Topic: Intrusion 3.0
Current mechanics are mess and random - to effectively defend an outpost, owner should be online each 8-16 hours which isn't always possible and doesn't guarantee fights at all - it's still too easy to avoid the SAP fights and still take the ownership - like 10 tousands of monkeys typing random text sooner or later will type Shakespear poem, said attackers hitting saps just in safe timezone will sooner or later get enough lucky to decrease more stability than an owner can raise in his timezone. Such a mechanic can be easily replaced with simple dice roll throwing out odds or evens each 8 hours.
I want fights, I want to be sure that the one who has decided to conquer my outpost will do it on battlefield instead of hiding in shadows of different timezones. But how to achieve that?
Once upon a times we had an old good Intrusion 1.0 system which allowed us to choose suitable timeframe for fights with the mechanic called "Intrusion Tokens". So here is how we can use it combining with what we have now, or, "Intrusion 3.0"
Stability, auras and outpost facility and lock controls remains the same - they are fine. What's being changed - is SAP system. Let me show you that on puppets.
Corporation A controls an outpost. Corporation B decides to conquer it. B scans for intrusion, and if it's suitable, signs for it. Signing, like earlier, cost some NIC (like 50kk NIC, or 5k tokens of appropriate color, or both). Corporation A gets notification about that and, if it wants to defend, signs for intrusion aswell (same price or 50% off as an owner). Now, when SAP is coming out, both attacker and defender can complete it just like we do now - atacker will decrease, and defender will increase stability, and that's it - there is no more other way to change stability (again, same as we do now). If A was successful in defending, it earns 1 Intrusion Token (and that is the only way to get it - sign in and defend the sap). Later, B decides to attack once more, but time isn't suitable for A so they decided to use Intrusion Token to protect their SAP - completing such protected SAP by either A or B will not result in any stability change.
Now imagine there is Corporation C that doesn't want an ownership at all but only SAP loot. C just comes and completes the SAP without sighing for it - and that drops the loot but doesn't change stability. A and B can do the same, and, as we have it now, SAP timeout doesn't produce loot - just SAP completing does.
Oh yes, and owner can have just limited amount of Protection Tokens - like, one per outpost or one per island. And of course, yellow outposts would require yellow Protection Tokens
So tl;dr;
New NIC and Token sink
PvE gets more meaning (you either grind tokens for intrusions or buy from someone else grinding)
Greedy and limitations prevents Protection Tokens grinding (hey, 5k assignment tokens it's 1/20 of Black Bot!)
Greedy and limitations also prevent one corp from owning few outposts - they will be unable to protect them all with tokens and too greedy to spend lots of tokens on signing for participating
Both owner and atacker have to fight for outposts
Owner have timezone advantage (hey, I'm an owner, m'kay. I should have MORE rights on my stuff than that other dude. And that includes choosing appropriate timeframe)
Attacker can't anymore conquer an outpost without any shot
Ninja SAP looters still get their cortexes and TAPs and can even have small scale PvP with other SAP loot hunters
Intrusion 3.0 uses pieces of Intrusion 1.0 and 2.0 so it's easier to implement than some brand new system
That's what we need.
R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
DEV Zoom: Line, sorry, I was away for christmas.
http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=252086