POS takedown

It’s less dramatic than the title suggests. I took down my hisec POS that has been sitting idle for years. I started it off back in 2008 for copying and researching BPOs. That’s why my current corporation Millard Inc was founded. I had a few research alts and all !

In all those years I have only been wardeced a couple of times. One time when the tower was still active. Onlining a few guns and missile arrays made that wardec disappear in a few days. The other time was when I was on a break and I didn’t even notice the wardec until later. The offenders shot a few parts, but I guess got bored (it didn’t drop any loot) and buggered off.

So why take it down now ? Well with the upcoming changes to POSes in the summer expansion, where standings no longer matter, I decided to get rid of the thing. I can always start another one in HiSec if need be, but I already have the one in the wormhole to care for. I am not exactly looking forward to fueling another one. Also it was in Kiainti, a bit out of the way, all the way up North in The Forge. The reason I picked that location is, because it was almost deserted most of the time. Even now, it has 8 – 10 people in local at most.

Kiainti POS
Fare thee well Kiainti POS, you have served me well !

I bought two days of fuel to take it down, but it all went must faster than I had in mind. I guess I was still used to taking 5mins per takedown of a module. Funny thing was I had everything but the kitchen sink attached to it. Medium lasers, cruise missile launcher, a web and statis module and small guns ! Not sure what I was thinking back then Winking smile.

Anyway, the whole thing is now available on contract as a POS starter pack, minus most of the guns, grab it if you’re interested !

Taking the S out of POS

Last week we got a Dev Blogpost on the upcoming changes to POSes or as CCP calls it Starbase Iterations. It’s not a revamp, but we didn’t expect that at this point, as the CSM minutes revealed earlier. We got this apparently due to the slight uproar after those minutes were released and CCP wanted to accommodate those ‘few players’ that own a POS.

There is nothing wrong with these changes, they’re all very welcome as far as I am concerned. Finally players can get their own little space in the ships hangar and so on. What delight me the most is the ability to finally change T3 modules at the hangar. It’s really dumb you must have 2 or 3 tengus just because you can’t change them on the fly like you’re supposed to.

The starbase code is quite old and complicated; so it is quite possible we will hit road blocks when addressing some of these features, road blocks that in some cases could render one or more of them undeliverable.

Now what is more important is what is missing. What I would really like is a more convenient way to refine minerals. The current modules are probably from  early on in the game when Mining Barges didn’t even exist. A new module or an ‘ iteration’ of those modules would be very welcome. Unless CCP does not want us to be self sufficient in the Wormhole and wants us to ship the minerals to Empire.

Also there is no mention of roles and the corp hangar and ship hangar. Although probably not everything has been fleshed out entirely, but a lot of people would be grateful if this was added. It might be getting a bit too complicated for June however.

CSM 7 – POS ideas

Yes yes I know Inferno 1.2 is out now, but I had this one planned after I read the CSM minutes last week.

In the CSM 7 minutes of last week we can read about CCP’s new ideas for Starbases. Starbases will be replacing the current POSes. The current POS code is very buggy (oh rly ?) and the new code will replace that codebase. There will be a transient periode where POSes and starbases will coexist, but the current POSes will be removed at some point.

So what ideas did CCP have ? Here we go:

New POS structures
1) A sense of ownership. New POSes should be “space housing”, with players feeling that, “a starbase is their starbase, not a generic starbase.” This includes some form of customization
2) Scalability. They need to scale from individual to alliance sized.
3) Get rid of the force field bubble, partly for technical reasons.
4) A single structure. This doesn’t preclude some sort of modular system, but they want a
single actual object in space, partly for technical reasons, partly for usability.
5) They want a path to retire the current starbase system. This may not happen in the first
release, but eventually a new starbase system should comple ely replace the current starbase system. This means that everything that current starbases can do either needs to be replicated in the new system or removed from the game.
6) (added later on by CCP Masterplan) The current starbase system code is  not the best, full of lots of edge cases, and the new one is a chance to greatly simplify things, similar to what CCP is currently doing with Crimewatch.

A lot of interesting ideas here ! And maybe some not so well thought out ones. These are just concepts though, nothing is set in stone yet, it’s still very early in the design stage. I really like the concept behind the new starbases, a home away from home, sort of like player housing in LOTRO or EQ2, but in space. Modular and scalable sounds good as well of course.

Space Station

However, no shields and a docking module sounds like bad news. As also mentioned in the minutes, there has to be a way to see / check what’s happening outside your starbase. In case you’re camped with no shields, you’re just stuck in your station with no where to go. And who wants docking games at POSes ?

The other idea to being able to plant these where ever in space (with the exception of stargates and stations) will need some rethinking. Remember in Star Wars Galaxies you could plant houses anywhere. Every big city (Mos Eisley, Naboo) was surrounded by a big ring of houses, people wanted to live close to where the action is. Imagine this in the space near Amarr, Jita, Dodixie ! Think we’ll lag to hell and back again ;).

So I’d say overall it’s a nice new direction, but back to the drawing board on some issues !

Pic by DarkLordDc.