Dark Shines for CSM 18

My preference would be to entirely remove player markets from High Sec. I think production and refinery, or using a Fortizar as a HQ is fine, but player markets do not belong in High Sec.

I would also like to see a removal of the Set structure timer, the one that players select as a reinforcement exit timer, and see a reintroduction of the human element. Setting timers by stront or some other such fuel.

I haven’t used Starbase Charters in many years, but my guess is the work around would be to drop structures in an ALT corporation with high empire standings and just use structures that way.

Certainly an interesting idea though.

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I’m sorry you feel that way. I disagree that I killed off any player base, I engaged in a Null Sec war, the exact type that had been waged against me and my Alliance 2 years previous by FIRE and friends.

The only difference is we didn’t die.

The Southern Agreement gave a lot of people exactly what they asked for, an area without BLOC interference, something a lot of people have been screaming for for years. What people did with that opportunity is completely out of my hands, but that’s the beauty of the sandbox.

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It’s interesting you should mention the High Sec player markets in such context. Oddly enough, years ago when Citadel’s first came out, discussions surrounding the idea circulated for a time regarding this emergent gameplay. The idea of high ISK value market places was something I both identified as a potential usage for a Citadel in Perimeter, as well as expressed a mix of both excitement and concern with how lucrative it could easily become in the hands of a single entity. Perhaps even on the scale of the Casino wallets of wars long past.

I stopped playing shortly after the introduction of Citadels. To come back so many years later, and to see the significance of the TTT, and what the early Citadel ideas had become… It was concerningly shocking.

Good old fashioned “Whoops forgot to put Stront in the POS”. It certainly required a better calculation of the exit time. Do you feel this could potentially alleviate the difficulty surrounding “Time Zone Tanking”?

Wormholer here, playing since 2009. I’m very excited that Dark Shines is running. No hidden allegiance, old school player who has charisma and a clear agenda. Good luck to you!

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“The human element” has been taken out of Eve over the past decade. The intention was quality of life, something CCP should strive for, but in this case removing the ability for players to make a boo boo probably isn’t a great thing.

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This statement right here, quite literally sums up the opinion I’ve formed since I began playing again late last year. More so in contrast since the majority of my EVE experience began a decade ago.

“The Human Element”
The most important aspect of the game in my opinion. It’s not what you fly, it’s who you fly with.

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Whats your reasoning behind that? I mean, the attacker already has the huge advantage to set date/time for the initial assault, which will be when he is strong and hopefully the defender can’t bring in forces quickly enough to repel the attack. Why not give the defender the same advantage in the second fight, to have a timeframe that is in his favour this time?

As it has been noted before both by CSM members in the open, as well as non-CSM interactions. The player base is kind of not happy with the modern station system.

There is no room for espionage, or spy work with actual tools of the game and ships.

Defender can set the timer, Attacker should have some ways to either initiate the fight or alter the playing field. Time Zone Tanking means there isn’t alot of fluidity in the game. And depending on which country you have. Time Zone tanking has a huge advantage or disadvantage.

Personally, I think espionage teams for the attacker, and counter-espionage teams. Should be able to hack or counter hack a station resetting or slightly altering the times so the + - 2 Hour window can be shifted around or shrunk.

That’s not that big of an advantage, honestly. Time zone tanking is a big issue these days, and probably one of the primary reasons why FRT still exists. It has an inordinately large impact on big bloc warfare.

I have received payment, and am now pleased to announce that the mighty Safety. alliance will be recommending miner Dark Shines for the CSM.

Thats what I thought.

I don’t agree, but I also don’t like to push a huge discussion about it here because this is an application topic, except @Dark_Shines likes to raise specific points.

I can see and understand this point due to the situation that the TTT has led up to however I have to disagree with removing player markets from High Sec. There are plenty of systems in High Sec that have no stations or markets to help players settle and be able to have the things they need without having to spend a lot of time flying back and forth towards the closes market hub. I would instead suggest that in High Sec the player markets don’t have an advantage over NPC taxes, fees, etc. That way you don’t limit where people can setup shop and/or settle and still prevent situations from the TTT.

I disagree with this change. While the current mechanics provide the option for timezone tanking, this change would remove the option the defenders have to make sure they can fight when their defense is the strongest. Using Stront or fuel based timers means the attackers can make sure the timer comes out when it suits them best. It would disproportionately affect Highsec groups that have already been set back considerably with the loss of the armor timer for medium structures. If the attackers can dictate when the final timer is, groups that would be able to defend it succesfully with the current mechanics end up losing it without being able to do anything against it. Especially when you consider WH space that has no asset safety. It would only benefit the biggest groups and force others to either block up, pack up or get absorbed. And that isn’t healty for the game at all.

