1 (edited by Neoxx 2011-07-15 22:19:36)

Topic: Docking Permissions

First off, I'd like to say that I like the idea of docking permissions, and I'm not at all against them being implemented in the upcoming patches.  I just had an idea while reading the blog that might make the restrictions a bit more interesting and maybe even a it tactical.

If you have not read the new blog yet, this is the part I am writing about:

Dev Calvin wrote:

...owners will be able to manage docking access via the relation system. The ownership will be decided in the period of two Intrusions. Losing the first Intrusion, the defenders will lose docking access management rights and the second will decide the new owner of the outpost. Later on the Intrusion timer system will also be revisited.

Now, while this is all well and good for securing one's island against attackers, it works in a very black and white way.  If you don't own the outpost, anyone can get in.  If you own it, no one you don't want in can get in.  What I would like to see, and what I'm going to propose, is a way to restrict the number of corps that are blacklisted, that scales in difficulty (price) the more you want to keep out.

Now before I go into how this could be achieved, I'd like to show you why I think its a reasonable idea and why the game world supports it.  It comes down to one statement that was also made in the blog:

Dev Calvin wrote:

...the facilities currently used by the Agents are owned and loaned by the Syndicate.

So, if they are loaned to us by the Syndicate, what good does it do them to allow corps to shut out other corps and potentially reduce profits?  Even when an outpost is owned, there is still NIC going to the Syndicate for every transaction, with some going to the owning corp.  The way I see it, the Syndicate should charge the owning corp a fee to keep other corps out to compensate for the potential lost NIC.




Now onto the important part: the part that will affect how you play the game.

The actual cost of restricting corps isnt as important here as how/if the fees will rise exponentially as you want to restrict more corps, and how to prevent gaming of the system.

The one major issue with charging per corp is people making dummy corps with only a few people to be able to be able to dock up safely.  I would propose that any corp under X number of players is free to restrict access to.  Keeping out the alt scout corps would be key in security, and they are in essence not a separate entity from their alt's main corp.

Another concern is restricting noob corps, as they can have thousands of members.  Those would also be free.

The last that came to mind was if fees should be assigned based on the number of players in a corp.  The larger corps could cost more to restrict because of the higher potential for syndicate profit, but that could simply promote inflating corp numbers through alts.


For those of you who want concrete numbers to look at, here's a (bad) mockup of the fee scaling:

Corp - Weekly Fee - Total Weekly Fee
1st - 100k NIC - 100k NIC
2nd - 200k NIC - 300k NIC
3rd -  350k NIC - 650k NIC
4th - 500k NIC - 1.15mil NIC
5th - 750k NIC - 1.9mil NIC
6th - 1mil  NIC - 2.9mil NIC


So, what do you think?  This is not only about having a fee to restrict, but the idea of it being progressive and harder to restrict many corps at the same time.  Feel free to present alternate ideas that are in line with this one.

->You just lost The Game<-

2 (edited by Sabre906 2011-07-15 22:22:00)

Re: Docking Permissions

What happens when the playerbase grows? Would you have to pay to add every neut corp in the entire game out?

Even if free, the task of typing in thousands of corp names to the restriction list would be unrealistic.

Re: Docking Permissions

http://forums.perpetuum-online.com/topi … y-and-bes/

Re: Docking Permissions

I like it, but how does this remove the use of arkhe scouts at peoples home bases which the current system would remove...

sad

Re: Docking Permissions

Sabre906 wrote:

What happens when the playerbase grows? Would you have to pay to add every neut corp in the entire game out?

Why would you need to restrict neutral corps?  I see this as a privilege to keep select corps out, not a right that comes with owning the outpost.  So dont look at it like "Now I cant keep everyone out!  That sucks!"  but more like "Now I CAN keep people out when I want to, but for a price."

->You just lost The Game<-

6 (edited by Neoxx 2011-07-15 22:25:20)

Re: Docking Permissions

GLiMPSE wrote:

I like it, but how does this remove the use of arkhe scouts at peoples home bases which the current system would remove...

sad

Yeah, I didnt understand that part of the blog.  People could still just as easily have arkhe scouts logged out on teleports and what not.  It would only prevent scouts being inside of the terminal that can dock/undock indefinitely to get intel.

