I’m aware that my idea of a scaling bonus is not perfect; based on Corp/Alliance members is not the only way do a scaling bonus, it could just as well be based on people (corp/alliances) on the “Defender” side of a war, at least that way it cannot be abused by having a holding corp as owner and your main corp/alliance just offering assistance.
Yeah I get it’s really a difficult thing to come up a solution for. I find myself conflicted and frustrated a lot as I think about these things. I agree that defending can be difficult as I’ve been involved in a few defense contracts that resulted in our fleet getting pooped on and the structure going pop. I equate it to chess:
- Both sides are trying to outplay and one up each other in terms of their fleet comp and strategy. The only difference is that either side can flood the field with “pawns” where it’s just turns into who can alpha faster and who has more pilots.
That’s the biggest and most fundamentally flawed thing about wars being based around structures. I guess it’s a good thing we have a damage cap otherwise we’d see groups just alpha’ing structures with sheer numbers lol.
When I first started wars, for me it was about the narrative. It was about the experience I was bringing to myself and the ones I hunted. I targeted specific players that flew nice things and created many interesting stories and experiences for myself and others. Not all were positive for both sides as I was never always successful, and I will admit that my behavior and tactics pushed some people out of the game.
The point I’m making is that I miss that… not the pushing people out of the game part but the part where wars contained a more personal interaction between individuals instead of what we have now which is an impersonal experience between a players and an empty / worthless structure. Sorry for the rant, but the whole player to player narrative and storytelling element of the game is something I’m passionate about, and unfortunately it’s something that I think has been fleeting from the game for quite some time now with CCP’s push towards safer farming and players being able to have less of an impact on others.
It’s commonly asked why players like me don’t play in other areas of the game and there’s a few simple reasons that I personally can attest to:
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I’m not a fan of capital proliferation that’s taken place. I want to have fun in Battlecruisers and Battleships and not get dunked on by Supers and Titans.
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Faction Warfare is dead. Faction Warfare or at least the idea of it is something I am all about. It’s essentially what Highsec Wars should be, but aren’t.
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The majority of the game’s players are in Highsec. I have a full-time job working rotating shift work as well as a wife and daughter. I like being able to login and have the majority of the games population at my fingertips for me to “interact” with.
I know there’s major bad blood and issues with Wardecs, the people that use them, and how they’ve interfaced with the game and its players, but I hope that some of the above sheds some light on why I absolutely think they are necessary and how valuable they can be in the stories that we create between each other as players.
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I wholeheartedly agree with you on that. It’s no contest who is going to win in a (Super) Carrier vs subcapital (1v1) which is the most common occurrence, it’s the same as your enemy bringing an assault rifle to a knife fight. Now the cause for this is 1) an abundance of overflow materials and 2) Supers/Titans are too “cheap” to build.
I’m not really eligible to comment on your other 2 points as I neither have done any FW nor do I have a wife and children.
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The old system of “buddy listing” potential targets to see if they were online or offline for free was overpowered and needed to go, but locator agents could definitely stand to be more useful.
Hard no on this. While I agree with you that moon mining needs to provide more potential for combat-oriented, this is not the way to do it.
Why not you ask?
Simple: Because there is currently no way in the game that a player can perform any kind of aggressive act (i.e. produce a suspect or criminal flag) using any kind of resource harvester. This is kind of a fundamental principle of New Eden, and I would much rather see moon mining have its entire mechanism altered (given that it’s relatively new and not all that well liked) than go messing with fundamental principles.
Unfortunately, from my experience both with towers and Upwell Structures in hisec, this is as much to do with player mindset than it is with game mechanics. Some people who operate in hisec just don’t want to be bothered with PvP, even if it comes knocking on their door. Especially now with Asset Safety, there’s no real motivation for PvP-averse corporations to defend.
Never forget that CCP cannot patch human psychology. 
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I agree. That’s why I propose baking it into locator agents and maybe specifically L4 locates. The individual has to put in the effort to grind standings and actually has something invested in it. It won’t be like the watchlist of old where you scroll through and see who is online. You’ll have to have a list of names that you manually plug in and run the locate on, one at a time. I like the idea and I think it’s balanced.
Can you elaborate on what you disagree on? Is it that you agree that you shouldn’t go suspect for salvaging someone’s wreck for example?
The big issue for me currently is this: Why would I bother investing in an Athanor if I can’t do much of anything (anything practical at least) to keep freeloaders and vultures away? I spent the isk on the structure and its components. I manage and upkeep the structure.
How CCP chooses to “protect” structure owners in this way doesn’t matter much to me but I’d prefer it be through combat.
I think I was pretty clear. Harvesting resources is not an aggressive act. There isn’t even any concept of ownership for mineable asteroids, let alone the idea that you can harvest something that you don’t own. Changing that would be a fundamental shift in principles, something akin to CCP declaring that orbiting another ship could lead to a suspect flag in certain circumstances, and I think the much better solution is to change how moon mining works.
