Recently, FC Okami has published the Force Projection vision and outlined the planned changes to Ansiblex networks, force projection, and their long-term goals for the system. I’d like to discuss what has changed from the original community proposal, as well as some of the thought processes behind these discussions. I’ll share as much context as I can within the limits of our NDA. These remarks have also been reviewed by FCs in advance.
First, let’s talk about the broader context.
Over the last several months, and really across the last two to three CSM terms, there has been extensive discussion surrounding Ansiblexes and the need to create a meaningful paradigm shift in subcapital force projection across New Eden. This has been widely recognized as a significant issue. More than 25 current and former CSM members, along with over 90 organizations throughout the game, supported the proposal calling for fatigue or similar restrictions on force projection. The concern has consistently been that unrestricted movement contributes to stagnation in nullsec and the wider game.
The reality is that much of nullsec has become solved. While there are still active regions and groups, the amount of meaningful conflict and strategic diversity continues to decline. FCs and alliance leaders are increasingly taking extended breaks because there is simply less content being generated. Even after major wars, even after Keepstars are destroyed, and even after significant strategic victories, the overall ecosystem has not meaningfully changed.
When we presented our proposal, there was considerable support from across the community. However, after extensive internal discussion and feedback, FC ultimately chose to pursue a different approach. Furthermore, there were those on the CSM that disagreed with fatigue based approach.
At that point, we as the CSM had two options. We could throw up our hands and insist on “fatigue only” as the sole acceptable solution, or we could work within the framework FC was willing to pursue and help shape it into the best possible outcome. We chose the latter.
Had we removed ourselves from the conversation, FC would likely have continued iterating on the system without our input. That carried the risk of producing an outcome that further entrenched subcapital projection rather than reducing it. Instead, we decided to remain engaged and help develop an alternative solution by working together.
It’s important to note that we would not have reached this point without the community’s support. The pressure from players, alliances, and organizations throughout the game was instrumental in driving these discussions forward.
Now let’s address fatigue directly.
Fatigue was discussed extensively. We explored numerous variations and possibilities. Ultimately, FC decided not to reintroduce it.
While fatigue was the model many of us initially supported, we also recognized the limitations of relying on a single mechanic. Fatigue is, in many ways, a one-dimensional lever. If it is implemented and later removed, the game immediately returns to the previous state.
The alternative design that FC Okami has presented gives developers multiple balancing levers they can adjust independently over time. This creates more opportunities to tune the system and respond to player behavior without relying on a single mechanic.
As a result, we worked closely with FC to cultivate and refine this design. We believe it is the strongest path forward given the constraints and objectives involved.
While specific numbers have not yet been presented, and therefore cannot be discussed, the proposal centers around Five major factors:
-
Total capacitor capacity available to the Ansiblex network.
-
Regional or zone-based considerations that affect movement.
-
Capacitor regeneration rates and how quickly the network recovers.
-
The removal of Ansiblexes from broad ACL-based access systems.
-
Joule costs of ships
These five elements together form the foundation of the new approach and provide FC with significantly more flexibility when balancing force projection in the future.
The Five Major Design Factors
1. Total Capacitor Capacity
The first major factor is the total capacitor capacity available within each Ansiblex.
Think of this as the maximum amount of energy that an Ansiblex has available to facilitate movement. This is an important design lever because FC can adjust the total capacitor pool independently from the individual cost of moving ships through the network.
By manipulating the total capacitor available, FC can increase or decrease the total volume of ships that can move through an Ansiblex before it becomes constrained, without necessarily changing the underlying ship values themselves. This creates flexibility in balancing the system. Rather than constantly adjusting the cost of every hull type, FC can tune the overall capacity of the network to influence how much movement is possible.
This also ties directly into the second balancing mechanism: capacitor regeneration. Just like the capacitor mechanics players are already familiar with, a larger or smaller capacitor pool changes how the system recovers and functions over time. Together, these mechanics provide FC with multiple variables that can be adjusted independently to achieve the desired outcomes. More details below.
