N3 is just a nerfed LENB and, even if it is required, it is too easy to buy them in bulk and never have to worry about CtC ever again. On top of that, too many npcs carry them, making them easy to farm manually. Here is the proposed new weapon:

Heavy Neutron Blaster (Small Port)
Price: 10,000cr
Faction: +900 (Must be part of respective nation's military)
Level: 5/4/-/-/-
Damage: 625
Velocity: 210 m/s
Energy: 12/blast
Delay: 0.12 s
Mass: 650 kg
Grid: 5
Targeting: Okay ('bout the same as an ion blaster)
DPE: 52.08
DPS: 5,208

One pilot will have a limit to how many it can buy every winning CtC week based on how much they participated in CtC.

0 kills, 0 cargo: 0
Other than this, players get 1 HNB every 10 Pure Xith they capture and 1 HNB every 5 CtC kills... Cargo captures do not count if they are from their own nation's convoy.
Discuss.

You can't join the military until combat 3. I dont' think there's any reason to put a specific limit in.

Already proposed by someone else:

1) Make CtC Prize weapon have limited lifetime. 1 week more precisely. Then it decay into a 'normal' weapon.

So no stockpiling, and a compelling reason for helping your nation win CtC.

From engine, every monday all weapons model $ctc decay into normal Neut3.
From RP, new "CtC-gun" is produced every week, only by CtC winner. No matter when you buy it, on next monday it decays!

2) And I proposed that this gun gets more accelerated, like 230m/s. Not very much difference in balance, but the number looks impressive, being faster than the fastest ship and really faster than all other weapons but rail guns.

hmm, that's a wise suggestion (especially limiting HNB), Shanktank, though I'd added some badges requirements to this gun.

PvP veteran 1 or 2, and it gets a +1 (OP).

-> N3 is just a nerfed LENB and, even if it is required, it is too easy to buy them in bulk and never have to worry about CtC ever again.

True. I've done the same thing. Good suggestion. +1 if you have PvP veteran 1 requirement added.

I'm thinking of changing up the requirement for the buy limit now. Would everyone be fine with people having 0 cargo captures and less than 10 kills not getting any? It would seem to fix most of the problems with creating alts to buy them, it's also a somewhat simpler solution.

Edit: PvP vet 1 sounds fine, but I don't know how much use it would be if the above was implemented.

Changed up the restrictions and added a much simpler approach. Non-participants do not get access and gun access based on cargo captures is linear, not rewarding getting a few extra guns by spreading CtC efforts around multiple bots.

Discuss.

I like the idea, but i think it will become one of those weapons that no one uses cause no one will be willing to put in the effort. However some people will stock pile them though. Vedetta-ers are lazy.

Also if 5 people are actively CtCing for the same nation, there are only so many voys in a day, and with only 1 or 2 trans running there might be those people are are 'hogging' the kills and cargo.

But all in all +1

bet if it was a corvus widowmaker with the grid power of 4 people would be doing ctc all day long :P

Just looking at previous weeks, looks like that with this system all the hardcore CtCers would be getting somewhere around 40 HNBs every week, so I don't think there will be too much of a shortage that nobody would use them, but not so many that people would win once and stop forever.

Dude...omnivore just posted a thread about fixing CtC aspects. I think something better would be nice. CtC isn't about PvP so take that out! What newb will want to play CtC if he has to get killed over and over before getting a few PK's to buy the weapon. CtC is about killing the traveling bot, stealing the xith, and successfully delivering it to the station of choice. If your side does this enough you get access to the special weapon. It isn't if your side does this and you have enough skill to kill other playes enough times to get a badge. Also, I think if you have the credits to stockpile weapons, then you should be able to stockpile weapons. Not that I would want a HNB, it would have to be something way better to be limited. Itani and Serco nations should have something better to offer in the way of weapons. If your going to limit it, it better be like firing a nuke at someone or something close to instakill with autoaim. Not something partially ok that only some might find to be an advantage. As it is now, people do pretty much only do CtC for their nation and not for the n3's so something different is needed.

