Not sure what to do with all those orbital rounds and stuff? well look no farther! I have an answer.
obviously orbital rounds are for assaulting planets, and what do we do with planets? build complexes on them. here’s how i’d break it down:
Orbital round launcher would need to be adjusted so that it requires a lot of cap and pg, since it has to hold the ship completely immobile while firing an orbital round. it has a windup like a cloak cool-down timer and cycles like a large turret before initiating 10 sec reload and you can move/fire again. it has to reload after every shot.
once fired the magic happens, RNGeesus will pick one of the buildings except command centers and damage it. this will reset the building hit. extractors stop extracting, factories stop building stuff, anything on the launchpad or in the storage? well, you’ve lost some product to structure damage.
well, what can joe industrial do to stop you from completely bombing away all that pi stuff, especially if their gonna run off before you get back? don’t worry, those defender missiles will come in handy.
stuck on the fence of whether the poco or the attacked PI colony should be allowed to have those. whichever the case you can load a total of 1000 missiles at a time, and they fire at the rate of a rapid light automatically after first strike. they do some considerable damage because obviously they’re trying to get a cruiser to bugger off, and will remember previous attackers. Attacking pi in hs can be a suspect act, so if you do hold skills for elite pvp and don’t take kindly to people shooting your pi, you can move fast and take them out.
Eve is a space game and I don’t believe a lot of development effort should be expended on mechanics to allow player interaction on planets. The POCO provides a vulnerability that predators can exploit if they choose.
I would like to expose more of the PI process to risk but think the best way would be to move the advanced and hi-tech processors off planet - perhaps a service module for refineries. Give people a reason to build them in highsec. Reduce command center cpu/power a bit so P1 production doesn’t spike.
PI definitely needs a redesign, the best idea I have seen so far is convert it to a surface citadel. With various new functions, maybe include options to benefit from having a stockpile of militants, etc.
I don’t think the command center should be left out of the attacking, but should have more HP than the rest of the buildings.
Also, attacking a hi-sec planet without war declaration should be a criminal act in my opinion, you aren’t dealing with other capsuleers here after all, each shot can kill hundreds of civilians.
The idea is that you wreak havoc on the PI industrialist’s ability to produce, more than destroying the buildings they’ve made, since that would turn it off to people who are just trying to start out. sounds more bearable to loose out on potential product than to have to rebuild if, say a fleet of orbital fit cruisers pull a raid on a planet, and destroy everything.
I do my PI in sovnull. It’s virtually zero risk, and it will remain zero risk with the above changes. Given the amount of ■■■■ that other people in less secure space will have to deal with (with the assumption that anyone will actually use this mechanic… it doesn’t really seem to have a point other than “hey lets blow some random person’s shit up”), they will likely stop producing, which in turn increases my profit. What’s not to like?
I mean, the defense mechanics of the poco, at least in the way i see it, make it so you can at least squeeze off one shot and gtfo.
so technically someone could roll into sov null and carpetbomb some PI in null.
I think a 12 hour reinforcement timer for the structure should be in place, where it can’t be reinitialized or effected by further orbital rounds until the timer runs down. if all modules on the planet are reinforced, it tells you so you don’t waste your orbital rounds.