2. Regional and Zone-Based Considerations
The second major factor is the introduction of regional or zone-based considerations.
This is one of the most important elements of the design because it directly addresses the problem of limitless expansion and influence. Many players have argued that it is impossible to address expansionism and subcapital projection simultaneously. However, the reality is that these two issues are fundamentally linked.
The ability to instantly move forces across enormous areas of space is what enables organizations to maintain control over vast territories while still concentrating their activity and power in a relatively small number of systems.
Zone-based limitations are intended to challenge that dynamic. By creating incentives to focus activity, infrastructure, and economic development within specific areas, the system encourages groups to prioritize the regions that matter most to them rather than treating enormous stretches of space as equally defendable territory.
The goal is to reduce the effectiveness of instantly projecting power across multiple regions and force organizations to make meaningful decisions about where they concentrate their resources and defensive capabilities.
3. Capacitor Regeneration
The third factor is capacitor regeneration.
In many ways, this serves as the system’s primary rate limiter. While total capacitor capacity determines how much movement is possible, regeneration determines how quickly that movement can be sustained over time.
This effectively places a limit on how many ships can travel through an Ansiblex network within a given period. Depending on the numbers FC ultimately chooses, a heavily utilized Ansiblex could take a significant amount of time to recover, potentially reducing its effectiveness for hours to days after major fleet movements depending on FC’s numbers they ultimately decide.
The practical effect is that large-scale fleet deployments become increasingly expensive from a logistical perspective. If moving a 200- or 250-person fleet requires extended delays while waiting for an Ansiblex to recover, many FCs may choose alternative methods of transportation instead.
This creates opportunities for conduit jumps, command carriers, Titans, conventional travel, and other logistics solutions to become more relevant again. Rather than instantly moving massive fleets across entire regions, organizations will have to make deliberate decisions about when and where they commit their mobility resources.
An additional consequence of this system is that Ansiblex usage becomes a strategic resource that can be exhausted. If an Ansiblex is effectively drained to zero capacitor earlier in the day due to heavy fleet movements, that decision may create vulnerabilities later in the same day, even over multiple days, depending on the regeneration values FC ultimately implements. A coalition that commits significant movement capacity to one operation may find itself with reduced mobility when responding to a separate threat hours later. This introduces an element of long-term logistical planning that does not currently exist. Furthermore, other weaknesses of ansiblex remain, rfing it, bubbling, and other tools to hurt the ansiblex.
Furthermore, the system creates opportunities for espionage, sabotage, and other forms of asymmetric gameplay. While some movements through an Ansiblex may appear routine or insignificant on the surface, hostile actors could intentionally utilize or manipulate the network in ways that consume valuable capacity and interfere with future fleet movements. Whether through spies, infiltrators, or coordinated harassment efforts, organizations may find themselves managing not only direct military threats but also attempts to degrade the effectiveness of their transportation infrastructure. If regeneration rates are sufficiently restrictive, even relatively small actions could have outsized strategic consequences, forcing alliances to consider how they protect, monitor, and allocate their Ansiblex capacity. Depending on the final numbers FC chooses, recovering from a fully depleted Ansiblex could take many hours or potentially much longer, making network management a meaningful strategic consideration rather than a passive convenience.
4. Removal of Ansiblexes from ACL-Based Access
The fourth factor may ultimately be the most significant from a political and strategic perspective: removing Ansiblexes from broad ACL-based access structures.
One of the major contributors to coalition-scale power projection today is the ability for large numbers of allied organizations to share transportation infrastructure seamlessly. This allows coalitions to function as a single interconnected entity despite being composed of numerous separate alliances.
Restricting access changes that dynamic.
Instead of a vast coalition sharing one centralized transportation network, alliances will be incentivized to maintain and defend their own infrastructure. This naturally limits the ability of large organizations to concentrate power and coordinate movement across massive territories.
