winter patch: Dominion

[Pennilenko]

I'm glad CCP feels able to make long overdue changes now their pet alliance is dead

So basically, Goons and Allies liberated Eve!

[ajax34i]

I wonder what targets that doomsday weapon will be able to one-shot.

[Surlyboi]

I'm glad CCP feels able to make long overdue changes now their pet alliance is dead

Of course they can. Now they've got to engineer a way for that alliance to find its way up again, now that we see that they were beaten at their old game.

[Simond]

I love all of this. It's the final fucking nail in the coffin of BoB's tired old saw of "We're just better than you".
No. No, they were just given better toys and now that we get to play with them they suddenly become 'unbalanced'. 

[Endie]

Zastrow, one of the GF CSMs, posted saying that:

good things are coming i promise. today SELEENE of all people, who works for ccp these days and is working on Dominion in particular asked us about 0.0 thangs... this game will be getting much better in like november trust me. i will write a better postgame post when i get home ok goodnight

So although he won't get specific (NDA) this from a man who is dedicated to making 0.0 more profitable to live in, together with the stuff in this article - http://pc.ign.com/articles/102/1021847p1.html - about things like upgrading space seem pretty optimistic for November.  Although if you're Kenny/Molle and are waiting for November to bring something that makes Delve suddenly alll vulnerable to assault then the excitement of the GS reps seems a downside.

also, for those who have been around long enough to remember LV and the first titan pilots:

also that guy in the top picture on the right sitting on the table? that's john and he's been helping the csm do things all weekend but you might know im better as THE ENSLAVER lol. ive gotten everyone to call im chowdown to irritate him though

It's not just Zastrow, of course.  Our other CSM rep, Avalloc, had this to say:

mnmnghghg,  mnnghgughg mnhghgghg!

[Nerf]

I almost doused a fair chunk of my astronomy class in orange juice upon reading that, thanks Endie.

"What the fuck? Did someone with a mouthful of cocks just try to say something?"

[Endie]

New dev blog.  Good stuff.

"Do not fear change, embrace it."

This blog is the first in a series which will focus on giving you a glimpse into some of the big features of our next expansion, Dominion.  In this one, we want to give you a high level overview of how we plan to change the sovereignty mechanic.  Subsequent blogs will detail things such as the theories behind some of these new concepts and, eventually, the actual mechanics as well as a few other key bits we feel directly affect the massive sandbox of null-sec game play in EVE.  For now though, let's get started.

Out with the old...

In the beginning, there was no sovereignty... then there were starbases.  Intended to be ‘homes' of a sort for corporation or alliance members, or even a lone miner in deep space, these venerable structures have since been pressed into a multitude of roles for which their initial design was never intended.  Their link to attaining control of star systems is something which we will move away from in Dominion.  So now comes the words which so many have longed to hear:

Sovereignty will no longer be tied directly to starbases.

This decision was an obvious one, as there is no one thing that causes more consternation amongst players than the seemingly endless task of shooting towers.  Once the choice to do this was made, we then went ahead and pretty much scrapped the entire current system and started to build a new one from the ground up.  Literally years of forum posts, player experience and feedback from the CSM contributed to what was a long, arduous process.  What has emerged is a much leaner and infinitely more expandable system which we can continually evolve over time.

The thoughts and theories behind this process will be detailed soon in a following blog, but I'm sure you're ready for some actual information.

Planting the Flag

There are no sov ‘levels' anymore; you either have sovereignty or you do not.  The mechanic for claiming a star system will be much more simplified and symbolic.  You will plant your ‘flag' in the form of a new claiming module and it will sync up with the traditional ‘borders' of a star system, namely the stargates.  The exact mechanics of how this works and why will be explained later, as we are still in the process of balancing the system, however we can tell you one of the more important bits.

Upkeep

Who makes sure all those stargates in 0.0 continue to run?  Who pays the bills to the crews and funds essential services to ensure there are no breakdowns?  When Dominion is released, the answer is simple - if you want to control the space accessed by these stargates, you will be responsible for their monthly maintenance and upkeep.  The current design calls for this to be a simple ISK transaction, representative of things like duct tape for reactor maintenance, Amarrios breakfast cereal and other important stuff.

