Summary of Current Mechanics

Defenses : 8 Turrets defend the station engaging anyone who lacks a key to the station. Possessing a key also grants the ability to dock and repair within the station.

Conquest : The station is conquered by being the first pilot to dock after the last defense turret falls. The first pilot to dock gains an owner key in addition to the ability to grant other pilots keys.

Improvements Areas

Defenses - They should not be soloable as they currently are.

Conquest - It should not be possible to ninja a station from the rightful conquerers who dispatched the defenses by simply charging into the dock at the right moment.

Time Zone Resistance - Once there are more conquerable stations some system should be in place that would prevent pilots from taking over station(s) during periods when the owners are not online.

Possible solutions

Give the station an HP buffer that must be eliminated after the defenses fall which would allow conquerers some time to gain control of the area without the defenses harrasing them to prevent hostiles from stealing the dock.

Require docking with some sort of large/massive item(s) to seize control which would make it much more difficult for a ninja to swipe the station since they'd be in a large slow ship such as a moth of weighed down centaur.

a hireable SF would be great

Yes, and the station should run on Guild bank. This could lead to killing the SF's and then the guild has to pay for new ones.

They can set their own repair prices, for members, allies, and neutral. Of course enemies won't be allowed to dock.

We need better mechanics other than, numbers rule.

Uh, no. The stations shouldn't cost any money until there's a possibility of them turning a profit.

/GiveUserKey "name" "id" to give a key to someone while not allowing them to access functions like giving out other keys...

/GiveTempKey "name" "id" "length in hours (0 for allowing only 1 dock)" to give a key that acts like a user key, but is revoked once the time limit is expired or if a turret is fired upon...

/RevokeUserKey "name" to revoke a user or temp key, only usable by owner keys...

/RevokeOwnerKey "name" to revoke an owner key, only usable by the original owner key...

I don't see why an undefended (by players) station shouldn't be solo-able. Just one semi-active player is enough to keep up an impenetrable wall of l-mines, so really you're only at risk of losing control if you log off.

How about being able to save preset lists of owner/user keys (like how you can save navroutes). That way, after retaking a station, keys could quickly be distributed to players on that list.

The other advantage is that it would allow for an easy means to distribute several sets of keys for multiple stations to the same group of people.

Possible commands for managing the list of members:
/KeyMembers save "filename"
/KeyMembers load "filename" keyid
/KeyMembers add "player_name" owner "filename"
/KeyMembers remove "player_name" "filename"
/KeyMembers list "filename"

Note that adding a player to the list wouldn't give them a key. You'd still have to load the list to actually distribute keys.

Sounds like a Plug-in ,,,,,

Excellent new feature test. Here are my ideas for future improvement.

The biggest thing in need of improvement right now is station access management. Right now, there is no central control over the keys. Everyone who has a key has equal power and can give keys to as many people as they want. The keys spread very fast and it's easy for a key to fall into enemy hands, and then everyone has one. This is problematic. There should be a station administrator (or administrators). The admin should be able to set access privileges based on standing, guild, or by individual character. They should be able to give out access and revoke access. They should also be able to appoint other admins. Simply having access to the station would not give you the power to give out access to others. You have to be an admin to do that. There should probably be a maximum of 4 or 5 admins per station. Admin powers can be revoked if the majority of the admins vote for it.

Also, right now, an enemy force can defeat the station defenses and one of the defenders can quickly dock to reclaim it again. This kind of makes it a bit random. You could spend hours taking out the station defenses, only for some random noob to dock first. I think we can come up with something better than this.

The player who delivers the killing blow to the last turret should have first exclusive access. They should get 3 minutes to dock, and if they can't dock in 3 minutes, it opens up to whoever docks first. Once a player docks to claim the station, they become the first admin. They can either claim the station for themselves, or for their guild. If they claim it for their guild, the Officers of the guild become admins as well, and the entire guild gets access. Then additional access can be given or revoked based on guild, standing, or by individual character.

I also think that the entire guild should have automatic access under the conditions outlined by Strat.

Any recommendations of where we should go with authentication improvements should at least be based on where we've already stated we're going. Otherwise it's just a lot of wasted text. As mentioned, the current implementation is only "a very limited, basic implementation of station conquest, only for testing purposes".

I welcome further feedback on the defenses and general exploit-proofing of the conquest system. One possibility is that whomever does the most damage to all the turrets is the one who gains the right to dock with the station (with some five-minute timeout or some such). Making it simply the last turret could still leave a lot of ninja-ing options.

I'd prefer like a 5 minute period after destroying the turrets where the station locks everyone out, then the first person to dock after the five minutes would gain access. Basically just the same as it is now, just giving the attacking team time to regroup and get some more suitable ships (the defenders are in fast interceptor/fighter ships and the attackers are in big heavy bombers, probably with an empty payload by now).

Edit: If not this, you could also make it so that people who last had a key would not be able to dock for a minute after the turrets are destroyed. But I don't know what that would do for third party ninjas...

Well, that still leaves open the possibility of someone "ninja-ing" the station conquest. Is that desired? Having the person who does the most aggregate damage to the defenses be given a special period to dock and take control would probably avoid that whole scenario.

Well a five minute period is a good length time for a competent strike force to grab some furball ships and clear people away from the dock.

Like I posted above, giving the person that killed the last turret (or delivered the most overall turret damage) 3 minutes to dock is good. This prevents people from sitting in the docking bays. If you want to get access, you have to work on blowing up the turret. Then, you have to dock. If the other team has enough force to prevent you from docking, then someone else can dock and claim the station.

EDIT: Most aggregate damage would also work, and would also prevent the current owners from just finishing off the last turret themselves once the defenses are almost gone. However, they should still have to dock within 3 minutes to claim it, otherwise it should open up to anyone.

If an enemy is aware of you, sitting in the dock is suicide. Another way to do this would be to have some sort of classic "capping" system where somebody or their group need to sit in the dock for a minute or so before being able to take control.

Also, incarnate, even if you do the most aggregate damage thing, the owners may just continually destroy their own defenses to prevent others from claiming the station. Make it so that people with current access can't do it. If a character who already has access delivers the most damage, access goes up for grabs to whoever docks first.

One possibility is that whomever does the most damage to all the turrets is the one who gains the right to dock with the station (with some five-minute timeout or some such).

This.

What about utilizing the group mechanic to control who gets to enter/control a station? If someone in a group destroys the last turret, or a group as a whole does the majority of the damage to the turrets/defenses (assuming there will be other station defense options in the future), then the group owner would be the one who was given the time window to enter the station. Said group owner would then be responsible for delegating admin/keys.

That would be a better idea if groups could be arbitrarily large.