Citadel Balance Concept

Introduce a bit of risk to citadels.

If a citadel wants to go into RF, it has to have a minimum of say 30% cap.
If it doesn’t have that it cannot go into RF.
If a citadel runs out of fuel, it loses it’s shield layer and it doesn’t have any cap, so it cannot go into RF at all.
This means no timers for structures that are not fueled.
An element of risk and reward for citadel fights, where overusing a citadels defenses puts it at risk of not being able to RF.
Each class of citadel will still be tough to kill if the defending side is keeping it fueled, however if they are neglecting the asset and not fueling it, they could wake up one morning to a mail.

Terrible idea?

Terrible premise.

All of these ideas about cit re-balancing have been horrible and entirely self-serving

All of them.

2 Likes

Fuel bit yes, as every citadel shoudl require a base amount of fuel for tethering capabilities. Cap bit, hell no.

A better idea I’ve posted around several times now, but it’s been a while so I’ll put it up again. (with two alterations)

  • No more “Vulnerability timers”
  • No fuel = no tethering, no services, no RF timers.
  • Medium structures get a single RF period revolving around shield. Players set duration of RF in hours, not by time, not when it is to come out. This also triggers the fuel bay to only accept fuel blocks.
  • Large+XL structures get two RF periods. Shield same as in mediums. Armor timer is pre-set by the owner and will come out between 48 and 72 hours and consumes all remaining fuel. Emergency repair and fitting services (no fuel required) are activated and the fuel bay is locked out entirely.

So…

  • 23/7 shield vulnerability removes innate ability to TZ tank all structures.
  • Fuel requirement for timers allows for easy removal of citadels that are not being properly maintained.
  • Fuel requirement also removes the ability for very powerful tethering/services from those with no intention of setting up logistics.
  • Removal/reduction in time between invulnerability periods reduces time commitment for both parties.
  • Puts far more emphasis upon winning an armor timer as once this is gone, so is your tethering and services. (Current strategies almost entirely rely on waiting until the final timer to draw things out resulting in a huge grind with very little in the ways of interesting content)
  • Final timer for L/XL structures is hand selected which is incredibly powerful as we have seen.

The logic behind the new removal of fuel is to cause all tethering during this period to be disabled creating a sense of urgency to defend and actually put ships on the line the moment they undock if they failed to defend the previous timer. This puts significantly more emphasis on the armor time to make people want to defend all timers, not just the final time if the attacker does show up to the time of your choosing - which is itself a very powerful ability as it is what has allowed for TZ tanking to occur at all.
Secondary lore-ish reasoning behind complete fuel block consumption on final timer is to say the structure is generating a massive amount of power required to restore it’s structure/armor/shield hit points to reset all timers in the event of a successful defense.

Some may agree with me, others not. But I’d rather see these things blow up rather easily to force the importance of defending each timer rather than just the final. Each timer having real consequences for failing to defend. As well as opening up glaring vulnerabilities on the smaller structures which can be easily spammed and should be just as easily removed if not maintained or defended. And left face it, with the existence of item safety, what reason could one possibly give for allowing them to remain so unassailable for such large swaths of time?

1 Like

Just make citadels more expensive, like 200-300% more. This will solve pretty much all the proliferation issues and add all the risk needed to make the current cit-spammers think twice about anchoring more of them without proper defense.

I mean, having a proper-fitted ~2 bil structure that can outright ANNIHILATE any capitals and supers within range is kind of silly from the get-go. I’ve seen citadels with AXLs completely destroy T2 Triage faxes so fast you’d think they got hit by a Titan DD.

No
Nullsecc should just man up and start having huge wars and grind these things down if you want them.
Again, these topics never take Highsec or even Losec in most cases in consideration.

Oh mine definitely does. All timers fit within a 1 week war dec. HS or not, you want your ■■■■ to not die - defend it. If you want it to function properly - fuel it. Not like HS logistics are difficult by any stretch of the imagination.

You’re playing with big boy toys, put your big boy pants on and man up.

On the other hand, there is no fit that could protect a citadel against a 10 subcaps fleet.

so just take a neut fleet and kill citadels, got it

It has nothing to do with defending it or it dies…

Your idea(s) do not take into consideration:
1.) That POS are going away, and most corps in highsec can not be on 24/7, even the mercs if they had structures in their name with sufficient numbers to not lose something because they need to sleep, take care of family and a host of other things.