The other major factor is the more space you spread your ‘Dominion' across, the more expensive it will become to maintain your stargate network.  We do not want to see alliances holding space simply for the sake of holding it or just making their color on the map bigger.  We want to see alliances more properly utilizing their space and providing more places for their members to generate income.  In order to facilitate that, we are going to let you do some really cool stuff!

Home Improvement

One issue that we intend to specifically address is that of ‘infrastructure'.  This is a word you are going to hear a lot more of in the months and years to come.  Essentially, we are going to give you the tools to improve the space you hold.  There will be many ways you can do this, but they will all fall under one of three categories: Military, Economic and Industrial.  These are not set ‘paths' that you can follow, simply a classification of daily activities that take place in EVE.

The idea is that some areas of space are obviously considered of less worth than others and always have been.  This is going to change.  YOU are going to change it.  Through the investment of time, money and effort at all levels, an alliance will be able to directly affect the value of and develop the space they hold.  This will consist of things as simple as investing in improvements that allow your members to discover new riches in systems long thought barren and useless.  The resources were always ‘out there', hidden or out of sight, and now you will have the tools to access them.  Other developmental areas will concern the expansion and efficiency of your industrial base. 

In essence, you are going to be able to make your space more attractive to both your current alliance members and also smaller entities that might be looking for incentives to take their first steps out of Empire.  The goal is to provide incentives for you and your allies to not have to spread out so much in order to provide reasonable rewards for your pilots.

I want to blow *%#$ up!

No matter what happens, there will always be important things to shoot.  The key is finding a balance between allowing smaller gangs of raiders to disrupt the day to day operations of your space against requiring massive battleship and capital fleets to actually remove you from the same space.  Conquest of space in Dominion will differ greatly from what exists currently, as will the ability of roaming gangs to cause an ‘AFK Empire' no end of frustration.

Just as raiders will be presented new opportunities to create havoc, aggressors intent on all out conquest will have to carefully weigh their plans and make decisions on what and where to attack first.  Strategies that work in one system may completely fail in the next.  Defenders of space in Dominion will have new ways of defending their space as well.  These tools will not replace a proper defense force but they will provide new and exciting options which ensure that not every fight is the same and will reward investment in military infrastructure.

Dominion Tools

Tying all of this together will be a feature we are tentatively calling the "Sovereignty Dashboard" (cooler name pending).  Depending on your level of access in a corp or alliance, you will be able to use this new feature to get up-to-the-moment information on what is happening in a given system of space that your alliance controls.  You will be able to see where the efforts of your alliance are going, what areas of space are being developed and how you as a member, director or executor might help.  This is just an overview of basic functionality.  This feature may be expanded upon and you can expect more details soon.

Iteration & The Future

One very important point to take away from this blog is that everything described here is only the beginning.  One of the mandates that we've followed in our recent development cycles is that any new features we introduce be open ended enough to allow for future development and improvement.  The wormholes of Apocrypha are a prime example of this in that who knows what else might be lurking in the darkness of wormhole space?  Likewise, while we felt that the old sov system was at an evolutionary dead end, with no ability to properly expand upon it, the new one we plan to introduce in Dominion is specifically aimed at allowing us to continually tweak it and introduce new content.

As an example of this philosophy, one feature which we plan to implement early next year as a direct follow-up to the new Sovereignty system is the introduction of Treaties.  Without going into too much detail, Treaties will be a fully functional mechanic that formalizes many of the agreements already in game.  The plan is to give alliances the tools to ‘rent' out areas of their space to other alliances or corporations, create formal military treaties and establish diplomatic boundaries with regard to your alliance interests.

As you can see, we are not doing this by half measures.  The sandbox is about to get bigger and badder than ever.  This is EVE Online - Dominion.

[Endie]

Can I just double-post point out to what extent I called this stuff?  Increasingly prohibitive cost of holding more space; increased returns from holding 0.0 space to make holding less space worthwhile and open up more space to newcomers etc...

[setar]

Would seem to favor small, high value regions (high moon concentration) over larger expanses of space. Also not quite sure why you'd attack another group if you cannot afford the upkeep of that space. Going to depend heavily on just how expensive it is to hold space.

