Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Fixing Null-Sec


The following is my opinion on a possible solution to Nullsec, I am in no way so dedicated to this idea that I perceive it as the only solution,and believe that it should be subjected to the critical eye of the community before being presented to CCP.

Beginning with the premise that Nullsec entities control too much space and that null-sec is essentially, 3-4 major coalitions despite an apparently changing sov map.  Also, there is too much isk in the game, and that isk is held by said coalition primarily, but the average line pilot in hghsec, lowsec and nullsec is not by any means “space-rich”.

I propose that to prevent large coalitions from holding space that is unused, but still have soverig rights over, a mechanic of npc intervention be introduced.

Stay with me, its not that bad.

I suggest, doing this in one of two ways, either through station agents, or in-space events.

In the case of station agents being used.  The “missions” would require that the closest npc station, or a station owned by the “defending alliance”  host an npc agent that would give out missions specific to each and every system in nullsec.  These missions would consist of an attacking body of the local priate entity, whith sleeper-drone like AI, whose size and make-up would vary with the security level of the target system, and that these rats would shoot sovereignty structures.  By completing these missions, pilots would earn bounties and the sovereignty holder of the system would receive credit in that system which would go along with their sovereignty bill in maintaining sov.  Thus, active policing of your own systems would be required to maintain sovereignty, regardless of isk in the alliance wallet.  Likewise, it would help attackers who camp a system to reduce the “grind” of sov, and encourage pvp opportunities.  
            In terms of flexibility, it could be possible that the rats would spawn at beacons in space that are generated when the mission is accepted, and that a time limit be placed on killing the rats.  

The other idea, is similar, and indeed came to me before the previous one.  This idea is that rats should spawn at random intervals, 1-3hrs maybe, and begin shooting sov sturcturews, (ihub tcu, station/station upgrades) and again, these rats would have advanced AI, making the task one for multiple pilots even for low security nullsec systems.  These rats would have bounties and if left unattended could result in the destruction of sov structures.  The idea is that without going to defend your structures and repair them, an alliance could lose sovereignty and station functions to npc rats (the egg on the face of anyone this occurs to would be great).  By making spawns random and attack random structures, it is hoped that this would be more difficult to bot.  It is possible that these rats could assist the attacker as well, not that they wouldn’t shoot attackers of the system, but that they would put more pressure on the  defender.

The hope with both systems is that enough player activity would be necessary to maintain sov that large fleets would be required frequently to the point where alliances wouldn’t hold sov in a system unless it was very beneficial.
Both of ideas are solutions to the problem that some groups hold far more space than they should and that nullsec seems too difficult to break into without getting smashed to pieces or entering the behest of an overlord.

Along with these mechanics, I would suggest that if a system had sovereignty level 5, which takes 100 days of uninterrupted sov control, as well as one of the other two indices at 5, they could chose to destroy their iHub upgrades and return to sovereignty level 0, and that in return after the next downtime their system would decrease by 0.1 for as long as they held sov of that system.  This may also require the injection of one or more PLEX into the iHub.  This would allow a group to potentially take a -0.1 system to a -1.0 system, at increments of about 3 month, and again, with the expenditure of isk, and risk associated with moving iHub upgrades around nullsec.

TL;DR
Maybe rats can fix nullsec.

2 comments:

  1. "Stay with me, its not that bad"

    Stopped there. As soon as you say that your ensuing plan has zero merit, and the credibility of someone offering something that is "not that bad" is exactly zero.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hahahahaha so I lied, and actually just started reading the rest.

      No, this is literally the worst idea proposed on any Eve topic ever.

      Delete