Only implementing this in highsec would be unfair as it drives up the cost in only one part of the game and create unneeded extra barriers of entry. Big or organised groups will bypass it entirely and it would be a minor inconvenience at best. If you want to use Charters, implement it across Highsec, Lowsec and Nullsec.

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I’d say: HighSec & Lowsec, but not NullSec. Lore-wise it sounds reasonable that the big NPC-empires demand a constant fee paid to them (via Charters) for maintaining Structures within their space. Nullsec should be governed by those who live there.

I’d even adjust the charter costs with a modifier based on SecStatus of the System, to make the outskirts economically more attractive and even more so rewarding buisness in LowSec.

With everything else you are 100% correct, removing TimezoneTanking would just be another nail in the coffin of small and medium groups, sacrificed for the convienience of big blocs. The absolutely horrible SiegeGreen timer-removal from M-Structures already broke the neck of countless smaller HS- and WH groups, just so the big nullsec blocks can “easier clean up ninja-anchored Citadels” (which they easily could have prevented from anchoring in the first place if they weren’t so lazy).

There is also NPC nullsec, so applying the lore-wise reasoning would mean that it should also apply there. And considering the time to develop and implement it to exclude non-NPC nullsec, apply it to all. I can see a lower cost for non-NPC nullsec being fair. An additional effect should be that with the charters implemented it would be more costly and timeconsuming to just structure spam regions in nullsec on a large scale.

Timezone tanking could maybe be adjusted by allowing people to tweak via hacking etc when the timer goes out.

From my discussions with other players. There is alot of dissatisfaction with the Siege Green Mechanics, especially in WH space.

@Dark_Shines would you back any idea mentioned below as CSM member?

  1. Insane idea - pay with PLEX in NES for extra dev time
  2. Quafe+ is from "biomass" (...or corpse reprocessing)
  3. Little things / Small QoL suggestions - Better Visibility Of Other Players’ PI Networks
  4. Little things / Small QoL suggestions - 13 requests for Stack Split enhancment since Jun’18
  5. Little things / Small QoL suggestions - PI KB-shortcuts for toggling between groups of structures

Can you elaborate on what you mean by a Starbase Charter. I’m intrigued.

The suggestion of Starbase Charter, was something from a reddit post a few months back.

Starbase Charters are still in the LP stores and for a set amount you get 100 Starbase Charters. Now these were another kind of “fuel” in the game for the older POS [Player Owned Starbases] the amounts used up varied on the area of space the POS is deployed. Some even requiring specialized starbase charters to run.

However, Citadels never were given this mechanic, so they were thrown around like candy all over New Eden in High and Lowsec. Versus POS which required a little bit of thinking to deploy in high and lowsec due to the starbase charters.

It was mentioned before, Reddit - Dive into anything
And has been discussed in streams etc even before the reddit post.

Now the problem is this nullsec really doesn’t want to run missions even the most simple ones. And if starbase charters were deployed as another high/lowsec fuel. It means a “prestige” tax on stations in highsec or lowsec. Even though CCP has given all the corporations the ability to recieve donations or LP tax. But it also would mean mission runners would have a market for their LP and there would be a market to purchase and sell these starbase charters because the volume consumed by citadels would be vastly larger than POS.

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The defender can do that by manually adjusting the timer, but it allows mistakes to be made.

This type of mechanic wouldn’t be new, its how POS have always operated and was a great path to conflict.

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I am not fundamentally against such a mechanic, I just wonder if it is balanced given the complete lack of combat abilities of Citadels (especially if no one is at home).

POS defend themselves during times of inactivity, so it isn’t really possible to sneak in a simple crew of a flimsy High DPS ships etc. to send it into RF quick & easy. You have to bring a considerable force that will cost multiple times that of the POS to get the first timer done, even if it is on automatic defenses. And you will need quite a while for it. And only one guy logging in that has gunner skills can focus fire pretty hard and give you substantial losses.

At a Citadel, the first timer is basically “free”, since you can intentionally choose a time where the owner is almost guaranteed in deep sleep. Which means you can send a rather small and rather cheap force of high-DPS-ships, with no Logi, no Ewar-support and no CapSupport required. A force that would never even remotely break a well armed POS, even on automatic defense (hello 20 Jammers, Med Lasers, Small Arties, Tackle, Damps…).

So, the defender can make it pretty nasty and laborious to attack a POS, which somewhat outbalances the fact that the attacker can chose the first timer. And also the attacker is pretty limited in what he can bring, as many setup simply won’t work against a well armed POS. For a Citadel, you have 15 minutes after the initial alert to bring a force of players online that can repel the attack, because the Citadel alone won’t even shoot back. 99% of all small and medium groups are not able to do that 0300 in the night.