[setar]

Heh. And from another forum:

"Unless it's done cleverly, you'll just see GoonSwarm, GoonMob, GoonGang, GoonPile, GoonRiot, GoonGoon and GoonNoog alliances holding adjacent space in the massive space continent all will come to know as GoonTopia."

[Endie]

I need to find my post on here about this to be smug here, too.

[palmer_eldritch]

I got the impression that moons will become less important, as the value of a system will depend on the infrastructure you put in there, and how much your members exploit the benefits the infrastructure provides, rather than the number and types of moons.

So Delve stops being the golden land once Goons have it:) But it does seem like a good idea to me.

[Endie]

Actually, with the anticipated rebalances and boosts to the neodymniumiaminiun and thulium delve is well placed to survive a prom/dyspro fall. It was super-obvious that the r64s would be rebalanced, and only the fact that I am so lazy and burned out stopped me keeping my tpar r64 going.

[lac]

Heh. And from another forum:

"Unless it's done cleverly, you'll just see GoonSwarm, GoonMob, GoonGang, GoonPile, GoonRiot, GoonGoon and GoonNoog alliances holding adjacent space in the massive space continent all will come to know as GoonTopia."

I'm really curious as to how they will tackle this issue. I suppose they could factor in the total members of an alliance when calculating the cost per system in such a way that for every X members you get a system at the lowest price, once you start claiming more systems the price rises.

[Comstar]

Jump Bridges won't cross alliances, so the current webway throughout delve and querious will be broken up into small chunks. The supply lines for people like KIA, ZAF,  ROL or ATLAS will become untenable unless 0.0 no longer needs to import stuff from empire (or vice versa).

[Simond]

This is going to let the GSFL have so much fun - they're going to be like a mongoloid horde. 

E: And I'm still going with "CCP screws this up horrendously", incidentally.

[ajax34i]

Actually, from what I'm reading, it seems that an alliance can pay the Sov upkeep costs to get a chance to improve the space (for example, CVA might do this), or the other option is to forget about sovereignty and just use what's there already (if Delve has good resources the Goons may do this).  Take down all deathstar POSes (no point to them) and just maintain the moon mining POSes, and otherwise live out of the Outposts.  Rat whatever's there already, and rely on pilot participation to defend agains roaming gangs and/or an invasion force.  For Providence, on the other hand, if Sov lets CVA actually improve the truesec rating of their area, and thus get better rats and/or better moons, they'll probably want to do that.

Actually, nevermind.  I think CCP will level out the playing field, so that ALL 0.0 space is equally bad (like Providence) and then they'll say "You guys want better rats?  Claim Sov.  You want R64 moons?  Claim Sov."

So then it becomes a matter of the availability of pipes into the space.  If there's an easy pipe from empire, the space is desirable and will be developed for good rats and good moons.  If it's some dead-end pocket in a far corner of the map....  well, that's what pets are for.  Or maybe the reverse; put the pets on the pipe as cannon fodder.  But in any case, geography will matter, methinks.

[Predator Irl]

Also not quite sure why you'd attack another group if you cannot afford the upkeep of that space. Going to depend heavily on just how expensive it is to hold space.

This is a very good point, larger alliances may not have enough incentive to attack one another. They mention implementing space rental into the mechanics which will negate that to a certain extent. It does open the opportunity for smaller alliances to claim some space for themselves. I'm quite in favour of these changes but sceptical of CCPs implementation.

[eldaec]

Broadly it looks good for goons, (high population density, large capital wealth, greater than average interest in shit like infrastructure), bad for PL or BoB style blocs.

And I remain concerned that CCP are going to fuck up the core sov warfare mechanics (not that I like the current ones, I just worry that it would be easier to make them worse than to make them better).

Actually, from what I'm reading, it seems that an alliance can pay the Sov upkeep costs to get a chance to improve the space (for example, CVA might do this)

CVA have to be really fucking careful about this. If they upgrade the space in a way that it becomes worthy of invasion - such as by attracting better rats or ore, they could be in trouble.

On the other hand, if there are options to upgrade in a way that can attract more empire pubbie trade that earns them isk in NRDS, but which would disappear if providence was invaded and turned NBSI, then they could be big winners.  

