Depots

A revision of current Player Owned Structure mechanics

This concept is a redesign of the current Player Owned Structure (POS) mechanics. Essentially a reworking from the ground up, it provides an expandable basis for players to create their own facilities as a home away from home. This is only a suggestion, and CCP should disregard any parts which are unfeasible. GENERAL OVERVIEW The depot is powered by isotopes, fed into a reactor in the middle of the depot which then powers the modules attached to it. These modules allow the depot to perform various tasks in its orbit around a moon. The depot has a central structure where subcapital ships can dock in limited numbers to maintain the operations going on inside. From there, various modules can be fitted, such as turret emplacements, research facilities, industrial and manufacturing operations, and utility structures. ICE MINING Ice Mining is about to go through a major overhaul as the forces of the universe transform the ice in space. The first major change is known as the great thaw, when a massive wave of cosmic radiation melts the ice belts. High security belts are the first to go, but eventually every ice belt will be removed. Ice will now spawn in deadspace complexes known as Oort Belts, found by using scanners to detect the Gravimetric signatures. These belts will only allow ships cruiser-sized and smaller to enter, including barges and industrials but not battlecruisers or larger. In order to account for this change in dynamics, the Mackinaw should be able to use its on-board scanner to detect these belts, but all other ships should require scan probes as normal. Due to the sudden rarity, pirates will attack these belts more often and in greater numbers to protect the fuel they need to keep operating. In addition, the radiation that swept over the ice leaks and is contained by the deadspace complexes, doing variable damage to the ships inside similar to the Recon 3/3 mission at level 2. Another change is that the mining barges and exhumers should be boosted in defense, to accommodate the new dynamics. A new module could be released for non-barge ships that would allow lower-efficiency ice mining, at one cube per laser with a timer of 180 seconds, whereas the barge miners will take 60 seconds per cycle. The chemical makeup of the ice asteroids will also change, becoming more powerful and compact due to the strange radiation it absorbed when shifted to deadspace areas. It will now only produce the race-specific isotope, but are 100 m3 and contain 50 isotopes per cube. DEPOT MECHANICS The depot is centered on a central structure, with the modules branching out. The depots control tower has 3 separate bays a ship hangar, an items hangar, and a fuel bay, although modules can modify each of these bays. Items in these bays can also be repackaged for easier transportation. The fuel bay can only hold the specific isotopes which power the station, and has a 30k m3 capacity. The depot uses one ice cube or 40 isotopes every hour, although other modules affect this. The ships hangar has 5m m3 capacity, but only ships that are battleship-sized or lower can dock in the ship hangar unless other modules change this. The ships are still the property of the owner in a private ships hangar. Ships can be repaired here using a derived mineral cost (percent of damage = percent of original materials). The items hangar is only accessible by the people with POS management rights and can hold up to 50k m3 of space. Items are taken from this hangar or private hangars for each module on the depot as theyre needed. Different races have different shield hardness ratings and turret damage bonuses, which come into play when the Depot is attacked. Racial towers also modify the fuel used and the non-warfare bonuses: Amarr towers have a 5% bonus to the speed of all research lines. Caldari towers have a 5% bonus to the speed of all component factory lines. Gallente towers have a 20% capacity bonus to the central items hangar and the extended hangar. Minmatar towers have a 5% bonus to the speed of all ship factory lines. The Depot will have two upgrade locations. The top and bottom of the tower have locations where you can mount a Generator or a Mainframe, which double the Power Grid or the CPU, respectively. These special modules will each consume as many isotopes as the central structure. To make this work, many modules will have their power grid usage reduced so you can online all CPU modules without needing to worry about the power grid. The central structure to the depot will take 20 minutes to completely online. After the first 10 minutes, fuel can be added in preparation for the final onlining. From that point, the depot will start burning fuel if there is some available and other modules will each become active as soon as they sync up with the central structure. The 4 sides to the tower will have fitting locations where other modules could be fit, as described below. The modules with an asterisk (*) are those that can be made public, allowing for rented space.

