New way of defending citadels

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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So having witnessed how a large fleet of ships can basically take down a citadel while its defenses succeed in getting exactly ZERO kills of the ships attacking it, and while a much smaller number of ships that came to defend decided to sit it out as they would only have been feeding this huge fleet kills, it became clear to me that citadels need new ways to defend themselves.

So it occurred to me… why not put MORE weaponry on citadels, that MORE players who are in the citadel could man. This way the dozen of us who showed up to the defense (against 100+), could at the very least have a fighting chance of making the attackers have to PAY a bit of a higher price for their assault. Rather than just throwing our own ships at the blob to pad their killboards. We sit in separate seats inside the citadel with weaponry available to us.

The citadel owner could of course designate who is permitted to use these weapons, be it only corp members, alliance members, +10, +5 people, individuals, those with certain roles, etc…

Additionally, it might be helpful to beef up a citadels defenses by virtue of how players are in the citadel at the time working to defend it. This could be limited to just those who are part of the War decced corp/alliance, or anyone who is manning guns at the time. So say if you’re manning a gun, you also bring online additional ways to harden the structure. Maybe they can employ modules in an cooperative way to increase weapon damage, or to repair parts of the citadel, etc… Say one sends out a swarm of fighters, while another reps them.

If there are not enough gun slots available for people to man (and perhaps this should be a very high number), then simply being preset in the structure at the time could maybe count toward improving the defenses. Imagine if you will, a bunch of carebares who use a particular market that is under assault, could beef up its defenses simply by all gathering inside the structure during the assault. The market owner puts out the call to please come to the citadel at the designated time, simply to beef up its weaponry, shields, and other defenses. Anyone inside (maybe limited to Omegas) increases the power of the shields and weapons.

In any event, it should NEVER happen that a citadel engaged in employing its weaponry against a large fleet of ships, winds up doing NO damage to the invaders. They lost nothing for their effort in attacking the citadel despite the owners best efforts to at least give them a black eye (or even a chipped nail).

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This would make it too easy to defend a citadel against a smaller number of pilots simply by having alts and tabbing between them.

What needs to happen is some form of better fleet support from Citadels.
I don’t know exactly what this could be, good bonuses to fleet boosts and the ability to fit them in a new set of slots?
Special citadel remote reps which heal people in fleet with the citadel? (Ability for Citadel pilot to join a fleet also).

Whatever it is, it should be about supporting ships in space, not epic firepower on just the citadel. Since ships in space require more effort to pilot than just F1 for guns now and then.

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The point, in part, is to bring the pain against those who are attacking a citadel. Particularly those in large fleets which are immune to being injured. I’ve only watched large fleets attacking a citadel, so I don’t know what happens to small fleets (do they suffer losses?)

The citadel may still ultimately go down, but it’s not going to be cost free (other than ammo) to the attackers. Their risk needs to a) be higher and b) be somewhat unknown to them. In other words, they won’t necessarily know how well defended the citadel itself will be, given how many will be manning the guns, or bodies simply present in the structure.

Whereas a handful of ships coming to the citadel’s defense is nothing to a large fleet, but extra kills for their kill board, a handful in the citadel manning guns, along with a dozen or more omegas in the structure beefing up its defenses ( simply by being there), is going to be a whole new gamble for the attackers.

When I see a large fleet assaulting a citadel, and the citadel working its weapons to no avail, and the attackers walking away when they are done without a scratch on them, it’s clear that there is a problem. Also when there are a dozen people on hand who COULD engage the fleet, and if they are lucky get in a kill or two, before they lose their own ships in a futile attempt, it’s not going to happen. Let those people man separate guns and defenses on the citadel, and though they may ultimately go down, the attackers will at least limp away in their victory.

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The problem is, allow that and a citadel kills a small fleet on it’s own without those dozen defenders having to place their own ships at risk of loss.

Hence why Citadels need more support abilities, but not direct fire (well ok some more direct fire abilities maybe, it’s silly they can’t kill a lot of solo builds also)

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I don’t know that a small fleet should be able to take down a well defended citadel (just the citadel with several manned guns and defenses). If the citadel is poorly manned and defended, then a small fleet should be able to take it down.

A medium sized fleet ought to have a good fight on its hands, and it might be 50/50 if they succeed or not. If they bring a few more ships they win but it hurt. If the citadel has all guns manned and has a few ships coming to defend it as well then the medium sized fleet stands a good chance of losing.