The expectation is that this will encourage greater decentralization. Smaller alliances and member groups may need to establish and maintain their own defensive umbrellas rather than relying entirely on a centralized coalition infrastructure network.
Over time, this could create more diversity within coalitions and increase strategic tensions between member organizations. Rather than existing under a single unified banner with fully shared logistics, coalitions may begin to resemble looser networks of allied entities with distinct interests and responsibilities.
5. Ship Values and Joules
An additional advantage of this framework is that it allows FC to differentiate movement costs based on ship class. Not all projection has the same strategic impact, and therefore not all ships necessarily need to be treated equally. Larger and more powerful assets, particularly Cruisers and above are force-multiplying hulls, can be penalized more heavily in their ability to project across the map, while smaller subcapital ships may face comparatively lighter restrictions. This creates a more nuanced balance between mobility and power. This is also why capitals have been removed from discussion.
At the same time, defenders retain the ability to escalate. Even if attackers can move smaller ships more efficiently, defenders can still choose to commit capitals and other high-impact assets capable of countering larger numerical forces. The interaction between ship-specific movement costs, total capacitor capacity, regeneration rates, zone considerations, and access restrictions creates a complex ecosystem where strategic decisions matter far more than simply having the largest coalition or the fastest route across the map. A higher skill ceiling can once more defend from onslaught of attackers is a goal.
Most importantly, ship-class differentiation provides yet another balancing lever for FC . Rather than making broad, one-size-fits-all changes to the entire network, FC can adjust the projection cost of specific classes of ships independently. If Cruisers+ are moving too freely, their costs can be increased. If smaller-scale roaming and regional content need encouragement, other costs can be adjusted separately. This flexibility allows FC to iterate more precisely over time and respond to player behavior without having to redesign the entire system whenever balance issues emerge.
Overall Strategic Impact
When combined, these five factors provide FC with significantly more balancing tools than a simple fatigue system alone.
Together, they create mechanisms to address subcapital projection, territorial expansionism, and coalition-scale hegemony simultaneously. Rather than relying on a single solution, FC can adjust capacitor capacity, regeneration rates, zone interactions, and access restrictions independently as the ecosystem evolves.
These changes will not affect all regions equally. Certain areas of space, such as Drone Regions and other highly condensed territories, may become comparatively easier to defend, while more geographically dispersed regions such as Fade, Deklein, or Providence may face greater logistical challenges.
That asymmetry is not necessarily a flaw. In fact, it may become a driver of future conflict.
As force projection slows and defensive response times increase, assets located outside of core population centers become more vulnerable. Organizations will have to make meaningful choices about what space they can realistically defend and where they choose to concentrate their efforts.
The result should be a slower pace of force projection, greater regional differentiation, increased opportunities for smaller organizations, and a political landscape where large coalitions are incentivized to operate more as loose alliances of partners rather than a single monolithic entity.
Moving Capitals-Based Zone Adjustments
Another topic that has been discussed extensively is the use of moving capital hubs to influence Zones. We have considered this and has made it so that switching a capital has moved from Seven days to a month as a means of altering how these zones function and how projection limitations apply across their territory. This longer timeline is intended to make territorial decisions more deliberate and strategic, reducing the ability of alliances to rapidly adapt infrastructure in response to short-term threats or temporary deployments.
By increasing the commitment window from one week to one month, FC is placing greater emphasis on long-term planning and territorial ownership. Alliances will need to think carefully about where they invest their infrastructure and how they shape their logistics networks, as mistakes or strategic shifts will take considerably longer to correct. The intention is to reinforce meaningful geographic choices and ensure that territorial advantages are earned through sustained commitment rather than frequent reconfiguration.
Whether that vision succeeds will ultimately depend on the numbers FC chooses and how willing they are to iterate after release. We as the CSM have seen the numbers, and as they are right now we think they’re a good first step and do help achieve this goal and hope this framework itself provides substantially more room for adjustment.