A Hybrid of Ideas

The topic of skill attributes and clone upgrade costs has surfaced again. I took some of the ideas people have suggested and along with my own twist, put together a couple things:

• Clone upgrade costs is 100% removed from the game. No more having to open up the Medical facility and going through the process of updating your clone. Now the player, no matter how long they have been playing, can decide how much they risk.
• Being podded adds fatigue to the new Jump Fatigue mechanic. This maintains the current urge to save your pod. The degree of fatigue is of course left to balancing by CCP.
• Attributes are completely removed from the game including attribute implants. Skills train the same as they are now, but now there is no need to be restricted to training a certain group once a year. With the attribute implants gone there is also no need to skip out on glorious combat due them.

I’m curious what your thoughts are. Leave a comment here or any other EVE related forum.

Locking Onto Your Story

EVERYONE LOVES A GOOD STORY

Take a moment and think about your favorite epic film battle. The one where even after watching it many times – you still are at the edge of your seat. Perhaps it was the spaceship fleet battle from ‘Star Wars: Return of the Jedi’ that you grew up with. Maybe the chaoticness of when the Alliance and Reavers clashed in ‘Serenity’. Maybe something much older and less spaceship like; ‘They Were Expendable’ and the hecticness of the pacific sea battles. ‘Lord of the Rings: Return of the King’ and the legendary battle that leaves the viewer in awe. ‘Braveheart’? Or maybe even the Battle of Blackwater Bay in ‘Game of Thrones’?

We sit back and reminisce the amazing stories and conflict within those battles. It is the many intertwined stories and personalities that when woven together, is an epic clash of violence we are left in awe that lasts for a lifetime. Stories that touched our very soul so much that when you meet someone who has not witnessed the glory of your favorite film battle you insist that they stop everything they are doing and watch said film. You even revel in the idea of watching it with them all the while stealing glances at them to see their reactions during the film. And after you are so eager to talk about what they just watched, hoping they love it as much as you.

The same excitement can be found when you try, in your own unworthy words, to describe the battle scenes. Explaining the motives for such a thing. The drive of all the key characters and why each individual’s actions lead up to an amazing conclusion of human emotion in the ultra raw form of battle. You paint a picture down to the finest detail of all the actions, and either by the characters design or fortune causes amazing ripple effects across the entire battle.

To either hear or tell; everyone loves a good story.

ONE STORY TO RULE THEM ALL

EVE Online has some very interesting stories no doubt. From the single player who becomes greedy and steals everything not nailed down, up to massive scale battles that make major gaming news sites take notice. While the single player deciding to make big waves by theft, betrayal or some other non-combat method is very compelling to hear about. There is a major problem with the story telling for battles in EVE, In my opinion it is catastrophic.

A critical difference between those stories from the films and books we love is that the battles for EVE  can be summed up with one or two stories, which in many ways are devoid of anything exciting or memorable. These stories are for the most part told from the fleet commanders or those in a leadership position. For the remaining 99% of the players involved, they are just watching and listening to someone else’s story unfold in real time – or in 10% TiDi. Where are their stories? If they speak; why do their stories mimic everyone else’s so much? You line them all up and it is all but impossible to determine whose is whose. A book with a generic preface and when you turn the page to chapter one – nothing.

The honest truth is for the 99%, the line members, there is not much of a compelling story to tell. Much less one that reminds you of your favorite film battles or those found in a treasured book you have lovingly returned to many times over the years. The story they would tell is one of very little decision making, very little control over even their own spaceships’ actions! “I mashed F1”, they would say. “At one point I assigned drones, but now, now F1 is all that is in my vocabulary”. The story they would tell is about as compelling and engaging as a professor droning on in a monotone voice, lights dimmed down with their archaic slide show projector showing things on the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930.

The story that is told comes from the select few who are actually deciding who to shoot, what to fly, how to fly it and practically everything else involved in the battle. One decent story from hundreds and even thousands of players. To say we need more! we deserve more! Is the understatement of our lifetime.

THE PUSH AND PULL OF EVE COMBAT

It has been said several times from readers in comment sections, that EVE is more fun to read about than actually playing the game. We can take a large battle and dress it up with statistics of how much ISK was destroyed, how that translates to real life currency but in the end it’s just anything to help tell the story of how thousands pressed F1. Maybe spice it up with how some guy had his guns unstacked to kill mail whore so he pressed F1 through F8 without dropping his beer. What an amazing story. I completely didn’t notice the intermission or anything. Zzzzzzz.

When people hear those stories it really pushes them away from EVE. The story is bland and in a growing number of cases – meaningless. Battles for a good time now have been losing their distinction in the story of EVE, because the individual players are not telling their story. They want to, if they had one. Not only does the lack of individual storytelling keep new players from wanting to join in serious internet spaceship battles, but worse is more and more players are pulling the chain on the last bulb in the building and walking away from EVE.

When you talk to players and ask them why EVE? what pulled you into this game? They heard or read a story. On very rare cases saw a video or trailer of the game that told a story well enough to have them try it out. They came for the story. To interact with thousands of others and to not just help turn the page of the endless saga of EVE, but to create their own story. One they are excited to create and as importantly, share with others. While this has real possibility in regards to things outside of direct battles, it is a daunting talk to fashion a good yarn from the simplistic fleet fights. Orbit an anchor and then work your way down a list of targets someone else tells you to shoot. That most certainly does not pull anyone into wanting to play. Those who currently do it because it is the most efficient way to play decent sized battles and most certainly the large ones.

The line members stories of these battles are never told. It is a story from the fleet commanders and leadership. Everyone else is just an assigned sentry drone.

