Proposal: The Cycle Marker

Anyone who has flown a mining barge probably knows the pain of spending a full three minute cycle on an asteroid bearing just a fraction of ore. Asteroid scanners are useful tools for avoiding this problem, giving you a precise count of the amount of material remaining in each asteroid. However, it's not easy to translate the remaining ore counts in an asteroid scanner table into an optimal cycle cutoff time.

To solve this problem, I propose adding a new midslot module, the asteroid cycle marker. When activated, this module will mark the moment when an asteroid will be depleted in the current mining cycle. The cycle marker would only work on asteroids being actively harvested, and would not leave a marker if the asteroid will not be depleted within the current activation cycle.


The already run Cycle Marker showing the cutoff point for a pair of Kernite asteroids.

Occupying a mid-slot and ideally using a significant amount of capacitor, players making use of this module would have to choose how to configure their ships to achieve an ideal balance of tank and yield. This should help keep the module balanced, without displacing the asteroid belt scanner.

By providing the ideal moment to deactivate a module, miners everywhere will be able to enjoy increased yields when paying attention to their activities, but simultaneously making themselves more vulnerable to attack; a module to the benefit of everyone, in my book! What do you think?

The Soft Station Flip

Conflict in nullsec is a stagnant affair. Between the constant claiming and reclaiming of territories that have been fought over, time and time again, for no real purpose other than the battle itself, and the binary outcomes of player conflicts, the situation is dismal. An evolving combat environment, one that is less reliant on the binary have and have not state of outpost ownership, would be an effective partial solution to revitalizing null security space.

The best fix I have yet seen for breeding new interest is to modify station ownership mechanics. Rather than a hard flip of ownership and access rights occurring once an outpost has been conquered by its new owners, stations would maintain their old docking rights, alongside the new ones, for a period of three days after the station is captured.

To create a beachhead from which an offensive can advance, and to help mitigate the possibility of prolonged guerilla actions comprising the totality of activities for the involved parties, a station should not be able to be contested for a period of one week after it has been captured. This will permit the conflict to expand beyond the recently captured outpost system, while simultaneously providing an environment of continuous localized conflict. For the group that lost the station, all docking fees would be waived (or perhaps go to the new owners of the outpost), and only the market would be available for use.

These changes to the mechanics would afford the previous owners of the station new opportunities and tactical possibilities that were previously impossible, such as utilizing the limited outpost access to prepare for a counter-offensive, or to evacuate assets after the station is captured. Best of all, these new opportunities for conflict would not come at any additional structure grind expense. Regardless of the decisions made by any one group, the prolonged scenario means more opportunities for players to interact on an individual and strategic level, long after station ownership has been decided.

While this feature does not address issues involving the economics of 0.0 space, it should serve to make the battles for control of nullsec more interesting, more dynamic, and less reliant on the moment of capture for creating interest and intrigue in conquest and conflict. A dynamic nullsec environment is a healthy nullsec environment; I can’t wait to read the stories that could come from these mechanics adjustments.

I’d like to give credit to Vanderie for the idea upon which this proposal is based.

The suggested timers do not hold any particular significance.