I think Latos should be a capturable sector. Perhaps make Verasi, edras and Ukari the same.

Reason? There is still a massive shortfall of playable content, and there likely will be for some time. The players make the content right now, the action is all about our conflicts with each other. No one really cares about queens or hives, we care about shooting peytros! Make these WH's capturable and then player groups can claim real victories within the systems. It might also force some folks who've had it easy going just making money being boring to come out and earn a living once in a while.

While I agree with the suggestion, I find it hilarious that a pirate is suggesting this. Are you really that bored these days?

He couldn't get enough drama after he left CLM.

Interesting in princible but how do you propose we capture it?

I completely 100% agree with Impavid. It would definitely give guilds more purpose, probably cause wars which would make people spend money which would help balance out the economy moreso.

...But aren't the corporations already capturing it?

Ability to capture sectors in grey would be a great addition to VO gameplay but only after guild/player stations are introduced.
Without ability to put your station/outpost in a captured sector/system it would be a total failure.
Setting a player/guild station in a captured sector would give players means to control/defend/attack/take over.

Fighting for an empty square on a system map is just silly. How would that look?
Tumble sitting in an empty sector in Latos calling himself king of that sector and then someone comes and shoots him and he is the new king.
Come on guys, this would be more pathetic then a BS.

Yeah, and I do that anyway, SO BOW!

Capturable stations in WH systems then. Make it possible for use to take over the corporate stations or put them in the WH sectors with control of the turrets and the ability to designate specific guilds, nations, etc as enemies that get shot at. Stranglehold would be possible and it would motivate player groups to stage an attack.

Heh but then we would at least need player/guild owned tridents so attacks on stations could have more punch. :P

As always in VO, one thing leads to another.

Ok, between website outages and other exciting crap, we are trying to do this. The whole point of testing Dynamic Warfare in Deneb was the idea of eventually rolling it out in grayspace, albeit with you fighting on the side of one corp or another.

Entirely player-conquerable territory was not slated for the existing grayspace (rather, expanded grayspace).. and it's not a simple thing to do. Not like we're doing with Dynamic Warfare anyway. We can't just generate a new "alignment" for every single guild that comes along, whatever system we implement will need to be both scalable and sane. Conquerable stations are also planned, and I already have the mechanics in mind, but it's also not.. simple to do in a way that will be useful for more than 10 minutes.

The criticisms of basic sector conquest have been pointed out, clearly they need to be tied to other things, like strategy and resource contention. None of this stuff is ready yet.

All of this stuff takes time. I'm all for making some content that you guys can fight over, and I've been recently trying to throw together some next-gen stuff for the Deneb war, but some of the things in here are pretty.. significant undertakings. A trivial version is not impossible, but again, I don't know how satisfactory that would be, as all the limitations would quickly become the major complaint.

rolling it out in grayspace, albeit with you fighting on the side of one corp or another.

And a faction redux of corps, including mutually exclusive standing, will accompany this, right? Otherwise, it's just silly.

That's the point, Doc. Where exactly is the line, between implementing a feature in such a way that X% of the community is going to say is "silly" without doing Y, and just holding off until Soon(tm) arrives? I doubt that the whole community, combined, spends as much time trying to answer that question as John does.

I doubt that the whole community, combined, spends as much time trying to answer that question as John does.

That doesn't speak too well of the size of your player base, Mom.

Eh, it just means I have to contend with the actual fully-fledged big picture, including all the technical, implementation and resource caveats that are (mostly) not public knowledge. But we do certainly have some players who examine as much of the "big picture" as possible, on any given feature idea.

Anyway, this is neither here nor there. The point of this thread was a desire for more direct player-conquest contention in grayspace. I agree, this would be a useful addition. I don't really have an answer right now, as far as what form might best balance the priorities of simple-implementation with long-term usage. But I will be doing a newspost later this week, and I'll at least cover some of our upcoming Dynamic Warfare goals in that, while I cogitate on what adaptations might be the most useful. If/when I come up with something, I'll post an RFC thread here.

If other people have specific ideas, as always, feel free to post them.

Conquerable sectors and systems in grey sound pretty unrealistic at the moment.

I propose an intermediate solution: abandoned stations in grey systems that can be activated by player intervention.

