Null Sec: Outposts

I’m going to go out on a limb and share some ideas I have for nullsec, no matter how crazy they sound, even to me.

I’ve always thought that Outposts could be a huge deal in EVE. I mean, who’s not going to want to play EVE when they realize they can build space stations as WELL as fly spaceships?

But they definitely need a whole lot of TLC. So, here’s my idea.

How about revamping Outposts to come in three different sizes –small, medium, and large. The small variety would be pretty basic. You get your repair, and medical clones, but not a whole lot else. They’re good for military invasions and the like –where someone wants to setup more than a POS infrastructure but doesn’t really need to go all out.

And, speaking of POSes, what if POSes and Outposts weren’t mutually exclusive mechanics from each other as they are now? What if upgrading from a Large POS to a small Outpost was a natural progression?
But, let’s talk more about what I have in mind for my three Outpost sizes.

Small

As I stated earlier, smalls would be pretty basic. Different races might have different unique features. Maybe a single Manufacturing slot on the Gallente—or etc. I’ll leave those sort of details to someone else.

Mediums

Medium Outposts would be similar to what we have now. Good for longer term settling down. Some basic Manufacturing and Research slots, depending on how you build them.

Larges

Large Outposts would be costly to build and would represent a sort of ‘ space hub.’ They would have tons of industrial capabilities,--rivaling those of empire stations,  as well as upgrades that allow super capitals to ‘pseudo’ dock at them.


In addition to splitting Outposts into three sizes, we’d also change how Outposts work in general.
For starters, all of them would be destructible. Because, who wouldn’t want to be part of an operation to blow up their enemy’s space station?

But, we’d also make it possible to ‘abandon’ an outpost. I always thought it was strange that people need to jump through hoops to maintain a POS –fuel, etc. –but the same doesn’t really apply to Outposts. So, outposts would now be costly to maintain, either in fueling, or in some other way –depending on the size, services made available, and etc. Perhaps you have to ‘pay’ your workers to keep your repair services up and running, and provide fuel to keep other things working.

Anyway, if you don’t pay –or you don’t keep up with whatever maintenance needs keeping up with, the station goes into a sort of ‘default’ mode. You are no longer in control, anyone can dock, and more importantly –anyone can take claim of it.

In case you’re not completely convinced that abandoned Outposts is not an interesting idea –now imagine that you can build Outposts in wormhole space. Which also means, that in exploring wormholes –it is entirely possible to run across an abandoned Outpost.

Now, that would almost make me want to do some exploring myself.

Of course, there’s lots of things to consider throughout all of this.

• For example, what happens to everyone stuff when a station gets blown up? Does the station leave a ‘wreck’? LOL
• What happens to people’s stuff when the station is abandoned? Should there be some sort of ‘general’ hanger that everyone can access? Perhaps if the station is abandoned –all the corp hangers of the corp that originally owned it get dumped in this general hanger. Therefore, not only can you find ‘abandoned’ outposts in Wormhole space, you can rummage around in the assets that the owners left behind.
• What happens to the people who are docked in a station when it gets blown up? Are they essentially ‘podded’?  That could be interesting from a kill/loss mail perspective.

Anyway, there’s so much cool stuff they could do with player owned stations, that it’s almost baffling they haven’t iterated on them before now. New players would find it all cool and interesting, older players would have new –perhaps even more ‘advanced’ content to play with, and non-EVE players would be hard pressed to resist starting up a subscription of their own.

Perhaps we limit ourselves when we only think of EVE in terms of Internet Spaceships. EVE could be about much, much more.


Related Posts:
Null Sec: Ownership Vs. Sovereignty