In light of the most recent happenings concerning the new siege mechanics, and the "gamey" aspect of restocking on neutral bases.
Proposed changes
- Removal of siege guns / ammo from Conn (seriously, you don't need those there, what POB are you going to shoot with it?)
- Apply rep requirements to the siege weapons / ammo (only sold to base faction allies)
Expected impact on gameplay
Restocking siege guns becomes more of an "operation" in itself. It also makes for a plausible "logistics challenge" that the defenders can exploit, especially if the sieging faction has their bases in systems far removed from the one the siege is taking place
In return, siege ammo could be made a bit cheaper, as it's expected losing it will become more prevalent
Defenders are already playing from the theoretical high ground in any case when some considerate tactics involved that isn't sitting idly by the base hoping for a miracle. While it is easier for attackers to achieve their goal, sieges are forcibly stretched over a few days by the damage cap attackers can cause to the besieged base, so defenders are guaranteed to have a few attempts at defense.
Not to mention the fact of PoB months long immunity to declarations after two weeks long siege period.
Not a problem and does not need fixing, especially with /conn disabled from pobs, thus preventing deployment of disposable staging points nearby the besieged base.
Peace, being the distant dream it is, comes inevitably, and goes hand in hand with justice.
Cursed be the war.
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Siege Ammo is sold everywhere, so why does it matter? It's already a huge money sink. /Conn was disabled from POBs. And if you remove it from conn, you disallow people from practicing in conn to test it out. This is a redundant suggestion.
On paper, it sounds like a relatively reasonable idea to have people buying siege ammo off actually friendly bases.
In practice, this would be ineffectual/impossible to balance.
Virtually no factions have rephack maximums towards each other except hostiles or undockables. So tying it to rep would only....force people to get bribes? Which is not really a relevant gameplay or roleplay process that we need to force more of?
If you say, max hacked every single ID in the game dramatically towards other IFFs in order to achieve such a rep-based ammo system, reducing the availability further down from simply dockable bases would cause a really unpredictable situation with possible "black holes" where bases are effectively immune to attack, and it would be extremely hard to determine where and for which IFFs they would be.
No, this just doesn't work out at all. Don't try to overcomplicate things.
Platforms are way too weak now, simple as. And sieging way too easy with preset JD coords, docking modules, siege guns and ammo in conn and every dockable base for everyone.
It just feels - so comfortable and easy/hassle free overall
I am wondering what @St.Denis thinks, he did the math, saw the numbers etc. How he'd set it up personally.
@Karst you mean that bases would be more vulnerable when near hostile installations and vice versa? And you'd force logistics either hauling ammo mid siege, or building a base of your own nearby that you stock and haul ammo to, that's in itself vulnerable if you siege far away from your own NPC Solars?
Doesn't that actually make sense? The repair mats have availability limitations, you can't get them in conn either - it stands to reason that the further a base is from a hostile faction bases and closer to supplies the safer it is no?
And yeah, I am talking about just being able to buy ammo at your own faction's NPC bases more or less, no rephack shenanigans.
28 fights now possible with 1 hr respawn timer (14 Days x 2x1 respawn timer)
You have to win 3-10/28 fights to kill any base
3 for Core 1
6 for Core 3
6-7 for Core 4
10 for Core 5
If the base is defended 24/7 by defenders ready to match your forces If the base max repairs
- This already is a much higher burden than logging, shooting
- Siege guns and ammo are designed to be just an expense, the way caps work you can just bring them at close to 0 PvP detriment.
- WPs are too weak, simply