Progenitor Mine, a Daily PvP Territory Control Objective

[Recatek]

I really dont expect anyone to go "yes, i want starbase because i want to get those mines, the mines are my passion".
It's meant to be an activity players do once, maybe a couple times.
Something where you can bring together some friends / clanmates and make an event. And then forget about it.

Exactly. POIs and small time-sensitive daily objectives like this help direct players into situations where they'll coordinate together as they're heading out and also run across strangers when they get there. The gameplay of the POI itself is pretty simple, but it should be fun and rewarding enough to steer players towards one another and give them some goals and direction. Other players are the main event, and this is just a strategy to keep them logging in and create more unplanned encounters between them. I see these sorts of mechanics as being towards the bottom of the game activity pyramid (probably just above mining asteroids), and building a strong player engagement foundation to support more demanding activities at the top, like sieges (which require a lot of work from players to happen).

 

[Cavilier210]

It's really not that at all...
The core takeaway from this is adding minor bits of "standalone" "PVE" gameplay, that don't absolutely require the playerbase to do something to get that gameplay loop going.
I really dont expect anyone to go "yes, i want starbase because i want to get those mines, the mines are my passion".
It's meant to be an activity players do once, maybe a couple times.
Something where you can bring together some friends / clanmates and make an event. And then forget about it.

The takeaway isnt to make this a PVP or/and PVE game, but to keep it a player centric game, but that some standalone gameplay is a necessary safety to spark those player interactions.

When the playerbase is low and unengaged, you need to provide something that almost no matter what, they will be able to rely on.

I would say that that role in this case is the economy, and no amount of dev time wasted on dungeons will change that people don't play because they lack capability in the game, rather than content.

Recatek could legit make this himself in the game, right now. Make this event, right now. It wouldn't bring people back in sizable numbers. Which that's the thing. The game is still missing many core features entirely. Features that are in are still rather buggy in some regards. We're not at "its a complete game" yet. We all know this. Having a persistent sizable population doesn't appear to have been a goal at this stage of the game, and thats understandable.

But in the end, the devs are giving people tools to make this content and other content, so that if you want it, you can make it.

But the thing is, this is a PvP centric game. It's a player interaction centric game. Get in there, make an event of some sort, advertise it like mad, and make it happen. Tactical, Nomads, and BOO all are doing this all the time. Biohazard are running around being rats. Go get them! Make a fleet and track them down.

But Racetak knows all of this is possible and that he can do these things. But he still insists that just one more NPC dungeon crawl, one more random encounter to force a playstyle and design meta in the belt, will save the game. I promise you, thats not the solution.

 

[Recatek]

Player-run community events are nice, but they aren't a sustainable activity source. The work-to-fun ratio isn't in favor of fun for the event organizers, and it's a thankless job that quickly causes burnout. If it was a lot of fun to run events every week, we'd already see a lot more of them. Personally, I'm not interested in organizing community events, let alone every day as a constant activity source, because I've done it before in other games and the juice isn't worth the squeeze for me. I'm also not sure how relying on prearranged brawls and the like as a primary source of PvP is any less artificial than additional game mechanics would be. Players generally log in to a game to have fun, not to do unpaid work providing fun for others -- that's what paid game developers make fun game mechanics for. That said, I've already addressed this in the Rogue Drones thread, so I'm not going to relitigate it in depth here. I'll copy over some relevant quotes:

First, players can't be expected to provide all the content and activities for other players to do. Territory control and sieges are great, but sieges won't happen every day, and each one comes at a significant cost along with a demoralizing penalty for the loser. Sieges and territory conflict are not an activity you can expect to engage in every time you play Starbase; they should be one of many activities you should have available to you when you log in. Similarly, there are organizers who go out of their way to create content with staged battles, tournaments, and other events, but burnout sets in quickly and the job is thankless. Community events, be they player- or dev-driven, are also not a sustainable activity source. The game itself needs to do more work here.

Similarly, there are organizers who go out of their way to create content with staged battles, tournaments, and other events, but burnout sets in quickly and the job is thankless. Community events, be they player- or dev-driven, are also not a sustainable activity source.

Been running weekly gamenights, endoboxes/corpses makes doing anything infantry as an event organizer extremely difficult, due to the nature of no inventory boxes to haul extra gear with us for when its lost to death, or just pause the whole match, let the one guy who died grab his gear, then move the station. its pretty rough. You nailed this post, and I can personally atest to this quote.

 

[IronGremlin]

I would say that that role in this case is the economy, and no amount of dev time wasted on dungeons will change that people don't play because they lack capability in the game, rather than content.

Recatek could legit make this himself in the game, right now. Make this event, right now. It wouldn't bring people back in sizable numbers. Which that's the thing. The game is still missing many core features entirely. Features that are in are still rather buggy in some regards. We're not at "its a complete game" yet. We all know this. Having a persistent sizable population doesn't appear to have been a goal at this stage of the game, and thats understandable.

But in the end, the devs are giving people tools to make this content and other content, so that if you want it, you can make it.

But the thing is, this is a PvP centric game. It's a player interaction centric game. Get in there, make an event of some sort, advertise it like mad, and make it happen. Tactical, Nomads, and BOO all are doing this all the time. Biohazard are running around being rats. Go get them! Make a fleet and track them down.

