Any system with the stronholds must be easily bypassed and must be in grey space, in my humble opinion. The first is because I doubt we want to make it so that to get past that system you have to go the long way around the universe and cross the Serco-Itani border conflict. The second is because nation space is basically an area in which newb can get their early levels in relative safety, and the Devs have said that they do not want to put the Strongholds where newbs are likely to encounter them.

Using this as a guide I was thinking that it might make sense to put them in:
Helios, for this territory is the easiest territory to be bypass in grey space;
Pelatus or Bractus, for these territory can be bypassed by going through the UIT's territory;
and Sedina, for this territory also can be bypassed the same way that Pelatus and Bractus can be and the Devs said that they wanted to see what happens when the players important sites are threatened.

Additionally, this makes Odia significantly more out of the way, and more dangerous then anywhere else, both of which go along with it being the Pirate capital of the Universe.

I'd say put one in Odia, one in either Bractus or Pelatus, and one in either Sedina or Latos. That would hopefully keep the hive's threat roughly equal for all three nations - but it would probably threaten UIT a little more than Itani or Serco. But I don't think there's anywhere the Strongholds could be located that wouldn't threaten UIT more (except for in Itani or Serco space, which obviously wouldn't be any better).

a hive blockade around oida!

now that i like!

these things take up only one sector per system, you could potentally have them in every grey system, if not mulitpul in grey systems, and you would not need to "fly around" them to get though. Why don't we just waint and see before we start telling them where to put them.

Ukari is the system with the most wormholes, so it would be of strategic value to any force to control that system - should the Hive be able to spread from sector to sector, it would, within a short time, begin to pose a major hazard across the whole system. Travellers would find plotting a safe (hive-free) passage between wormholes increasingly difficult.

that's assuming that NO ONE is fighting the hive off at all. Have you all read how they plan it implement the Hive take over of a sector. If the bots are killed off, they don't come back for 48 hours. SO... if you clean out the trade lanes every so often you can travel with out fear of being attacked by hive bots.

http://design.vendetta-online.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hive#Implementation

Heh, john did you see the part where it says there will be three strongholds in three systems? There's more than three grey systems. ;-)

johnhawl218, the dev wiki says to me that they did not have a location for the three Strongholds that they planned to make. I felt that since they like player input, they might want suggestions on were to put them, so I thought this would be a good way for them to get some sense of what the player base wants.

Beolach, you bring up a good point about not wanting to threaten any of the nations more than any other; however, I do not think that the Serco frequent Pyronis or Helios that often, so any threat to the serco heartland from a stronghold located in Helios would take awhile to develop.

skystrider, I believe that attempting to blockade the quickest route between UIT and Serco space is not desirable.

Actually, I'd expect Serco not frequenting Helios or Pyronis would make the Hive there a bigger threat - if the Hive isn't kept in check, it gets big and will try to expand. So maybe putting the strongholds close to nation space would actually be a good idea, since it would be easier for the nations to attack them... I dunno though, I still think it'd be better a little further away.

it'll be interesting to see how many people actually fight off the hive and where they choose to do so. it'd also be interesting to see how often we'll have to fight it. =)

Pixelcat > I agree that the hive blocking the main trading routes would be undesirable, for the players. But if we are to assume that the hive is guided by some form of intelligence, then surely it would base it's stronghold in a location that is strategically desirable for the hive, players' desires would not figure in the Hive's plans.

On a purely gameplay level it would be good for the Hive to based in an area where it forces Human v Hive confrontation. A stronghold in a far off corner of Bractus , for example would be easily avoided, and ignored by most players, and would add little to the game.

Actually, would the Hive want its strongholds to be in an area where it forces Human v Hive confrontation? Is the Hive driven more by a desire to survive, or a desire to destroy Humanity, or neither? If the Hive wants to survive, it would want to keep its strongholds away from Humans, it wouldn't want to force a confrontation. But if it wanted to destroy Humanity, then it would be more likely to want to force a confrontation, but only if it thought it had a reasonable chance of victory.

Who knows what the Hive plans...just to survive, or total domination? my money is on the latter. If the backstory is anything to go by the Hive adapts human technology rather than innovating it's own , so prolonged periods of no contact with humans would be a bad thing for the hive , as they would fall behind in the technology/ arms race. If the hive want to survive they must confront the humans, or risk being wiped out by superior technology.

Pixelcat, why don't we let the devs decide where the strongholds should start, and we the players discover where they are though playing the game, instead of them placing them where we want them. And in reading it myself, it sounds as if the strongholds can change as the players force them to so choosing a locations is moot IMO. That is all I was implying.

skystrider,
I don't think that the fact that the hive has had less tech made by humanity since there break from us will leave them falling behind in the tech race, the backstory simply states that they took hundreds of years of human tech and turned it to use for their needs and started populating space themselve. In fact, I was in-game just the other day and someone made a great observation, the Hive is the only "faction" in VO thus far that has developed Zero K temp mining beams, and have been able to create hive qeens and leviathens all on their own. If anything they are growing smarter by the bot. Perhaps they are not activly seeking to take out humanity at the moment, but it could very well be likely in the future.

I would liken the hive to the replicators from stargate SG-1.

Their main goal is to increase their numbers, and the do it indiscriminently. And of coase since they don't develop technology so much as steal it they would be atracted to 3 things:
1. areas with ample resorces to construct more bots
2. sources of technology that is more advanced than their own
3. a safe place to reproduce.

Thius i would expect the hive to be most prevelent in grey space where they can get resorces for the construction of more bots and are less bothered by human activity. However this is more likely because they were driven into grey space by the simple fact that the Itani, Serco, and UIT governments mobolised their respective militarys to deffend their teratory. Whereas the corrperations and pirat guilds in Grey space weren't organised enough to mount an effective deffecns.

Personaly i'd like to see one stronghold each in Itani, Serco, and UIt space and a stronghold in every grey space system. At least until the hive can spread from system to system, then a more conservative starting point may need to be made, or at least a more developed way to organize player opposition to hive expancion.

Having a stronghold in each nation's space does 2 things it makes it easier for mid level players to see that there is something for higher level players to do, and it moves some of the action away from grey space. The way it is now, if you want to do anything besides mindless leveling or trading you either have to antagonise a pirat into comming after you in nation space or go down into grey space.

Of coarse the downside is that we may not have the player base to prevent some systems from completely falling to hive controle if there are as may strongholds as i sugested. Which may be interesting, but could esily get out of hand.