Steve Ronuken

CSM 9 Campaign Post

Do what my alliance name tells you to do!

Oh, you want reasons to do it? Bah. Some people are just never satisfied.

I guess I should start with an introduction. I'm a High-sec industrialist, who dabbles in Faction Warfare, and who has been going on the Ganked roams for a while. I'm also a third party developer, who runs https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/ and http://evebloggers.com/

I ran for election last year, and was only stopped from being elected by the fact that CCP stole the position from me, by not having the CSM being 18 people Blink

You may have run into a number of the applications which I've written, such as https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/blueprints/ and https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/lpstore/ . There are a bunch of other tools on the site, and a bunch more that I have rattling round my head, but can't implement until CCP get round to releasing first SSO and then authenticated CREST. They have the potential to be real game changers with the metagame. CREST has to be managed carefully, to stop it from being used for bots, and other nefarious purposes. As a developer who works on tools for the general community, and as an active member of developer community, I'd say I'm in a good position to act as advocate and watch dog for it.

The rest of this post will be a series of statements, to give you insight into how I think. As the CSM is a lobbying body and a sounding board for proposed changes, an idea of how I'll react to things is valuabe. I might suggest changes, but I make no promises on them, as anyone that does, is lying to you.

The majority of my ISK is made by manufacturing Tech 2 things in a highsec POS. My RSI is crying out for changes to how the process runs. Not complete automation, as that would destroy the play style, but work to smooth it out and reduce the clicks. I've a few thoughts on fairly significant changes, such as pushing it to a more process based style, where you can set up a chain of activities and as long as you keep it fed, it just ticks over, but changing the chain costs time and possibly resources.

The core of Mining shouldn't change. The 'Target an asteroid, and let the mining lasers cycle' isn't a bad mechanic at its core. Not particularly fun, but sometimes relaxing to let run, much like ship spinning. If you want the frantic pace of PvP, well, you'd be blowing someone up. However, I'd like to see more structure built up around it. To be frank, respawning asteroid belts offend me. I'd like to see some kind of prospecting mechanism to find a good asteroid field to mine, and some kind of claim system for good rocks; mine a claimed roid, go suspect. For casual miners, I'd like to see them sub contracting to the major (npc) mining corporations, giving a cut of their proper ore but keeping the rest.

Edit for clarity: Prospecting would create sites, so it wouldn't be possible for bad actors to claim them all for the lulz. sub-contracting is another word for 'doing mining missions with real ore' Smile

I'd like to see jump bridging done away with, replaced with the ability to carry ships along with you, when you jump. This would be for carriers, super carriers, Titans and Black Ops. (A carrier/blops can jump a squad, Super carrier a wing, titan a fleet? probably more complicated than that)

I'd like to see a Modular Freighter, where you can swap out large blocks (like subsystems) to change the stats. Not giving them slots for regular modules as that'd be really hard to balance. But the choice between fitting all cargo modules, or fitting one cargo module and the rest as defensive ones. Or warp speed ones for when you don't want your brain to ooze between your ears.

CREST. Oh so much CREST. I want the game to be playable without requiring an external third party client to do anything. But a third party client might make things easier, or give extra capabilities. Like letting a fleet commander get his people to register, then have it give them a plan of who to put where, and what fleet doctrines can be flown. Removing the requirement for the grey area of cache scraping for market data would also be wonderful. (Yes, I know that's not all cache scraping is used for. I'm not forgetting you, people who write fitting tools)

NPC corporations need tweaked. I'd like to see there be more benefits for not being in them. Sometimes that's requiring a small nerf. Sometimes that's not giving NPC corp members new abilities. https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/2014/02/07/csm-npc-corporations/ goes into more detail.

I've not had to suffer through Sov warfare. I'm really grateful for this. Now, large fleet fights have their place, and I'm aware that people like them. That's all find and good. But the large fleet fight shouldn't be the base unit of sov warfare. So, I'd like to see more small gang targets for the sov grind. Rate limited so huge corporations can't just steam roller in an off timezone, but meaningful. The huge throwdowns should be a riskier event, but one with a bigger pay out. ( https://www.fuzzwork.co.uk/2013/01/23/making-sov-more-fun/ is an older post. Not entirely valid now, but you can get the main thrust)

I like Dust. I'd like the link to be more meaningful though. A tie to the smaller targets in Sov Warfare, perhaps. And some coop PvE would be good.

Local. I'm not advocating the removal of local. I'd prefer replacing it with a proper intelligence system, that starts off at pretty much nothing in 0.0, but can be upgraded (and hence attacked) with player effort. It'd be nice to be able to scan someone's ship, and make the details available to other friendlies in system, without the need for a third party system. To use something like the ESS to flag people entering.

Edited for clarity: Cloaks.

AFK cloaking is bad gameplay. Not because a single cloaky is much of a problem (see WH space) but because of the power projection which is possible with said cloaky firing up a cyno after they come back after five hours of being cloaked up. So, it should be possible to locate, with time and effort, someone who is cloaked. Have cloaked ships appear on dscan and on combat probes, but when warping to their signature, you end up within 30(ish) km. dscan can't give you a distance, but it can give you a rough vector (if you cut down the arc). Multiple soundings gives you a vague location to try and decloak them in. Give people the ability to shut down their engines to reduce their signature, and if cloaked, become a real hole in space (falling off intel), but being unable to move off their current grid.

Corporation management is a crying shame at the moment. This is a place CREST could do wonders, if it's reworked to being a decent, nested, granular permissions model. Grant permissions on specific things, to specific groups, which you can add people to. That would solve most problems people have with it.

Low-Sec needs a draw for people who don't live there. Victims, as they're often called. The first thing that comes to mind for that is something lucrative, but which you can't do that often a day. So you have a reason to risk your skin in Low-Sec, but can't just farm it.