I did put in that you could restrict small corps and the starter corps for free. Sure, this kinda goes against the Syndicate making money part, because those corps have lots of people in them, but it would be a necessary thing if it were to work at all.

->You just lost The Game<-

7 (edited by Sabre906 2011-07-15 22:28:42)

Re: Docking Permissions

Neoxx wrote:
Sabre906 wrote:

What happens when the playerbase grows? Would you have to pay to add every neut corp in the entire game out?

Why would you need to restrict neutral corps?  I see this as a privilege to keep select corps out, not a right that comes with owning the outpost.  So dont look at it like "Now I cant keep everyone out!  That sucks!"  but more like "Now I CAN keep people out when I want to, but for a price."

I'll bite. The number of corps that you'd want to keep out can go into the thousands soon enough. Do you think the player base will always remain so tiny? It took around a year for Eve to exceed that scale. You should have more faith in Perpetuum.

Re: Docking Permissions

I think adding fees to keep people from docking at a station you own dumbs down the intended affect they're trying to promote with adding docking restrictions in the first place.

"Yay, now I can keep jim-bob and bubba from docking at my station!" Oh, wait it'll cost me nic to do that : /

See what I mean?

Re: Docking Permissions

Well it says 'using the relations system'.  I'd assume that means 0.00 is okay, even -5.00 might be okay, but -10.00 can't dock.  And that's free in this. 

I'm confused as to why add a charge, it's like having to pay to be angry at someone.  It's not like a wardec - setting a relation is free.  Your corp already busted its hump for the outpost - it's yours.  This just sounds like a POS fuel equivalent to keep people off of your stuff, which is not a good idea.

----
I play MMOs. I need a signature which is deep, thought provoking, and devours bandwidth with the voracity of rabid weasels. It is also, by nature, vaguely sad with a tinge of my obvious internal, unfathomable loneliness. Like this, sad  , but at 1.3megs packed into 2 by 6 inches. ANIMATED.

Re: Docking Permissions

I think more importantly, how does this effect players that have rights, lets say an alliance - then that right is revoked?

Does this mean that no one ever stores anything at an outpost they don't own?

Re: Docking Permissions

Hypothetically, why should you pay for the "privilege"(?) to not allow strangers/people you dislike into your home? smile

[18:20:30] <GLiMPSE> Chairman Of My Heart o/
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Re: Docking Permissions

GLiMPSE wrote:

I like it, but how does this remove the use of arkhe scouts at peoples home bases which the current system would remove...

sad

Arkhe scouts is very last year. With all the new players in the game they're willing to not only tell others where they are but give out and sometimes sell Teamspeak recordings. It's becoming commonplace. It would be nice to block Arkhe scouts but that's what the 10 minute arkhe timers were put in place for.

Also also suggest blocking arkhes from entering beta islands. So they may leave but not enter and new ones aren't given. If you run out of robots in an outpost you just set your homebase somewhere else and the system should then move you when you have no more robots and set a new home base. (Just like running around in an arkhe and getting killed. We already have fast teleports in effect. Just make it more usable big_smile

13 (edited by Winter Solstice 2011-07-15 23:06:53)

Re: Docking Permissions

Syndic wrote:

Hypothetically, why should you pay for the "privilege"(?) to not allow strangers/people you dislike into your home? smile

I agree - you already paid to conduct the intrusion and 'pay' to keep yourself viable in that location via cost of equipment lost in defense of your surrounding land.  The impression I got was it was to was to balance current benefit vs risk of living on beta.

And hey on the Arhke thing.  That was half of what helped us fall in love with perp was being able to go to the 'end of the earth' at first go.  realize something like that would block newer folks from entering beta at all without insane monetary risk (for a new person).  Has to be another way to handle the issue.