WHAT IS SPECIFICALLY MISSING IN THE STORY

A line members story is handed to them cannibalized of all the interesting parts. The parts that make their story interesting. Their individual decisions on what ship to bring, how to fit it, where on the battlefield to go and who to shoot and how. Just a bad cut scene with a script pulled out of a cereal box. Even the visuals are depressing to look at with nothing but tons of different colored square brackets and bubbles. We need the tools for players to tell their story, their individual story, to be given back to them.

Because the current mechanics you would be an absolute fool to not focus all firepower on a single ship from the enemy fleet and work your way down a list. It is razor efficient and allows for one person, a fleet commander, to make very sound decisions on who that should be. Because there is almost no environment in EVE and the absence of line of sight mechanics; it is very easy to do. One person decides who everyone should shoot, seconds later they are dead and the fleet commander points the death finger and the next person. Boom. Dead.

Also due to the previously mentioned lack of environment and line of sight mechanics, having the main force of your fleet flying identical ships makes it very easy for the fleet commander to have a finger over the pulse of their fleet. They know they engagement envelope of everyone in the fleet. Their speed, agility, tank, firepower – everything. As long as they for the most part do exactly what the fleet commander says, they are in full control and the only one deciding on the story to be told.

Fleets still need commanders, but the number of different and compelling stories should match closer to the number of players actually involved.

IDENTIFYING THE ROOT CAUSE

EVE Online has little to no environment that would create a battlefield that has hills, valleys, objects or anything that would create an environment that players would need to navigate during a fight. If a target is in lock range no matter the direction or orientation; they can be shot. It does not matter if the only two on the battlefield are you and the other capsuleer or there is over a million of you. It would be just as easy to shoot someone regardless of the population on the grid. There is no line of sight mechanics that come into play at all. No need to navigate around the thousand other ships in the fight. No need for the individual pilots to make their own decisions on how to fly or even who to shoot. Because of the simplistic nature of the mechanisms we march right off the cliff and free fall into zombie mode. We take all the decision making and hand it off to the fleet commander.

Due to mechanics such as broadcasting targets and orbiting anchor points; there is very little the average fleet member has to do. There is no hill to climb, no scary choke point to fly through. The thought of trying to get a clear shot on a target is non-existent. The vast majority of the players in these fleet fights is unwritten. There simply is nothing to write about.

I am well aware that fleet doctrines have been around for a long time. There is several advantages for having the main fleet fly the exact same ship. For the fleet commander it is extremely easy to know what the capabilities of his fleet are and with that information, can spend more time on all the details of the operation. From target calling to warp ins. The simpler the better. Not to be forgot is the Ship Replacement Program (SRP) that most all major alliances run. This involves pilots flying official sanctioned ships and setups. Anything that dies and does not fit the specific ship doctrine has their ship replacement denied. Individual imagination on what ship to bring and how to fit it is forbidden.

The reason why all of these aspects are held under tight control is because it is the most efficient way to win a fight. When you factor in things such as no line of sight mechanics, going down a list of names and having everyone shooting them at the exact same is the most efficient. After all, fifty ships in half armor or even hull are still just as powerful and maneuverability as fifty ships with full health. You would be a fool to not focus fire and work your way down a list. At least you will be removing incoming damage at a rate that is noticeable during the fight instead of see all the enemy ships explode at the very end of a long battle.

ALLOWING PLAYERS TO WRITE THEIR STORY

So how do we add dimension to the battlefield? Enough to break the mold without breaking the game? There has been talk over the years that it would be interesting if space had more anomaly stuff in it to help break up the mundane fights. Perhaps some clouds or debri that players would need to work around. Certainly would be more interesting than what we have now – nothing. But what about line of sight? If EVE had something that presented the challenges of avoiding friendly fire and or obstacles, it would shake things up enough where normal players can regain some of the control from the fleet commander.

While I’m going to avoid suggesting physical objects in space, I would like to address the line of sight part. I feel like if something could be done here, something to somewhat mimic the concept a bit, it would do the trick. No longer would everything be so simple that one person can fly around with effectively hundreds of drones assigned to them. I believe that it would go so far as to break away from the massive fleet doctrines. Perhaps we could finally touch upon what it is like to be in those massive battles we all love to hear, read and watch. The ones where it is not just one giant battle, but can be broken down into dozens and even hundreds of smaller battles going on within it.

The players will be allowed to tell their own story in their own way.

SENSOR IMPEDIMENT

The idea is rather simple really, but will have a very profound change on how we experience fleet battles in EVE. Especially the large scale ones. It should also be noted that this idea is not originally mine, but was suggested by someone from the old forums years ago. At a time before logistics could not fit large remote repair modules or even have the standard T2 resistance profile. Long before a thousand ships on a single grid trading blows was common place. Before super coalitions. I tried to dig up the poster several times, but alas I could never find the suggestion thread. I have however expanded on the idea and recruited a couple people to help with the formula and interactive graphs. Considering the range of reactions some of my articles receive and the extent some go to in order to express them; I am opting to leave their names out. They know who they are and I am grateful for their help. But I digress.

When a player goes to lock another ship, the time to lock will be determined by the current system of scan resolution and signature radius, but with an additional mechanic. There would also be a new UI addition to the overview that would effectively clue in the player how long it would take to lock the target if they chose to lock it. This could be hard numbers or preferably, a color scheme that can easily be determined how fast the target can be locked. Green for fast and red for slow. Not to be forgotten is the adding the ability to stop locking a target.

