POB destruction discussion thread.

[Sombs]

On the other hand, maybe there is a reason for some factions to not be able to siege bases? The Rogues for example are a loose bunch of yankees and weirdos without a real economy. Why would you want to make them able to siege bases? They are barely able to keep their Scyllas working. Exactly for that reason they have the mighty Outcasts as friends, just as the Gaians have the Corsairs.

Lore-wise Outcast presence in Liberty should be mostly to secure the cardamine trade route. It's why once upon a time LR banned Outcast capitals from Liberty and even went as far as to shoot them. Also I see no issue for Rogues to be able to siege bases in their own domains - Badlands, asteroid fields, etc as well as systems far away from the law such as Kansas.

It takes away the necessity to call for alliances. While it is stupid to do that ooRP via [PRE-SCRIPTION], the best example of how it can be done in a very nice manner was shown by @Tutashkhia with the Long Island Siege attempt. When suddenly even weak factions are able to act like a threat, you take that away from them, as you suddenly don't have the necessarity to call for arms. You have them already. Just because Outcast Capitals got banned, that doesn't mean it's irreversable, nor does it mean there can't be made exceptions.

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[Langolier]

Introduction of special siege ship, which can be destroyed once and for all and costs a fortune might make things interesting and balanced.

Attackers build a siege platform (PoB). Siege platform takes a given amount of time (and maybe supplies of some kind) to damage and eventually destroy an enemy PoB. Owners of the PoB can try to shoot down the siege platform, so the siegers will have to be ready to, and be capable of defending it.

Siege "platforms" would cost credits / materials, of course, making it so you don't want to just siege random crap. Although the cost should be proportional to the damage you need to be doing to destroy the enemy PoB. Getting rid of a pesky illegal Core 1 base in New York shouldn't cost the Liberty Navy a fortune every time.

So yeah, introducing some risk to the attacking side so the boring "taping your right mouse button down" grind can go away, and so base owners no longer have to be the only party actually risking assets/credits in a conflict.

I think these, in one form or another, would be the way to go. With the addition of a need to keep the siege ship/platform, supplied with ammo/material by the attacking side in order for it to remain functional. This way, both the defenders AND the attackers are forced to keep a supply line going, instead of the way it is now where only the bases defense force has to divide its focus between defense and keeping the base supplied. In addition, have it to where you will need a different ( and therefore, more expensive) siege ship/platform for each increase in the bases core level.

Or maybe just remove them, who knows?

[Wesker]

Inb4 someone makes rp for the "death-PoB" (death star)

(^:

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[Texas Red]

Lore-wise Outcast presence in Liberty should be mostly to secure the cardamine trade route. It's why once upon a time LR banned Outcast capitals from Liberty and even went as far as to shoot them.

You raaang?

((((^:

But yes, Outcast capitals in Liberty makes literally no sense what so ever. A better mechanic to allow smaller factions like the Rogues, GC, Mollys and the like to siege bases on their own would be a nice improvement.

[HuggieSunrise]

The simple solution is this.. for every core level the station is built up a siege can take away. so a core 4 is sieged and its hp goes to zero it reverts to a core three. then two then one then dead.

of course if the siege stops or is turned back the owners can repair back up to their approved level.

[CzeReptile]

Ill drop a quickie here, which is half stolen from other spacesim.
Make POB run on fuel. If they get attacked and shields get drained for sufficient amount, make it invulnerable (still dockable) and come out of the invulnerability at set time as to make it an event. If besieging party aint doin anything for lets say 3 to 4 hours after shields are down, it goes to previous state.

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[Divine]

Here's a nice read, not sure in what way something similar can be applied to Disco. //Edit: But maybe it gives some ideas at least.

Spoiler

Unique advantages
The outposts provide unique advantages. Each outpost gives a bonus to the guild that occupies it. The guild can also construct a few buildings on the outpost's territory to gain further advantages.

NPC controlled outposts
When an outpost is not owned by a guild, hostile NPCs or creatures may occupy it. The first challenge for a guild, which wants to get control of an outpost held by these NPCs, is to fight and defeat them.

Guild wars
The next challenge is to actually keep the control of the outpost. Other guilds can try to conquer it by launching an offensive. In case of conflict between two guilds, the zone around the outpost becomes a PvP area.

Hiring NPCs
The guilds can hire NPC soldiers to defend their outpost. They can choose between different types of NPCs and organize their defense.

Alliances
If the NPC soldiers and guild members don't suffice to fend off against another guild's offensive, the defending guild can call allied guilds for help. The attacking guild can also be helped by other guilds in its attempt to conquer an outpost. Diplomacy becomes all important !