"Unless it's done cleverly, you'll just see GoonSwarm, GoonMob, GoonGang, GoonPile, GoonRiot, GoonGoon and GoonNoog alliances holding adjacent space in the massive space continent all will come to know as GoonTopia."

In the case of Goons, you'll see greater pressure to find a suitable owner for Querious, but I doubt this will reach the point where it is worth breaking up Delve.

Similarly if you look at the rest of the map, few alliances still hold so much space that you would expect people to go this far. What I think you will see, is that less healthy alliances will disintegrate more quickly and free up space, because the total costs of sov will probaby be higher, and alliances will no longer be able to quietly reduce their sov costs by skimping on  towers.  

And of course, we are less likely to see situations like old-Goonspace, or Bob-space stretching across half a dozen or more regions.

[Goumindong]

I got the impression that moons will become less important, as the value of a system will depend on the infrastructure you put in there, and how much your members exploit the benefits the infrastructure provides, rather than the number and types of moons.

So Delve stops being the golden land once Goons have it:) But it does seem like a good idea to me.

No, its not. Its a retarded idea. If all space is the same then there is no economic incentive for anyone who already has 0.0 space to go and take anyone elses.

Now if its all about infrastructure that you can either destroy or capture it might be a different issue, but i don't think CCP is smart enough to consider that.

[eldaec]

I might be reading it wrong, but I don't get the impression that the existing R64 moons are going away.

Seems like this will be more about how resources can be improved or allowed to decay from existing levels.

[ajax34i]

CVA have to be really fucking careful about this. If they upgrade the space in a way that it becomes worthy of invasion - such as by attracting better rats or ore, they could be in trouble.

Well, if the improvements go away instantly when Sov is lost, then any invading force will just get plain old Providence and will have to put in the same effort tha CVA previously did, which kinda makes it pointless to attack them.  Or anyone.

Not enough info about how the system works at this time, though; I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[palmer_eldritch]

What I'm looking at this this bit: "The idea is that some areas of space are obviously considered of less worth than others and always have been.  This is going to change."

Although there are other reasons why some space is considered better than others, the distribution of good moons is the main one I think?  What he seems to be saying is that it will be balanced so all areas are roughly equal - except for the improvements made by alliances themselves. That doesn't means moons will mean nothing at all, but it does suggest they will become less important.

[trevorreznik]

My guess is CCP is focusing mainly on belts, specifically truesec and types of ore.  I doubt they'll do anything to make moons dynamically get better, or belt numbers to increase.

I also expect CCP to get rid of the Fountain/Delve ratting perfect truesec and make it crappy space, but I think that's because I'm still bitter about BoB/ccp connections.

[Amarr HM]

From the IGN article in reference to Titans

It's always been thought that the outcome of a battle was more or less settled with the presence of a Titan capital ship, the largest ship in the game, as its doomsday weapon could potentially wipe out an entire fleet. However, in the expansion this weapon is being changed from an area-effect to a single-target one.

Seriously the dev team is actually Endie and myself pulling all the strings, I've shitted up JadeC's, DariusJ's and even trevor rezniks thread here with this idea. I would have shitted up more but I ran out of steam :P

*Smug*

[rand]

Would seem to favor small, high value regions (high moon concentration) over larger expanses of space.

deklein is going to own (more than it already does)

[Kovacs]

Yeah good call on the increasing costs of upkeep but are the increases going to be geographic (as from a capital) or numeric, each additional gate/improvement increases costs?  I there going to be advantages to holding connecting territories?

What I'm wondering is, if you improve your space does that make it more attractive to hostile takeover?  How much of your stuff's going to be usable exclusively by the alliance holding sov.

And am I the only one who thinks the "Mongoloid Horde" of alliances is rife for potential drama and may be somethig to encourage and not to gaurd against.

[mokianna]

This has me wondering about 'our' space, with the 2 stations and 5 systems. Not having to maintain all the POS would save us roughly 3billion isk a month, and the question that comes to mind ... is 3bil isk a month enough to maintain what we have?

[Predator Irl]

I think the question is, when this change comes in will Querious be a better region than Delve?
All area's being equal, travel is easier and I don't think we will want to hold all that space if cost will be an issue.