Let me dive into a few examples:

Currently a 250 man battleship fleet could all lock and fire on another single ship in just a few seconds at the exact same time. If they have enough, depending on the target and combined alpha, they destroy it. There wasn’t any effort or struggle as each one vied for position to get a clear shot. They had a clear line of sight the entire time with no interference. The target did not have the opportunity to fight off a few at a time or anything remotely interesting. One moment there and the next – erased. Out of the 250 involved in the destruction of that one ship, how many different stories were produced? You guess it, just one. One cookie cutter passage that perfectly describes the experience for everyone in that 250 man fleet.

Now let’s do that again with the Sensor Impediment mechanic

The 250 man battleship fleet are told to lock one guy, as the standard operation of current fleets by the fleet commander. Everyone starts to lock the same enemy ship. Now instead of achieving lock in just a few seconds, it takes everyone minutes to lock due to everyone deciding to go for the exact same enemy at the same time. Sure they can keep listening to the fleet commander as he continues to call targets one at a time, but this will take a very long time to do. There is of course, another option that would be far more efficient and dare I say – exciting for everyone.

What if instead of one person, the fleet commander, telling everyone who to shoot – they made their own choices? Crazy talk, I know. So these 250 individuals start locking and shooting whoever they think is the best target for them at the time. They are having to consider things they normally would not have to think about. They all start breaking off and going after all kinds of different targets. An insane amount of smaller battles erupt, all on the same giant battlefield. Why so many? Because everyone trying to focus on one target and work down a list is no longer the most optimal way to fight. Sure the first ship to explode might not happen for a little bit, but in the end far more damage was able to be applied faster than the old school target calling from the fleet commander.

BEAUTIFUL CHAOS AND EVERYTHING IT SPAWNS

Now that the battlefield has been broken up into many smaller scale fights, this kicks open many other doors. If ships are not having to be super brick tanked in an attempt to withstand the alpha of hundreds of other ships focusing fire, it means a ton of other ships can enter the battlefield and be useful. Not only a variety of ships, but the gold standard of buffer tank and tons of logistics is no longer the only way to fly and fit. Behold, local repairing ships now become an option. They were doomed before because you went buffer tank with logi backbone or was sent home in a pine box.

Logistics still have a useful role in fleets, but it is no longer the huge keystone we have now. Perhaps one is assigned to fly alongside a specific squad, maybe in addition a local repair. There is a lot of different things. A duo could retro fit a couple Oneiros to fly in tandem with each other sporting combat drones and blasters and use the remote repair bonus to help each other out. Crazy stuff.

Maybe you are a solo pilot and you jump through a gate and are greeted with a 30 man gate camp. Currently facing such a situation normally results in a gank. You never stood a chance at killing any of them before you woke up in a station. But now, with the Sensor Impediment mechanic, all of them mass locking you buys you some time. Perhaps you moonwalk out via the gate, warp off or even something more bold. You engage one of the soft targets and actually kill it before the rest of them finally lock you? The point is the gap between the vastly outnumbered and the blob just changed. No more engaging someone only to see a hundred logistics instantly erase any damage you did to the target in the blink of an eye.

Some ships feel balanced in very small numbers, but scale very badly. So much so that they become completely broken in mass numbers. EVE players are smart and quick to figure out what ships and setups take advantage of these. Everything from spider tanking Archons to navy Apocalypse to even mass numbers of Celestris. Now imagine these same fleet doctrines operating on their own, individually. Having to decide what is the best target for them and how to fly? Imagine one getting low into health and then broadcasting for repairs? Do you really think a massive amount of logistics will be able to save them in a couple seconds? Nope.

In almost all large fights, if you are unable to break the logi reps (cause more damage than the enemy logistics can repair) you have pretty much lost the battle. This is so prevalent that running the napkin math to find out of you can engage another fleet is common practice. If you know ahead of time your fleet will not be able to break the logi tank, you simply don’t fight. No stories written. Nothing exciting at all.

CCP could even add the scan resolution to all drones. Judging from the signature radius of a Garde II, I took a guess at what the scan resolution would be and placed it at 100 to plug it into the formula and see what the numbers would be. What would it be like for a massive Ishtar fleet or Slowcat fleet trying to operate under the same focus fire on the fleet commanders target we see today? 100 Ishtars trying to lock a single frigate at the same time would take a very long time. At first it sounds crazy right? But, if you think about the amount of ships and sentries – all trying to get a clear shot on this single frigate zipping around without accidentally blowing holes into someone in their fleet; things start to make more sense.

THE FORMULA

The currently the lock time formula:

Lock Time = 40000 / X * (ArcSinh y)^2

• x = scan resolution
• y = signature radius

Because there is no line of sight or anything that resembles obstacles an individual pilot has to make their decisions; we have severely reduced several things. If you can’t alpha a target, the enemy logistics will save it. The tank setup on ships is reduced to anything to give it the most effective hit points to compliment the logistics. Bombers can then easily obliterate these planet sized signature radius due to the plates and extenders. Flying small ships such as frigates ensures an early grave if the entire enemy fleet focuses fire on you in the blink of an eye. Jumping through a gate is an immediate loss mail if there is a massive gate camp. Many things that just don’t lend itself to enhancing the individual players experience.

Now if we alter the formula slightly to take into consideration everything targeting and or locked on that player, we get something like this:

Lock Time = 40000 / X * ArchSinh (y/n)^2

• x = scan resolution
• y = signature radius
• n = number of ships locked and or targeting

By making this change to the lock time formula we are introducing the next best thing to real line of sight targeting. Large boring fleet fights are a thing of the past. Only a handful of acceptable ships allowed is also out the window. Finally, each pilot is actually having a meaningful impact on the battlefield in their own way. Every decision they make, no matter how small, will be putting ink to paper and weave a story as unique as they are.