Victory
To gain control over an outpost, the attacking guild needs to overcome the defenses set up by the defending guild. The new owner then has to quickly organize new defenses to prepare for a possible counter-attack.

Details on mechanics:

Summary
1. Declaring War
2. Attack battle
3. Defense battle
4. Minimum threshold
5. Buying squads
6. Squads management
7. Squads power
8. Conflict area

1. Declaring War (24 hours)
If a guild wants to take an outpost, it must first declare war to the current owner of that outpost. The war declaration takes 24 hours, to allow the two opponents to organize themselves, to give them a chance to be there when the true conflict occurs. At the time the war is declared [Update], the attacking guild can choose a time when the “attack battle” will take place. During the first 24 hours (declaration period) [Update] the defending guild a time where the “defence battle” will take place (see below).
Note: While only one guild at a time can declare war to a given outpost, temporary alliances are possible.

2. Attack battle (2 hours)
A battle is divided in several rounds, each of them lasting a given amount of time (We’ll start with 5 minutes [Update], for example, and modify that depending on the results and your comments).
As soon as a round starts, one or more NPC squads appear at the outpost to defend it. The goal of the attacker is to get rid of all the spawned squads before the end of the round. The goal of the defenders is, of course, to not let the attackers achieve their goal by making sure the squads stay alive.
Every round has a given level of difficulty. The outcome of each round decides if the level of the next round will be increased or decreased: if the attacker wins (all squads are killed), the level is increased, otherwise, it is decreased. The attackers must try to attain the highest level they can.
At level 1, only one squad is spawned. At level 2, a squad spawns at the beginning of the round and a second squad spawns at mid-round. At level 3, 2 squads spawn at the beginning and one more at mid-round. At level 4, 2 squads spawn at the beginning of the round, then one more after 3 minutes and one more after 6 minutes, and so on. Generally speaking, when the level is increased, the time it takes new squads to arrive shortens, and the number of simultaneous squads increases.
The squads are despawned at the end of each round and “fresh” squads are respawned for the next round.

At the end of the 2 hour period, the higher level attained by the attackers over the whole battle will be kept.

Then, there are two possibilities:
• The attackers haven’t exceeded the minimum required level (the “minimum threshold”, cf. 4). In this case, war will come to an end, no defence period will start and the attackers have lost. The outpost will be kept by its current owners;
Or:
• The attackers attained the minimum threshold. In that case, this level is the one the defenders will have to reach during the defence battle to keep ownership of their outpost.

3. Defence period (2 hours)
If attackers did reach the minimum threshold, then defenders will have to react. We can consider this second battle as the counter-attack. It occurs the same way as the attack phase, but roles are reversed: The appearing squads belong to attackers and defenders have to kill them. And, of course, attackers have to try to prevent them from doing it.
To keep the outpost, the defenders don’t need to do better than attackers; they just have to reach the same level.

4. Minimum threshold
When a guild has succeeded in taking over an outpost, the battle level the guild reached to conquer it becomes the new minimum threshold for the outpost. It will be the level that any guild wanting to control that outpost will have to exceed.
This threshold decreases over time, offering some protection after the takeover, but it won’t stay long. The threshold will be at its maximum during the first two days, then decrease by one battle level every two days.

5. Buying squads
Default squads are given to both sides; however, they are relatively weak. It is possible to buy new ones, about two times stronger. Also, their spawn order can be chosen.. When a squad is killed, if it was a paid one, it is lost forever. When there are no more paid squads, the default ones are used.

6. Squads management
Squads appear in two lists, sorted in the order they will be spawned. The first list allows to select the lists to be spawned at the beginning of the round, the second one the squads to be spawned during the round, thus allowing to setup strategies. A squad is paid when it spawns, and is reimbursed at the end of the round if at least one of its members is still alive. [Update]

Authorized persons among those owning the outpost can change this order in the list. Changes during a battle have no effect on the current round, but will be effective for the next round.

7. Squads power
Squads are considered as level 250, but with a level 50 defence, thus allowing a low-level character to attack them. However, their HP reserve will be larger than the one of a normal character and will depend on the level of the outpost. Also, in each squad, there is always a leader who has a defence corresponding to the outpost level. Thus, a high-level outpost couldn’t be taken by only low-level characters.

8. Conflict area
The conflict area is limited to the outpost perimeter; when you leave the perimeter, you have to wait a few minutes before quitting the Outpost combat though.