I suppose that extends to all 0.0 space adjacent to empire space.

[Gets]

Thread hijack. One member of the CSM already got caught for using information gained from being a representative to get isku.

http://www.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=692

On Thursday, September 3rd, Adam Ridgway (aka Larkonis Trassler) bought items worth of 2.5 billion ISK in order to stockpile those items before a game design change would be implemented. Further 2.5 billion was traded in these same items earlier that night based on the same information but through another character. This was purely speculative since this particular game design has not been finalized yet and at this point the effect of the change in question is not known. However, insider information was used as the basis of this trade and that is not according to the standards that we set for members of the Council of Stellar Management or employees of CCP. Adam Ridgway realized his mistake and decided to step down from his post as a member of the Council of Stellar Management. He will be replaced by Michele Boland, aka. Issler Dainze.

Someone find out what he bought it was Neodymium

During the last visit of the CSM members to the Reykjavik office one member of the council acted upon information he had received during a earlier meeting, engaging in speculative trading and trying to cash in on that information.

In so doing the CSM member broke the agreement between him and CCP, and more so, broke the trust he had build with other members of the council.

'Internets Spaceships are serious business'

Also, Mazzillu, another CSM representative posted her summary of events and happenings in CCP's office and other parts of Reykjavik, including planting bees in the lunchroom and other antics:

http://www.scrapheap-challenge.com/viewtopic.php?t=29013

My favorites:

[Amarr HM]

I'm just wondering though will stargates now have deployments attached to them in this new system. I'm saying they might and this will fundamentally change 0.0 travel.

[Gets]

Yes, you will start seeing crap around 0.0 stargates, but only one thing has been confirmed. Namely, "Sovereignty Disruptors" that can be anchored (max 20km) at stargates and they will cause the sov beacon to go offline. This info is from a SHC poster who took a peek in the cache files of a test release which had some DED mail code in it.

SOVEREIGNTY_CLAIM_MAIL_ALLIANCE_BODY 'This mail is your confirmation that DED now officially acknowledges that your member corporation %(corporation)s has claimed sovereignty on your behalf in the system %(system)s.

Your sovereignty claim is contingent on your administration bill payments arriving on time.'
SOVEREIGNTY_CLAIM_MAIL_ALLIANCE_HEADER 'DED Sovereignty claim Acknowledgment: %(system)s'
SOVEREIGNTY_CLAIM_MAIL_CORPORATION_BODY 'This mail acknowledges that your corporation has claimed sovereignty in the system %(system)s on behalf of the alliance %(alliance)s.

This claim is conditional on prompt administrative bill payment. '
SOVEREIGNTY_CLAIM_MAIL_CORPORATION_HEADE R 'Sovereignty claimed in: %(system)s'
SOVEREIGNTY_DISRUPTOR_DETECTED_BODY 'A new disruptor has been detected in %(system)s.
If a disruptor is online at all the star gates then your sovereignty claim in this system could be jeopardized. '
SOVEREIGNTY_DISRUPTOR_DETECTED_HEADER 'Disruptor activity detected in %(system)s.'
SOVEREIGNTY_NOTVULNERABLE_ALLIANCE_BODY 'The link to at least one star gate has been restored in the system %(system)s.'
SOVEREIGNTY_NOTVULNERABLE_ALLIANCE_HEADE R 'Sovereignty claim stable.'
SOVEREIGNTY_UNCLAIM_MAIL_ALLIANCE_BODY 'DED acknowledges that you have lost your claim to sovereignty in the system %(system)s.'
SOVEREIGNTY_UNCLAIM_MAIL_ALLIANCE_HEADER 'Lost sovereignty in %(system)s'
SOVEREIGNTY_UNCLAIM_MAIL_CORPORATION_BOD Y 'Your corporation has lost sovereignty in the system %(system)s. '
SOVEREIGNTY_UNCLAIM_MAIL_CORPORATION_HEA DER 'Lost sovereignty in system %(system)s.'
SOVEREIGNTY_VULNERABLE_ALLIANCE_BODY 'Your claim in %(system)s is vulnerable to claim jumpers as the connections to the systems star gates has been disrupted.