A large fleet is going to at least get a black eye or two with just a fully manned citadel, some broken limbs with the support of a smaller defensive fleet, and with a fully manned citadel and a defense fleet 1/2 to 3/4 the size of the attacking fleet they would stand a good chance of losing.

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The problem here is you have reversed the situation. There is no chance for the defenders to lose a single ship.

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But should the defenders lose a single ship when defending a citadel from a relatively small fleet of attackers? These are enormous city-sized structures. Those teensy, tiny little windows you see on structures (the smallest ones). You could almost stand two men on top of each other from bottom to top of window. They aren’t port holes or your average house window.

Now sure if there is ONLY the owner manning one set of weaponry in the citadel, then that small fleet could very well take down the citadel. But if he’s got friends (corp mates, alliance members) who are willing and able to man extra sets of weapons on the citadel, the small fleet should be incapable of taking out a citadel.

However, if you think they ought to suffer SOME loss for the small fleets efforts, then perhaps there can be repair costs dependent on how much damage they can cause. Maybe fuel is destroyed. Maybe modules can be destroyed and need to be replaced. Etc… Not the only thing that suffers losses has to be whole ships, or structures.

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There should be risk to both sides.
You are complaining that there isn’t risk to a large enough attacking fleet.
That holds true for the defenders also having to risk something. And module destruction/fuel loss/repair costs would feel very forced in the system of EVE, where such things don’t happen to your ship when it takes damage.
So the defenders should have to risk ships also.

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Another way would be to introduce different weapon systems for stations - like long range artillery (able to kill a ship with an alpha strike at long range like a couple of Maelstroms) or blasters (burning through close range targets very quicklly). The current missiles seem like a compromise good at neither.

Apart from that I don’t see why an attack by a really large fleet should take casualties if they have a huge amount of logi support and simply are able to rep quickly enough. They simply overrun the station no matter how many people are there (Why would more visitors improve a station’s built-in defense? By opening windows and adding handguns to the firepower? :stuck_out_tongue: ).
There is nothing wrong with one side outclassing the other side. Defending against a huge attack simply requires a bigger defense fleet or a bigger station. If the attacker is bringing more, the defender will have to bring in more, too - or the defender will vanish. That’s the way the burger burns/ball bounces/mop flops/cookie crumbles …

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Either side taking no losses makes it impossible to inflict attrition, and thereby deter attackers by that means.
This is why FAX’s were introduced and Super carriers lost their remote rep bonuses, so that even the winning side takes losses in a capital brawl.
It also encourages defenders to fight since they might win the isk war even if they lose the fight by using cheaper ships if losses are taking even in a large attacking fleet.

So yeah, it’s not good the way it goes currently.

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When you can not defend your stuff, you do not deserve it.
Being able to drop a citadel does not entitle you to keeping it.

The game is fine.
Broken is the silly mentality causing people to believe that “a few people” should be on equal fotting with “far more people”.

That’s not how humanity worked for tens of thousands of years, is extremely unrealistic and interferes with natural development of a, or any, society… which means it applies to EVE.

Your odds are bad, but they exist. Only the best of the best will manage to pull it off, and these are not people requiring to have everything unbalanced for the average Joes out there. They do not require help to be on an equal level. They just work hard enough to pull it off, whatever it is.

All the others fail, just like it has been for tens of thousands of years.

So they did not even try to have any influence the situation in any way, at all.

That is still more honourable and infinitely better than doing nothing at all. If they care about losses and the opponent’s killboards more than about ** at least trying**, then these people deserve nothing.

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Asymmetrical fights are a part of any sandbox.

If citadels are tougher, they will bring more people and you will want EVEN MORE defences on your citadels. Where do you draw the line?

Sounds to me you want a nerf to logi so that massive logi wings cannot keep ships alive indefinitely. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.

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Thanks for all the logical / rhetorical fallacies.

Yeah, you have a lot of credibility and a post worthy of reading when you start right off with a blatantly obvious straw man. Bravo.

Said every one of those like you since 2003. CCP is terrible at listening to you. And here we are 15 years later.

LMAO. You’re obviously bad at history. Show me one conflict where a much larger stronger force taking on a smaller weaker force in which the larger force suffers NO casualties or losses of any kind.

