Small Class Upwell Structures to help small Corps

Communications Center General Discussion
43

Since I’ve posted my answer I’ve tried to rerun some of my maths. I stand corrected.

I do maintain however that currently POS and Upwells have a price gap. Mostly going by start-up price, not by maintenance price.

A POS might not be cheaper, but you can reconfigure a POS to be a refinery for a week and a manufacturing base the next. With Upwells, it’s very much impossible because of their concept. One Upwell structure can only effectively provide services to one type of activity, no matter how much reconfiguration you try to shove in it.
For their price, a POS has greater modularity. An Upwell has on its side practical use.

The issues you describe with POS remind me of something.

Back in the days, POS meant whether you could effectively say that you owned the place or not.
They marked how much an alliance or corp could do to effectively defend their territory.
It allowed to establish more complex off-grid logistics like jump bridges, that allowed to gain advantage over possible invaders or intruders.
Now, Upwells take the place of POS. But you can anchor them essentially everywhere.

Honestly, if CCP just pushed to get rid of POS, we likely wouldn’t be having such a conversation. The topic would be “Cheaper Upwell Structures to help Small Corps”, rather than what it currently is.
As long as POS exist, there will always be the (justified) perception that POS are cheaper.

44

Another thing to consider as a pro or con for small structures is that an unfueled POS does (or used to, for those reading this post patch) have a potential purpose, and that purpose is allowing a corporation to declare war, or join wars as an ally. This does not apply to the OPs indy situation, but I still think it’s a relevant issue to the topic at hand.

45

As @Solonius_Rex noted tho, an unfueled POS offers no services, no advantages.

If you have the resources to participate in a war, it’s debatable why you would not maintain your POS/Upwell fueled.

It’s something that defeats its own purpose. Especially when you take into consideration that an unfueled POS is also defenseless, and a defenseless POS is a lost POS. If lost and it’s your only structure in space, then you lose the ability to participate in wars.

46

No arguments here. POSes have more versatility.

But when were considering a low-cost equivalent for citadels to be implimented, I dont see CCP ever introducing a Citadel that either does all those things at a relatively competent level, if at all. Citadels are there to do their jobs for a reason. And it serves to reason that a low-cost citadel would be worse, because its cheaper. Which means it does less.

So irrespective on how you want to use it, its just going to be used as a staging ground. A place for players to tether up or dock.

Not really.

Nullsec had Sov, so Pos wasnt an indication of whether you owned the space, Sov was.

In lowsec, no one really cared if you plopped down a POS, except if it was on a moon.

Hisec, again, no one cared about Poses.

Only place where it mattered was Wormholes.

Sure. And you could anchor POSes anywhere too.

Not much of a difference between POSes and citadels.

CCP is getting rid of POSes. They are phasing them out, but most likely before the end of the year.

And again, POSes are cheaper, if you only look at the value up-front. The common misconception, and something you will find out really soon is that it becomes tedious and expensive to maintain for any prolongued period of time.

And for a new, casual player, this is a nightmare. If your POS goes offline for even a day, people can loot and destroy your anchored structures.

Atleast with a citadel, even if its unpowered, your items and ships will be unharmed.

1 Like
47

Ownership of a structure is all that is strictly required, and even as such you can fuel the structure for as many hours as you care to and take it down any time you want, or you can leave it open to attack for the specific purpose of using it to generate content. They’re not very expensive, and someone has to find it first to even attack it. Plop one in a wormhole in today’s game and you’re probably set. That is changing, yes, but the whole POS system is going the way of the dodo, so that’s a given.

48

Sorry, I should add, Except if it was a moon that was valuable.

There are a ton of abandoned POSes in lowsec.

49

You could probably get away with doing it in a hisec island surrounded by lowsec, too, and no one would find it.

50

Solecist

Most of that post isn’t pertinent. Two points:

1. New players vs “proving the system works because there are Citadel.-owning players in the game”

New players means exactly that. It includes the large majority who try EVE out and leave before they get set up. It would have included the newish players who tried to make a low-level Corp, got warDec’d by griefers, and left forever .

It doesn’t include the ones who find a way through the appalling startup process, play for six months or so, and get set (income, social contacts, skill and experience, knowledge, assets, SP, etc).

Bottom line: this is irrelevant:

The point isn’t whether the goal is achievable buy some new player, but whether most new players who see it as an aspirational goal would can see a way to achieve it.

2. The WoW references you made.

My comments (in my earlier post) don’t exaggerate at all. “Back in the day” (8 to 10 years ago IIRC) even the most indirect reference to “progression” caused a group attack. The first time it happened to me I ran some tests, and verified it was a part of the “bittervet narrative” of that era.

My current observations: bittervets collectively are still strongly against improving EVE’s startup process. They’d still rather consume new players for laughs than see the game start growing again.

So why not keep hating on other MMO’s?

It’s not as though vets as a group are receptive to using the player introduction techniques every other MMO uses. No matter how tactfully presented, or by whom, such suggestions seem to strike a sore point, because they immediately become the target of a campaign to get the thread locked.

I’m not here to “fix” EVE, because while there can be interesting discussions, it’s nearly impossible to have a constructive discussion. So I don’t mind too much when the best content is locked away.

