Or, the alternative view is, maybe you don't know what to suggest to fix it, because its not a problem. #mindblown

#mindblown

#mindblown

"There's two aspects that greenwall brings up:

1. Combat difficulty of capturing a station
2. Player monopoly over capship production"

Well i can speak on #1 :- I believe Automated Station Alerts made things too much easy, i don't think it will be a major loss if developers remove it. A group of active players can alert their group manually.

On #2 :- I believe manufacturable station should be a thing. To build your own station, you will need access to conquerable stations to build long list of parts for that along with new content like Sammic ore or Rha in bulks. Once your station is complete it removes the need to build parts at conquerable stations. You should be able to build all parts in that station, it should be destroyable as well and the insurance mission should cost a bit highier.

Basically it will remove the need to build parts at conquerable station once finished & station should be destroyable.
But to build parts for said station you will still need conquerable station access , if you think you can't take station to build parts- you can always buy parts from other players.

I believe Automated Station Alerts made things too much easy, i don't think it will be a major loss if developers remove it.

I'm not getting rid of automated alerts. They only notify when something is occurring, they don't inherently adjust the gameplay. They increase player engagement, which is something we need. However..

We are talking about a group the shows up reliably within a half hour of a station being taken with their own fleet ready to retake and confront their enemy, sometimes sooner than that. Most people and groups in this game do not have that kind of capability both from a manpower and time perspective.

There is merit to considering whether these mechanics should be driven solely by player-count (+resources) and organization? Should that really be the only factor involved?

For instance, there could be some kind of "minimum cooldown" period on conquests, during which defenses were considerably stronger and then tapered off. If someone wanted to mount an attack during that period (24h?) they would do-so knowing they face a much more substantial "uphill battle".

That might give a smaller conquering party a bit of a window in which to do some activity around the station, and also to be able to assemble their forces, or (down the road) establish more customized automated defenses. However, conquest wouldn't be "prevented" during the cooldown, it would just be more difficult, so.. anything would be possible, given a sufficiently aggressive and numerically advanced foe.

I think someone suggested something like this in the past.

I approve the trails of tears in this message, and if TGFT and Itan didn't want to have their asses handed to them they should maybe have thought about that when they created their carebear alliance back in the early 201x's that led to the creation of RED and the subsequent re-nationalisation of ONE.

Keep this content off of Suggestions, or be removed from Suggestions. Is that clearly understood? We're here to discuss game mechanics and not guild politics. I understand they seem mixed together, but if you can't separate the two.. then don't post here.

I believe manufacturable station should be a thing.

That will come in due course, it has always been the goal; but it is out-of-scope for this discussion. The point of testing the conquest mechanics in a relatively simple and limited set of stations was specifically to figure out what kind of conquest mechanisms would work well.. before having more diverse player-owned stations.

Plus, it's likely there will always be some kind of strategically valuable stations in the universe, be they for manufacturing, or simply for nearby resources or other factors. It's competing over these limited resources that makes the system worthwhile. Obviously, I created the current capship-component construction scenario intentionally to create contention, otherwise I could have just put the missions everywhere.

So anyway, let's stick to the small model at hand.

You guys are over complicating the issue.

I don't think the stations need to be easier or harder to take. The problem is not with the battle, but with the moments right after the station goes to the victor.

Some people attack the station just to fight, but more people attack the station to use it. The problem is a smaller force that takes a station then has to go right into defensive mode, so they can't use it.

Here is a concrete suggestion: After the station is taken, the turrets are invulnerable for 30 minutes.

People can continue to fight each other in the sector, they can try to move stuff in and out, etc., but they don't have to defend the turrets. I suggest 30 minutes because it's long enough to do a little mfg work but not so long where the opposition is necessarily just going to give up and go away.

Benefit: The people that want to take the station in order to use it will have at least a short opportunity to try. It's hard to talk some people into attacking a station when they think it's just an expensive furball with no end in sight and no benefit. I think this would cause more players to be involved in station conflict.