Link for reference: http://forums.ryzom.com/showpost.php?p=3...ostcount=8

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[Thyrzul]

I've been propagating the rebalance of PoB hull and repair rates in order to allow more opportunity for both successful sieges and defenses in the past, I'm not doing otherwise this time either. My proposal is to nerf repair rates and buff the overall hull of bases. To support the idea of these changes I've brought a very mystical entity to help me in my cause: mathematics. @Karst did a good job at a siege time calculator sheet a while ago, I used his spreadsheet as the basis of mine, a bit reformatted, and created several modified versions to display the differences between each.

Base Math

● All numbers in the sheet mean siege lenght in minutes depending on attacking force, base core level and amount of different repair materials.
● It is implied that a functional shield is also actively defending the PoB.
● Red bold negative numbers represent cases where the overall DPS of the attackers do not overcome the repair rate of the base, thus effectively no damage is done.
● Orange bold numbers represent cases where the lenght of the siege extends the two hour period of PvP Death.

The general aims of this proposal are the following:
● Allow players with lesser numbers or inferior technology to be able to put a dent into PoBs -> eliminate the red area at least partially
● Allow defenders several chances of combatting the attackers -> extend the orange area as much as possible
● Extend siege lenght as much as possible -> raise all numbers in general

In order to illustrate the effects of the various balance changes I've drawn a few examples of hull buff and repair nerf on their own, plus a few combinations of those.
It is easy to notice that nerfing the repair rate cuts the red areas shorter, while buffing hull raises all numbers, thus a combination of these extends the orange area as intended.

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[Jack_Henderson]

@Thyrzul : Nice calculations. It's useful to see how a change in variables could influence the outcome. Your formulas and thoughts however does not change anything when it comes to the crucial point that attackers risk and lose nothing, whereas defenders lose everything in case of a defeat.

However, I just think that the concept "bring tons of BS (likely more than a faction could potentially have) to a place where it likely makes little sense - because gameplay mechanics demand it" is generally and fundamentally flawed and should be replaced with something else (e.g. @Haste's idea).

> Hold down right mouse button for hours is just silly.
> Fights in which "you cannot lose people bc they need to log to BS later when defenders are dead for 2 h)" are seldom "good" fights. They need to be brutally effective, which very likely makes them less enjoyable than "normal" fights in which at least a small measure of decency can be expected from some. In POB siege fights, there is no mercy (on all sides).
> The defender has to be on edge for 2 weeks. It was a damn tense weekend, very exhausting, and it even took a toll on RL for some. One cannot always check the player lists, have people online to see troop movements, and scan 3rd party channels for calls to assemble. It wears people out, especially defenders, and favours attackers again.
> It's frustrating for beaten defenders to watch for hours without being able to do anything, always hoping that the attackers cannot break the repair-rate.
> It's frustrating for the attackers if they cannot break the repair rate.
> The siege mechanisms at the moment are just a horrible waste of time for all sides involved and gives little joy for anybody, but on the contrary creates a lot of bitterness - actually often on both sides.

A fundamental change is imo what is needed.

Edit, because too good to not link: (source: http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=147509)




P.S: This is unrelated to yesterday's Coronado fight, bc I personally found the Pecos fights the day before yesterday and yesterday not bad at all. I have seen much worse. No critizism intended.

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[Gforce]

I'll throw in a couple of cents, because why not? I think the first step is understanding the problems here, and then working out how to fix those, rather than throw on new mechanics, so I'll try to explain those as I can see them.

1: Time to build vs Time to kill

If you half the numbers being thrown around here you still end up with alot of time and effort to build a base. However, keep in mind you don't have to get all those supplies in one day. Bases are built up over time, you log in, do a few runs, log out and get on with your life. Now attacking a base takes only a few hours, compared to the time in it's a horrible unfair system time wise. This time however it has to be done in one session, you can't attack the base a little, come back the next day and attack again because all your previous damage will have been repaired. So what you have is base builders throwing in a huge amount of effort over a long period of time vs the attackers throwing in a much less amount of effort, but in a short, intense (if not boring) time span. By making the attack play out over days, you can easily tweak the attacking time to require more time and effort, but also stretch it out so the attackers don't have to devote a large chunk of continuous time to be effective.

2: Player vs Base

Keeping in mind the points above, one of the easiest ways of making the time and effort for building vs attacking fair is to make the fights 'fair', that is, base vs base, players vs players. Before PoB's, base sieges were done by a group of players blowing up anything trying to get near a station. Being able to attack the base directly has completely upset the flow of combat. Putting more PvP into base sieges would help bring the siege back into the familiar, we're all used to a bomber or gunboat pirating our transport, bombers killing capitals. Play what you're used to, not something new and wonky.

Haste and Langolier are onto a workable idea I think, I would have quoted them, but it wasn't working for me, I have no idea what I'm doing, never really had the time to type this, and thus, haven't proof read.