----
I play MMOs. I need a signature which is deep, thought provoking, and devours bandwidth with the voracity of rabid weasels. It is also, by nature, vaguely sad with a tinge of my obvious internal, unfathomable loneliness. Like this, sad  , but at 1.3megs packed into 2 by 6 inches. ANIMATED.

14 (edited by Alexadar 2011-07-15 23:07:04)

Re: Docking Permissions

If you allowing people to dock, then you assuming they will use station services.
If people using op services and if they are not outpost owners then they will pay a tax.
If people paying a tax for outpost owners then outpost owners gaining money.

Captain, should we have a docking tax?

CAPTAIN SAYING ITS OBVIOUS: NO!

15 (edited by Neoxx 2011-07-15 23:21:23)

Re: Docking Permissions

Winter Solstice wrote:
Syndic wrote:

Hypothetically, why should you pay for the "privilege"(?) to not allow strangers/people you dislike into your home? smile

I agree - you already paid to conduct the intrusion and 'pay' to keep yourself viable in that location via cost of equipment lost in defense of your surrounding land.  The impression I got was it was to was to balance current benefit vs risk of living on beta.

And hey on the Arhke thing.  That was half of what helped us fall in love with perp was being able to go to the 'end of the earth' at first go.  realize something like that would block newer folks from entering beta at all without insane monetary risk (for a new person).  Has to be another way to handle the issue.

Sure its your home, but you dont own it.  You are renting it from the Syndicate.  You are paying to use the facilities, but in the end its still theirs, and they should have a stake in the potential profit it can provide.

What you are initially paying for is the ability to get better facilities and not have to pay as much to use them.  If you have sufficient economy, the value of the savings far outweighs the cost of intrusion/upkeep.  I do also understand that you can associate this cost to being able to keep other corps out as well, but I'm only suggesting an alternate route that makes you think more about who you decide to keep out.


I think you should also keep in mind that we're still hoping for POS in the future, which would be fully yours and you could do what with you like in relation to keeping corps out for free.  But, outposts are not yours, so the thought of being able to dictate who can and cannot enter without some fee or cost seems a bit too much.  Since all we have at the moment is outposts, this just may have to be the case until later down the road.

quote wrote:

If you allowing people to dock, then you assuming they will use station services.
If people using op services and if they are not outpost owners then they will pay a tax.
If people paying a tax for outpost owners then outpost owners gaining money.
Captain, should we have a docking tax?
CAPTAIN SAYING ITS OBVIOUS: NO!

Did something get lost in translation?  This isnt about it being good for your corp to let other people use your facilites.  Its about denying opposing forces from using your facilites against you but adding a deeper layer of tactics to deciding who you allow and deny.


Again, this doesnt have to be NIC based or even item based.  The point is to have some restriction or further thought than "DENY YELLOW" and its done.  I was simply providing world based reasoning for why it could have a NIC cost associated with such an effect.



This is what I'd like to come out of this feature:  Is the strategic/economic/blah-blah-blah-ic advantage of denying X corp access worth the cost associated with it?  Risk vs reward, people.

->You just lost The Game<-

Re: Docking Permissions

I don't see the problem with arkhe scouts. Are you trying to penalize people for having eyes out and defending their home? Do you want to make it harder for new people to explore? There are corps that don't actively take part in espionage and this should be a viable way for them to maintain teleport security.

Re: Docking Permissions

Neoxx wrote:

Sure its your home, but you dont own it.  You are renting it from the Syndicate.  You are paying to use the facilities, but in the end its still theirs, and they should have a stake in the potential profit it can provide.

What you are initially paying for is the ability to get better facilities and not have to pay as much to use them.  If you have sufficient economy, the value of the savings far outweighs the cost of intrusion/upkeep.  I do also understand that you can associate this cost to being able to keep other corps out as well, but I'm only suggesting an alternate route that makes you think more about who you decide to keep out.


I think you should also keep in mind that we're still hoping for POS in the future, which would be fully yours and you could do what with you like in relation to keeping corps out for free.  But, outposts are not yours, so the thought of being able to dictate who can and cannot enter without some fee or cost seems a bit too much.  Since all we have at the moment is outposts, this just may have to be the case until later down the road.

