Siege Green - Structure Updates Now Avaialble for Testing

Feature Previews & Feedback Balance and Mechanics
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62

Like the change on Medium strucutures. Even with quantum core they are still spammed pretty hard.

On large and above, to me it seems like if there is going to be a change to the damage cap of only one of the phases, the shield is the wrong timer. Shields commonly don’t get contested. Removing the DPS cap reduces the amount of time the defender can kill ships on grid, I think it will only end up reducing the number of shield fights further. If it is a matter of just getting the shields out of the way - OK, but the worst of the grind in structure bashing comes on the armor and hull timers. Bashing uncontested keepstars and sotiyos at structure timer is really pretty terrible.

It would be better if, all three phases had their damage caps increased (at least double?) and add the additional 25% shield as well

63

I from a small alliance we live in npcNS
this change make our mid - structures will
lose by big alliance’s ONE CTA .Usually we can defend successfully with different time zone and two reinforcement.Now they can easily push to armor reinforcement and call hundres poilt to finish armor and hull. SO small alliance doesn’t have right to have structures? FINE！

10 Likes
64

Perfectly ok with shield damage cap removal.

Think removing a timer is absolutely devastating to the gameplay of particularly for small outfits – the hundred or scappy corps living in WHs, low and NPC null in one fell swoop that can be swept from the map – left to pick up their remaining stuff in asset safety because they now don’t even have time to remove all their stuff. Small corps are the future of eve–removal of a timer for their primary homes is a huge mistake–the equivalent of eating your feed corn.

9 Likes
65

hmmm… need to upgrade my medium structures in highest to large structures then :slight_smile:

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66

These changes are good, but as others said, it could become a problem in worhole space. My suggestion: Leave the hull reinforcement timer in wormhole/pochven space as it is now.

1 Like
67

Please advise when these changes are to be applied, I am about to start evacuation and need to plan my timings. After that I guess I am going to sit in a hisec NPC station and sulk a bit before deciding what to do next with the limited options I have. I will state that I am not joining a major nullsec bloc however much you push me in that direction.

All I can say to this is, wow…

Medium structures are now officially useless…

12 Likes
68

If I take a roam out and have more than 10k dps I’d just start hitting cits for giggles. No planning.

Imagine day one of this update, I bet every cit in low-WH will be rfed … because why not! Imagine trying to defend multiple cits.

Hmmm do I choose going to fanfest or keeping my cits? Refund for fanfest please ccp

11 Likes
69

Thanks for the update and preview! I think we all agree that structure proliferation, and the resulting tedium with structures no one intends to defend or use, are problems that deserve solving.

I am quite worried that this change does not accomplish that goal and will have unwelcome side effects.

In wormhole space especially, and in lowsec and npc nullsec to some extent, there are many small-scale operations who currently live on medium structures. These structures often burn, but before they burn they tend to generate some action. Specifically, the “content timer” often is the armor timer - often small-scale organizations are willing to put up a fight they know they will most likely lose at the armor timer, because they know they’ll still have time to evac after that. If you remove that timer, people will have to make the choice to evac immediately after shields, and if they evac, a fight is much less likely to happen. This is exacerbated by fact that shields can be more or less one-shotted after the removal of the damage cap, meaning that fights are less likely to happen there too.

As a result of the shorter time periods for defense, people will be less willing to set up medium structures. Some small-scale people will replace their current medium structures with larger ones, but a lot of people will not - setting them up has not become any easier, and taking them down has not come significantly harder.

I am worried that these effects combined will mean less distinct groups with structures, less structures overall, and less fights over structures in lowsec, w-space and npc null, leading to further stagnation of action in these spaces. In w-space the issue is further exacerbated by the lack of asset safety, making the choice to evac or not about losing your gear permanently.

In high security space, the ability to quickly destroy a war-HQ is at a first glance a nice boost to ending unwanted wars. However, in the longer term in hisec too structures will be harder to defend for small groups, and established wardec groups will continue to migrate to using Fortizars for wardecs. This means the above issues will also hold in hisec space.

And with all this, plopping down Astras has not actually become any harder. Once dropped they live for a shorter time. This makes removing undefended structure spam take less time, which is a good thing. It does not stop it from existing, though, not in cases where the cost in isk or in manpower to just drop more is not a factor, and disposable structure spam makes strategic sense.

I do not feel that the upsides of these changes are worth the risks.

17 Likes
70

This! It basically makes medium structures unliveable–not worth the time and effort for industry, lots of pvp ships or anything else… it’s a huge devastating blow to small corps that are often the life blood of low sec and npc-null.

8 Likes
71

Hello CCP Aurora.
While I understand these changes to improve Citadel mechanics are necessary. It is not a fun gameplay currently for either side (attacker/defender) to contest a citadel.

However these changes will most likely mean certainty of eviction for small groups of 5-10 friends. Simply because 1.5days timer in WH space is just too low. Imagine wanting to take a weekend off EVE. You go camping Friday night, you get back on Sunday evening, and boom. You structures are gone. Where is the fun mechanic in that?

Why not do something truly impressive and make there be actual gameplay for the attacker/defender. For example, as attacker you can “hack” the astrahus to reduce the reinforcement timer to a certain degree. And as a defender, you can counter-hack to stop them or increase the timer.

And ofcourse you can shoot the hacking ship, or you have to support it as attacker with logistics. It just opens new gameplay mechanics and some actual active play necessary to put structure down.

For example, there are individuals in HS who will take 2-3 Leshaks, declare war on small group, and just AFK bash their structure while remote reping each other. This would make 1-man evictions of WH groups piece of cake.

