I proposed a solution to this whole problem awhile ago. Wardecs. Treat the PVP zones as Null Sec in EVE with one twist, only players who wardec your faction or alliance may damage your BA structures. SVs, HVs, and CVs, as well as players themselves should all still be fully vulnerable at all times. The catch to the wardec is, once a player or faction wardecs someone to attack their bases, if the defending group makes the wardec mutual the attackers structures become vulnerable wherever they may be. This fixes 2 problems together. It allows PVE groups to declare a mutual wardec to spar for fun or honor and it prevents PVE groups from coming to harass the PVP groups whenever they feel like it. A well prepared PVP group will have their ships protected within the perimeter of their base so a PVE cant really do anything to harm them unless they declare war. This system should be very easy to implement as all the core mechanics are already there. Youve already got: Factions Alliances FOF AI for the turrets Invincible structures in the form of offline protection and PVE worlds All that would need to be coded would be a GUI option to declare war and for a certain period of time (I think 3 days would be good with a 24 hour warning that you were wardeced before any legal shooting begins), you would however need to expand the faction menu to display alliances and you would need to make alliances binding, meaning 1 guy cant be allied to 2 guys who then arent allied to each other as you currently can, and you would need to have the alliance creator have additional options in the faction menu for declaring war. Once you've got that set a simple flag would be all that was needed to allow combat between those groups to be legal. An even easier way to do it is to make all BA structures invincible by default and only flag them as damageable when a wardec is underway.
The wardec idea surely has its merits. It worked in EVE since the playground was IMMENSE compared to... well, most other titles (including EGS) but I'm not so sure it would work here. Too few players, just look at the factions present on the EU server I'm playing on. 5 players at maximum... then there's 3-4 players PvP factions and a massive 32 players russian faction on the defender side. With the ships being fully vulnerable at all times, it would still (due to the low amount of players) be very possible for a faction to set up offensive bases on a planet's surface (I saw it happening already and heard complaints about turrets popping out like fungi), strategically place some expendable HVs and then wardec the opposing faction in order to have a practically unstoppable alpha strike. Your idea would work perfectly with 100+ players servers, but with 30... 35 players? I don't know if that could actually work. With all people from a faction offline, a single player could still be able to inflict very significant damage without fear of reprisal the moment a single player from the enemy faction goes online and the bases become vulnerable.
Theres a trick to preventing that. Using extra bases to expand your offline protection area beyond the maximum range of all turrets. Rex also made rules against the alpha strike thing (at least I think thats what his rule is for) so with a little cleaver thinking you can avoid all the cheese strategies that people would do. My protected area around my base extends far beyond 600 meters just to prevent people from placing 25 arty cannons and alpha striking me, it forces them to fight me fairly when I am online, they would need to destroy my outer defense outposts, then several lines of turrets, then another outpost before they are finally close enough to my main base to be able to use HV or BA arty cannons to engage me. I don't even like doing this, it takes me way to much time to manage all those outposts and constantly check to make sure my shield bunkers (which are buried underground) are all online and powered before I log off each day, but at the moment it's all my alliance can do to protect ourselves while offline. Even though Rex made these rules someone still broke them last night and wiped out my alliances staging base by draining all its ammo, the proof of that is the literal thousands of craters all over the hillside and lack of any type of damage done to the remaining blocks on the base or terrain directly next to the base, but I have no way of providing Rex the details he would need to do anything about it. And yes we left that base vulnerable without offline protection just to see if someone would do that and sure enough they did.
Personally, I would never attack an unmanned base. Sure, I'd not ask in chat "hey, open for an attack?" for that would mean suicide, but the problem is there will always be someone hostile to you online while you're not. That's in the best case a drain on your resources and in the worst case extensive damage from which you could hardly recover. The fun I see in MP is fighting someone who can and will fight back with all he has. As for those who attack unmanned stuff... even if they cannot directly harm your base they can still gnaw away at your infrastructure and resources like outlying outposts, auto-miners and artillery posts. Ammo drainage is a huge problem and should be addressed ASAP, I concur. The only way to report it would be having a third party filming the offense (I consider it as cheating, not just... bending the rules) and uploading a video. I realize you're almost entirely PvP oriented and I'm not, but see - even if you dislike my ideas, we can still find some common ground. That's why I didn't understand the personal attack in the previous posts. I rarely post on forum, when I do it's because I care for a game enough to voice my opinion, not to steer others' against someone else's. Anyway, I'm looking forward to see how the community itself reacts to this new re-balancing.
Regarding "Where are the rules!?!?". In the root path. Let me help you: Link to the rules Thanks for the feedback I guess. If I need to write fast then I mix the german grammar with english words. I try to be more english perfect next time. Good to see you still got my point.. Your two points are in no opposition. 1. Your structures will stay. Check >>> But if you don't respect the touch time (server setting: WipeTime) they will be removed. It was just a reminder to it. Check. Rules see top.. And about your general complain that one way warp etc. is stupid, heavy handed and ruining it, thanks though. I must admit that it needs some time to understand it why it is good and needed. In general in Single Player are no rules, performance issues, player interactions (complications) and so on. Obviously some (you) will not like. --- About water on the other PvE planets I will look into it. I thought it was implemented. Will do if not. --- Thanks for the Feedback @Aurex . As mentioned above. The spirit of the official servers is to welcome people who bought the game / coming from single player, giving them every insight of multiplayer. Hardcore PvE guys are in general better informed to stay in Singleplayer or looking for a dedicated PvE server because currently PvE in multiplayer means a big big performance issue. To sum it up quick: The hardware of the server is finite. But the things people build is infinite. So sooner or later glitches, bugs, corruption etc. starts if no limits or wipes gonna happen. And both things are not cool for the players either. And regarding PvP guys there are better servers for it so all this hardcore PvP discussions are not what I am looking for to be honest. All of this was already discussed in other forums and topics, so all I can say is to wait till the game supports it better (lag shots, OP, dominance, resources, etc. etc.)
For those new (US) players (and old ones as well) I have created "Information Buildings" on all of the starter planets that can be found on your map. They are located near the Trading Stations for each world. Inside you will find a breakdown of all the rules and guidelines for the server and also general information and tips. Please visit these stations first to see if any of your questions are addressed there. If you have an issue not addressed in the Information Buildings please feel free to let me know so I can possibly add it there for other players. If you are outside the starting systems, you may also find one on the Trader Residence planet. If the need or desire is evident I can also place them on other worlds.
It is interesting to observe some servers and PVE and PVP players that have been successfully reconciled in the same place these two completely different types of players. In the last two days I step on one of the most popular, a new server which simply is what it is supposed to be official. When he visited him realize the right to structure these two world players on the same server. So, it can be no other thing that you want. If the developers of this game conceived in this way playing then not surprised to see that people wonder why the game at all and buy. This server coming players who are convinced that their hours and hours of game protected, that the servers quality and stable and that the game experience was as PVE or PVP complete. Here nothing of it and just for himself dev team this server is a failure even to say shameful and far from what this game represents. Why do I say, because in this new server in just two days I felt completely different experience of respect for players no matter what type belongs. Their rules are respected without pandering to one type of players, the community respected and active. Admins of service and very friendly and the concept of the best servers I've ever seen. It is sad that the official server is not the best for each player but still time to do it. Because of my poor English I was not able to communicate with other players that I wanted but that does not mean I did not enjoy playing but when I realized that the server much closer to real image of the game can only say goodbye with a message, see you again once there are official server worthy of my attention and finally my donations large or adapted to my capabilities. Enjoy the game as I am until the world turned in the opposite direction. Best regards. (Google translate)