The owning corporation conquered it from the Nian Empires on behalf of the Syndicate. Its pretty sensible that the Syndicate would be very interested in rewarding such a powerhouse corporation that is leading the expansion of the Perpetuum Project with exclusive control over the Outpost, as long as they reaped in the profits from it.

From a balance perspective it makes no sense. The owning corporation can ban everyone from their outpost; but then they already pay the price by doing that. If nobody can dock, nobody can trade or use the market. Therefore they cut themselves off from any profits & station tax from the market. They also cut their profit by losing all production other corporations do.

So besides being punished economically - which is as it should be, you can't have the money and the security - why add another economical punishment on top of that?

[18:20:30] <GLiMPSE> Chairman Of My Heart o/
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Re: Docking Permissions

Neoxx wrote:
Winter Solstice wrote:
Syndic wrote:

Hypothetically, why should you pay for the "privilege"(?) to not allow strangers/people you dislike into your home? smile

I agree - you already paid to conduct the intrusion and 'pay' to keep yourself viable in that location via cost of equipment lost in defense of your surrounding land.  The impression I got was it was to was to balance current benefit vs risk of living on beta.

And hey on the Arhke thing.  That was half of what helped us fall in love with perp was being able to go to the 'end of the earth' at first go.  realize something like that would block newer folks from entering beta at all without insane monetary risk (for a new person).  Has to be another way to handle the issue.

Sure its your home, but you dont own it.  You are renting it from the Syndicate.  You are paying to use the facilities, but in the end its still theirs, and they should have a stake in the potential profit it can provide.

What you are initially paying for is the ability to get better facilities and not have to pay as much to use them.  If you have sufficient economy, the value of the savings far outweighs the cost of intrusion/upkeep.  I do also understand that you can associate this cost to being able to keep other corps out as well, but I'm only suggesting an alternate route that makes you think more about who you decide to keep out.


I think you should also keep in mind that we're still hoping for POS in the future, which would be fully yours and you could do what with you like in relation to keeping corps out for free.  But, outposts are not yours, so the thought of being able to dictate who can and cannot enter without some fee or cost seems a bit too much.  Since all we have at the moment is outposts, this just may have to be the case until later down the road.

quote wrote:

If you allowing people to dock, then you assuming they will use station services.
If people using op services and if they are not outpost owners then they will pay a tax.
If people paying a tax for outpost owners then outpost owners gaining money.
Captain, should we have a docking tax?
CAPTAIN SAYING ITS OBVIOUS: NO!

Did something get lost in translation?  This isnt about it being good for your corp to let other people use your facilites.  Its about denying opposing forces from using your facilites against you but adding a deeper layer of tactics to deciding who you allow and deny.


Again, this doesnt have to be NIC based or even item based.  The point is to have some restriction or further thought than "DENY YELLOW" and its done.  I was simply providing world based reasoning for why it could have a NIC cost associated with such an effect.



This is what I'd like to come out of this feature:  Is the strategic/economic/blah-blah-blah-ic advantage of denying X corp access worth the cost associated with it?  Risk vs reward, people.


You've yet to make a valid point in my opinion. If you're a landlord, and you rent a property to someone, it's their's to use as the agreement is set forth. Your landlord doesn't tell you that if you run a business out of that property, then you have to pay us a portion of your proceeds. Why does the syndicate need to be cut in? You pay them a 10 million nic deposit to move in, and they get paid by taxing your services as their rent.

19 (edited by Alexadar 2011-07-15 23:36:43)

Re: Docking Permissions

Yeah, my barin-translator is broken today.

Neoxx wrote:

*stuff* Again, this doesnt have to be NIC based or even item based.  The point is to have some restriction or further thought than "DENY YELLOW" and its done *stuff*

Optional security tweak? i like it.
If system will work like
DENY below than green EXCEPT {list-what-you-defined}
why not?