GATHER AROUND THE CAMPFIRE

It is the stories that we remember. That we retell, relive as we dream and try to capture in a bottle like several fireflies hovering around. All the while you watch intensely wondering how this is possible. The stories of EVE battles will become robust and full of excitement. Not from just a select few, but countless players as they experience the unknown, grow as a pilot and ultimately become more than just a tiny cog is some ominous war machine. More than just some assigned drone. They will become the characters they grew up loving to watch. Fly around in a setting of endless conflict set in the vastness of New Eden. And each time they are asked what was it like. They will motion for everyone to gather around the fire and get comfortable. People will grab some popcorn and listen intently.

Because in the end – we are all storytellers.

INTERACTIVE GRAPHS

Below is each ship class with formulas based on average signature radius and scan resolutions. Keep in mind ideas and suggestions, even if welcomed with open arms, is always subject to balancing. If you would like a direct link to the Google Doc, click HERE.

142 Days of Coalition Sovereignty Video

I’m sure many of you have seen the alliance level sovereignty videos showing a hundred different colors all shifting around the map. I wondered what a video would look like on a coalition level.

 

An Understanding on Power Projection Ideas

Change is Coming

It is no secret that CCP is and has been looking towards the future of sovereignty and power projection. There is of course a road map in place, but there is nothing stopping ideas and agendas on what changes should take place from being discussed now.

In a very broad stroke most everyone wants the same thing. Something that provides a compelling and exciting game experience. A sovereignty system that is both rewarding and has real meaning. To say the current situation in null is a disaster is an understatement. Things are dire. Some ideas on changes to game mechanics range from subtle to extreme. Even worse are those who only want changes that benefit them and those who think just like them. They will spin tales of what their enemy happens to be using is single-handedly destroying the game, but this is all just propaganda. Best to just ignore them.

Remember the goal here is what is healthy for the game as a whole, including all players. Not the select few.

An Understanding

As I said, the situation is complex. Because of this no simple change will fix it. Unfortunately when you let a system such as the one we have to determine sovereignty, how power projection plays in and terrible industry system – things become massively intertwined and knotted together. Granted the industry in EVE just saw a revamp and so far it seems to be doing well. But, that is just one aspect to the problem that needs attention.

The other two main hot topics we have been seeing more and more the last six months is power projection and sovereignty. Ideas have been sprouting up constantly and debates have been steadily going. Both are very closely tied to each other so it is a huge challenge to alter one without giving the other attention too.

One such example is the idea to add a 5 minute cool down timer to jump again for ships with jump drives. I can’t help but shake my head at this suggestion. What exactly is it hoping to accomplish? For one it means nothing for the initial jump in. So things like hot dropping will be completely unphased. Another is it will have zero effect on sovereignty or other strategic objection in regards to who shows up.

It is well known now that a carrier can travel across the entire game map in under 10 minutes. Fast enough for the shortest strategic objective of a Sovereignty Blockade Unit (SBU). Now factor in a 5 minute wait per jump with that idea. A SBU takes 3 hours to online. The carrier would have to be more than 36 jumps away from the SBU in order for a 5 minute cooldown timer to have an effect at all. The entire game is only 7-8 carrier jumps wide. No where even remotely close to what would be needed for such a change to do anything that would put a dent into the ease of power projection.

Now imagine a strategic objective like a tower that takes over a day to come out of reinforce mode or even conquering a system which takes days. Starting to get the picture?

So Decrease Timer, Right?

Well sure. That is an option too, but let’s think about that as well. If the game is only 7-8 carrier jumps wide, that means a timer would need to not exceed 30-40 minutes in order for the 5 minute cooldown jump timer to work. And that is assuming this carrier is on the very opposite side of this timer. Such a system would be a nightmare to work with. Maybe you were around for station ping pong? Imagine going to work or to sleep and waking up and everything was destroyed and swiped away from you while you were gone from the game for hours. Hell even gone for just an hour long lunch break.

Time zone wars are not fun at all and that is all this would be. So as you can see, power projection and sovereignty really are in a locked dance number. Even a groups assets in space like a Player Owned Structure (POS) falls under this. Lean too far one direction and they both collapse. Lean the other too much and the same disaster.

Finding the Starting Point

The one thing we all know is we can’t make timers too short or we fall victim to the timezone war madness. Things would be so bad it would just discourage players from risking anything because of how they would lose it all the moment they decide to have a job, spouse, children, sleep – take the dog for a walk. So we know here, at this very place, is where you can start to find where one set of guidelines will help define what any change to sovereignty and power projection change must consider.

Obviously anyone who invests in risking assets like a POS, maintaining a system and or station must have some reaction time to deal with an attacking force. Now I’m not talking about days upon days or anything like that. What I want you to realize what is the very minimum amount of time a group should have to say, react to an attack on their POS. An attack on their station, their system – anything like that.

We know it has to be long enough where people can actually maintain a real life. Banking on timers that assume the players just sit at home all day long with just EVE as the only thing they care about is asinine. So when you look at things like strontium timers on a POS; they are there to allow such things. Time for players to react to the attack while they were asleep, while they were at work or anything like that.

Once you have a reasonable amount of time they group has to react then you can use that as a basis for how to work on power projection.

Foundation for an Idea on Change

Now that we have the foundation for how long a group can react, we can take that number and look at power projection. The thing to keep in mind is any change to curb power projection has something I like to keep in mind and I believe you should too:

“If a group can travel across the game with the largest ships, dramatically affect the outcome of a strategic battle and be back with those ships before their assets and territory were in danger – it will not have a real effect on changing power projection for the better.”