Make it actually interesting gameplay to destroy the structure. Add more types of game mechanic to actually destroy the structure. Combine different things you must do (minigames) in order to reduce the DPS of the structure, instead of pure nerf to all the modules.

Make it so that the structure has teeth, but that the attacker can employ specialized ships to remove some of the structures ability to defend.

You can even make it super interesting by making small ship ammo inefective against strucures. Because simply put, a 200mm autocannon should not be able to really do anything to such a big structure.

  • You can add special type of ammo/gun to dreads to shoot through the damage cap.
  • You can make an actual siege mechanic, where you have to bring specialized siege equipment with support (a trebuchet) to actually take down the structure
  • You can make it like an actual castle siege (but way faster) that you have to prevent resupply of the station. And when it is attacked it will consume more fuel or something, so the more you attack it, the more fuel it burns through actually forcing the ressuply to happen.

Just anything to make it actually fun gameplay for both sides.

The changes proposed by you, CCP, are simply the easy way out. Just play with the numbers, again DPS/buffer/timers, but that is not fun. It will never be fun. Simply warping and pressing F1 is not fun. Add more layers to it, more niche where you can have it fun. Ideally with high skill ceiling on the attacker (not skill point, but player skill, like bomb runs). With high reward if done right.

Please.

EDIT:
some things that actually are interesting after we had back and forth on discord:

Lets imagine if they put the structure defenses back - the PDCS and so on, so that the structure could actually defend itself. But there would be blind spots where you could get in with covops and could hack some targeting computers or whatever to disable for 15 minutes some of the guns.
But it would be difficult to do

Or just brainstorm with group of smaller children - 8-13yr (no offense intended), they have very active and vivid imagination, so just ask them how they imagine space battle over a huge station. I bet they could come up with insane new mechanic that would be very fun to play. Us adults often don’t even thing about them!

4 Likes
72

yeah my true meanly is different sec system should have different risk to get attacked.

one timer just too easy for highsec core pickers. after the update they can easily wipeout most of structure around jita without paying much time and cost. it is not the logic in this game.
or in wormhole space only a short 48 hour vacation can risk so much assets.

3 Likes
73

I would partially disagree because of the following reason:

Any entitty that can’t defend its structure from the combat challenge of two Kikimoras has made some severe preparation mistakes.

This ofc doesn’t apply when nobody is home in that moment. Which ofc. is more the case for smaller groups. I agree to the Fort things though. Small groups should not go for structures they can’t defend. (Insert angry response here saying that all structures will be structures they can’t defend :D)

74

After some more brainstorming, Teddy Gbyc came up with the following (without applying the proposed changes by CCP, making different changes):

  • Add new siege module to Dreads
  • New type of gun+ammo that can only be used with this siege module
  • This gun can only shoot structures - a siege weapon (can’t track any other ships)
  • Make these guns punch through a % of the damage cap on any timer.
  • Dreads = Trebuchet in this case.

This solves nicely the issue of HS Astrahuses being destroyable by 1 person, beacuse no Dreads in HS.
It solves the original intent - make Dreads go brrr in NS and LS.
It also solves small WH groups living in C1-C4 space where Dreads can’t get to (unless built there).

But it allows for bigger C5-C6 groups to get attacked by Dreads (same as now).

It should also not be as difficult to do, compared to complete rework of structure timer mechanic like I proposed above. This should be relatively easy to do.

2 Likes
75

The update on the structures is not quite what I had hoped for. For example, I had hoped for a limit on the number of structures per system or that in null and/or low loot would also be dropped from the structures (even if it is max or “only” 50% as with normal kill mails).

To the WH-Space:
As others have already said (partly also in the thread on manufacturing and blueprint update), this update in its form is a huge advantage for the attackers, who are already rewarded for all loot in the WH anyway, since there is no asset safety. Just one timer and 1.5 days preparation time is not much, even more so when this is inconvenient due to the ± 3 hour rule (and as someone said so well, with the update even a mobile depot lasts longer than a medium structure in the WH).
Most of the Eve players have family, work, other hobbies/commitments, in short a real life. For this reason, the complete time advantage lies with the attackers who can plan accordingly.

My suggestion (if you want to keep the one timer in WH): Increase the time for the armor timer that decides everything to at least 3 to max 5 days in the WH.

PS:
Sorry, I had clicked on the wrong link and so my post was in the wrong thread of the forum. Since it belongs here thematically, so I have copied it.

2 Likes
76

When the structures were introduced, I think around Fanfest 2016, CCP said that small structures would come in the future to replace the POS. The POS were then to be taken out of the game for good.

Whether this plan is still being pursued years later, or whether CCP is even aware of it, I don’t know.

4 Likes
77

Look just go ahead and remove structures from high sec…You have made them loot pinatas and useless for small corps,now you want to make them easier to kill?Yea right,give us back our POS’s if your going to keep screwing us over.

11 Likes
78

How would you determine the max number of structures in a system.

POS had a hard limit based on moons in the system.

79

awsom chainges , smal corp here some structures in a alt corp , unable to defend them at this point so i wil bring them al douwn sel them and disband the corp fore not being able to suply content fore my corp members. thx ccp

6 Likes
80

Shoot, it’s already hard enough to get a structure anchored and active in WH space as it is, now they want to shorten its life expectancy? Really makes me want to go out and blow wads of ISK on structures now…

1 Like
81

And I’ll just take this moment while agreeing with Elsebeth to point out that ‘npc nullsec’ does not necessarily mean ‘npc space in sov-null regions’ like Fountain, Delve, or Pure Blind. Think Stain. Great Wildlands. Syndicate.

Not everything in this game is about the null blocs.

Almost none of CCP Ytterbium and CCP Foxfour’s original vision for the structure overhaul survived their departures.

9 Likes