As for freeloaders and vultures:
Bump them.
Wardec them.
Suicide gank them.
Mine the moon rocks first.
You have tools, they’re just, as you said, impractical.
The underlying issue here is that CCP did a bad job when they redesigned moon mining. They were looking for ways to drive conflict, but instead it’s kind of stagnant. If you want to change moon mining, try one of these options:
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Have moon ores appear in cans (rather like planetary launches used in PI) instead of as asteroids. Cans have ownership, and stealing from them already generates a suspect flag. This would discourage freeloaders and vultures without breaking the fundamental principles of resource harvesting.
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Have the moon ores appear directly in the refinery, but remove asset safety for all ores and minerals from refineries. This would protect against freeloaders and vultures (Can you tell that I rather like that term? I may stick with it.) but also provide incentive both to attack refineries and to defend them. Nothing like the chance of making off with (or defending) loot to drive an conflict.
that would be pretty sweet
you could implement it as “stealing moon goo generates kill rights, owned by the drill structure’s corp, against the thief”
Good question. The owning corp is eligible for war, is it cheaper to pay 10% or to spend that ISK on a war to destroy the structure and put up your own?
And really, why pay 10% when there’s nothing stopping you from just showing up and taking whatever ore you can grab?
Which is a fundamental flaw in this whole structure system. Why own an Athanor when this wide-ass open hole in the experience of owning one exists?
The whole suspect/kill right for moon mining thing though, could kill it off as an activity like it did for can flipping or make it an alt only thing like ganking…
Did it really kill can flipping? I mean, who even drops cans anymore now that mining ships all have ore holds?
So the whole suspect / limited engagement / killright deal really isn’t that bad. It allows counter-play for the structure owner as well as gives the freeloader an opportunity to freeload, but at a consequence of being opened up for PVP.
If I was the freeloader I would approach it from two ways:
- Try to ninja mine it under their nose and be evasive
- Use the fact that I’m legal for aggression and that they probably want to kill me to kill them back in return
If I’m the station owner I would:
- Just ■■■■■■■ kill them and stop their freeloading
I’m honestly open for anyone poking holes in this and Bronson has provided with a good explanation on how some of these ideas fundamentally change how resources are thought of and handled.
Can anyone honestly tell me what the benefits are of owning an Athanor if you’re surrounded by a sea of freeloaders grabbing up all the resources at your cost?
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You can choose the location, date/time and size of the moon extraction
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I didn’t know that. Interesting. So maybe just extract in smaller batches where you can mine it in a reasonable amount of time with a decreased window of interference.
I guess if you play everyday you could own 7 Athanors and just cycle it where you mine in a certain window everyday. One Athanor a day.
Is this a reasonable way to operate though? Seems like a hefty investment that still has you open to a freeloader getting a free ride. How many Athanors does the average group in Highsec own? Does anyone reading this own and use Athanors? If so can you enlighten us with your experience?
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Except it didn’t kill can flipping so…
Basically they don’t make extra isk compared to just mining Veld in the belts. They came pre nerfed, and got even worse with time.
For further argument for the suspect timer. Loot belongs to the killer even though it’s not in the hold. They need to put something in space, shoot it, and then it belongs to them even though it’s still in space.
Moon belts are exactly the same. You have to put a structure in space, shoot the moon, (pay for fuel), yet… it gets treated differently.
I mean really, if you want to teach ‘carebears’ to engage in PvP, you have to show them opportunities right in front of them that aren’t just going to get them smashed by allies of the defender, or overrun by massive wardec corps.
Well I believe that’s how this will work. This is an opportunity to protect their 1b+ investment. I’ll be honest here in my own detriment and fun and explain how I see the suspect timer getting used by someone like me.
- I’d swap to a combat ship out of my neutral Bowhead once I get aggressed.
- I wouldn’t care about the resources I’m “freeloading” but rather just acting as bait to try and kill easy targets for entertainment / extortion.
I would still be in favor of these changes if it was impossible to swap ships like this.
Edit: I was being genuine with this post and sure I’d bait some ignorant players, but the well-prepared industrialist could undock something like… a Bhaalgorn and a few a few DPS ships and easily dispose of anything I bring to the table.
As with anything this can have nefarious uses but let’s be honest here… if I was an Athanor owner I’d at least love the opportunity to punish freeloaders even if it mean that sometimes someone more prepared than I wins.
I think that’s fine personally. I mean, if they aggress you with a Bowhead sitting on grid and aren’t prepared for you to swap to a combat ship that should be a learning experience.
If you do swap to a combat ship though, you are running the risk of any/all of them having tackle and at least holding you till they can get their own combat ships out of their athanor. so that seems a fair risk for them to me.
Add onto what I said above about structures should have more in the way of fleet support such as boosts & logistics, and that’s even more ok for you to swap to a combat ship.