But the acceptance of WoW as an example of a successful game is an interesting puzzle - and your response doesn’t help in the least with unraveling it.
.
.
Not that anyone will get here :slight_smile: … but back on topic: I like the OP’s idea in principle, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be possible to “tune” it so it becomes practical.

There’s far too much dead time in EVE, and the ISK-poorer / less well-connected a player is, the more dead time there is. IMO tools that help (e.g. MTUs and Mobile Depots) , are good for everybody (including e.g. suicide gankers). OP’s idea provides the next step up for low-end players, or mid-range players that aren’t fully set up yet.

51

Actually I thought it’s because of the Starbucks naming scheme where there is no small size due to the fact that it might make you feel like you’re cheaping out or being inadequate equipped.

You know, because US of A.

52

Even Mobile Depot reinforces. I personally don’t think they should. And I agree neither should small structures.

53

I’m in total agreement for a SMALL Structure, 7 days to decommission is just ridicules, I used to ninja moon mine deep into Sov owned space it was risky exciting and made eve very interesting but very profitable, BUT CCP has taken this and many more great things and bowed to crying from the minority “eve is too mean”

So I too would love to see a small structure I can once again enter someones sov and take the gamble and moon mine there ore’s

1 Like
54

The Raitaru is fairly inexpensive have you looked into anchoring one of those?

55

This is completely useless and meaningless.

A new enough player may see 100 million isk as an unattainable goal.

And thats the point. New players dont know any better, because they are new. Unless its dirt cheap, There will always be a player who is so new and so uninformed that they may see even a 100 million isk structure as beyond their reach forever.

And if this is true, then what you said is meaningless.

I find that doubtful, because ive been on the forums for 6 years now, almost non-stop, and skillpoint progression has always existed. No Veteran will be stupid enough to claim that it doesnt exist. The only pushback you will get is when someone claims that skillpoints are an indication of whether youre a good player or not.

So I guess, context matters in the discussion. But simply mentioning progression, or WoW, isnt enough to get pushback from vets.

Absolutely not, and again, context matters.

Almost, if not all vets are all for a revamp of the new player experience, to make it better, to explain things better, and so forth.

What most Vets are against, are coddling new players. Making the game easier, safer, so that EVE appeals to a more broader player base. And even then, only up to a point.

No ones been calling for this thread to be locked.

I think youre confusing valid criticism, with attempts to get the thread locked. Just because someone explains why your idea is terrible, doesnt mean they want the thread to lock.

By almost all metrics, WoW is a successful game. Do you have any reason to believe it isnt?

1 Like
56

I mean, thats also a possible reason

1 Like
57

Solonius

More mostly irrelevant stuff, with some added denial now :slight_smile:

SP “progression” has always been a thing. I said (now for the third time) that mentioning “progression” in the forums was certain to induce an attack (just the usual comical rubbish of course: mostly crazy stuff from the “bittervet narrative”, personal attacks, and “HTFU-style” posturing).

As above, already stated twice. You might compare it with the current “EVE is a PvP game, but nothing about Fortnite is relevant to EVE” line.

The forums are convincing evidence to the contrary. Most of the (very few) constructive threads on the subject of actually doing something about new player retention are blown up by the forum lunatics and locked.

Pushback from the forum lunatics is to be expected. But the “majority of vets” do nothing about it, and the message gets lost in the static of denial, fallacies, and personal attacks.

58
  1. Back in the day you needed control of the moon’s(by placing poses on them) to affect SOV…

2.You can’t place a POS anywhere, only on moon’s and only on certain spots around moon’s( meaning there’s only a select amount of spots per system)

  1. You needed starbase charters to anchor a POS in highsec in the past making it cheaper to run one In lowsec.

Wormholes weren’t always a thing btw and when they where introduced they didn’t think people could live in them because of the logistics of poses… Not to mention the huge tactical disadvantages of seeing people log in( best time in eve was stalking prey and watching them pull out expensive ships to go run sites and then killing them sigh those where the days)

59

And youre a confirmed scammer, therefore nothing you say can be trusted.

See what I did there? Saying something doesnt make it true. You actually have to provide evidence to support your claims.

And I said, context matters.

Otherwise, youre just contradicting yourself.

Really. Can you say the same about WoW? That nothing, not a single thing regarding WoW is relevant to EVE? They share nothing in common?

Again, already stated three times, context matters.

Earlier, you said:

So I guess you were wrong, here. Looks like someone did present a suggestion, and it isnt locked, going 20 days long now.

60

That was pre-dominion, over 10 years ago. And even then, Pos STILL wasnt an indication of whether you owned the space. All you needed was +1 Pos from your opponent, but your opponent could still have POSes set up in your system.

Sure. Which is why the post right after, said:

Lets be honest, those were dirt cheap.

Never said they were always a thing, but WHs were one of the few places where POSes, were, and still, until citadels arrived, the most important aspect of living in a space.

61

Getting back to topic there is a gap. A gap that Should be filled by the barest/lowest level of structure. A multi role unit that does nothing well but it can do anything.

I support making them locked to cruisers/battlecruisers and below, Getting rid of the reinforcement timer and making them very quick to anchor and unachor. All great things to add.
More ideas like these please.

62

And the FOB structure will cater to that need, but it won’t be a permanent structure because it doesn’t need to be, POS were stupidly cheap considering the annoyance of removing them, their price hadn’t been adjusted since they were initially released so to account for inflation the astra is actually about what you would have expected to pay if POS were added now