Recently I passed by Ross Planetoid in Cambridge. The battleship there was guarded by 2 static Crecy's that had HP's of 10 million each. Well that is a step in the right direction, if not something overlooked.
I'm under the opinion that a lot of base siege drama could be avoided by giving players something else, but similar, to do.
So if we could set it so the damage on those solars is carried over each day like a POB, and made them stronger, and spread out little groups of them...POB's would take a back seat to sieges of static NPC military/navy ships.
It was fun, I tested it out and wondered how awesome it would be if there was some risk or principle attached it would entice players to want to defend and guard them, in the same way we deal with POB's. I think every faction that has access to caps should have mortal caps defending their territories.
Because what happens when all the POB's are gone? That must be great for player population too. But I'm not in favor of stopping the ability to do it, if a POB will be a threat a faction should be able to do something. To me sieging POB's for fun though is proof we have limited options here and could use another similar outlet for PVP activity. Sieges are great, too bad its not over territory too, and in some cases ship sellpoints. I REALLY think if we let houses move around static NPC ships more, and made them strong mortal targets, it would break things up a bit more, and take some heat off of POB bases.
I mean, why can't a house request NPC caps be moved to areas with threatened POB's to help defend them? If they could, the fact that they'd also be siegeable would be the balancing factor.
It does seem a little imbalanced that some factions can go on siege parades but don't have much to defend on their end. What if RHA static caps or stations were also made mortal? What if they had to use that fleet to also defend targets while trying to go on the offensive. Ensure both sides have something to attack and defend, and there is something to do on both sides, and wouldn't seem so one sided. RM might be more enticed to log if they can also just form a group, sneak up on an enemy base-ship on their own time, and attack it, especially if that means dealing a blow to them.
I feel like if RM players could organize there own raids against GMG static caps, RH static caps, etc, and vice versa, most of the action would move around that instead. Then in order for people to want to prioritize around the caps, literally make it so that if they are lost, not only do you lose a base, but it may lead to losing a shipyard, ship sell point, or eventually even a whole system, of you lose them all in those areas.
Not only that, but these smaller factions that also have shipyards and use large capitals should all be able to have those shipyards SIEGABLE, at least if any static caps guarding it were knocked out of play. Then, for a faction to even still get access to its capital ship sellpoint, it would have to fight hard! Otherwise RM could keep their ship sellpoint 'deactivated' when they need contain the RHA threat...if they can! (meaning if it was taken down to 0, it would stay undockable, either for a minum time like a month, or be able to be fixed by some player effort like a supply event). Now that would change things forever for factions like RHA, GMG, and Enclave.
If you're wondering how to answer all of the other questions around how to fill in the little blanks around it all, read previous posts!
As far as I'm concerned, many of the problems here still stem from there being nothing to do but show for mindless pews. POB's could still be invovled but in many cases now it seems all to easy to form a gaggle fleet to go siege a base, mainly because thats all there is to actually do 'battle wise' here in the live environment that will cause an actual battle, other than just waiting in an enemy system for someone to show up. A few little changes and the wars here would finally balance out.