Egosoft! A petition about 6.0 "Position Defence"

[mr.WHO]

6.0 Beta "Position Defence" for carriers sounds great...

..but would it be possible to have this feature (or part of it) for stations?



This would make defense outpost (especially with equipment dock for resupply) far more useful in sector defense.




Not to mention that currently it drives me nuts, that we cannot use "interceptor" assignment for stations, which makes all S/M ships assigned to station defense to be just glorified kamikaze

[magitsu]

I didn't completely understand what you are seeking with position defense for a station. Do you mean where to pre-position the defensive fleet or set which specific area/side around it should only defend?

But I agree that why shouldn't station be able to use carrier like commands. Because S/M are useless if they are treated as single units without any tactics instead of packs with at least something more than all out attack.

[mr.WHO]

I didn't completely understand what you are seeking with position defense for a station. Do you mean where to pre-position the defensive fleet or set which specific area/side around it should only defend?

But I agree that why shouldn't station be able to use carrier like commands. Because S/M are useless if they are treated as single units without any tactics instead of packs with at least something more than all out attack.

Yes, more or less same logic, but insted of carrier and outpost would be a central point.

That way I could put an outpost with hangar and equipment dock and middle of sector and set it up to send patrols/guard gates.

[Raptor34]

You mean like making a station a sort of stationary carrier? Then yes.
This would finally make those maint bays actually useful.
Also it's cool to have defense stations actually do some of this defense shit.

[LameFox]

I was quite disappointed when I first learned an EQ dock cannot function as a carrier. That was the only reason I'd wanted one.

[chew-ie]

Totally love this idea

I'd say for balancing reasons those type of auto-repair-defense stations should need a S/M Wharf or their L/XL equivalents in order to work like Mr. WHO suggests. Without those modules, they should just allow the position defense without repairs.

[mr.WHO]

This would also help NPC factions to better organize their defences around their core stations.

[magitsu]

This would also help NPC factions to better organize their defences around their core stations.

Yeah, for sure. Now it's one of the most agonizing things to see a single enemy cap nuking potentially several stations in a row while there's easily enough forces in the sector to dispatch it if just tasked with the job.

Testing could start from defensive stations and anything with repair ability. Since Aux ships can work as a wharf/SY in this regard, it could provide more utility to them as pricey/riski but potentially something that extends the life of defense fleets in key locations.

[Imperial Good]

The feature is pretty much there as a major value add for carriers. A single Argon Colossus now can service hundreds of S/M ships protecting space. Carrier ship storage limit is no longer an issue when dealing with sector defence and a TEL Carrier will perform about as well as a Raptor with that regard. Carriers running in position defence do not need to see combat.

[Raptor34]

The feature is pretty much there as a major value add for carriers. A single Argon Colossus now can service hundreds of S/M ships protecting space. Carrier ship storage limit is no longer an issue when dealing with sector defence and a TEL Carrier will perform about as well as a Raptor with that regard. Carriers running in position defence do not need to see combat.

Yeah, and this suggestion would be a major value add to the currently valueless maint bays we can buy.
Carriers already work well enough with the current system after all, while again, maint bays are there as pretty much a noob trap. Well, you could use them to help factions, but I've never really checked if it's anything more than placebo tbh.

[LameFox]

I don't think a mobile ship would really struggle to compete with a station, even if they do the same thing besides move. The station is stronger but it's purely defensive, you can't relocate it to attack or respond to anything, and it would be very inefficient to put them everywhere when you will never need all of them at once.

The carrier projects force, you can send it to do its thing where you don't have or want defensive stations, including attacking or responding to new threats (like respawning kha'ak). Granted there aren't often many new threats to respond to other than that, but, there could be someday.

[Raptor34]

I don't think a mobile ship would really struggle to compete with a station, even if they do the same thing besides move. The station is stronger but it's purely defensive, you can't relocate it to attack or respond to anything, and it would be very inefficient to put them everywhere when you will never need all of them at once.

The carrier projects force, you can send it to do its thing where you don't have or want defensive stations, including attacking or responding to new threats (like respawning kha'ak). Granted there aren't often many new threats to respond to other than that, but, there could be someday.