EDIT:

But this tweak should be not NIC based. This tweak should be free

20 (edited by Saha 2011-07-16 00:11:04)

Re: Docking Permissions

Simply put my drunk throughts - docking permisions should be on player placed structures, not the existing ones. Otherwise the devs are risking to lose a significant ammount of players each time an intrusion is won. Ask yourselves Syndic, Alexadar and the rest, what happened when M2S camped F-NAVY for just 12 hours and do you think it had possitive effects on the game (No, I'm far from proud from the effects it had). And that was just 12 hours camp, not "omg I lost several months worth of work because someone won intrusion on our outpost.".

Re: Docking Permissions

Neoxxx - i think you missed the whole picture:

1. you will only be able to own one outpost without a RENT, any outpost ontop of that will cost you a maintainence fee. If you lock out every customer - how do you make enough nic?

2. the transport missions as we know them will go, so this income will weaken.

3. if you want argument about the Syndicates intentions: then ask yourself why your corp still has alpha island access with syndicate protection, even after the Syndicate had to take drastical measures against your corp that was harming the expansion of Human forces on NIA for more then a year now.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: Docking Permissions

Saha wrote:

Simply put my drunk throughts - docking permisions should be on player placed structures, not the existing ones. Otherwise the devs are risking to lose a significant ammount of players each time an intrusion is won. Ask yourselves Syndic, Alexadar and the rest, what happened when M2S camped F-NAVY for just 12 hours and do you think it had possitive effects on the game (No, I'm far from proud from the effects it had). And that was just 12 hours camp, not "omg I lost several months worth of work because someone won intrusion on our outpost.".

You mean, there is now a big big reason to show up and defend your outpost besides epeen? Outpost ownership suddenly becomes very important? Producing & living on Alpha and going on roams is now not as viable because you can't dock in that L3 refinery?

Wouldn't say its bad for the game in any way. It will stimulate Beta competition.

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23 (edited by Saha 2011-07-16 00:37:24)

Re: Docking Permissions

Syndic wrote:

You mean, there is now a big big reason to show up and defend your outpost besides epeen? Outpost ownership suddenly becomes very important? Producing & living on Alpha and going on roams is now not as viable because you can't dock in that L3 refinery?

Wouldn't say its bad for the game in any way. It will stimulate Beta competition.

Since you've played quite a few MMOs with consiquence I'm sure you know what happens when something of extreeme value which can be taken away is added to the game. It encorages blobing to defend that value. Nature of human beeings I guess. I've seen it many times as I'm sure you've seen it as well. Do you think the game should go in that direction?
And no, my concerns here has nothing to do with current political map of PO. It's irrelevant. What is of importance is where the game will be heading to. M2S moved to Hokk not because of lvl 3 refinery anyways if you want to keep the political talk. It's just a side effect.
There's a lot of ways to ensure that intrusions are where people show up to defend and/or attack. Possible upgrades on existing stations being destroyed is just one example. Limiting access rights is just one step too far which in quite a lot of aspects will backfire at the devs in the long run.

Re: Docking Permissions

Syndic wrote:

You mean, there is now a big big reason to show up and defend your outpost besides epeen? Outpost ownership suddenly becomes very important?

Or the bad side of that, losing an outpost now becomes too costly to risk even owning it in the first place.

It seems that the roaming alpha corps still have no motivation to own an outpost, since all the downsides are still there that Fredrich mentioned in the PVP economy post, with the added penalty of trying to decide to move or fight after losing the first battle, with your enemy's no longer prevented from docking at the station.

This still harkens back to my days of posting that only beta corps are strong enough to defend against beta corps; ie. broken king of the hill. And how extremely difficult it is for an alpha corp to gather enough resources to hold an outpost, not just take one.

The alpha corp already has to be strong enough to defend the outpost, before they take it, but they can't get strong enough without the resouces of being on beta.

NeX may be able to do this, if their player base is still large (but as mentioned many of those accounts are inactive and players gone back to eve). But bot production still takes weeks.

Maybe the outposts should be immune from intrusions for the 4 weeks if its the first outpost owned by that corporation, in addition to this change of no docking. 2nd, 3rd, ect are available for intrusions the next week.

