If we were all truly captains of our own ships and we get a distress call saying our base was under attack, would we not set a course and punch our warp cores or FTL drives to the max to get back to HQ to defend it?

Getting disabled is part of the game so I guess it goes the same for bases. Sometimes we win, sometimes we don't. However, it would be fun to have a Distress Signal artifact that would allow X amount of ships to be recalled home for a short amount of time. It won't be to guard the base like you would a planet but it would allow the active defense of the base by giving the defending ships the opportunity to target the Top 5 damaging ships, let's say. The timer could be a short one, say an hour; 2 hours max and would give no buffs. It would just give the defenders the opportunity to stare the enemy in the eye and, if possible, punch him in the nose.

Sound like a good idea?

That's actually a really good idea, as it stands all you can do is activate a couple of buffs and watch the figures go lower and lower, we need something to make base attack and defense more active and who knows it might even keep more people in the game for longer. I even think that both sides should be able to exclusively target each other in the period when the base is attacked, if you don't like it, stay disable and/or use a halc.

agreed. i think one of us finally came up with a non OP base artifact. +1

What good would it do? So you get called back. Do you really think the ability to attack the top 5 or even 10 people on the damage list is going to make any difference? Aside from putting your ships on THEIR log for zeroing, that is... What happens when those players are all sporting CAmps? You literally can do nothing but twiddle your thumbs.

Obviously this would have to have the ability to ignore pacification. And you're trying to say cm'ing/debuffing mento wont help your base survive? You've said it yourself that alot of bases are carried by a few players and the rest are just along for the ride.

Might have to only allow you to target the top 5 at the time its activated, and not change if they drop down.

The point is that it's giving you a feeling of actually doing something to help your base survive, as a pose of the system that is in place right now, where we do NOTHING.

Agreed. There are many a legion that only have a few ships paving the roads for the others to follow. And that's all well and good. Part of the game. I look out for my legion just the same. However, if nothing else, it'll make the game a little more interesting. You don't think so, Darth?

Personally, I just find it absurd to see how that would play out if we really were in space; when you have X amount of ships in a legion and patrolling your sector of space and here comes another legion, with or without allies and they completely bypass all of those ships and attack the base. It just seems silly to me.

If we're going for realism, locking a base should be equivalent to a declaration of war; i.e., legion A locks legion B's base. Any member of legion B should really be able to attack anyone in Legion A who is "near the base" (maybe, has attacked the base in the last 10 minutes?). Of course, to avoid high rank defenders from utterly destroying lower rank attackers, there would have to be some limitations, such as only being allowed to attack players within a 20-30% range of your own rank? It would definitely make base battles a lot more fun.

On the other side, the attack and defense capabilities of the base itself would probably need to be decreased in order to balance this out. Also, defending players shouldn't show up on the attackers' log. Instead maybe a list in the base attack window with participating defenders?

Ok, this is coming from someone who has seen several "active" base defenses first hand. When the Triumvirate would hit Ni or THB we had to deal with constant counter attacks. Same goes for them when they would lock us. We're pretty much all on each others BT's all the time. Not hard to find each other. Guess what? Makes no difference.

Top hitters often have halcs and are calm amped. and you are kinda backing the other side there. if you are saying that makes no difference then this is what this is trying to change. if you find them on your bt theres only so long til you lose their ship. plus who's to say the ones you find are actually the ones doing the damage? Not to mention not everyone who is being attacked can have the biggest hitters even pop up on their bt.

*shrug Whatever...

So it gives the legion a shot to be on my news feed so i can farm them??? ... . I dont think thats a good idea.

This makes powerful legions bases harder to kill, and doesn't really help weaker ones.

That to.

True but it does give you at least some satisfaction your doing something, like constantly debuffing people etc.

surely if the stronger bases are harder to kill then the weaker bases, it is all fine, if you have a stronger base it should be harder to kill!!! It helps weaker ones alot actually, smaller bases can hold less mods so are weaker but if players are involved it equals out the balance a bit as it means the players can help defend it using their abilities, tactics e.t.c!! This idea is great and i give it a definite +1! stop trying to make it sound bad when it could be partially what this game needs to get more players back into base attacks and defences rather than it just be for bragging rights or for silvers!

Another reason this would help is because it would encourage activity in a legion. A legion with few members isn't going to be able to do much as far as actively defending the base. As it is right now, a legion with just 1 member can have a base just as strong as a full legion. This just doesn't seem right to me.

Wait wait wait... Which is it? Your first sentence says stronger bases should be harder to kill. Your second sentence says that weaker bases should be balanced with the stronger bases as to how hard they are to kill.


Look, people are always complaining already about getting farmed by stronger players. I can GUARANTEE this would make it 10x worse. "But I was just defending my base" will be the new butthurt catchphrase when someone gets zeroed. Which WILL happen. Any attack on my ship has to remain alertable. You can alert someone for attacking you FROM an alert, this is no different. Now you have a whole legion able to pound on you for 2 days. Possibly multiple legions if you're silly enough to pop people from more than one legion in a battle group. And you people call this a GOOD idea?

I think this would be a great idea, with some refinements of course. Would have to make it so that defenders couldn't get legion alerted and farmed over the next two days... either you cannot alert a defender AT ALL and only attack them one on one after they attack you, or something like the alert is active only while the base is still active (Similar to when a planet is alerted but isn't available for people to see after 12 hours even though it is still on the log, a "this ship is no longer in attack range" type of thing after the base has expired or gone down [because the base battle would be over]). And maybe defenders could target the top 5 damagers AND attack ships that have attacked the base in the last 20/30 minutes (if its been 20/30 min since they attacked, they are obviously not around in the battle anymore to get targeted).

If people are concerned about their kills to death ratio, and don't want all of their possible multiple deaths in base combat to effect their record, maybe a new category of stats could be created. Base battle kills, and Base battle deaths. Could even come up with a new badge to promote people to participate.
There wouldn't be raiding or hacking (not going to be able to stop and raid other ships while you are in the middle of a huge base battle) so people dont have to worry about getting zeroed (raped) from base combat. But instead there could be a new badge, which you could trade in certain number of for base battle artifacts (like after you disable someone in base combat, you use this arti to warp them away from the battle and they cannot repair/re-enter the battle for 3 or 5 minutes... or an arti that DOES allow you to raid/hack someone during base combat.... just as an idea).

And seeing as how attacking bases doesnt disable someones ability to use a halcyon trap/calming amp as it does when attacking someone off of the BT, halcs and calming amps would NOT be set off/activated/apply in Base Battles (since attacking bases/defending bases is voluntary to begin with and would be on a different stat system and not effecting your record)

Just a couple ideas to address some of those issues people are worried about. It IS possible to create a system where this would work and not be OP or unfair.

I think this would definitely get more people actively involved and give weaker bases a chance to defend themselves, while also give the higher ups something else to do. Big space battles, legion against legion!

So far, solid pros and cons from everyone. Some pretty good arguments from both sides but I still think it would make the game a little more interesting and fun.