Turrets and Electronic Warfare Batteries: These modules function the same as current POS batteries, with just a redesign of the appearance. In addition, missile batteries should be balanced and not require CPU. Research Lab*: This location gives several lines where blueprints can be researched to make them more efficient. There are 5 lines here, which can be used for any research activity (material, production, copying, or invention). Lunar Harvester: This is a massive laser that can be pointed at the moon to harvest the minerals which comprise the moons core. It works like a standard moon miner, except the minerals are sent to the control tower. Ship Factory*: This module manufactures any ship, as well as capital ship components. This module has 5 manufacturing lines, but all 5 must be used if building a capital ship. Component Factory*: This module allows the Depot to manufacture any non-ship items, including ammo and drugs. This module has 5 manufacturing lines. Extended Bay: This module increases the fuel bay by 10k m3, giving the depot a longer duration before refueling. Extended Docks: This upgrade allows capital ships to dock. This structure can fit up to 40 million m3, and can be combined to fit ships larger than that. Ships docked here, including freighters, can access the hangars as normal. Extended Hangar: This module increases the central items hangar by 2 million m3. Individual Hangars*: This module allows characters to rent space, and then use whatever lines are set to public on other modules. The module has 100 rentable slots at 10k m3 per slot, and multiple rentals can be combined. Reactor*: This module combines the functions of a Complex Reactor Array, a Biochemical Reactor Array, and a Polymer Reactor array. It can run either one complex or two simple reactions simultaneously. Refinery*: This module functions similar to a Medium Intensive Refining Array. Instead of a set refinement per activation, it takes 1 minute per 1,000 m3 refined, and skills affect the base rate of 35% efficiency. Shield Hardener: This is similar to the current Shield Hardening Arrays, but its only one module that you can choose the hardening based on the crystal used. The crystal takes 15 minutes to recalibrate when changed, and you can change the crystals until the shield reaches 50%. The crystals should be able to be made by players, and can crack over time similar to T2 laser crystals. What about the current arrays and fuel? The arrays in the game right now will have an option to convert the POS structure or resell it once the new mechanics are in place. The conversion will convert it to a new module that corresponds closely to the mechanics of the old lab. The faction lab will have 6 lines instead of 5. The resell will give the original price of the lab back to the user, and the item will then be purged from the database similar to how its done with NPC goods today. After a few months, all modules will be instantly refunded if the facility is offline or in a hangar or converted if in a POS. Fuel will be converted directly once the central structure is converted. Liquid Ozone and Heavy Water will convert to Isotopes at a 1:2 ratio, and Strontium Clathrates will convert at a 1:4 ratio. Where are the other arrays? The Cynosural Generator Array, Cynosural System Jammer, and Jump Bridge arrays should now be fitted to an Infrastructure Hub. This will require some tweaking of the mechanics, but should make for a more interesting experience in null-security space. What happens if a public module is destroyed or goes offline? If a module is destroyed, then the contents of the public module drop in the same manner as if a ship were destroyed (a chance of being destroyed or dropped into a can). If it is offlined, it gets a little more complicated. When a public module (or a module that people in the same corporation rent out and is not set to public) goes offline, the contents are delivered to their original possessor in items hangar of the closest station. In roleplaying terms, this is done by the crew of the station taking small couriers to deliver the items, but those mechanics do not appear in the game you dont see the ships departing or arriving at their destination. Due to this courier service, there is a chance that youll lose some of the items (roughly 25% chance per stack). The items also take time to arrive to the nearest station, roughly ten minutes per system traveled. This should be sufficient discouragement to prevent exploitation of the mechanic as an instant teleporter. If there is no station nearby (such as if the module was deployed in a wormhole), the contents drop in one can per slot used. This gives the possibility for corporate thieves to grief the wormhole depots.

THE DEPOT UI The interface for the depot has been completely overhauled from the old POS interface. Docking in the station allows you to use any modules which you are permitted to use, based on the settings which the one who manages the station sets. This is essentially like a normal station, and the various factories, labs, and reactors which are set to public use are manipulated. The managers settings are a little bit more intensive, but still pretty basic. He is given an external view of the depot and can then select which module to change settings on, including whether the module is set to public or private use. He can also aim and fire the depots guns and EW batteries if he has the correct skill. DEPOT COMBAT POS warfare is the same as it used to be, but new mechanics are in place for reinforcement and disabling. Once the depot comes out of reinforced mode, modules can be shot at and destroyed or the central tower can be hacked and seized control of. Shields only are active on a depot that is online. When the depot is in reinforced mode, it burns the same fuels, but burns them at 4x the standard rate, and fuel cannot be added to the tower. This amount is modified by generator upgrades, but not by mainframe upgrades. Just as with the current system, all modules that require CPU are disabled while the tower disables the computer systems and focuses all energy towards keeping the shield hardened. If the individual modules are fired at, they each have their own respective armor points and structure points. Once these are gone, the module is destroyed and any contents have a chance of dropping, similar to destroying a players ship. If the player drops the depots shields and wishes to seize control of the depot, he can plant an Interference Transmitter which will eventually reset all the security features. The module is deployed like a Mobile Warp Disruptor, occupies 25k m3, and can be destroyed. The Interference Transmitter functions similar to a salvager in that every 5 minutes it has a percentage chance of taking over the tower. During this time, it constantly bombards the depot with security passcodes in an attempt to crack the security systems. Once the Interference Transmitter does its job, the station will be able to be controlled by the first person who docks there. The person who deployed the transmitter is given notification when it is successful, but he may not be the first one to dock there. SPECIAL THANKS TO: Evelgrivion for the graphics and many ideas compiled from past threads which formed the basis of this proposal. Herschel Yamamoto, Song Li, and PhoenixDawn for helping me find problem areas and solutions to them.