So this is an idea to try and make conquerable station battles a little more enjoyable, take some of the grind out of them and add in more excitement and unpredictability.

I think it's fairly reasonable to say that the most enjoyable part of the conquerable station experience is that 2 minute window where it's anyone's game. Who gets in the dock? Who blows up 4 seconds before? Who's parked the trident with the tellar ulam mines over the dock? Whos got the avalons to bomb the whole station?

It's the most action intensive part of the whole experience, and so in the interests of increasing fun, I want to see if we can come up with a way to make some improvements to the conquerable station dynamics that will maximise the number of times this can be experienced in a given station battle.

1. Increase the timer from 2 minutes to say 5-6 maybe even 8-10 minutes. This is where all the fun happens, that's essentially 8 minutes of awesome objective oriented furball action between the two (or more) teams vying for control over the station. Why limit the time to 2 minutes?

2. Change the way turrets work, weaponry can be the same, but I would modify the re-spawn rates and the armour of the turrets significantly. Essentially, have the turrets respawn frequently, but have them much easier to kill. So that it would be impossible to conquer with 1 person, but a team of 5-6 would be able to conquer it quickly and start the timer.

Regarding no.2. It's rare to find a single conqueror who actually puts in the hour or two to conquer the stations, and it's not exactly riveting game-play to do so, so I think the possibility should be removed. In the event that you have 5-6 people conquering, the stations can be dropped in under 20 minutes anyway, so it's not really a net change, it just turns on how organised your team is vs the other team, rather than who is more persistent.

The time required to actually drop the turrets would therefore be reduced, and the time that the station is counting down for (i.e. the fun part) is increased to make up the difference. You would still need a large team to successfully conquer the stations, but you wouldn't be spending hours in the same outfit of rag.

+1

A single player should not be a threat to a station.

Why shouldn't a single pilot be a threat to an unguarded station? The armor on turrets should be decreased, not increased, as encouraging ease of turnover is a good thing.

I agree with increasing the end timer, even 4 minutes would be an exciting improvement, or requiring a pilot to remain alive in the dock for x minutes (similar to capture the objective modes in various other games)

lecter, because a station should be an accomplishment. And it should be a little more resillient than 1 pirate or trader who happens to be awake at some obscure timeframe.

I don't think making stations unconquerable to a single determined player is a good idea.

Bumping up the timer would have a side effect of making it practical to respawn and run back to the sector if you get killed though. As it stands at 2 minutes, if you die past 30 seconds in, you're not going to make it back in time to have a chance at the dock. I have a feeling that's the intention. Otherwise you could just blow up, then come flying back with a flare spam rig and wreck everyone who stuck around, fought the guards and other players, and is now out of ammo and hull.

A station should be a skill-based accomplishment, not a mass numbers-based accomplishment. Numbers should be able to serve as a substitute for skill, not the only means of gaining a station.

Also, since there's no permanent effect due to turnover--no loss of inventory or other penalty--why does anyone care how easy it is to take an undefended station? Oh wait, because masses of people prefer to take the stations and then not have to worry any more.

Lecter, I'm not sure if I'd call it 'skill' to take a station solo... 'patience' seems more accurate

I do like the the idea of having to remain in the dock for a period in order to capture the station. The way it is now is too flippant. It should require more than just being the first one in the dock.

Shape, I'm not defending the current approach to defense turret armament, armor, and respawn time. Just saying that it should be a series of skill-based, not mass firepower based, steps to take a station.

I'd much rather see progressive waves of station defense ships (cents, vults, seekers, hogs, rags, and mauds) that must be defeated, supported by weakened gauss turrets and no uber missiles. Replentishment of these forces, after they're killed, should require someone online from the current ownership delivering supplies... otherwise, attrition wins the day.

As is so often the case with VO: EVN did this, and it worked great. Why can't we? When did the Devs get so out of touch with actually playing their own twitch combat game that they thought repeatedly conducting bombing runs against highly armored targets = combat fun?

I haven't soloed levis or stations for ages, not because have anything against hours of sustained high-level PvE combat, but because I have something against hours of sustained boredom.

I agree with increasing the end timer, even 4 minutes would be an exciting improvement, or requiring a pilot to remain alive in the dock for x minutes (similar to capture the objective modes in various other games)

Oh, a bazillion times yes to this. King of the hill dynamics are awesome fun, this absolutely should happen.