This doesn't have to be permanent, but can be revisited after the devs fix intrusions.

Re: Docking Permissions

Saha wrote:

Since you've played quite a few MMOs with consiquence I'm sure you know what happens when something of extreeme value which can be taken away is added to the game. It encorages blobing to defend that value. Nature of human beeings I guess. I've seen it many times as I'm sure you've seen it as well. Do you think the game should go in that direction?
And no, my concerns here has nothing to do with current political map of PO. It's irrelevant. What is of importance is where the game will be heading to. M2S moved to Hokk not because of lvl 3 refinery anyways if you want to keep the political talk. It's just a side effect.
There's a lot of ways to ensure that intrusions are where people show up to defend and/or attack. Possible upgrades on existing stations being destroyed is just one example. Limiting access rights is just one step too far which in quite a lot of aspects will backfire at the devs in the long run.

I think the game should definitely grow up from roaming/ganking/lulz to a full fledged territory/economical/political landscape.

You know well what happens in games where "territory control" is a lump of stone sitting there and... doing nothing. Perpetuum deserves to be a better game then some other games where 10 l33t PVPers terrorize everyone with cheats/dupes etc because they're so bored theres nothing else to do then be a bastard.

There are many options for a corp that is unsure if they can defend their outposts. I'm quite sure with this change a lot of corps will keep a big stockpile in Alpha just in case.

P.S.

Politics should be kept out of these topics. We should be able to discuss game features like grownups.

Arga wrote:

Or the bad side of that, losing an outpost now becomes too costly to risk even owning it in the first place.

It seems that the roaming alpha corps still have no motivation to own an outpost, since all the downsides are still there that Fredrich mentioned in the PVP economy post, with the added penalty of trying to decide to move or fight after losing the first battle, with your enemy's no longer prevented from docking at the station.

This still harkens back to my days of posting that only beta corps are strong enough to defend against beta corps; ie. broken king of the hill. And how extremely difficult it is for an alpha corp to gather enough resources to hold an outpost, not just take one.

The alpha corp already has to be strong enough to defend the outpost, before they take it, but they can't get strong enough without the resouces of being on beta.

NeX may be able to do this, if their player base is still large (but as mentioned many of those accounts are inactive and players gone back to eve). But bot production still takes weeks.

Maybe the outposts should be immune from intrusions for the 4 weeks if its the first outpost owned by that corporation, in addition to this change of no docking. 2nd, 3rd, ect are available for intrusions the next week.

This doesn't have to be permanent, but can be revisited after the devs fix intrusions.

You are approaching it from the wrong angle Arga. If a corporation chooses to be an Alpha pirate corporation, that is fine. But there are drawbacks to this;

a) You are forced to ninja-mine Epriton on abandoned islands, lowering your production compared to a full-fledged Beta corporation.
b) You can no longer farm drones for T1 rechargers to recycle and procure insane amounts of materials.
c) You can't utilize an "empty" Beta outpost because the owning corp will probably lock you out.

So yes, Alpha-pirate corps will be screwed over. Corps like NeX, FOOM and others will move out to Beta, grow up past the T1-lightbot-lulz-lolpirate stage. Its the natural course of things as the game matures, either there is a point in owning an outpost or there isn't. Either there is a reason to be friendly to other corporations and establish political and diplomatic networks, or there isn't.

We either have a meaningful territory control(emphasis: control), or we don't. What are we going to discuss X months down the line when POS structures come in, that they shouldn't be attackable at all because someone might quit because they might lose it?

Industry. Politics. Military. Economy.

All of these factors would be required to exist and prosper as a Beta corporation, as opposed to producing full T4 mechs/heavy mechs on Alpha/in empty Beta outposts and only going out there when you're ready to go on a roam.

It really is time for Perpetuum to grow up beyond a ganking mech game.

There's no reason to make anything artificially immune. There's more then one way to skin a rabbit... As I said before, Military, Politics, Economy, Industry. You either secure your territory through military might, or through political agreements, or through economical trade-deals, or through industrial efforts.

Owning a Beta outpost isn't something that should be done for the lulz.

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