Citadel tethering makes no sense and needs further changes

Communications Center General Discussion
22

I agree that citadel spam has damaged the game.

FIrst, many systems that used to not have a station in null are loaded with citadels, and so instead of fights, as soon as you show up in local people just instantly warp to them and cower until they have a huge fleet to overwhelm you. Station spam was bad already in some areas but this is on an entirely new level. No more topography in null every system is exactly the same with exactly the same resources and spammed with citadels.

Then, for their benefits they are way too damn hard to remove. The invuln timers are extremely favoring defenders. I don’t have time to get up at 4AM several times a week to do the boring job of blowing up the structure. They need to be able to be damaged 24/7 like in the old days so at least an attacker has a chance of excising the cancer. No-one bothers to destroy them because after all the work to remove one it will just be back a day or two later.

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I’d like to echo the sentiment of Jonah and Chan’arr. I’m a non-pvp player who opposes further penalizing highsec conflict. My opinion is that accessible conflict made a better game, or at least a more interesting experience for me.

I have some modicum of pride in that I hold fast to my identity and can be held accountable for the choices I make. It’s nothing amazing by Eve standards, but I have a small reputation as a dependable and predictable ally, and even though I can hardly be considered powerful or influential, I still manage to weather an occasional storm.

Unlike NPCs, people remember who sides with or against them in a conflict, and they carry that forward for good or ill. Your choices, your behavior, or willingness or unwillingness to be diplomatic, and your willingness or unwillingness to take personal risks to help your friends or burn your enemies. All this and more become a part of your Eve identity, your tale as writ in the stars of New Eden and retold in echos by those who’ve encountered or heard of you.

It is this aspect that makes the game uniquely worth playing. The sad truth is that almost everyone would opt out of ever partaking in our space epic if they could because it is practical, but weaving a story of reasoned practicality has never been a great source of entertainment.

3 Likes
48

@ISD_Buldath this thread needs moved to feature and ideas

50

You want to kill ships on the undock of multi-billion isk/fitted structures easier?

51

Just like the old days? Yes.

55

Tethers should be for capitals that can’t fit. Subs can just dock.

My thoughts:

  • Citadel EHP, min dps, and max dps should be massively increased, such that subs would not be able to reinforce them outside of highsec without stupid numbers, rewarding (requiring, even) people for bringing capitals to kill them.
  • Citadels should be able to effortlessly murder subs
  • Citadels should not be able to break an active rep capital, or a fax-repped capital

This is of course contingent on capitals not being effective at engaging subs. Restores the triangle engagement profile we should be expecting to see. Subs beat caps that are unsupported by subs, caps kill unsupported structures, structures kill subs unsupported by capitals.

A fleet should be encouraged to be diverse. Many different classes, many different roles. In a large fight you should have everything, because everything is effective at something. Once you start to tip the scales on one front, you start to turn the entire fight.

For example, battleships provide heavy fire support for subs. But they can’t track for ■■■■, so they need other subs to help them hit things, and to keep them repped. Destroyers don’t put out a lot of heat, but they’re excellent escorts for battleships and absolute ■■■■■■■ murderboats against frigates. Frigates don’t put out a lot of heat, but they’re fast, agile, good for rapid support where your fleet starts to buckle. Which of course would require that ships not just be giant balls of anchored doom in itself.

/rant

1 Like
61

My “Fix Citadels and Capitals” idea was pretty similar to yours. I think there needs to be a limit on the number of capital and supercapital ships they can dock and tether. Keepstars have three massive bays, so maybe they should only be able to dock three supercapital ships at once? I also thought that it might be a good idea to limit the number of active capital and supercapital ships a corporation or alliance can have at any one time, and the rest have to either be docked up, tethered, or mothballed.

Mothballing a capital or supercapital ship would involve bringing the ship to a chosen location in space, then stripping it of all modules before deactivating the major systems and locking it down. The ship would sit where you left it, unable to be stolen by other players but also unable to defend itself beyond tanking hits to their armor and hull. The owners would have to defend those ships with a fleet and supporting fire from nearby structures.

Bringing a ship out of mothballs would require a short period to get everything running again, I’m thinking 24 hours for a capital ship and 72 hours for a supercapital.

Additionally, I think that there needs to be a limit on how many citadels are allowed per corporation, alliance, or system/constellation/region. Citadels were supposed to be fortified structures where players and alliances could have a relatively larger amount of safety than the old POS system, as evidenced by CCP’s description of them as well as their names (Astrahus = space house, Fortizar = fortress, Keepstar = keep). Kingdoms, empires, and nation-states didn’t coat the land with fortresses in real life, so player-run empires shouldn’t be doing that in EvE!

I wasn’t around to see the old strontium timers in action, but they sound like a much better idea for Upwell structures than the current invulnerability timer mechanic. The only exception I would make for this would be an alliance/corporation’s “capital” citadel, which they would designate upon building it and would use the current invulnerability mechanic so it’s harder to completely destroy everything they have.