Well, it's cheaper to source a carrier than needing to buy maint bay blueprints after all. Like I don't think anyone is suggesting any old dock be able to repair ships.
And yeah, like you said, a carrier can project force, which means you can actually go attack someone through a gate, stations don't work for this... Unless Position Defense works across sectors, which I guess I'm not adverse to, but a carrier is still providing repairs closer to the frontlines. And carriers do still have turrets and can at least tie up enemy fighters while your interceptors have free reign.

But yeah, I've suggested before for stations to be able to automatically project force across a whole sector. It's just cool you know.

[Falcrack]

I accidentally voted "NAY", I meant to vote YAY. So count one less objection to this idea in the poll, this would be fantastic. I would finally have a reason to buy and use equipment docks, to act as a stationary carrier.

[S!rAssassin]

It’s logical. We have auxiliary support, we have carrier support, but no equipment dock support. It’s unfair. Defense stations should have equipment dock benefit.

[Buzz2005]

all stations should have point defense options, just so we can have ships hidden under station subs and easy to move and config

[Imperial Good]

Equipment docks already can act as cheaper wharfs as long as at least one appropriate size ship build module exists on the station.

[GCU Grey Area]

Yeah, and this suggestion would be a major value add to the currently valueless maint bays we can buy.
Carriers already work well enough with the current system after all, while again, maint bays are there as pretty much a noob trap. Well, you could use them to help factions, but I've never really checked if it's anything more than placebo tbh.

Disagree about maintenance bays being characterised as 'valueless noob traps'. Have been using them for years to repair, rearm & adjust the loadouts of my ships, in preference to much more expensive fabrication bays. Except in the few cases where ships literally can't be bought (Asgard, etc) find it more beneficial to buy my ships from NPC factions whenever possible - stimulates demand for the ship components my stations make & all that trade is good for boosting faction rep too.

As for the main topic, think it's good that carriers have gained an interesting new function. Perfectly happy for it to remain a unique thing that only carriers can do.

[Raptor34]

Equipment docks already can act as cheaper wharfs as long as at least one appropriate size ship build module exists on the station.

Tbh that feels more like an exploit than anything.

Yeah, and this suggestion would be a major value add to the currently valueless maint bays we can buy.
Carriers already work well enough with the current system after all, while again, maint bays are there as pretty much a noob trap. Well, you could use them to help factions, but I've never really checked if it's anything more than placebo tbh.

Disagree about maintenance bays being characterised as 'valueless noob traps'. Have been using them for years to repair, rearm & adjust the loadouts of my ships, in preference to much more expensive fabrication bays. Except in the few cases where ships literally can't be bought (Asgard, etc) find it more beneficial to buy my ships from NPC factions whenever possible - stimulates demand for the ship components my stations make & all that trade is good for boosting faction rep too.

As for the main topic, think it's good that carriers have gained an interesting new function. Perfectly happy for it to remain a unique thing that only carriers can do.

And there is no reason an EQ Dock shouldn't be allowed to do the same thing. A carrier can only repair fighters, and even then resupplying is limited by it's cargo bay. An EQ Dock can support the whole fleet and you can easily scale up what it can supply by adding more containers.
Because frankly speaking this new function doesn't really do much beyond what we can already do, I can already detach fighter wings to multiple areas and then manually call them back to an unattached carrier for repair, it's just annoying to do. So I don't see why I shouldn't expand this QoL function to something else which honestly has even less value than a carrier.

[BlackRain]

I absolutely agree, Defense bases need to have more utility. I should be able to assign ships to a defense base and they automatically go and defend whatever region I set it up to defend or however it works. It is a pain to have to micromanage these things. I see no reason why you can't have a defense station/patrol station that will replace/repair lost ships and take care of defending a certain area of space.

[Ethernet]

Put the maint. Dock into the defense Module section, make it act like stationary carrier and create a new type of manager --> Fleet Commander.

The higher the rank (Star) of this dude is,

the better the reaction of the fighter is --> maybe something like a buff for projectile speed...
the wider the max. defended space is --> 0 star /5km - 5 star/ 40km (slider from 5-40km option available)
the higher the amount of groups is --> 0 star /alpha, beta, gamma - 5 star /10 possible groups

And also intercept and bomber command for this groups.

Just my thoughts