This thread is a repository for idea generation related to the game of EVE.
These ideas aren’t meant to be perfect; they’re written as I think of them.
The goal is to write ten ideas per post.
The secondary goal is to get one good idea out of a hundred, or one good idea in ten posts, that are worth forwarding to the CSM or otherwise worthy of discussion in a new thread (which you can start; don’t wait on me).
I like citadels. Some players don’t. Let’s think about them.
Let’s start with ideas on handling Citadel spam around gates.
If more than six citadels are clustered around a gate, CONCORD imposes a state of war on all corporations owning citadels around the gate.
Fees for war are automatically deducted from all corps in the conflict.
CONCORD removes the state of war once six citadels remain.
After CONCORD removes the war state, player owned corps will have a period of time where they may choose to pay to continue the conflict, at which point the standard rules for war between player owned corporations apply.
If all of the corporations that own citadels are in an alliance, the entire set of citadels becomes a free fire zone; i.e., anyone not in the alliance may choose to shoot at any of the citadels, and the citadel alliance may choose to shoot at anyone that engages their citadels.
During a CONCORD imposed state of citadel war, the restriction on citadels equipping turrets is lifted.
Turrets may only target other citadels, and all citadels in the conflict shall have their targeting range increased to fit an area encompassing the conflict zone.
During a CONCORD imposed state of citadel war, opposing forces may attempt to hack each other’s citadels.
If a hack succeeds, the hacking pilot is given the choice of a citadel system to temporarily shut down. Such hacks may be attempted while citadels are shooting at each other.
Remember the Helicarriers that shot each other up at the end of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”? Keep that in your head as we hit idea #10…
A hack attempt of the most difficult magnitude may be attempted on an opposing citadel. If the hack succeeds, the hacker may choose to temporarily take control of one module or flight of fighters belonging to the hacked citadel. The hacker may train such weapons on any foe the hacker’s corp is at war with in the citadel war…including opposing citadels.
Instead of calling the conflict a “CONCORD imposed state of Citadel War,” let’s call it a “CONCORD imposed state of Structure War”, or just “Structure War” for short.
Instead of using “Citadel” or “Refinery” or “Engineering Complex”, let’s
just use “Structures” (i.e., Upwell Structures).
Second, let’s think about this hacking of Upwell Structures business.
In a recent Dev article, the fine folks at CCP announced they want to allow capsuleers to be able to hack Structures in order to learn when a Structure is vulnerable to attack. I think it’s a fun idea and I had it in the back of my head when I wrote the first set of ideas post in this thread.
So let’s link the Devs idea with my Structure War idea: What if a capsuleer, after successfully hacking a Structure to learn when it’s vulnerable, was given the option to attempt a second (and more difficult) hack?
The purpose of that hack? To set a back door in the programming of the Structure.
The reward if this second hack succeeds? An Access Code that is the key to unlocking the back door that was just installed in the Structure. What makes it exciting? As soon as you attempt the second hack, you draw an aggression timer that allows anyone belonging to the corp that owns the Structure (and the Structure weapons) to shoot at you. If you succeed in the hack the timer goes away and you may go on your merry way.
Why use an Access Code? During times of war, an Access Code allows an enemy capsuleer to attempt further hacking of the target Structure, with the goal of gaining a tether foothold, disabling or coopting modules fitted to the Structure and/or controlling a flight of Fighters 24 hours later, turning off Service Modules another 24 hours later, or ultimately (after four successful and increasingly difficult hacks over a three day period) obtaining full control of the Structure for the remainder of a conflict.
9a. These further hacking attempts to dig deeper into a Structure are allowed over a stressful 5-minute interval after each 24 hour period is up. Either you succeed and stay tethered or you fail and everyone that’s lurking nearby and waiting for you to fail gets to explode you into space dust.
Access Codes would not be sellable in a regional Marketplace. However, they could be sold via Contract or otherwise traded between capsuleers. A pilot may only create one Access Code per Structure.
Access Codes can only be utilized by a Structure Data Analyzer (yeah, I just made this item up. That’s how I roll.) These specialized modules function like regular Data Analyzers, but may be loaded with Access Codes (not unlike loading a script) in order to attempt a hack of a Structure.
But there are always countermeasures, as we’ll see in the next post, and this is where the consequences of a failed hack are revealed.
Op working his idea muscle.
I was going to put an on-topic reply, but ideas 1-10 were all so terrible that I found myself unable to formulate an answer without an unhealthy amount of sarcasm dripping off my answer.
CONCORD has declared there are too many Structures around a given jump gate, and
that all corporations owning Structures in the vicinity are about to become embroiled in a Structure War.
The countdown timer has elapsed, and the Structure War is under way.
Right off the bat you try to hacking into the biggest and baddest Structure
belonging to a corp that your corp is now at war with, because you are smart and awhile back you figured having a back door into that Structure might come in handy someday.
