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BrainStorm: Tug of War

March 8, 2014

BrainStorm is a new Eve News24 submission column dedicated to players willing to share and expose their ideas to our select and unforgiving readership, feel free to send your own at [email protected]

The nullsec-dwellers will not suffice to “win EVE”.

Thus, having a huge bloc will still be rewarded with (much) larger and nicer portions of space. Having a huge bloc is however probably not necessary to claim a worthless backwater system and enter into the sovereignty game. Since the huge blocs are not likely to be willing to commit their pilots’ precious time to defending said worthless system week after week, one would probably “only” need persistence and moderate numbers. Or maybe the bloc will dispatch a defensive force with which the attacker has to deal. And, thirdly, going on boundless conquest is punished because you cannot, at the same time, keep up your sovereignty claim as effectively in the worthwhile systems and in your home region.

Additionally, this mechanic will diminish one of the major drawbacks of the current workings: having to be in a certain system at a very specific point of time with as many pilots as possible, thus creating the dreaded “soul-crushing lag and TiDi”. For one, the sov-points are gathered and deducted over the course of days and maybe weeks. And if a system is contested and the attacker sends in large numbers and powerful ships, the defender can choose to go into that system and defend on his home turf – or use the opportunity to send forces into the attacker’s systems, taking advantage of his absence there. Or split forces. Or make a feign attack on the attacker’s home region, and while he recalls some of the assault forces to defend, turn around and kick the remaining attack fleet from the besieged system, Or … or … or…!

The same is true for the attacker: instead of going for a single system, he can opt to spread his forces to attack several systems at once, possibly in very different locations, making the defender have to choose and react this way or that. Which in turn affects the way how the attacker continues with his plans. So location of pilots can be much more spread out. And spread out means smoother gameplay.

The whole system of nullsec warfare would become much more reliant on strategic decisions – where to have your forces at any given time – and it would give a lot more choices how and where to attack, and how and where to defend. Instead of having to pile everything into a single system. It would become much more lively, dynamic, and interesting. And all with much less tidi and lag!
Some details that also came along while thinking about the idea:

1.) Sov holder always gets updates about changes, and can set automated notifications when certain absolute and/or relative changes occur.

2.) I am not sure if an attacker should be able to see the status of the sov holder’s claim and how much more effort is needed to cancel the current sov. 3.) Station mechanics should stay as they are: difficult to conquer when belonging to sov holder, easy(ier) when not.

4.) Other sov infrastructure gets transferred to sov holder automatically, and gives bonuses to sov holder’s points, but can be destroyed by an attacker to make conquest easier. So an attacker can make a strategic decision to blow that stuff up to take sov quicker, but having to replace it, or to inherit it after putting more effort into the conquest.

5.) Sov blockade units give bonuses to point deduction from holding alliance.

6.) Sov can still be transferred. The transferee gains the sov points from the transferring alliance, and since both are probably blue to each other, the sov count develops the same as if the former alliance still held sov. Renters are still welcome, and joint conquest and subsequent division of spoils is still possible.

Have I forgotten anything?

Now, if anyone thinks this idea is worthwhile, and has a good idea how CCP can smoothly make a change to the existing mechanics in the running system, I would love comments on that, too. Otherwise we must just hope for better sov mechanics in the coming, yet-to-be-discovered new territories. Once a new mechanic has proven its worth there, it will probably be migrated to the current nullsec as well.

– Diskutant