Not an elegant guideline that rolls off the tongue, but I feel it is sound. If any change still allows the above to happen then what exactly will it change? Does the 5 minute cooldown on jumping slow down ships with a jump drive? Sure, but does nothing to change the situation. Perhaps there will be the rare occasion where it kept a batphone from getting to something in time, but the work around would most likely be to not risk anything until everything is within the one jump. Meh.

So back to our foundation. If it is 24 hours for say a strontium timer on a POS then we know that at minimum it should take 24 hours to cross the map and that would only mean a slight change for those two ends. If we decrease the timer you start to step on time zone shenanigans. So it means increasing the time to travel with the carrier. The longer it would take would mean the bigger of a difference on what it means to assist a friendly that far away.

This is where some players start to have a heart attack. When things that involve teleporting around no longer can be used indefinitely and start to become strategic choices on where they are staged and how they are moved. They see it as sand being taken out of the sandbox. This is highly exaggerated. After all, they were only traveling across the game to get to a fight right? Now they will get to a fight that is closer.

Keeping the Enemy at Arms Length

I have mention this several times before. Players like to keep the bad guys at arms length. Anything closer is friends. They still spend the same amount of time in getting the fight as they have for years and years. The only difference is now we have all these amplifiers at our disposal to travel. So now instead of fighting an enemy that was 15-20 minutes away that equated to say the next region over. Now you are fighting an enemy that is still 15-20 minutes away – but now they are half a dozen regions away. You are just spending that time titan bridging or taking a carrier or other fast travel method to do it. Everything along the way being blue.

With the combination of teleportation mechanics as well as being extremely efficient with logistics and planning a groups arm length spans the game map many, many times over. When anyone from anywhere in the game can be on your front lawn in a matter of just a few minutes. The player has no choice but to align with a big enough group, a coalition, to withstand an attack. This continues on and on until we are where we are today. One giant boring snorfest.

Conclusion

So the short explanation is any change that is intended to have a real impact on how sovereignty and power projection works MUST take into consideration the minimum amount of time for players to realistically respond. That is why a previous idea of mine severely limited the amount of teleportation/power projection as much as it did. It HAD to in order to have any kind of impact without strategic objectives turning into time zone wars and silly station ping pong everyday.

The real reality is that due to how complex and intertwined all of these things are; proclaiming a simple solution will be the best is completely false. It will take serious resources and effort to pull it off. Nothing personal against those who came up with the 5 minute cooldown jump timer. It just happened to be the most recent thing I heard about today. I don’t want anyone to stop putting them out there. I just wanted to hopefully provide a bit of structure when it comes to things like a change to alter power projection and sovereignty.

Cloud Ring Moons Probed, Here Are The Results!

And more moon data is revealed through others hard work.
You can’t stop the signal.

Stoseph's Content Creation

Following the successful content creation of my 1st moon mapping project I decided on July 19th, coincidentally my 19th birthday, that I was going to undertake another moon mapping project. As with any great project planning is key and I had to decide where would be best to probe and how to get my probes to where I needed them. This was where a poll I had created two days previous came into play, the poll itself asked people to vote upon which alliance they would like to see kicked out of its SOV space. As many would guess the result of this was the Goonswarm Federation. So I thought “hmm what would be a good region to map that would affect the Goons the most”, the answer was simple, Cloud Ring would be that region.

Cloud Ring (can be seen north-east of the link) believe it or not is…

View original post 305 more words

This change could happen to super carriers immediately. Should it?

Do you think there is an issue with power projection?

Public Auction for Which Region to Probe Next

After receiving so many different suggestions on which region to probe next, I decided to have an auction to let the public decide which one should be next. I have created a character named Moon Mineral Surveyor. In addition to this I created an API pull that tracks wallet journal entries and a Google Chart to track it.

The idea is rather simple. At approximately 00:00 on 07-12-2014; the region with the most player donations becomes the next region to be probed and the results becoming public for all. I need that time to finish another project before I start probing again. Players just need to list under the reason box a +/- and the region name. Example: + Kor-Azor

I’m allowing players to influence specific regions negatively should they have an interest in a specific region(s) to not be probed as opposed to splitting the amount across the other regions. Due to the API being public one should consider using an alt if they wish to do this anonymously.

I will only be probing the moons and listing the results. Taking the time to note things like who has the moon towered, jump bridges and CSAA just makes the process take longer. Time that I can spend probing more moons. Hopefully I will be able to release the information I find daily until the region is complete instead of waiting until the very end. It will just depend on how things go. I will also not be probing high sec moons for obvious reasons.

As much as I would love to walk away with untold riches, donating large amounts is not necessary to have the region you want probed. Just pay attention the total amount and chart to see which region is in the lead. So don’t get too crazy. Again, make sure you send the probing donation to the character name ‘Moon Mineral Surveyor’ only with the reason box with a + or – and the region name, watch the API feed and or check the totals to make sure you are in on the loop. The chart and totals are available on this public Google Chart HERE.

All Fountain Moon Minerals Mapped and Public

I will keep this rather short. I have personally probed every single moon in the Fountain region. The one that has been nicknamed the ‘Crown Jewel’ of moon goo income. So rather than hold onto the information, I have decided to give all the details out for free. Every last moon mineral including all the new high end moons seeded by CCP not long ago. You will not find a more complete map of the moons than right here. I also am including some bonus information like what corporations and alliances have the moons towered. Even jump bridges, cyno jammers/beacons and CSAAs.

