Anyone
that has interacted with a POS right now has a long list of what is
wrong with the current system. Rather than spending lots of time and
effort patching the existing system, CCP should spend their time
creating a new POS system that satisfies the following needs:
- Dockable. New POSes (lets call them nPOSes), should be dockable, so that all the work CCP does on the in-station UI is available to all, including ship spinning and Incarna.
- Scalable. nPOSes need to scale all the way from a single person to a large nullsec alliance.
- Secure. Any possiblity for theft should come from people trusting people they shouldn't, not from terrible UI or a lack of a workable permissions system.
- Vulnerable. nPOSes should have some targets that are vulnerable to small-medium gangs, as well as entirely vulnerable with some sort of reinforcement timer system.
- Useful. nPOSes should be able to fully replace NPC manufacturing and research, and be scalable enough to allow for complex industry in space of any security level.
Dockable
CCP
has put a lot of functionality into the UI and capabilities when
players are docked, including reprocessing, repackaging, ship spinning,
accessing personal and corporate storage, and assembling/reconfiguring
Tech 3 ships, plus many more. There is also the (currently) limited
content provided in Incarna, which probably would be expanded in the
future. It also doesn't make sense for CCP to work on two seperate UIs,
one for docking and one for nPOS hangar functionality.
Scalable
In
order to be able to scale from a single person to a 5,000 person
alliance, nPOSes should follow some sort of modular system, allowing for
in-place upgrades without the need to tear down the whole thing and
start over. A modular system would allow players to choose to expand
based on demand for services, including storage, manufacturing and
research. A fully modular system does require a fair amount of art
effort, but would also allow people to customize the look of their
homes/factories/labs.
Secure
The
current POS security model is terrible and makes multiple people place
enitrely too much trust in too many people. EVE should not become a
place that is safe from scammers, but plenty of scams happen in
stations, and there is no reason for people to assume any more scamming
risk because they live in nPOSes, especially if nPOSes eventually
replace player built outposts.
Vulnerable
New
POSes are a perfect place to create small gang targets that would
encourage people to defend their space or lose time or ISK to repair
damages. In nullsec and w-space, destroying a nPOS should be the same as
the current POS, where some of the contents drop on destruction and
some are destroyed. In highsec and lowsec, Interbus could move some or
all of the nPOS contents to a safe place (perhaps in lowsec some portion
of the contents drop based on the security status of the system).
nPOSes would probably still have the same reinforcement system that
current POSes have, though something new could be done here, such as
making some portion of the nPOS vulnerable after some time, or even have
the nPOS slowly become vulnerable over time after some invulnerable
period.
Useful
New
POSes are also a great opportunity to phase out even more NPC
involvement in EVE, especially on the industrial/research side. nPOSes
should have better manufacturing, reprocessing and research than can be
found in NPC stations, and NPC stations should signifigantly raise the
prices for their services, so that players will be able to compete with
them for manufacturing (and be better and cheaper than they will be).