Seems like a good solution, Harpo! I mean I love all the additional content ideas, but yours is a great place to start.

The only problem with that csgno is that station could be taken in less then a minute... iirc after the inclusion VOID v ONE in i-8, VOID gave up and ONE forces geared up for the retake to took probably a little under 2 mins given all the turrets were at 100..

(Deleted stuff to comply with Rule #3 -w)

Plus if this change was implemented most people ping station to A. Piss of ONE or B.to have some fun it is very rare that a opposing enemy will move to a empty sector to fight,getting pelted by station defenses for 30mins isn't fun

@demnicat The speed at which you can retake a station in very specific circumstances is really not the issue. You have asked me in-game several times to attack stations more. This would help that happen.

Correct. I have mainly in hopes of having some fun I actually like the back and forth if the changes was to be implemented as you suggested once somewhat takes it its a stalemate then the station owner goes to do something else for 30 mins. No one has fun in stalemate.

@csgno I mainly log in to RP not to fiddle my thumbs and wait. I have reached end game content, am in a nationalist guild I kill any who opposes my nationality. Gray is large I have noticed that it's hard to find ONE'S main enemy ITAN. In all honesty to me it's a absolute gem if I spot a itan member. The stations are just hot spots.
Am just saying csgno ... it's a double edged sword. If we retake stations from you... you'll just leave... which end the fun to be had.

Demonicat, there is no reason you can't continue to engage if the turrets are invincible. It's entirely possible to fly around in a sector and disrupt activity with turrets shooting at you.

And get absolutely pelted by guess and stations missiles. Grenny ping i-8 but don't hit the turrets just fly around go see how fun that is.
That's like 12 people ganking you not fun.

@greenwall Like you say, engaging in i8 with the turrets firing at you is just making it a bit harder.

How about instead of the turrets being invulnerable, they instead don't launch for 30 minutes. So one side can keep the station for that time but they will need to defend the pilots building.

When the turrets do come out after 30 minutes, they come out at 100% so it would be harder to instant kill them at once.

@we all float, nope that's not helpful toward the problem

@we all float I actually like that but maybe 10-15mins though or someway that a little bit harder to recap the station or. Or something that attackers can do to not allow defenders to dock.

Greenwall, after taking a station, the owner would have 30 minutes to build without an issue. They could not be forced to undock during that time. The turrets would come out(after 30 minutes) at 100%, meaning that anyone trying to camp the exit docks with capital ships would probably die really fast.

During those 30 minutes, there would be potential lots of contention by anyone not building, which is good for a game like VO. This solves all sorts of problems without needing to add frustrating magic like mechanics , like invulnerable turrets, to grey space stations. A cool down for the turrets is more appropriate.

Additionally, if the turret fire had a power draining effect on the ship that gets hit, then capital ships would have a harder go at it. The majority of ship turrets require energy to fire now, so a drained capital ship won't be able to turbo around and fire cap swarms/rails with ease. I swore i read this suggestion some place, but I can't find it.

You've already stated that you are ok with csgno1's suggestion. This is just an extension of that.

@We all float: Having no turrets for 30 minutes doesn't solve the problem that I was speaking to, because 30 minutes with no turrets is zero minutes to use the station, unless it was undefended. (If it is undefended, it doesn't matter when they spawn.) Thus the fence-sitters are again not motivated to join in.

If invulnerability is too much like magic, then zero-delay re-spawn for 30 minutes might be another approach. I'm sure there are other and better ideas as well.

Here is the thing. What are you going to do if someone puts it on a different key, but the key is still part of the original holders collection. And now they have 30 minutes to take a break because of super defenses? That also goes against what you are trying to suggest, but will be a direct result of it.

You'll end up reducing contention for that game asset because people will just log off. We need a solution that makes people want to go at with each other. There should not be safe zones like you suggest , in grey space.