That’s actually super interesting… reps on an Athanor? Would be a major boon to defenders, which has been a complaint… how difficult they are to defend
Edit: CCP please read this thread! I may have a good buzz going on IRL as I type this but please please. Read 
It would be, but it wouldn’t add anything to a solo Athanor with no fleet, which is a common attacker complaint that structures shouldn’t be tough enough to fight entire fleets off solo.
Ditto with the idea of structures getting boosts, again they are only useful if there is a defending fleet, but if there is a defending fleet they become really useful.
A fundamental issue wars have always had is that from a defender’s perspective, wars were never a basis for conflict. They were just part of doing business in highsec, and just because a Corp get’s wardecced, doesn’t mean the members of the Corp suddenly want to fight.
We are seeing that continue with the current situation. In the wars we declare, we almost always have one guy manning a citadel for the armor timer, but then we still reinforce into structure and no one is there for the final timer usually.
The members of the wardec ineligible aren’t switching Corps, despite the possibility that there is now something to fight for, and neither are they attacking War HQ to bring about the end of a war.
They are just still remaining averse to pvp, because it’s not their choice to be in a war.
I don’t think that is ever going to change, however I do think it’s worth giving people more reason to put themselves at risk of facing a war.
So:
- Suspect timer for non-member moon miners: totally agree with this approach. Give people a personal benefit for being in a war eligible Corp. The current Lore around who owns the moons, etc in highsec can always be rewritten, so that Corps who put down and are able to defend their refineries and those that want to risk being suspect in an Orca (well, let’s face it. That will stop overnight and anyone that wants to mine moons will be in a war eligible corp)
- Locator agents: As a way to encourage smaller, hunter groups again, I agree. I think that’s the key though. At the moment, war HQs favour being a large wardec group and attacking weaker opponents (or nullsec groups who have no real interest in defending their stupid members that fly in highsec)
However, I think I would go further in terms of adding more benefits to having both a network of structures and large Corp.
Making moon mining suspect for non-members only impacts Refineries. It doesn’t really add any benefit to having anything else, however when citadels were first envisaged, CCP saw it as a way for players to build their castles and originally, it seemed it would be a single castle that could be extended (eg. citadel that could be extended to included moon mining, industry, etc.)
In the end, they went a different way and we have the many structures we have now, but if Corps have multiple structures, then they should gain some additional benefit from that in my view.
So I would also include:
- Having multiple structures scales the benefits each provides: kind of like if you have your own citadel, that allows the people on it to better research refining tech that they install in the refineries, providing more benefit than just having a refinery alone. I don’t know. That probably isn’t explained well, but just trying to provide incentive for Corps to actually have a network of castles
- The more active members, the better the benefits: The more active members in a Corp using modules (eg. the more different jump clones installed, the more industry jobs being run by corp members, the more ores being refined by different corp members, etc.) the better the benefits become like the last bit above. Obviously this is open to abuse, but if the numbers of different active members is set right, it wont be everyone doing it, because it will become too onerous, and much easier to just build a larger Corp of more players.
Those benefits should also flow into the defences that a structure provides. The bigger the group and the more active the members, the “more motivated” the NPC residents of a structure should be to defend it when helping a capsuleer manning it. So increased missile ROF, etc.
So I think, if people are going to put their risk aversion to pvp aside, they need to be provided with meaningful and very personal reasons to do so (because greed is a powerful motivator), and the Corp should gain some benefit in building something big and active.
It could work kind of like the sov defence index works. The more active a system in sov, the easier it is to defend. Same thing, but for Citadels instead.
However, it can’t all be roses and that only considers increasing the motivation to be war eligible.
People will just dec dodge again if that comes in without any downsides. So to counter those benefits:
- Dropping corp prevents joining any corp for 30 days: Increase it from the current 7 days, so people can’t get the benefits from corp citadels (as above) for longer time
- Loss of any structure resets the “benefit index” back to 0, to be built up again: If a Corp loses a structure, then the benefits of the network of structures should be lost and then be built up again (just like sov index does over time through activity)
- Reduce asset safety: POS’s in the past used to be used to store assets just fine, even in highsec, despite being destroyable. I don’t buy it that people won’t use them and will revert to stations only. Even if they did, cowards will always be cowards and there are already people that won’t use Upwell structures, so this just shifts the existing group to a larger group of people, but so what. However, we all take the easy option at times, and if it is convenient to store in Upwell structures, that convenience will be utilised. So I totally agree with adjusting asset safety (and would prefer to see it go all together because it is so un-EVE like, but the carebears and carebear apologists need to be catered to, so the adjustments in the OP seem ok to me)
That automatically has benefits for wardec groups. The existing “wardec to get lots of content” groups like PIRAT will have more content. The smaller “wardec to kill structures” groups (like mine) gain from the greater chance of actual fights and more valuable loot, and bringing back the watch list re-opens the merc and small hunter possibilities again.
The only thing I wish we could do is find a good way to encourage smaller wardec groups. I can’t see a way to do that, that actually works well.