But Racetak knows all of this is possible and that he can do these things. But he still insists that just one more NPC dungeon crawl, one more random encounter to force a playstyle and design meta in the belt, will save the game. I promise you, thats not the solution.

Read the thread dude.


Nobody is suggesting this should take priority over any currently planned features. You keep making the argument that other shit is more important - that's not an argument. Everyone involved in the discussion accepts that as a premise. You can stop bringing that up now.


Follow on to that, this isn't being sold as a way to bring players back. It's something to fill a gap between siege warfare and randomly sniping mining ships, after we already have both of those cases we'll supported by the currently planned featureset.


So the rest of your argument hinges on the idea that we could build it ourselves - sure but nobody would, because giving shit away for free as an award would be expensive. That's a bullshit argument - the point here is to provide something for people to fight each other over with real, but moderate stakes.


A bloodless deathmatch with no reward doesn't meet that objective.



I am strongly opposed to manufactured experiences or PvE, but I am also skeptical that siege warfare will be a mechanic that allows for groups of small / moderate size to engage with it gracefully.


So I think we could use something besides "shoot lasers at asteroids" as a way for a faction to gain an economic foothold without requiring them to run up against larger forces that they aren't equipped to fight.


This seems like a pretty low key way to get the job done. All the drama and conflict here comes from players interacting with each other - other than some static environmental assets, this isn't substantially different in character from an asteroid belt.


It's just a resource for people to fight over, but it has the advantage of slightly restricting the tools players can use to dominate resource production, to facilitate ongoing medium stakes engagement instead of just passive milking interrupted by large stakes conflict.

 

[Recatek]

I've gone ahead and revised the version in the original post with a simplified version after @IronGremlin's feedback about removing the capture mechanic. I'm copy-pasting the original version here for reference:

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NOTE: This is an OLD version here for archival/reference purposes. Check the OP for the most up to date revision!

Progenitor Mine
Ancient and enigmatic, progenitor mining stations predate Endo expansion into the Eos system by millions of years. Little is understood about these structures, their origin, or how they remain operational despite their age. Immovable and impervious to our weapons, these megaliths synthesize advanced compounds from ambient gasses, stoically persisting in autonomous service to creators long since vanished.

• Progenitor Mines are dev-placed stations deep in the belt at fixed locations far away from dev safe zones.
• Progenitor Mines are rare. The Eos belt, for example, may have at most 10 or 20 of them scattered throughout.
• These mines interfere with Endo shielding and warp technology.
  • Stations may not be built within [20km] of a Progenitor Mine (to ensure an unprotected gap between any player stations and the mine).
  • Capital ships, civilian or military, may not warp within [20km] of a Progenitor Mine.
• Progenitor Mines have a small safe zone. This extends only as far as it needs to to cover the extent of the mining station itself plus [500m].
  • This safe zone confers protection only to the company/faction that currently owns the mine (see below).
  • This shield bubble is dropped during the vulnerability window (see below).
  • Irrespective its safe zone status, the Progenitor Mine structure itself is indestructible.
• (Optional) Progenitor Mines are protected by NPC auto-turrets.
  • These turrets automatically engage any ship or player not aligned with the owning company/faction.

Vulnerability and Capture

• Every 11 hours, the Progenitor Mine becomes vulnerable for 1 hour.
  • Different mines are vulnerable at different times of day, to account for players from different time zones.
  • A given mine is vulnerable at the same two hours each day, every day (e.g. 7am-8am and 7pm-8pm).
• While vulnerable, the Progenitor Mine's safe zone is disabled. All players and ships can shoot one another.
  • (Optional) If the station has NPC auto-turrets, they are destructible only during this vulnerability period.
    • If destroyed, an auto-turret will automatically repair itself over a period of 2 hours from its destruction time.
• During this vulnerability period, the Progenitor Mine may be captured.
  • The Progenitor Mine has an interior Endo combat area with a Control Console.
    • This interior area is designed to be accessible only to Endos, as a play space for Endo vs. Endo PvP.
    • (Optional) Different Progenitor Mine variants may have different layouts for their internal Endo PvP areas.
  • If a player interacts with the Control Console uninterrupted for [2 minutes] while the mine is vulnerable, they capture the mine.
    • Starting this interaction notifies all members of the mine's current owning company/faction that the mine is being threatened.
  • The mine may be captured multiple times during its vulnerability window. Capturing a mine does not end the window.
• At the end of the vulnerability window, the Control Console is locked until the next vulnerability window begins.

Rewards

• During the vulnerability window, the Progenitor Mine will begin producing a rare/exclusive and desirable resource into its storage.
  • This resource production occurs on 6 minute ticks. A vulnerability window will have 10 such ticks.
  • Resource production ticks occur only when the Progenitor Mine is vulnerable. (Why? Answered below.)
• Resources remain in the Progenitor Mine storage until collected.
  • The storage has capacity for [3] vulnerability windows worth of resource production.
    • After that, any additional production is halted until more storage space is available.
• A resource bridge connection is available at a docking area on the Progenitor Mine for collecting and transferring this resource.
  • This resource bridge can only be accessed by a member of the owning company/faction (with the appropriate permissions).
• (Optional) This resource is highly radioactive and ships carrying it are easy to detect and ambush.

 

[ChaosRifle]

More content and content ideas is always welcome. Keep them coming Recatek