Results of Blue Sky Thinking About Cosmipiercers

Ikchor

Had this half-baked idea about cosmipiercers in my head this morning when I woke up, and I figured I'd share it.

Before that though, I would like to stress a few things:

I am not an expert on the finer points of game combat.

I am not a pvper by any stretch of the imagination.

This idea had really nothing to do with it beyond "I'd have liked to get into this back when I was in a faction, but when you hit the top/storage cap, it doesn't seem there is really any reason to do it anymore beyond emote-shiving other players." (Barring: I pvp for the sake of it.)
I am not a pvper by any stretch.

I tried to keep this idea more about engagement and less about the division of pvp/pve. No idea how well I succeeded.


A tiered approach

First tier ("Alpha powers"??) cosmipowers: Largely focused around PvE QoL skills with FEW pvp focused skills (mainly geared towards cache runs), mostly passive. Any active/on demand powers require item (crystals maybe?) to activate.

Second tier ("Lambda powers"??) cosmipowers: largely focused around cosmipiercer PvP, both for defending and attacking player-held cosmipiercers. Warping, disrupting, etc.

Reduce the number of cosmipiercers

There's too many cosmipiercers, and not enough reasons to hold more than whatever you need. Why not bring the number of cosmipiercers down to just four. The rest either go inert, phase out of realspace, fuse together, blow up, get towed into Y'saari space because [CLASSIFIED]... Anything to ramp up the mystery give an adequate RP reason for the reduction of these structures while reducing the number of them.

- Every faction has ONE cosmi attached to their faction, which enables them to maintain whatever first tier powers they have unlocked, maintained by feeding the cosmipiercer crystals on a regular basis or by feeding it resources. Resources being the weaker of the two options, naturally, but markedly safer to get at compared to caches.

- Every faction can use their PTP network to get to their cosmipiercer, even during an Ishvana incursion.

Second tier is only attainable by capturing the one remaining cosmipiercer from an opposing force, or the Ishvana.

- Second tier lets factions rapidly research and activate any ONE previously locked power, either tier one or tier two.
- Free usage of first tier powers
- If kept for a Sync, the faction holding it gets another research credit to open another tier one or two power. Earned every Sync.
- Flat percentage chance of the Ishvana attacking the fourth cosmi, with a steady increase per Sync (starts at 28% after lockdown, then increases by 10% every sync after that)

Keep the Ishvana blitz reset cause it is cool as hell

If any of the following is possible, awesome.

Ishvana incursion unleashes xenoslayer type mobs, and instead of it being a room full of mobs, it just one mob, written to look like a crowd maybe? Triggered manually by those with the guards factionpower (im not married to the idea, i just like on-demand) and also 50/50 chance every 7 Syncs.
Repelling the attack gives you one research credit for a tier one power. If fully unlocked, your faction gets free tier one power usage until the next Sync, but those with guard factionpowers lose the ability for on-demand incursion. Ishvana CAN and will attack the fourth cosmi from time to time, and when that happens, that cosmi becomes instanced like cache raids but faction based. The faction that repells the incursion on the fourth cosmi will gain control of it, which boots out the others. Cosmi then goes on lockdown for 22 hours(?) and is protected from attack.

CAC integration cause it needs our love too

I am suggesting this after the fact as I just had this idea after writing everything above, and it is not a completely formed (to me) idea

- Slotting slivers into the CAC to scramble the Ishvana's combat algorithms, and you can choose to strengthen or weaken the incursion of your held cosmipiercer
- Stronger incursion - More XP, better junk drops, ???
- Weaker incursion - Easier to do, useful if you don't have people on hand or want to bring newbies.
- CAC XP bonuses become passive tier one bonuses, stat boosts stay.

Hacking the CAC will grant the hacker the ability to scramble the cosmipiercer(s) making increasing transit time from PTP networks and transfer between 45-110 crystals from the hacked faction's storage.

 ??? idk, i made this up right before posting because I had a "hmm, but what about..." type thought last minute.

And again, I'm not an expert on anything by any stretch, I am not even expecting this to get any interest or be implemented at any point in the near future, i'm just putting it up for discussion.

Pink_Candyfloss

Poor Zarrach hasn't had anyone's input from his ramblings!

I do agree that at present, cosmpiercers fall short as a PvP objective. They are too abundant so nobody needs to fight to have a comfortable number of them. At present, there's 17 cosmpiercers that haven't even been captured.



Reducing the number of them will go a long way to encouraging conflict over these objectives. In my head, I imagine having 7 in total, with one of them becoming vulnerable each day, Monday to Sunday. Tweak the numbers so it is optimal to hold 4 of them.

With regards to added mechanics, borrowing from some of Zarrach's ideas, when an Ishvana force invades the station, it could become a very valuable bashing spot full of hard enemies that reward marks, high experience and potentially cosmpiercer vouchers. If they aren't cleared within a certain window, the station is captured and returns to neutral.

I am quite happy with the gameplay loop of cosmpiercers. I think it is a nice balance of ship combat, ground combat and hacking that brings all the various gameplay elements together. I just feel it needs a numbers tweak to bring it all to a balance and get it feeling meaningful and enjoyable.

Rylek

Feedback from someone who leads CP parties bi-weekly:
The current number is fine. I'm not saying the other projected ideas wouldn't be as good/better, but the current setup is fine and dandy. Number wise. Here are what I perceive to be the main issues:
-Ishvana reclaim these things way too quickly. It's a chore to keep them, which currently isn't fun in any way. It's just a chore. Make it somewhere between 2-3 weeks. This will demote the 'chore' and also improve the desire to pvp over them, as the way for a faction to take the good ones will be to attack it during a vulnerable window.
-When a faction attacks an Ishvana held CP, there isn't an announcement like when we attack one held by another faction. This is a pretty big flaw in my opinion, as it doesn't allow for factions to fight each other over the big ones.
-Getting people to these things at the drop of a hat, sucks. I would suggest each Faction Station gains a 'Wormhole' room, and there be a new CP power added. Let's you buy a node that lasts for say 15-30 mins once dropped. Then anyone in the wormhole hub could wormhole to a fellow faction member standing at said point. This allows counterplay by allowing one side to completely clear out the other in a decisive victory, but also allows for people to actually re-enter the fight after dying once.
-Ishvana should indeed be a pve battle if nothing at all is changed, or even if everything is. And not like the guards used to be, where every guard got a free attack per person entering the room. That allowed for ZERO counterplay by players and just flat killed someone. Who again, would have issue returning. But if there is at least pve, we'd have SOMETHING interesting to do when taking them from the Ishvana. However that -would- increase capture time. So if this goes in, please extend 'controlled' time.

Edit: Also, Targetwarp needs to not work in combat. The current system doesn't allow any real ship combat window. People are on the ishvana stations long before it's announced the station is under attack. It's bloody horrible that they can also single command leave any battle at all. Very Sad. SAD PANDA SAD

Cheers