LINK FOR ALL FOUNTAIN MOONS

I hope you use the information well. o7

Bridging the Gap: War Mechanics

INTRODUCTION AND CURRENT ISSUES

War is a way of life and of course – death. For EVE Online, war is weaved into the very ships we fly. Armed to the teeth and never built for destruction. We are the pinnacle of what it means to go to war.

Not long ago the war declaration mechanic saw an overhaul. While a better system than the previous one; it still is not where it should be. The most notable aspect war declarations are lacking is the ability to scale how deep one entity can legally engage another in empire space. On one end of the spectrum, wretched peace where you are not allowed to legally engage each other outside of kill rights and low security status. Then on the opposite end of the spectrum is all out war across all empire space, legally allowed to engage anything belonging to the enemy. There is also no legal way to target specific players or corporations outside of the entire corporation/alliance they belong to. You either go for the entire corporation/alliance, every ship class across all of New Eden, coughing up an enormous amount of money. Or – you do nothing.

The lack of options is crippling!

There are even issues with defending groups closing their corporation then reforming it rendering the war obsolete, wasting the ISK of those who declared the war. Corporation hopping to alt corps, running back to a Non-Player Corporation (NPC); all of these things and more invalidate the mechanic completely.

THE FALLOUT OF POOR WORDING

Before we dive deep into the changes I have in mind, it is important to take a few moments to mention some smaller things that need to be addressed. One being the notification that a war is about to start or end.

While the mails and notifications of a war declaration do their job, the one notifying that the war is coming to an end is worded very poorly. For veteran players we know there are still 24 hours people can legally fight after that second to last notification, but for younger players; it is confusing. I spent some time talking to groups who spend a great deal of their time taking part in war declarations. They brought up the confusion of the final notification and how many new players are killed during that 24 hours thinking the war was indeed over. Here is an example of such a notification:

CONCORD invalidates war declared by The Pursuit of Happiness against Northern Coalition.

From: CONCORD

Sent: 2014.05.04 20:36

CONCORD has declared this war invalid as it breaches one or more articles in the Yulai Convention. The war will be declared as being over after approximately 24 hours.

If you take away the very end part, in bold, and read it again; it says the war is over at that very moment the mail/notification was sent. The header plainly says Concord has invalidated the war, but only at the very end does it say in 24 hours it will be over. I understand EVE doesn’t need to be turned into some theme park game, but things like this need to be reworded and have better interaction with the players when a war starts and ends. Changing the notification wording is a start, but we can go further to improve the player experience. There should be more visual indications, especially with the changes I am suggesting. There should also be helpful indications and a User Interface (UI) on the game map. I’ll explain why this is needed a bit later in the article.

At the very least the notification/mail should start with, “In 24 hours the war will end…”

REAL VICTORY CONDITIONS

There is a victory condition in place now. The issue is that even after a surrender is agreed upon; there will still be 24 hours of war. Fighting can still take place and in fact does. This flaw becomes even more apparent for a group who has several wars and is not easily able to determine who is who on the overview. A group surrenders and is still being shot up regardless. The end effect is the mechanic is rarely used and if so only for a bit of extra cash to milk from the target. It echos the same reason why ransoms never really work. Anyone who pays is killed regardless and is out additional Interstellar Kredit (ISK) for nothing.

Perhaps the intent is so it cannot be used to grief smaller groups, but in the end it is broken. This needs to be iterated on badly. Not just changing the war to stop completely once a side surrenders, but also look into the possibility of other victory conditions outside of one side cutting a check. Introduce a variety of conditions that could be met.

SCALING

Instead of declaring war against an entire alliance across all of empire space; I want to see more scaling of the scope. The ability to not just pick an entire alliance, but the option to go after a specific corporation or even a single individual. As you scale down the list of targets, the price would drop as well. In addition, the ability to scale down on where these legal conflicts can take place. From the entirety of empire space (high and low) down to regions, constellations and even a single system. Again, the cost would scale down along with it. Finally the ability to scale on ship classes.

With these three customizable sliders on the war declaration mechanic we are able to change the scope of the conflict to things that would fall under blockades, sanctions and even personal vendettas. This would kick open the door for smaller entities to actually be able to affect the ultra large alliances. Instead of having to declare war on the entire alliance, spending up to 500 million ISK a week and only having a select few legal targets to go after; you can be a bit more thrifty with your money and go after the actual targets that will be empire space.

 

WHO, WHAT AND WHERE

There are three sliders to adjust. Target, location and ship class. Each category has several variations that dictate the impact the war will be. Because it has many options calling it a war declaration is not entirely fitting anymore. Things start to act more towards sanctions, blockades and if on a single person scale, something like bounty hunting.

The only limit on who, what and where would come down to your wallet. The possibilities of the type of legal combat becomes limitless. You could do an empire wide scale against an entire alliance for capital class ships. Then add another in a specific constellation for battle-cruisers and larger against a specific corporation in the same alliance. Or maybe you just want to go after freighters in Jita only. Sure it would be very cheap, but you need to remember we are talking just the one ship class in one system. They could easily use haulers in that system to bypass being a legal target in Jita, move the goods to the next system and then board a freighter and go about their way. So these things would need to be taken into consideration.

The important thing is both sides have options for how far they want to go with the war and how they can work around it. Instead of the current all or nothing we have now.

UNNECESSARY COSTS

How much does a war declaration cost? It costs 50 million ISK, plus an additional cost for each member in the target corporation/alliance above 51. It will now start to increase with the 51st member and reach the ceiling of 500 million ISK at 2000 members.