What’s unrealistic is a massive city sized structure having so few weapons on it for defense.

:rofl: Do you even play this game? Or do you think Eve players are stupid enough to believe this horse s***?

No a small force defending a citadel in ships have ZERO odds of victory. And neither I, nor anyone here, is saying they ought to have any chance of victory. Simply that the large assaulting force should not be able to walk away scratch free. There should be a greater cost for their efforts. The defenders should be able to inflict a reasonable amount of damage and destruction against the assaulting force, with more defenders causing them more pain and making it more difficult to take down the citadel.

This cannot be done in ships without bringing many more ships, if that’s even possible for the small defender (which regardless will all ultimately die in addition to the citadel, simply benefiting the assailants even more).

The only way for the defenders to have a fighting chance and have the ability to actually inflict some losses to a large assault force is to give them the ability to beef up the defenses of the citadel and man additional weapon slots on the citadel. Rather than feeding them more kills only to lose the citadel anyway, let defenders get out of their ships, man extra weaponry on the citadel, and give the assaulting force a real fight and challenge, that will ultimately cost them more than a little time and ammo to go across High Sec destroying citadels.

Honorable? Having a dozen people throw away their expensive ships to a 100+ assault fleet, lucky to get in one or two kills before becoming a statistic. Please. Tell me what do they deserve then? More than ‘nothing’ I presume.

You going to give them a prize for not only having lost the citadel but also a dozen (or more if they keep trying) ships? Are the assailants going to give them a nice “gf” in local? No, you’ll expect the defenders to be the one’s to say that to the assailants. Your blob gets the citadel, a dozen nice ship kills, AND a “gf” in local. :smile: You are a special snowflake.

You’re a member of this crew aren’t you. Scared something might change that would result in your losing your OWN ship when you come in your blob to attack the little guy’s citadels. I know you want Eve to be a “safe space” for you, but suck it up buttercup. If CCP does the right thing, they’ll make sure you stand a much higher chance of losing a few ships (at least) while taking down a citadel.

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This isn’t about saving the citadel from a massive fleet. This is about giving them a black eye or two during the process of their taking it down (and doing it without also feeding them some nice juicy ship kills for their killboards).

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Which bit confuses you?

-IF YOUR CITADEL DOES MORE DAMAGE, THEY WILL BRING MORE LOGI…

WHAT YOU WANT IS A WAY FOR LOGI TO NOT SCALE INFINITELY…

Understand? Yes?

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You did not really comprehend this at all, so I will just opt out of it. You are way too emotionally invested, read things that are not there and this trainwreck of a thread is not going anywhere anyway.

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The gist of this thread:

She wants the illusion of not being a failure. She could have had that if they at least had welped ships against the attackers in a coordinated attack … you know, for dignity … but either they are too poor, have no dignity, or both.

:roll_eyes:

What a time waster.

Quoting this to underline my point properly.

Btw… we know what you want …
… and you don’t care about how it makes no sense.

So… whatever man and have a nice day.

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In all honesty…suicide gank?

Apparently the op has a dozen players. Get them into catalysts, or nados. Volley stuff off the field. Just remember to have spares.

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Are you telling me, or telling OP? :yum:

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And you could have modules, which can work in concert with one another when manned by multiple players in the citadel, that can neutralize a good portion of their logi, break it up, regardless of how many they bring to the fight. And I’m sure CCP could find a way to balance this so that it’s not too over powered from the citadel’s perspective. For instance say it works in bursts and opens a window to start taking down some of their logi ships.

What we’re trying to achieve here is a more balanced destruction for both sides. Instead of a large fleet overwhelming a citadel and ANY small fleet that comes to defend it, thereby having the defenders wind up with most if not ALL the loss (citadel and whatever ships they can bring to toss into the gaping jaws of the blob), the defenders would instead still likely wind up with a lost citadel AND the assailants would wind up with a reasonable number of lost ships in the effort.

In the end you wind up with just as much destruction as if the defending players just threw ships away to the lost cause. But you’d likely wind up with more destruction since the small defense fleet would probably choose to not throw their ships away, and a multi-manned citadel could likely take out a good many more of the ships the assailants fielded. And besides why should only ONE person have all the fun in manning the citadel defenses?

That said, I do agree that logi should not be able to scale infinitely.