Bumping up the timer would have a side effect of making it practical to respawn and run back to the sector if you get killed though.

Right, so if this was the original intention then the whole system is bad by design. You've got an extremely arduous and repetitive bombing phase, followed by 2 minutes of extreme fun, and then if you screw up those two minutes, you're sentenced to have to go through another 40 minutes of rag bombing. We had like a 5 hour station battle yesterday and there was only 3 countdowns. Instead of defending the stations as it was likely intended, we chose to just play it as a furball and go for the two minute timer at the end to try and conquer.

I feel that everyone is quite sick of the bombing phase, and this is basically how people are going to play station conq from now on (if they play it at all). Why not have the bombing to be a minor role that you can allocate to 1-2 players that like to play with bombers, and have other objectives like Lectors waves etc.. etc..

I don't think making stations unconquerable to a single determined player is a good idea.

I don't see a way around this. We have precedent for this already with the levi run which you need 4-5 people to pull off in a reasonable amount of time. Why is it such a problem that it can't be done without a team?

Slight tangent:

Oh wait, because masses of people prefer to take the stations and then not have to worry any more.

The current alliance of carebears has more or less taken station conquering out of the game. A group of small veterans has decided that station conquering is now boring and they exclude anybody from their station treaty if the stations are used how they are intended (you know, conquered). It needs reform so that it becomes a playable aspect of the game again. I have NEVER seen a station conquering party that isn't either FAMY or conquering back from FAMY.

I do not believe the devs ever intended stations to be held against one class of players, but that's essentially what is happening. The result is that pirates are now also sick of station conquering. We are telling our new players not to bother with station conquering because its a battle that cannot be won due to the sheer logistics of 20 guilds against 2.

For carebear treatment of stations to change, what needs to happen is for station features to be limited. Only allow the crafting missions to be taken so many times per day, whether those times are used by one person or split among seven. Perhaps only provide so many free RRs before things get expensive. If player-operated stores are implemented in them, limit the number of people who can set up shop at one time. Etc.

In short, make it so that it is counterproductive to just give keys to everybody. Make the stations provide a limited amount of functionality per day, so that people are inclined to hog the stations for themselves rather than diminish their utility by sharing.

Otherwise, there is no point to fighting over the stations, other than to deny construction to your enemies. There is no downside to letting neutral and allied guilds have access, and significant upsides (more people to defend it, fewer people to attack it).

Only changing conquering mechanics will not suffice. That merely makes it more or less painful to defend and conquer the station, but does not address the underlying lack of disincentive to share.

And yes, I realize that implementing this would be a horribly evil thing to do, considering how abominably slow the current trident-crafting process already is.

And yes, I realize that implementing this would be a horribly evil thing to do, considering how abominably slow the current trident-crafting process already is.

No Rin, I think you're absolutely correct. It's a separate issue to the one at hand though. But essentially what I think should happen is the current missions for manufacturing should be moved to nation space and remain unlimited as they are (or in normal stations in greyspace). The conquerable stations should contain missions with reduced requirements and a limit as suggested by Rin. I think this solves the problem nicely, because while it's a really big advantage to have them, it wouldn't be essential to build cappies. If you combine this with the suggestions from this thread we'd have some great fun around conq stations.

This is a sidenote I created the thread to talk about the gameplay not to whine about station monopoly, but I REALLY think this should be implemented.

Now.. Back on topic..

CrazySpence's suggestions have some serious merit, but I think it would be a little silly to have king of the hill take place in a tiny little standard dock. The station should be specifically built for it, or have it so that whoever remains in the close vicinity of the station for x time period. You could even have like a group multiplier for the group maintaining close proximity.

Hmm, good idea. Make it like a tight nfz bubble. Tight enough to encourage people to incorporate the station's structure into their tactics, e.g. flying through the middle and stuff. Since it's a bigger area than a dock it would have to not just pause when multiple people are inside, either by recognizing /grouped people so that the larger group can continue ticking, or by maintaining separate counters for everybody (If one person is in it, his counter runs at full speed. If there are two people, both of their counters run at 50% speed, etc. Leaving the bubble causes it to run in reverse, perhaps proportional to how many people are still in the bubble.)

Speaking of bubbles, it might be useful to create a visual representation of where the conquest zone is, which would only appear when KOTH mode activates. It could look similar to Halo's bubble-shield, but with more of a blueish glow.