Unfortunately, and I could be wrong about this but it includes characters that belong to an account no longer subscribed. Basically making the attacker pay for additional targets they will never have the chance to engage. To a degree the same can be said about characters in a group that serve as nothing more than cyno alts, Player Owned Structure (POS) stront alts and things like that. More targets that the attacker will never be able to have as a target. War fees should never take into consideration players who are not subscribed.

With this new system you could single out targets you know can be a legitimate target and pay for that. Perhaps the logistics corporation of an alliance. Maybe it is simply 20 players who will actually be in empire space. The fee for a corporation of 20 would be vastly smaller than eating the cost to declare war against 10,000 players – of whom most will never be in empire space during the entire war.

FROM GRIEFER TO TEACHER

What I am proposing is ⅓ of the war declaration fee be directly deposited from the attacker to the defenders wallet. I know, it sounds completely insane. Why on earth would an attacker pay the defender anything? Allow me to explain and try to have an open mind.

Making ISK for a new player is actually pretty rough. Outside of scamming or some other uncommon thing; they will be counting every single ISK. Sure they can stay with the NPC and farm missions, but they decide to broaden their game-play. Perhaps they are with some other friends that are new to the game. Basically they are new blood. Something the game desperately needs.

Enter the griefer group. Basically players who have tons of skill points, experience and most likely billions upon billions of ISK to fund themselves as they look for easy prey. They are too cowardly to look for combat in low sec or even faction warfare, because they might actually be shot at. Essentially, in my opinion, a cancer to the game. A cancer because every action they take with that mindset does a tremendous amount of damage to the game without ever adding anything positive to it. Again, cancerous cowards.

So this griefer group targets the new players and using a variety of tools is able to track down all the new players and keep them from actually undocking from the game. From adding them to a watch list to search agents, the new players don’t stand a remote of a chance against the griefers. They don’t have the skill points, the knowledge of game mechanics, the ISK, the ships and most likely not even the same number of pilots to even remotely compete against the griefers. They have no chance.

Now when you factor in the ⅓ war declaration fee income things change drastically. Now this small corporation of new players have a sizable amount of income. Which can be used to replace their tech 1 ships and maybe even hire some mercenaries to aid them. Combine that with the varying stipulations of the war declaration; they can decide to scale down on the ship they want to fly with and not be a legal target. Even relocate to areas that are not part of the war declaration. They now have options. Even if they decide to fight the griefers and lose, the ⅓ fee income will help supplement them.

Now this new player corporation is learning combat. Learning mechanics and not being griefed back to an NPC or deciding to leave the game completely. The once waste of space griefer group have actually funded the new players’ learning process. They still get to go after easy targets, but the degree of damage they want to inflict will dictate how much they are funding the defending group. Are they really griefing if the new players are becoming more experienced, learning and even making a profit? Something to think about for a group looking to grief only.

I’m sure some of you are still scratching your head in confusion, but hopefully the longer you think about it you will agree it helps. Even if it does not make sense in any real world environment. If it squares the circle, so be it – no matter how odd.

SOMETHING TO FIGHT FOR

As I mention earlier, there is very little to fight over. The only two things that fit this category is a POS and Player Owned Customs Office (POCO). These two things can easily be attacked in low security space without having to issue a war declaration, so it really only comes into play for high security space. There needs to be more goals/objectives during the war declaration period so that the declaration fee does not cost as much as the goal/objective itself.

Regarding a POS in high sec; there is another problem. If the defending side thinks they will not be able to successfully defend the tower; they unanchor everything and pack it up leaving nothing. I’m not implying a defender should risk everything, but there needs to be some risk in losing assets. Even if that means increasing the benefit of risking those assets in war.

Perhaps there could be some things that could not be removed. Maybe something in relation to where a group has their headquarters and offices. Something that can be interacted with if a group decides to not fight at all. The POCO has a decently high risk when you consider extremely large groups already have a monopoly on almost all the good planets. We need some entry level objectives to battle over.

There are many possibilities that this could entail and would help bridge the gap between existing in high security space compared to the rest of the game. It doesn’t need to be crippling to the side that decides not to fight for it, but offers a bit of an incentive to do something instead of sitting on one’s hands.

NO – THE COST OF SHIP CLASSES IS NOT BACKWARDS

It does look backwards when you consider the value of each class, but it is by design. With it scaling this way a group always has options of scaling down to a ship class to mitigate the war. Players start with the skill to fly frigates and the learning process takes them through the other ship classes as they scale up. This also makes it more costly for griefer groups to prey on new players. To reach a level of ships new players are flying, they will be paying a good amount of ISK to do it. ISK that will seem like a fortune to the new players. ⅓ going to their wallet. Something to keep in mind.

If it were the other way around it would be ultra cheap to lock out new players and be dramatically in favor of players who scale up to larger ship classes to escape the war declaration conditions. It also allows players the option to keep doing missions as they can choose lower level missions to do with their smaller ships. So they are not entirely locked out of making income. When you think about it this way, I assure you it makes sense.

NPC NO LONGER 100% SAFE

Right now it is impossible to have any legal action taken against players in a non-player corporation. One of the main reasons is to keep griefers in check a bit. One of the side effects is NPC is very commonly used by null alliances for empire logistics. Even when the alliance is under a war declaration, the logistics remains 100% safe behind the NPC – avoiding all risk. This needs to be addressed.

