at risk, there are hundreds of public structures where you can rent offices at low cost.
You can drop corp or play an ALT for a week. Wars are trivially easy to avoid unless you own a structure.
In a sandbox game like Eve - the players are the content. I don’t mind offering a bit of protection for new players to give them time to learn but after that, you get tossed in the deep end - sink or swim…
Most of the wardec groups already own structures (POCOs and Upwell), yet defenders aren’t out there shooting them.
All a focus on a structure does is encourage wardec groups to become bigger (safety in numbers) and wardec small, less capable groups (strong v the weak).
The net result would be an even greater divide than already exists.
I don’t think that’s the outcome you are looking for.
What’s needed is a way to encourage wardec groups to be small, and to provide encouragement to both sides from interaction.
This proposal doesn’t achieve that. It achieves the opposite.
Which is also why this proposal would be pointless.
Full power structures in highsec take longer to kill than a wardec lasts.
From the Upwell 2.0 devblog:
Under this new system a random unscouted attack against a full power Upwell structure could lead to a set of reinforcement timers with a maximum combined duration of 14 days in highsec, 11 days in nullsec and lowsec, and 9 days in W-space. However, a prepared attacker that hacks the structure for its reinforcement information ahead of time can ensure that those durations drop to 7 days in Highsec
So unless the defender is there to shoot the structure the very minute aggression starts and has already hacked it before that, this proposal will lead to 0 structure losses.