I know that the current sov system encourages larger groups due to how entosis works.
But I don’t know of any mechanic you can make that does not work in the favor of n+1 or that large groups cannot simply game by breaking into smaller groups while maintaining their actual infrastructure.
Make holding more sov more expensive and groups will simply move sov control to corp level instead of alliance level to game it.
I think the Edencom ships were an attempt to provide a counter for n+1, but they cannot get the balance correctly (and that’s without discussing the price issue). And how do you counter Edencom’s chain lightning attacks? N+1.
The current system is so bad, that there’s no way it’s not intentional. And if it’s intentional, that means there’s nothing to “fix.”
CCP has quite literally created a system in which it is mechanically impossible for small groups to fight back against large ones. And not in the sense that large groups can, for example, have so much remote repair capacity that small groups can’t actually destroy their ships in a fight (which at least has counter-play possibilities via tactics like baiting, bumping, aggression timers, etc.), but in the sense that large groups can opt out of the fighting entirely by making war participation contingent on structure ownership.
The wardec scene would look vastly different if the HQ system didn’t exist. Or even if there was something like a mechanic that requires either party in a war to destroy a certain amount of the other party’s ships before the latter’s structure(s) become vulnerable to attack. Then the current wardec cartel monopoly would find itself being gnawed to death by hundreds of piranhas, and large null-sec powers wouldn’t be able to opt out of wars by bringing hundred-man fleets to take down random small groups’ war HQs unless they first prove that they’re serious about actually fighting the war. Because let’s face it: most of the players in those two categories aren’t actually very good at the individual level. They’re strong in a group because they can blob, but take away their ability to take down wars via forced numerical superiority-reliant structure fights, and they’d have a real problem staying competitive, because doing everything in the company of a blob would become unsustainable, and the effective players would leave to start their own specialized small groups where they wouldn’t have to share loot and subsidize the ineffective ones.
Then we’d be back to a similar system to what we had before, when wars were done by many small groups instead of one large one, and null-sec powers actually had to worry about high-sec logistics if they wanted to take advantage of its market.
One possible solution would be to tax those in NPC’s corps 20% (on literally everything, buy, sell, ratting etc). 10% tax if you are in a corp that is not war-decable, and 0% tax if you are in a corp that is war-decable.
Does that solve n+1? No, but it strongly encourages people to take the small of risk of being war-dec’d.
Not sure there is a solution to n+1, let alone N+20 etc…
There’s nothing inherently wrong with using numerical superiority in conflicts (any level of N+X, really). The problems are that it shouldn’t be possible to extend and project that level of power on a limitless scale, and that CCP has been creating game mechanics which make asymmetric warfare more and more impossible for about the last decade (FozzieSov and War HQs are two of the most notable examples).
They actually tried to address the null-sec aspect of this by implementing jump fatigue. Then the players adapted by simply getting more super-capital alts to keep on rotation and in reserve for home defense, and CCP was like “hey, look at all this money, why are we trying to “fix” this again?” and that was the end of that little adventure.
If they wanted to “solve” the prevalence of N+1 specifically, there are many mechanics they could implement, such as scaling down the probability of loot drops as the number of involved parties on kill mails increases from a true solo engagement. This was an idea I had since before the time of the first CrimeWatch, and someone on Reddit even threatened to kill me over it. Maybe I should post it again. Things were a bit different regarding ganking back then though, so maybe it needs some kind of ship mass logic instead, since ships have much more EHP now, and gankers don’t really have a choice anymore other than to use massive swarms of ships.
Starting to think I’m on the wrong side with reference to freighter ganking .
I did make billions in my time trying to save freighters met some nice people but many asshats too.
The problem I had was that most ganker groups affiliated with null groups , who controlled many war Dec groups , the TTT and Poco, ice fields and now most likely low end ore from high sec.
Depends on how you think about it, there were times that we saved freighters from groups that we did not like, but sometimes those pilots reacted with gratitude. In the end you just have to look at it in terms of stopping an unbalanced farming activity that impacts many diverse people, but the main driver should be whether you think that this is now balanced or not. When unlimited bumping was a thing it was most definitely unbalanced, now it is open to debate but I err on it being almost there, with a couple of things needed to balance it for the solo victim which is why I wanted freighters to being able to fit a BS MWD for faster warping.
I don’t think the problem at this point is wardec evasion, so much as the need for small scale wardeccers to maintain a war HQ. I think incentives for being in a war eligible player corp are fine and good, but it doesn’t address the problem that needing to defend a structure in order to wardec people makes asymmetrical warfare pretty much impossible unless you have limitless isk to dump into constantly replacing disposable structures. Small groups simply can’t defend structures against large groups.
I agree to some extent, but there’s also a lot of myths that go round.
For example the notion that being an ‘F1 monkey’ in a blob is somehow safer and easier than solo or very small fleet activity. It simply isn’t. Logi can help to some degree, but it becomes far less effective the larger the fleet is and the more the fleet is strategically warped about. Thus it is really not hard for a fleet member to find themselves out of logi range and targeted by 30 enemy ships and demolished. I’ve been both the aggressor and recipient of this sort of thing…it is precisely how fleets are worn down, and even the best pilots are not immune to it.
The outcome varies hugely, and there is clearly skill ( or the lack of it ) involved. For example I recall in the huge Finanar war Parabellum initially sent hordes of Catalysts against us. They were all easily vanquished…I don’t think a single one had any effect. Our FC also had a superb plan for taking out swarms of Tristans that Parabellum released from a station. But Parabellum’s longer range Typhoons were effective, and took out a number of Apocs…while at the same time our Apocs took out a considerable number of their Paladins. The point being that simply the size of a fleet, or any N+1, is not really the primary decider. It is far more fleet composition and tactics.
„People in power no longer hold grudges so they can unleash their emotions in wars of reckless abandon, instead the feudal kings have agreed on limited combat that doesn’t threaten actual power yet provides the minimal amount of space pixel explosions necessary to placate the masses so they can say ‚Eve Online is a dangerous place‘ with a straight face. Why is it this way now?“
Crap, I failed the „without hyperbole“ requirement.