Overall that CtC needs to be changed:+1
HNB:-1
Limited amounts:-1
PvP badge needed:-1

The HNB with limited amounts is an awesome idea.. Now add Omnivore's idea of new routes that both go through Sedina, add Roda's idea that prevents ninnys from taking ctc through nationspace, and you have a ctc system that doesn't look too bad.

And Jmvcilus I'm pretty sure ctc was created to encourage pvp.. Could be wrong though.

I like the HNB proposal with the exception that at least the first level of reward should be open to any player who has joined either the Itani or Serco side (as per Deneb battles). This encourages players to chose a side *or* for those who are adamantly opposed to choosing a side, either stay out of ctc altogether or be a pirate and ransom the cargo.

Jm you are missing the point of ctc entirely...its not about the neuts at all.. Its all about getting players to interact, either cooperatively or hunting each other down. The reason Shank wants to give ctc a more lucrative reward, that cannot be bought in the hundreds, is so that people HAVE to give a crap and therefore, will interact. I dont 100% agree with the PvP badges, but i do see the reasoning behind it.... it prevents people from having ctc alts that do nothing else, never level up, and just buy the weapon to transfer their main chars... who then dont have to worry about standing loss for killing the other sides bots. Hell i dont even particularly LIKE the weapon he's suggesting, but thats irrelevant. CtC needs to be more then just 4 people and a bunch of opportunists... As it was intended to be. Shank hasnt pointed it out, but the other reason is..lets face it.... nationalism.... which is a core part of VO's backstory... is virtually non existant..theres simply nothing worth fighting over.

Jmvcilus: First off, I think you're a little bit confused. "Kills" means "CtC kills" as in, you get them every time you kill a CtC transport or a player escorting a CtC transport. Secondly, even though it doesn't have all too much to do with my post other than encouraging more people to do CtC... yes, CtC is meant to be a pvp activity. Thirdly, I don't remember the mentioning of any new badges. Fourthly, I'm pretty sure it is about "if your side does this and you have enough skill to kill other playes." Fifthly, the PvP badge idea, as far as I understood it, was an idea to restrict people from making alts or trial accounts to buy a countless number of these (which I think is fixed by using a linear formula for gun access and making the starting amount (non-participants) 0. Sixthly, I'd say the HNB is pretty damned good, as-is... maybe you should brush up on your weapons stats before critiquing it. Seventhly, N3s cost, what, 800cr? That's pocket change for the current economy and credits are not all that much of a concern, anymore. And once somebody does stockpile them, they don't really have any other motivations to do CtC from then on. CtC is a very fun event and needs a lot more people.

omnivore61: There are CtC participants that want to remain neutral? Anyways, one of the problems with your proposition of allowing non-participants access to the gun is that it's a possibility that one might create alts to buy the gun over and over again.

I must have written that poorly, I meant that to gain access to the rewards, in addition to anything else, you would need to be a combatant, as in have joined one of the two militaries involved just like border patrol/skirmish. Didn't mean to say replacing the reward system you proposed.

ok obviously you didn't understand what I said. So, I will only say -1 and I hope you don't turn this into something stupid.

Omnivore: ah, well I already have that in the suggestion so no worries.

Faction: +900 (Must be part of respective nation's military)

Why do "another" CtC run if you already stockpiled N3s for a century?

So, only way I see to CtC receive continuous attention is making the Neut3s "decay" into a normal Neut2 after 1 or 2 weeks.

That would give a compelling reason, RP-wise, why the production must be constantly fed with CtC voys, and why they are so important.

--#--
Another idea that makes sense RP-wise is that both sides can produce N3s, but limit this production to the amount of received cargo, and half of this production to be divided amongst those who participated in CtC. Simple example, in week X, 10 pilots participated for each side, the delivered cargo and resulting production would be:
-Serco: 30 deliveries, 300 N3s produced, 30 per pilot.
-Itani: 10 deliveries, 100 N3s produced, 10 per pilot.
*Only Serco NPCs/bots would use N3s next week (X+1)
*At week (X+2) all those N3s decay into N2s