Also, if the limits placed on Citadels is low enough that alliances and corporations in null wouldn’t be able to put one in every system, then maybe CCP should let us build capturable versions of the various empires’ stations that we need to use boarding teams against instead of Entosis modules. The Amarr already have a special variant of the Abbaddon-class battleship meant for planetary assaults, maybe there could be a special ship (or module) meant for boarding actions? It would even make the various infantry and marine units we find in missions useful for something!

Please, tell me what you think is right/wrong with this and give me constructive criticism! I want to learn more about the game’s mechanics and why my ideas would be good or bad for the game! My only request is that you be polite, thank you.:slightly_smiling_face:

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Removed more than half the thread. Keep it on topic and civil, thanks.

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All of your ideas generally revolve around things that can either be strategically exploited (spies in a corp getting their supers into the region/const/whatever first), or ignored through regularly employed N+1 tactics (oh, we cant’ have any more supers? Time for a new corp/alliance to join the fold…).

The goal should never be to limit a group’s capabilities, but rather to make those capabilities balanced. Absolutely none of what you suggest would be needed at all if capitals were not so oppressive, even if they would fix the problem, which I don’t think they would.

Consider, for example, slowcats. They were a huge problem. To get around it, they didn’t create arbitrary limits, they just changed carriers into carriers and faxes. Drive by DDs got fixed by disabling drive by DDs. I expect that in time, HAW dreads and carriers will be next. They’ll lose the ability to engage subs. Carriers for example would be a perfect way to counter supercarriers. One carrier could easily defang one super, if that super could not use SS fighters. That carrier would certainly need a fax to support it before it got blapped, but all of Eve should require support. Thus, now, a super is powerful, but it can be neutered by a ~2b isk carrier.

LGAFs can simply go away imo. Heavy fighters are fine, they don’t apply worth ■■■■ anyways to subs. Take support fighters and SS fighters from supercarriers, and leave them as exclusive options for carriers. Thus carriers don’t do any damage to subs either, because although SS can work, they’re certainly nothing to write home about.

Stuff like that will fix, without frustrating the players who spent literally years of training for a hull. T2 fighters is a 40+ day train just by itself, for example.

66

That’s fair. I had even thought of how that strategy might be countered, like limiting the number of corporations allowed to join any given alliance and rendering alliances unable to set standings toward each other. I theorized the latter might lead to enough violence between people who don’t recognize each other that the null blocs would disintegrate. Then I realized I was probably underestimating the people playing the game, and we all know it’s a bad idea to underestimate EvE players!:stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

As for rest of the capital balancing thing (what are LGAFs?), I’d love to talk more with you on that but this isn’t the thread for it. I accidentally got one thread closed because of a derail today, I’d rather not cause it again.:confounded: If you want, we could create our own thread or take it to PMs? I’m enjoying reading what you have to say on this topic!:slightly_smiling_face:

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https://forums.eveonline.com/c/technology-research/player-features-ideas

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on the citadel ehp, keep stars require huge fleets to grind it down but it still caps at 5k dps as do all the others, the difference between them is the amount of hp, for the small ones it doesnt take long for 2 people to do it, but the invul timers totaling a week+ are a pain.

on the defence CCP didnt want them like a POS where you can just make a death star and not worry about much, they wanted a force multiple…which even then 100 dps per launcher isnt that much if your having to fight a fleet when 1 more ship can do more than twice the dps of a armed citadel only useful thing from it in a fleet would be the ew it can put out if you just really needed to jam a couple of targets

i watched the keepstar by jita give everyone the finger when TiDi kicked in vs a fleet of a few hundred that was shooting it. the TiDi stretched out the DPS allowing the Repair timer to countdown in realtime and instant heal the station from like 50% hull to full HP

69

Hisec is something of a black sheep. Honestly, I think you shouldn’t be able to anchor anything bigger than an astra there, MAYBE a fort. A keep is a big problem for subs to take down under how I describe things.

I’m 100% okay with (in null) citadels being all but impervious to subs. So long as it’s coupled with changes that allow subs to counter capitals (by removing capital application to subs, effectively). The end result is that while the fight will still take just as long if you cap the dps, you won’t be able to cap the dps without a decently sized capital force. Purely arbitrary numbers here, but I’m thinking 50 dreads for an astra, 100 dreads for a fort, 200 dreads for a keep. And again, that’s DPS caps, not minimums needed to pause the timer. Minimums, again arbitrary numbers, would be based on 10/20/40 dreads respectively. As in, 40 dreads should be enough to dps cap a keep, but as many as 200 can actually apply damage to speed things up to the dps cap.

Capitals should be able to engage citadels from outside of their range, literally sieging them, and require that either subs or capitals sally out to meet them in a fight. Either side exclusively bringing subs should win that fight by virtue of the caps not being able to apply to the subs. Both sides bringing subs, the capitals should be able to support the subs with (balanced) logistics and ewar while the subs do the killing (of other subs). Capitals can and should be able to kill other capitals.

Net result, any significant structure bash, you’ve got subs and caps engaged in a concerted effort against each other. Yet while the caps are contributing to the fight in a meaningful way, and are thus preferrable to have in a fight, they aren’t going to be the winning force of a fight, which keeps them from the current perspective that they are oppressive.

70

I see your list of wants, but why is any if this needed?

What problem does this address?

—Curious Gadget