I like the idea of reworking the reinforcement timer so it’s not an invulnerability one per se but buffs the resists to 99.99% and there could be special guns or modules that would allow the attacker to shoot through it. And, say, only dreads can fit them (crippling their ability to attack anything else but the structure) so there will be more tactical decisions involved than simply don’t anchor structures next to big alliances because they have lobby in the CSM and don’t want you to (forsaking the repercussions of these changes to the entirety of New Eden).
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ohhh I love amateur game dev hour 
How would this work in a C2?
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You will have to wait out the reinforcement and the % resists to drop. Was it really that hard 
I understand the bar to post here is low but lol…
Yes, that’s a good question. Does anybody know the answer? Like I noted when talking to Laurelite, it sure seems like folks think these kinds of fights are content drivers and happening all the time, but when I go to zkill to check, they look to be about as common as a nullsec titan brawl.
The idea that the game is going to stagnate because medium structures are losing a timer doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, given the game is stagnating right now in those regions. I’m constantly told, for instance, that lowsec is dying/dead and it needs immediate attention.
Out of curiosity, how did you search for “fights that happened at an armor timer at a medium structure” vs “armor timers pressed at medium structures without a fight”? There’s no killmail for the armor time if it’s lost, and a lot of the associated kills won’t have the structure as a participant either even in the first case?
In my experience fights at armor timers tend to happen, and the comment “we’ll take the fight and evac if we lose the armor” is closer to a… standard operation practice among small groups than something the existence I thought anyone would contest.
This is not completely wrong, and is part why I’m worried about this change. Lowsec certainly does not need any of it’s activity drivers removed.
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Honestly, often they don’t end up with kills other than an odd straggler and the like as they run. PH were dropping a HAM Loki fleet on our structures, our guys defended with a Ferox fleet which did not go that well, but came at them with something stronger and they gave up.
As I pointed out that the group I am with defend their armour timers and the enemy often run away. I could start linking kills and detailing them but how far do you want me to go when I am living in an area which I don’t help to defend because it is not my TZ.
A notable one I can refer to was a Test fleet of Kikimora’s that were obliterated on a gate while on the way to one of our structures with an armour timer, a good one to wake up to… Does that count even though it was not on the structure grid?
Test were one of the few that I was actually in a fleet fight with, and we forced them off a shield RF effort, no kills on either side, that was a Drekvac fleet which they later lost while moving around.
There is a guy who I really respect greatly, been in this space for years, fought for it tooth and nail and yet he is blown over by these changes.
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Zkill also has never done a good job handling structures. It doesn’t show them on some specific killmails, does show them on some related killmails, doesn’t always attribute the kill to the structure but to a given module, and, as pointed out, doesn’t include it if it didn’t do damage/ewar, just like logi and links. Occasionally you’ll get some chunks of associated kills like with Dockworkers and Death by Design fight in Huola this morning, but even then, is that an armor timer? A hull timer? A fight that Pred decided to take on the Dock Workers Astra? Who knows. It looks like Zkill is good for about 1/5 maybe of the full story on fights going on in/near/around structures, but doesn’t distinguish as to why.
Zkill can’t answer this question, even with devoting significant amounts of time to digging into each instance and the best you’ll get then is a glimpse of the what, nothing of the why. Nor is it an official source, no matter how much love and effort Squizz and co have put into it.
Don’t get me wrong, Zkill digging is my jam. It’s probably one of the reasons I didn’t completely drop out of Eve a couple years back because I still had a lot of fun following events through Zkill. But it’s not the appropriate tool for this, especially without significant context.
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I’m looking at the number of structures lost. Like, for example, you guys. You’ve lost 9 structures since structures came out. 8 of those are astrahus, 1 was a fort. I’m assuming that there were armor timer fights on those structures, so that’s 8 times in 6 years? How often are you successful in stopping guys from killing your stuff?
My issue with killboard digging, as useful as it can be, is it provides an incomplete snapshot and isolated data set. Using it as your primary determinate argumentation point of valid data is… questionable, perhaps.
They’re common enough to smaller groups that we actively talk about them when they happen with our peers a few times a month, maybe not post it all to reddit, or speak up in TiS, or similar as those are not particularly accommodating places for such, but other channels and means exist for discussion.
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Can you also let Brisc know that these people often like to operate under the radar too.
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I am trying to pin down anecdotal data with some kind of metrics. This is the best we’ve got.
Then can you give me some kind of numbers?
What does that mean?
I understand that zkill is flawed, but this is the best data we’ve got. Unless there’s some other way to count, then I can only go by what I’m seeing. I’ve been asking from the beginning how common this is. If it’s happening once a week that’s one thing. If it’s once a month or once a year, that’s another.
Without expressly outing anyone I’ve spoken to, since they’re not ones for the public scene as much, I can point to about 20 such fights in the past two months in lowsec or NPC null and tell you with reasonable certainty they were the armor timer fights that were discussed
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Thank you - that’s good to know and thanks for getting some hard numbers.
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considering my kill/loss history, and other shenanigans, I may not be the best one to try to raise that one, even if I do understand it well. and I do think Brisc also understands it.
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I would like to say more but I am perhaps upsetting people by saying as much as I am in terms of my comment, because most of these groups don’t like attention and hope to be ignored by people, many who don’t see them as worthy to be bothered with unless it is localised content. So in terms of hard numbers from 18th March to now, seven events from checking timers, before that a bit of a lull, but there was several shield chase off events.
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Okay, that’s also good to know. There’s only one person here I’m ignoring and it’s not you. You, Laurelite and Elsebeth have all been very helpful.
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Good to know and thanks for listening.
looking to move to the greater wildlands, is it crowded out there @Dracvlad
Armor timers that have fights that don’t result in destruction of the structure later (succesfully defended) OR armor fights where we go to defend someone else who decides to evac after failing armor don’t show up in your data, then. Which is what we’re talking about.
It’s really difficult to find numbers for that because when you see a structure destroyed it’s hard to find out post-hoc what happened (or not) at armor, and where the armor is successfully defended, there’s even less trace.
I can’t say other than both of those do happen and they are good content.
To be clear I’m not worried about our structures here in this discussion. We don’t have many and we fight at other people’s stuff (both attacking and defending) more than we do at our own. We could very likely keep on doing what we do without any.
What I’m worried about is that I feel the fun parts of lowsec/wh/non-sov-null relies on a lot of different tiny-to-small organizations around and it being worth it for them to be around. They are what makes the space alive. (If I wanted to undock into red vs blue instead of multitudes of small orgs doing their own things I’d be in sovnull.) I know there’s people in lowsec that disagree with me but I’m afraid they’ll find out what I mean too, if this goes through. Being the biggest fish in an empty pond is not what typical lowsec folks are looking for. It gets boring.
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Bingo.
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