2.) Again, the fuel problem…Losec groups of any relevance are mostly PvP, they dont have time for Ice mining and crap like that. And in Highsec even using local fuels its already PITA and a full time job if you make the game a job instead of a game to gather fuel resources.

3.) the Tethering without fuel mechanic is fine, in nullsec only known friendlies with docking access have this ability. In highsec this ability allows for types of meta-politics/meta-intel to take place, without you would be stifling gameplay and styles even more.

4.) EvE at its core is about social game play, Citadels, the defensive structures should take time, resources, and be hard to kill (as in grind if nothing else).

Really your idea does not take Highsec into consideration, or smaller groups (50 or less players), all it does is to ensure structures will never be a thing for anyone but a Large Bloc Alliance in control of it or a Large Merc Coalition standing behind it,

Your idea is total rubbish…but with the advent of POS going away, if you want to make it so no one puts these things up with intention of reasonable use and there fore killing the game sure by all means.

Otherwise really? please go stuff yourself and your lazy anti-social aspects into a chest and launch it into the EvE Gate.

1 Like
  1. Yes, it does. Medium’s would nearly directly mimic POS mechanics, but rather than stront, you are simply changing a number in the UI to the duration you desire. Only difference is citadels require an active defense rather than passive guns - which were always a joke on anything that wasn’t a shredder vs a small gang anyway. How are POSes not dying right and left now in HS? Because most people can’t be bothered. And this doesn’t change suddenly because we’re talking about citadels instead.

  2. That is not a valid reason at all. Lowsec groups of any relevance already had a POS network that already required fuel. If you’re trying to tell me this is a roadblock, then I’ll tell you these entities should have their structures destroyed just like their offline towers that they forgot to fuel. These lowsec groups are not losing their NPC stations so such a change would have minimal impact on them if any at all.

  3. This is not stifling any game play, especially not intel gathering. Intel has typically been a person sitting cloaked off an undock, not tethered to a structure. Do you not understand this only effects those that were using structures as free-immunity and repair/fitting services from attackers? Why should all that power come at no cost outside of the structure itself? A POS did not give us a shield without fuel, an SMA was not usable in an offline POS, why should it now?

  4. My suggestions push for more interaction. A team to keep them fueled and fleets to attack and defend multiple timers, not attack every timer then see a defense put up for the final timer.

I can’t even understand where you’re ideas are coming from to be honest. You sound like some carebear who has never actually paid attention to the game around him. Online POSes are not dying right and left in HS because people can’t be bothered to start the war dec to clear them anymore. Nearly no towers that are online get attacked, and if they do if the owner doesn’t put up a defense it dies - Just like an undefended citadel would. There is literally no change. Just because it’s a citadel doesn’t mean you suddenly have HS carebears changing their style of gameplay to go clear these things out. Even less so since now it’s not laying claim to limited anchoring locations!

You seriously need to get some help with these personal attacks buddy. You’d think I just threatened to delete your account if you refused to put in an ounce of effort to maintaining your structures.

2 Likes

Citadels are fine as they are, the only change I would make is in Sov 0.0 where I would force the structures put in the any sov system to have vulnerabilities within the ADM derived vulnerability period of the TCU for a month.

Otherwise keep them as is.

I say that as someone who has blown up a few…

Nope,
I understand they are supposed to be a hybrid of the POS and Station (outpost), they can not defend themselves they need a gunner in the seat, unlike POS.

I remember the blogs and arguments before they went live…without Asset Safety everyone (of relevance) said they would utterly and definitely not use them, research them, or build them…that they would be useless ‘effort’ of Dev time.

Those same also sea sawed back and forth on the vulnerability timers and such,

No, the effort is not on the defenders until it is time for them to put in the effort if they wish to keep it…
The effort and the onus is currently on the agressor to destroy the target as it always has been

And that means having a tangible and meaningful tactical and strategic reason(s) for doing so, not popping them for the Lulz…you want to pop things for the Lulz go play COD, Battlefield, Valkyrie, or any other game where popping things for the Lulz is the main theme.

These things are meant to be a home, a staging platform for extended operations, I am sorry you do not like that, I am sorry you do not get to destroy one of these solo (meaning 1 pilot)…you are not meant to.

1 Like

What are you even on about?