One of the great things about a new war mechanic is the ability to target NPC players. As much as I would love to allow all NPC ship classes to qualify, I think the only one allowed to be selected is the capital class for now. Perhaps in the future with enough balancing on the cost of the war declaration it could be extended to include more if not all ship classes. This is thanks to the ⅓ fee going towards the defenders. Going after a new player for all of empire space would be very costly and the whole time the new player is being showered with ISK. You begin to ask at what point are you going from being a threat to being an angel showering them with that amount of ISK? I also believe the sooner players are involved with combat with other players the better. But it needs to allow the ability for them to mitigate it to a degree instead of the 100% everything anywhere mechanic it is now.

There is a way to become involved in a war while in NPC beyond capital ships, which I will explain next.

REAL RISK FOR NEUTRAL ASSISTING

One of the biggest problems with empire war declaration is neutral assistance. This can be in the form of gang links and logistics giving a group a tremendous advantage. So much that it is not uncommon for the majority of characters involved in a war to be outside of the actual groups who are legally part of the war.

Sure anyone who provides assistance via a module like remote armor or sensor boosting becomes suspect flagged allowing anyone to engage them, but the flag only lasts for 15 minutes and most likely involves so many that if someone were to attack one of these it would just result in other alts or buddies of the target remote repairing your target. Which of course means if you are doing this on a station they could easily dock and grab a combat ship. Then undock and engage you back. Except they have an army of logistics propping them up and most likely – you do not. Thus forcing you to drag along alts and or friends to perform logistics on you as well, resulting in some odd stalemate. Hardly compelling game-play.

So how does one increase the risk of neutral assistance without flat out disallowing it? The best way is to simply include them into the war situation when they do assist. If their wallet does not have the ISK needed to do so whatever module that would be doing the assist does not activate.

Let’s say you are a Guardian and your friend is in an assault frigate engaging one of their war targets in a battle-cruiser. You decide to be ‘that guy’ and start to remote repair your friend.

You will automatically issue a war declaration against your friends target. The extent of this new war declaration is for the system you are currently in, against your friends target and anyone else in the associated war declaration with them. Also taking into consideration the smallest ship involved in the engagement. The smallest ship being used in this engagement being used is your friend in an assault frigate. So the ship class your instant war declaration will be for frigates and larger.

So for that specific situation your wallet will be automatically charged whatever that specific war declaration would be for the location, person involved and ship size. Just like a normal war declaration, this new one will last for a week. If you do not have enough ISK to cover this, you will not be able to use any assistance module to aid them. This also includes links.

So whilst it is still possible to call on your friends for help, it really only can be done once for that specific system and will not be for free. Just as stated above, ⅓ of that fee will be going towards the target entity. You are either neutral or assisting; impossible to be both.

A TWO WAY STREET

Whatever conditions the attacker picks, the thing to remember it is very much a two way street. Here is an example:

Flameburst corporation declares a sanction (war) against Talon corporation. The conditions:

• Location: Coriault constellation
• Target: Talon corporation which is part of Eagle alliance
• Ship Type: Battle-cruiser

Even though the Talon corporation is part of an alliance, it does not mean the rest of the alliance can legally attack Flameburst. Sure they could provide assistance via remote repairs or gang links, but it would fall under the neutral assistance rules as described earlier.

Flameburst could fly around the Coriault constellation in cruisers and smaller ships. If they come across a member of the Talon corporation in a battleship, they can choose to engage them. Remember the ship type selected also includes any larger ship classes. So they can legally attack the Talon corporations battleship while in the Coriault constellation. Remember that even though Flameburst was the initiator of the war declaration, it means the situation could easily be reversed with the Talon corporation flying in Dodixie with heavy assault cruisers finding and attacking a Flameburst Raven in a mission.

If both corporations are flying cruisers and smaller, neither can legally attack each other. If both find each other in battle-cruisers they both can legally engage at will. Back to the previous situation where one is in a heavy assault ship and finds the other in a battleship; the battleship will have to wait for the heavy assault ship to attack it before it can defend itself.

BOUNTY HUNTING AND INCENTIVES

On a previous article, I touched on changing the bounty payouts on ships if they were war targets and if they were on the most wanted list. I want to emphasize that again:

An additional 10% bounty is paid if it is a war target and or an additional 10% if they are the most wanted list. This means that if the target falls under both – the total bounty payout is 40% of the kill value.

So with that change and the new war declaration change you can finally become a real bounty hunter. Browse the most wanted list searching for new targets and then specifically go after that player with a smaller fee compared to digging deep to include their entire corporation or alliance. Crowd Control Productions (CCP) can of course increase the number of most wanted from 10 to say 20 or even 50 if they like so it falls under the +10% bounty bonus.

A significant boost to hunting those with a price on their head.

CONCLUSION

This section of the sandbox needs some serious iteration. While the specific changes I have proposed is not the only way to fix it, something similar that offers the players a variety of options to engage each other is needed. Not just how to go about war declarations, but how to mitigate it if so desired.

The formula used to determine how much the war fee is really up to balance team at CCP. Perhaps security status would affect the amount? Other aspects? It really depends on how far they want to take it. I thought about an option to adjust how long the war declaration could be, but decided not to include a fourth slider. A week still feels about right.

I believe the key to helping new players want to stay in the game involves a few aspects that need work. I have mentioned in the past how terrible things like missions are. Constantly teaching players to be awful at PvP. Another one is the war declaration mechanics. When they are introduced to them, it usually involves a situation where they have no control or time to learn. I believe these changes would help tremendously.

Finally I would like to remind you that reading all of this gives an initial impression this system would be complicated. It actually would be rather simple on the player end. After all you are just deciding who, what and where. Perhaps adjusting to a new overlay for the map that shows where wars are and the conditions, but I think that is a good thing and the opportunity to revamp the map system at the same time would be nice.

Edited by: Stoseph Stuarts