Every day the number of controlled sectors in Deneb should be counted up. Whichever faction has the most sectors should get a fleet to go from their border, through grey space, and stop at the opposing faction's border... sitting right on the wormhole. The fleet should consist of one capital ship (randomly chosen), 10 vultures, 10 sun/gat WTDs, and 5 nation-specific fighters. Anyways, these wouldn't despawn or leave until they're destroyed... meaning that nationalistic players could very easily defend their existing fleet, continue winning Border Skirmishes, and cause a buildup... And yes, it is possible for... say... Serco to win the first day, send a fleet to Edras, the Itani to win the second day, and actually have to break the Serco blockade from the previous day to get through to Initros.

I got the idea from the events of AD 4407 in the backstory... except they're going through grey and not UIT space.

+1

+numbers of awesome

This suggestion is made of WIN.

This is a fantastic suggestion.

Gogogo, make it happen!

The only problem as I see it at this point, is that Serco has two entry points into Grey vs Itani's one.

I'd rather see the border skirmishes improved first, but I'll go for anything that adds to the game. I'd like to see something like this implemented regardless of it being tied to the Deneb results.

Not a problem; the Itani have more systems than do the Serco. For everything there is a trade off.

All you have to do is fix the faction system so that pilots have a reason to blow up the enemy fleet.

Best idea I've seen in a long long long long long time!

In addition to this, there should be various sized strike wings of NPC Itani and Serco regularly flying between Itani and Serco space, engaging anything and everything that belongs to the opposing nation. The smallest of these could just be a few WTD's, up to full Large Skirmish sized capital fleets.

There should not be any sort of "score keeping" system associated with these fleets at all, except for simultaneously gaining and losing faction as appropriate with both Itani and Serco whenever killing one of these ships.

Some unaligned fleets of the same type that simply roam Grey and engage anything that is respected with at least one nation would be a nice touch too.

Yeah... I'm thinking about the Helios/Initros problem...

-Solution 1: accept the trade off that Serco have less systems and have to use a wormhole to get to the battlefield and allow the longer Helios route

-Solution 2: have the Itani ships stop in Ukari (my second favorite, simple)

-Solution 3: add an extra fighter-only fleet that trails the main Itani fleet by a sector... it would be the same except no capital ship. The first fleet would head to the Initros border and the second fighter-only fleet would stop inside Helios

-Solution 4: add a second, equivalent Itani fleet that trails the first fleet by one hour... this one would stop inside Helios while the first one stops at the Initros border (This is my favorite because, if you think about it, it's not very unbalanced because it doesn't beef up the fleet while it's on the move due to the one hour launch delay and, while more ships are involved, it also distributes the Itani player defense.)

There are echoes in here - this is a Fantastic Idea.

+some number with a mess of zeros behind it.

Interesting. I think this would be pretty simple to add. We might be able to do it next week. I'll look at writing up some specific design on it.

Part of the impact of this "fleet" would seem to be general disturbance to grayspace traders and the like, who fly out of the given wormhole. Ie, a blockade. If that's the case, we'll basically need two Serco convoys, as Shank mentions.

Good idea Shank, this would help make nationalistic Blockades more doable.

It may interfere with ctc....

Will killing this fleet affect faction when in unmonitored space?

Why would it be a bother to those of us who are respected or better with both factions?

Damned brilliant idea. +1.

As per ctc.. this is SO much better than CtC :). Moreover, it'd make CtC more dependent on Deneb, which is a good thing.

I don't really know why we're suggesting that the fleets go through Greyspace, however. Large fleets through greyspace will seriously disrupt b8, though more importantly let's stick with the backstory and send them through UIT. Sending through UIT will make UIT just a dash more interesting for nationalistic players (read: players with serco or itani hate). Moreover, the fleets should be UIT neutral, as to not cause issues if some people attempt to sack the fleets in UIT space.

I would have more of an issue with disrupting UIT capitol systems than disrupting.. b8.

The CtC disruption seems to be a bonus, for me... it would make CtC much more dynamic and would pretty much link every bit of the universes' Itani/Serco war campaign. I'm interested to see how well CtC convoys break such blockades... even if they die it may force defensive players to pick up the cargo and carry it themselves... perhaps a simulated gameplay test is in order? I'd do it myself, but I can't think of a way to get ships to stop on top of a wormhole in PCC.

I meant that the ships would start firing on people in b8, not lag (if you're talking about lag, then I completely defer to your judgement). If you're UIT, you're most likely safe from the fleets, so I don't think the capital systems would be all-too-interrupted. Plus, having fleets go through UIT would make the AC and Verasi WHs more active, which I'd like.

Also, you can't underestimate the awesomeness of UIT newbies seeing huge fleets pass by :).