Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Null Sec: Outposts


I’m going to go out on a limb and share some ideas I have for nullsec, no matter how crazy they sound, even to me.

I’ve always thought that Outposts could be a huge deal in EVE. I mean, who’s not going to want to play EVE when they realize they can build space stations as WELL as fly spaceships?

But they definitely need a whole lot of TLC. So, here’s my idea.

How about revamping Outposts to come in three different sizes –small, medium, and large. The small variety would be pretty basic. You get your repair, and medical clones, but not a whole lot else. They’re good for military invasions and the like –where someone wants to setup more than a POS infrastructure but doesn’t really need to go all out.

And, speaking of POSes, what if POSes and Outposts weren’t mutually exclusive mechanics from each other as they are now? What if upgrading from a Large POS to a small Outpost was a natural progression?
But, let’s talk more about what I have in mind for my three Outpost sizes.

Small

As I stated earlier, smalls would be pretty basic. Different races might have different unique features. Maybe a single Manufacturing slot on the Gallente—or etc. I’ll leave those sort of details to someone else.

Mediums

Medium Outposts would be similar to what we have now. Good for longer term settling down. Some basic Manufacturing and Research slots, depending on how you build them.

Larges

Large Outposts would be costly to build and would represent a sort of ‘ space hub.’ They would have tons of industrial capabilities,--rivaling those of empire stations,  as well as upgrades that allow super capitals to ‘pseudo’ dock at them.


In addition to splitting Outposts into three sizes, we’d also change how Outposts work in general.
For starters, all of them would be destructible. Because, who wouldn’t want to be part of an operation to blow up their enemy’s space station?

But, we’d also make it possible to ‘abandon’ an outpost. I always thought it was strange that people need to jump through hoops to maintain a POS –fuel, etc. –but the same doesn’t really apply to Outposts. So, outposts would now be costly to maintain, either in fueling, or in some other way –depending on the size, services made available, and etc. Perhaps you have to ‘pay’ your workers to keep your repair services up and running, and provide fuel to keep other things working.

Anyway, if you don’t pay –or you don’t keep up with whatever maintenance needs keeping up with, the station goes into a sort of ‘default’ mode. You are no longer in control, anyone can dock, and more importantly –anyone can take claim of it.

In case you’re not completely convinced that abandoned Outposts is not an interesting idea –now imagine that you can build Outposts in wormhole space. Which also means, that in exploring wormholes –it is entirely possible to run across an abandoned Outpost.

Now, that would almost make me want to do some exploring myself.

Of course, there’s lots of things to consider throughout all of this.


  • For example, what happens to everyone stuff when a station gets blown up? Does the station leave a ‘wreck’? LOL
  • What happens to people’s stuff when the station is abandoned? Should there be some sort of ‘general’ hanger that everyone can access? Perhaps if the station is abandoned –all the corp hangers of the corp that originally owned it get dumped in this general hanger. Therefore, not only can you find ‘abandoned’ outposts in Wormhole space, you can rummage around in the assets that the owners left behind.
  • What happens to the people who are docked in a station when it gets blown up? Are they essentially ‘podded’?  That could be interesting from a kill/loss mail perspective.


Anyway, there’s so much cool stuff they could do with player owned stations, that it’s almost baffling they haven’t iterated on them before now. New players would find it all cool and interesting, older players would have new –perhaps even more ‘advanced’ content to play with, and non-EVE players would be hard pressed to resist starting up a subscription of their own.

Perhaps we limit ourselves when we only think of EVE in terms of Internet Spaceships. EVE could be about much, much more.


Related Posts:
Null Sec: Ownership Vs. Sovereignty


6 comments:

  1. Interesting idea, for sure. Two points.

    -I could have sworn outposts already contributed to the upkeep cost of a system, but apparently I'm wrong. This baffles me.
    -I'm hesitant when it comes to the idea of destructible outposts, for two reasons. First is the whole "little guy" argument. I buy that it might be possible to create a scenario in which a big alliance ignores a small one just because they're not worth the effort. "We get to grief the shit out of them by blowing up their shit and they're too small to stop us" would, to many, suddenly make it worth the effort. Second is that I'm not entirely sure it would encourage more war between similarly sized entities - the opposite is just as likely.

    Not saying I'm against destructible stations, mind you. Just saying that in light of other possible goals for nullsec, the parameters of and reasons for their destructability need to be thought about and defined very carefully. ;)

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  2. Stations used to contribute to the costs and sov of null space systems, in addition to POSes believe it or not. Dominion changed all of that. But we used to spend hours and hours shooting stations to "flip" them. And encouraging people to build more POSes.

    Anyway, I personally love the idea. Similar ideas have been floated around for years and they all tend to die horrible deaths sadly. But the core concept is sound, I'm just not sure CCP wants to follow an established thread all the way back and change it. This is one of the significant challenges facing the POS crowd right now, changes need to be made but they take a lot of dedicated energy from our overlords in Iceland to accomplish. The questions is, do they want to spend that effort or not?

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    Replies
    1. Question is, will Rixx Javix campaign as hard for a POS revamp as he did for the frill? ;-)

      I don't think destructible outposts are too big an issue if they derive from ModPOS, because ideally it should allow for multiple 'outposts' in a system. Then all they need is a module that lets you access your assets remotely from all in-system outposts (mitigates the issue of losing all your assets because an FC was bored, but still risks it to all out warfare).

      Pair this with a sov system where shooting structures isn't a requirement for grabbing space and you have a very interesting proposal don't you think? :D

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    2. I do think. And to answer your question I'm not entirely sure what I'd be supporting yet. I am the most passionate person in the universe when I believe in something, but right now the POS issue is all across the board. I like a lot of the suggestions, proposals and other ideas out there.

      Even this article on the Mitts:
      http://themittani.com/features/poses-apocrypha-and-themes

      Good stuff.

      I believe POS needs re-thought and I KNOW Sov does. The solution is finding a way to tie those together in a way that makes sense and can be accomplished.

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  3. I'll have to read this again in more depth, but a few assorted thoughts:

    Destructible stations/outposts may sound cool, but introduce even more structure grind into the game (and apparently just now a war was cancelled because of it). At the same time, if you don't make them strong enough, smaller entities would fall prey to bored roaming supercap gangs.

    I do like the idea of automatic abandonment if the station is not supported with supplies. This would also introduce an element of siege warfare into the game where an attacker could aim to intercept all resupply convoys in order to force a station into abandonment. Of course this only works if physical goods have to be brought to the stations in question - just paying ISK would make it too easy to run a large station empire.

    If a station is abandoned, corps should lose the contents of their hangars, but maybe leave private hangars untouched (though maybe pilots would have to pay an impound fee to get it back if the station gets a new owner). If a station is destroyed, everything should go *poof*, including clones.

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  4. I want to think about station defenses. I space station that is destructable should have it's own means of defense as well. POSs have weapons and defenses that can be customized. Outposts would need the same thing. Bigger guns and customizable defenses. Maybe automated fighters! Anyhow, I would think an outpost would need to be able to destroy a capital ship by itself, so someone dosen't solo an outpost with a dread!

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