Officer beacons
You may recall my earlier article about an officer LP store and after plenty of feedback a new idea was proposed over teamspeak by a friend that I rather like and have seen it work to a good extent in other games. This idea retains certain aspects from the previous article, for instance it keeps the element of an isk sink, a loyalty point grind and requirement for a hefty amount of time spent in NPC nullsec. It also addresses some of the concerns raised by your goodselves via feedback and helps to maintain the concept of the random number generator aspect of loot drops from officers and the rarity of some of the more sought after officer modules themselves.
What is the idea you ask?
The idea is for an ‘Officer Distress Beacon’ obtained via LP and ISK from selected stations in NPC nullsec. The beacon is an item a player can deploy that will light a distress beacon much like a cyno, which a random officer (from the faction associated with the beacon) would lock on to. Imagine it much like a clear anomaly scanner that suddenly finds a new signal. The officer, seeing the distress beacon being activated would immediately jump to the beacon in an attempt to turn the tide for his fellow counterparts and instead be ambushed by the waiting player.
Lore wise this makes sense as officer ships are far beyond any other npc ships in every possible way including electronic warfare immunity (just like super carriers and titans). Therefore it would make sense that an officer would have the ability to jump to a nearby solar system (have you ever seen an NPC take a gate?).
Now that we have the idea, lets examine the risks involved for those who wish to have one of these beacons at their disposal. What is to stop someone taking the beacon to a deep nullsec system surrounded by friendlies, a wormhole or even Jita?
The proposed drawbacks and requirements for the module activation would work the exact same as a Cynosural Field Generator (and should be easy to use existing code to make happen.) So, the person using the beacon becomes immobile for 10 minutes and appears on the overview for everyone in the solar system at the same time as a warpable object. On top of that the ‘Officer Distress Beacon’ would also only activate in NPC nullsec and it would need to remain in the correct NPC nullsec space and would not activate in any other area of space. This makes sense from both a lore perspective and balance perspective. A Guristas officer would more than likely not be willing to try and save someone in deep serpentis territory for example. The final and most unique requirement is that the beacon will only cycle once, and if the ship which activated the beacon dies then the officer leaves. The reasoning behind is that this lore wise, after killing or having his would be assassin killed the outraged officer leaves to try and hunt down who ever sold the beacon that lead to an assassination attempt against him. Balance wise this creates a unique situation, having warped to the beacon you have to keep the ship with the beacon alive (even against the officer) for the officer to remain on grid as well as only having the time that it takes for the beacon to finish its single cycle.
Would there be multiple beacons per faction?
No, there would only be one beacon per faction and it would light a general distress beacon that any relevant officer of that faction can jump to.
The officer jumping would not only be random, but there would be no guaranteed officer loot at the end of it either.
Why should we support this idea and request a change to the current stuation?
Right now NPC nullsec is mostly used for staging systems and the occasional mission running. This idea, in my opinion, would be an interesting way to encourage people to come to NPC nullsec and engage in something a little different.
How is this creating content in nullsec?
This proposal doesn’t just pass out rewards in terms of isk, it gives players a reason why they should relocate to NPC nullsec and get rewards they simply cannot get anywhere else.
If this idea was implemented it could bring:
– Increased mission runners
– More people hunting the mission runners
– Potential for industry players to stock the market in NPC stations for the mission runners
– Small groups and large groups trying to control the few stations for either profit or even just so they can stage somewhere without having the station hell camped and losing everything inside.
How is that different to now? We always had mission runners, hunters and null blocs staging here.
However, imagine now just as you undock to go on a roam or jump to an operation you see an officer distress beacon on your overview. You become aware that at the very least someone is sitting at the beacon unable to move, and at the most they are fighting or maybe becoming the victim of an officer who is about to drop something very cool and valuable. This can lead to multiple sides fighting each other but having to keep the player with the beacon lit alive! More reps on the drake!
But officers are meant to be rare!
Yes, indeed they are but ask yourself, have you ever seen an officer and what should be more rare? An officer spawn or them dropping any gear of value? There is close to no harm done in simply having more officer sightings considering the very low drop rate of the most rare and valuable modules. Imagine the rush and anticipation of having an officer jump to you and start to engage. I feel that lack of content for raritys sake should not always be encouraged just to maintain the current status quo. Other MMOs have learnt this and created ways to let players see and experience content that they wouldn’t otherwise participate in.
Why is Lack of content bad in terms of something that should be rare? The keyword is rare. it should not be “readily available” but still accessible at some point to those who are prepared to work and fight for it. Wouldn’t this be a huge gain in income for anyone doing it? It really depends on the random number gods. You will be paying a large sum of isk and a large chunk of loyalty points to get an officer distress beacon. When the aforementioned beacon is activated and a meta 11 officer spawns, after fighting for what feels like an eternity whilst unable to move, watching local intensely and D-scanning for guests, finally the officer dies….You open the wreck and what do you find? A name tag of the officer, a faction energy neutraliser and a single unit of True Sansha Microwave L. The highlight may just be salvaging the wreck!
That’s the random number gods.
Would you like to see officer distress beacons in pirate LP stores? Vote on the >> Poll now! <<
When discussing or proposing changes please be specific in what you would like changed, Example “I would like it to be more LP expensive than Isk expensive”
Some starting discussion points :
How much isk should it cost? How much LP should it cost? Should the drop rate on items be lowered or kept the same? Are the requirements for the beacon to high? What should the officer response percentage be in terms of which officer responds, for example what should the chance Estamel responds could be? Should the beacon be able to sold on the market or just contracts? Should the officer beacon have a single cycle of 10 minutes before it is destroyed or should it have a larger amount of cycles? Should the beacon be a deployable that immobilizes you or a high slot module?
– MR Benoit