Hypothetic scenario:

- every grey system gets 2-3 abandoned stations in random sectors
- abandoned stations do not show on map
- abandoned stations are inactive (no power)
- upon discovery, player (players) activate a mission from station mission computer to get the necessary parts to the station, make repairs and make it functional again
- you need to hold the station (defend) until all parts are delivered and station is activated. If you lose control of the sector, other player/players can take the mission and try to make station operational
- once activated and operational, station will mount its own defenses, station guards, Strike force, defense turrets, etc.
- depending on the time station keeps operational ( 1 day, 3 days, a week, a month), commodities, equipment and ships become available for purchase

And now for the tricky part:
- other players can attack station and render it inoperable after certain amount of damage is induced (station hull points fall below 10%)
- when station shuts down it can be conquered by another player/players
- rinse and repeat

Now, I know there is a lot of technical details that need to be solved for this to work (faction system for automatic station defenses, docking privileges, etc.) but as an intermediate solution I think this would make a great addition to the game.

I really dont think a single player would have the time or resources to run an entire station. I also believe there is a guild level solution that could be worked out.

Location is semi easy... latos/sedina wormhole come to mind. It should be placed in a location that will make it worth fighting for.

Assuming the station was abandoned and empty there should be a major mission or more to take possession of it. Perhaps several XC's of materials and a large sum of credits....

The station "faction" could be setup close to the make-friends plug-in so that friends and enemies could be set by the owner/ guild commander.

normal patrol/strike force would be automaticly provided

Guild channel notified in the event of an "attack?"

Weekly maintenance fees of say 10 million credits less other income.

Free ship repairs for guild members.

Loss of station is the real difficulty. Should a station have armour that can be damaged or perhaps a mission to forceably board the station? IE have 5 ships all dock at the same time?

There is also the issue of a station becoming abandoned again. Should it revert after it remains unused for over a week or so?

Heres a simple idea how the conqurable sectors could work:

1. Forces involved are UIT, Serco, Itani, and Corvus.
2. Conquered sectors are patrolled by the winning nation. If your are not admired by the sector owner, you will be warned off. Neutral and below will be KOS.
3. One mission choice could be "Fast Alert Strike Force." When an enemy player comes into one of your nations sectors, you are alerted. You receive big bonuses for those PKS.
4. You are protected by your nation in their captured sectors while doing activities like mining, botting, or hunting other players.

@PaKettle
Putting a capturable station in a wh sector to create a choke point atm is moot.
Random roids sectors in all of grey systems is far better choice gamewise.
Let me elaborate:

1. You have to find it first (its hidden on the map)
2. You have to get your friends/guild to help you hold it and make it operational
3. invest 30-50 mil. credits in widgets needed to activate station
3. Once operational it can serve as nation/guild outpost
4. You have to defend it from hive/players/other nations

For instance, abandoned stations can be placed in a bot infested roid sectors too so you have to fight bots the whole time you are trying to activate it.
They can be hidden in a roids too or in a fogged sectors. Such stations would not emit any kind of signature in the sector. Possibilities are endless and it should not be very easy to find them in the first place.
Maintenance fees are also moot. After initial player/players/guild investment in widgets to activate station it can start producing commodities and generating its own missions for ores, commodities & equipment needed for normal operation.

Since stations will have no signature (to avoid detection from a distance), same will have to apply to players docked to the station (no signature on the radar). Instead of floating defense turrets, this kind of stations could have built in turrets that can be AI controlled and manned by players (like in capships).
No station guards, only SF that activates in case of attack.
As I said before, possibilities are endless.

i agree with bojan except for the no maintence fees? these NPCs are to be treated like real players and thus deserve a salary i suggest around 10 mil a week to keep a station up and running. granted it can produce comoditites but you still need to pay the people making the widgets to sell

peytros has a good point. its expensive to maintain a station, it cant be expected that once in control there would be no more costs. and 10 mil sounds reasonable, but i think instead of a per week basis maybe a more constant drain, like 1 mil a day, or 50000 credits an hour.

the only problem i see is incentive. short of having nothing to do, why would a group of people invest a lot of time and money to activate a station that pretty much does what every other station does, unless it was located somewhere strategic. I think that a player/guild owned station should buy ores and other raw materials for a higher price, and buy valuable commodities for a higher profit, or have valuable commodities that could be sold to conquering persons nation or something for a decent profit with a short recovery time. and maybe like a special ship or weapon or some cool toy like that :D

ec88s? yes? yes?