So you load your Access Code into your Structure Data Analyzer and you get down to business hacking the enemy Structure.
This means you’re in your ship. You’re on grid.
And, as fate would have it, you just failed your hacking attempt.
So, what happens? What are the penalties, if any? How about this:
In Local Chat, a message is generated saying: “(Your Name Here) just
failed to hack (Upwell Structure Name Here). (Upwell Structure Name Here)
is immune to hacking attempts for 24 hours. Also, the members of (Enemy
Corp Name Here or Enemy Alliance Name Here) laugh in your general
direction.”
Yep, you guessed it. You just gave your enemy’s Structure immunity to all
hacking attempts for 24 hours.
But that’s not as bad as it could have been. Had the owner of the Structure
equipped a Hacking Service Module (you guessed it: I just made that up), and if said
owner or one of her designees were docked in the Structure, they would have
received an alert that someone was attempting to hack their base.
When such an alert goes off, the Structure owner or her designee may utilize the Hacking Service module to attempt a counter hack of your ship.
If they would have succeeded before you failed your attempted hack,
then your pod would have been forced to eject from your ship, and your ship would become
tethered to the enemy Structure and inaccessible for 24 hours. After
24 hours are up, your ship is up for grabs.
If that had happened, at least you wouldn’t have granted the
enemy Structure immunity to hacking attempts for 24 hours, because you never
failed your hack. (Your hack was interrupted by a better hacker than you,
and you even had a head start!)
But you’re still not out of the woods yet. See, if you don’t retake
control of your ship as soon as it becomes untethered (you’ve got a 5
minute window after the 24 hours are up), then any enemy capsuleer may
launch an Active Drone Relay Probe (yep, I just made that up) from their
ship to take control of your ship.
What in the world is an Active Drone Relay Probe, you ask? Good
question! An ADRP is a specialized drone that is launched from standard
Probe Launchers and can occupy the space of a pod inside a podless ship (i.e., a ship whose pilot is absent either because they ejected their pod, or they were forcibly ejected thanks to a
failed Structure hack). Once inside your ship, the ADRP establishes a link with the
ship that launched the ADRP.
The ADRP is now in “Active Drone Relay” state, and your ship is now in
tow. It goes where your enemy decides to take it anywhere in system, and even through jumpgates or wormholes. However, your enemy can’t dock with your ship in any NPC station, outpost or Structure. (If your enemy does any of these things, the ADRP ship stays outside like a dog your friend won’t let into their house). Your foe can’t launch any other drones while towing your ship around like a trophy for everyone on grid to see.
However, your enemy can pass control of the Active Drone Relay over to the Hacking Service Module at the Upwell Structure that threw you out of your ship. This causes the ADR ship to become tethered outside
the Upwell Structure it was passed to.
The Structure Owner or anyone occupying a Gunner position in the Structure
may instead choose to pilot the ADR ship in lieu of operating the Structure’s big guns
and missiles or fighters, so long as the Hacking Service Module remains up and running. An ADR ship controlled by a Hacking Service Module may not dock at NPC stations or Upwell Structures, and if it passes through a jumpgate or wormhole, control of the ship is lost. What’s more, while piloting an ADR
ship, the Structure Owner or a Gunner can’t attempt to hack any ship trying to hack the Structure. (You didn’t trigger the 24-hour immunity, remember?)
So, uh, yeah…that’s what happens. Clear as mud, right?
What could fill the space of a Cloaking Device, but do something besides cloak?
You could say 'anything that fits in a high slot" and you’d be right, but you’d also be wrong.
We want something in the same vein; something that fools or tricks enemy pilots, or that delays them in some way.
So…
A module that projects a holographic image of your ship.
A module that moves the image of your ship over anywhere from a base 10 meters plus some sort of applicable skill, with a higher base depending on the type (read: size) of ship you’re piloting.
A module that remote cloaks a ship that you are in a fleet with and that is within visual range of your ship.
A module that remote cloaks one of your drones.
A module that remote cloaks all of your drones.
A module tied to a special type of drone that allows you to project a one-time holographic image of any other ship you successfully targeted and took a “snap shot” with via the drone.
A module that changes your ship to look like any other ship of the same ship size class. Requires scripts for each ship type.
A module that links to similar modules on other ships that you’re in a fleet with, and allows the fleet (when in close proximity to one another) to look like any other ship in the game whose mass is roughly equal to all the ships in the fleet with the special module.
A module that allows your ship to look like (and be scanned as) any type of inert object in EvE, from asteroids (and yeah, if you are in the range of a Survey Scanner, you read as lots of juicy ore worth mining) to any of the space junk floating around in mission sites.
A module that allows your ship to look like (and appear on other player’s Overview) as an NPC ship.