Reestablish the connections to the system star gates to retain sovereignty.'
SOVEREIGNTY_VULNERABLE_ALLIANCE_HEADER 'ALERT: Sovereignty claim is vulnerable to claim jumpers!'


CantOnlineSovereigntyAllreadyClaimed - messageText 'The %(tower)s cannot be onlined because sovereignty has already been claimed in this system.'
CantOnlineSovInWormhole - messageText 'There are no Stargates to connect with in this system, structure can not online.'
CantOnlineDisruptorsOnline - messageText 'The %(tower)s cannot be onlined because there is disruption generators at each of the stargare. Offline or destroy the disruption generators to online the claim marker.'
CantOnlineDisruptorsOnline - messageText 'The %(tower)s cannot be onlined because there is disruption generators at each of the stargare. Offline or destroy the disruption generators to online the claim marker.'
CantAnchorDisruptorNoStargate - messageText 'The %(tower)s can't be anchored more than 20km away from a stargate.'

So I imagine less POS but still more anchroing. Personally, I abhor the whole concept of a "Sov Disruptor" and not shifting more of the engagement scenes off of stargates. I'd like to have more fleet fights outside a stations/outpost without docking games being involved much for example. Anchorable guns at stations or new station upgrades (mentioned in a new devblog) seem more justified compared to an arbitrary module at a stargate. I'm guessing the idea is to make roaming gangs more involved in the process... somehow. Also, Darius Johnson's initial proposal as a CSM rep where sov claiming could only be at planets seems much more sensible, simpler and less prone to massive frustration.

The more I read on what's planned the more I frown. Example,

We are looking at the upgrades in player built outposts. We are considering a few new offerings but will have to see how they balance against the rest of the Infrastructure system. Of more immediate import is we will likely be reducing the cost of the Level 2 and Level 3 outpost upgrades to something sane enough to discourage players from simply dropping another outpost because it's cheaper. This is also important because some Infrastructure upgrades will require you to have an outpost upgraded to a certain level as well.

Great! More reason to upgrade outposts instead of dropping new ones, however...

Cyno Jammers will be one of the more expensive Infrastructure upgrades and may only be anchorable in systems where you have sov and own a station.

Argh!

And the first test release is set from a week from now.

[Darius JOHNSON]

I love all of this. It's the final fucking nail in the coffin of BoB's tired old saw of "We're just better than you".
No. No, they were just given better toys and now that we get to play with them they suddenly become 'unbalanced'.  

These changes were proposed at a high level by me at the end of the second CSM, after a great deal of discussion with the Devs and non-goon players in the first.

http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Incentivizing_0.0

I don't want to appear to be claiming complete credit or tooting my own horn or anything, but anyone complaining about the devs changing it simply because we own Delve now is off their rockers. We have been pushing these changes via the CSM for over a year. They listened. The finished product will certainly have a lot more detail than I ever mentioned but the root ideas of "FIX SOV BY REDUCING POSSES OR SOMETHING FUCK" and "INCENTIVIZE 0.0 BY LETTING US UPGRADE/DEVELOP OUR SPACE" appear to be the priorities.

I believe we also championed the supercap changes in the first and second csms, though again not in as much detail.

[Endie]

I haven't looked forward to a patch this much since the end of remote doomsdays back when we were on the defensive in the old south around 9-9/46DP.  And this one has the potential to be positive and add to the game instead of just removing awfulness.

I'm pretty unclear on whether people are right that space is all being equalised.  I'm sceptical, since by definition it would remove the incentive for a space-holding alliance to ever want to go to war for better space (logistics aside).  But whether or not that is true it looks like individual players gonna be space-rich anyway with the hints about R64 shifts and improved/upgraded PvE characteristics, so who cares?

The changes to sov do look awfully funny in the way they'll screw over Atlas in particular.  I guess that they should have looked after those pets after all, because being condemned to depend on Evil Thug's reliability and loyalty for a route to empire is loaded with hilarity, even under the current rules.

[eldaec]

I do wonder how CCP are planning the switchover, seems unlikely that CCP would be popular if they simply blank the sov map because nobody can possibly have a sov widget anchored....



Just turning off all the jump bridges and cyno jammers while infrastructure is built would be... eventful.