These changes wouldn’t make them pop left and right. It would remove a large part of the “hurry up and wait” involved with the current invulnerability/RF mechanics.

The attacker still has to put forth the most effort to destroy it. The defender could still wait till the final timer. There is not a single reason you could give to convince anyone that all timers should not hold some small amount of importance. Or else why even have the timers at all? If the attacker will hit the first, he will hit the second, he will hit the third. The grind will not stop them regardless of the importance on the defender to actually defend, if they attack at all it’s because they want it dead. Adding importance to timers just gives the defender a reason to fight earlier and increase content for all.

Just because you don’t feel you should have to fight for what you own and where you live is your own problem and a sign of the systemic problem that has crept into the minds of many of the remaining playerbase. They want safety through broken or unbalanced mechanics rather than having to fight to keep what they have (referring to the structure itself not item safety). You’re even fighting me on the idea of having to fuel something for tethering just because you cant be asked to put forth an ounce of effort into maintaining your infrastructure.

You have blown up 6, I have blown up 8 on Dracvlad, and another 4 on other characters, I also note that you have shot a number belonging to PL and HTP(who are linked to PL.) That does actually colour your judgement because PL wait for the final timer to save them and have them seeded all over the place. Hence my request that like attacking Sov the placement of a citadel to use as a base should be in the defenders TZ. linking it to the TCU timer of the system it was dropped into.

Perhaps a good thing for mediums is to require the timers to work fully only if someone was actually in the gunners seat.

Tethering is necessary as POS’s are going, there has to be a mechanism to replace it.

In terms of asset safety, I don’t think I would have much fun in 0.0 without asset safety, at the moment I can pick which ship I want to use, without I would only have bare bones stuff, I have a lot more fun like it is now. The thing is that the cost 15% will hurt.

They are my suggestions and reasons.

I am okay with item safety, because without it this whole mess would be a nightmare and I’d want them to be nearly impossible to kill. But we do have it. I know some want it gone, but I am not a part of that crowd.

You realize POS shields required fuel right? So why shouldn’t tethering? You can still dock and be perfectly safe, but those not docked just like a ship not in an SMA still required fuel to be protected. See my point? Now please make your counter point why this requirement shouldn’t be kept in the new system.

I have killed far more than 6. If you can’t tell Nasar isn’t my main pvp character, my main yes, but I have more alts than you can shake a stick at lol I wont argue that the bulk have belonged to PL and co and Russians, as that’s what’s down here where I am. But regardless of who it is, I hear from everyone that most will wait till the final timer, using the first two to grind away at the moral of the attacker and not actually put up a fight.

I am in the Legacy Coalition by the way.

Yes POS shields required fuel and I do get your point on that, it is a change I could accept in terms of tethering, but doing fuel runs is boring as hell, it was something I found naff with POS’s, too much of a pain and I know too many people who got burnt out of Eve due to it, guess CCP decided to be careful here in forcing too much dull repetitive content, but I could accept that as an idea.

They normally wait for the last timer and it is a pain, which is why I suggested that if they don’t defend the shield timer with someone in the seat manning it then the armour timer is not applied and it goes straight into the final timer after 7 days not 6 days, to take into account the missing timer.

I also see it as a sov attack mechanism which is why I would link the initial anchoring timer to fit within the sov systems TCU’s vulnerable timer which the person dropping them can chose. It would get away from people dropping them in others systems with timers out of the time they can go after them.

I do feel your pain, we blew up a few and they put more back up, so it was kinda like what is the point, but the point is that still we have to do it to maintain the safety of our space.

My comment about number that I and you had shot was just to say that both of us had shot them, it was not anything more than that. A lot of people make comments without appearing to actually play the game, so I was making sure that people could see that we both come from that perspective. o7

Alright, I got defensive thinking you were trying to say the new difference between the posting characters somehow invalidated what I was saying.

But I know where you’re coming from, before CO2 and now TEST I was in Darkness and was one of the few (3) people manning the entire network on top of my own set of POSes. It is very boring, but its necessity was understood. Sometimes we have to do the things that nobody likes so that everyone can have their fun, in life and in a game. Even in games like world of warcraft you have your leaders who have to find strategies and lay out the groundwork to take on varying content, it’s not fun for them at the time but it has to be done for the greater enjoyment and safety of everyone else.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.