[2022] Siege Green - Structure Updates Now Avaialble for Testing

Greetings Capsuleers,

We recently released an update aimed at balancing the combat power of structure weapons, to allow for a wider variety of ships to participate on-grid during structure contests. At that time we said this was the first of several updates aimed at bringing improved balance to structures in New Eden - and now we’re ready to show you the next step of those changes today.

Updates to Damage Caps
The minimum dps required to keep the repair timer paused has been decoupled from the damage cap, which means we can now set this value independently for each layer of the structure’s defenses (shield / armor / hull). You will now see this value for each layer directly in the attributes tab when showing info on a structure.

Following this change, we are effectively removing the damage cap on structure shields. You’ll still see it as a value in game, but for the time being this value is being set to the maximum shield HP, allowing for shields to be rapidly removed with enough force. The damage cap will remain as it currently is for armor and hull.

Because the current shield HP values were designed with the damage cap in mind, structures are being given slightly more shield HP, with mediums getting 100% and larger structures receiving 25% additional HP over their current values.

The shield damage cap is not being removed for FLEX structures or NPC structures for the time being - those should continue to function as they currently do.

Medium Structures
Structures have been in New Eden for quite some time now, however they have never quite settled into a completely satisfying position in the ecosystem - this is partly due to low-cost medium structures being so closely coupled to their larger cousins. It was difficult to make balance changes to one without impacting the other. With this in mind we’re breaking medium structures out into their own class - allowing us to alter the rules for these structures without changing it for all of them.

With this change, we are removing the hull reinforcement for medium structures - giving them a maximum of 1 reinforcement cycle for armor. The armor reinforcement time is being made equivalent to their current hull reinforcement times. Once shield has been destroyed, armor will be reinforced until:

• Wormholes: First available hour designated by the defender 1.5d ± 3 hours after reinforcement
• Null/Lowsec: First available hour designated by the defender 2.5 ± 3 hours after reinforcement
• Highsec: First available hour designated by the defender 4.5 ± 3 hours after reinforcement
• War HQ: First available hour designated by the defender 24 ± 3 hours after reinforcement

Note: These are just the minimum reinforcement times - the defender is still able to choose their preferred timezone to defend. This is exactly the same system as we have now that determines the current hull reinforcement time.

When a medium structure’s armor is destroyed, it will continue straight to hull vulnerable and is capable of being killed. To keep this newly combined armor/hull timer to a reasonable length, hull HP has been decreased by 75%. Low powered medium structures will no longer lose a reinforcement cycle (however they will continue to have none if left to go abandoned). Below is the updated reinforcement flow for medium structures.

These are some large changes and we will be closely monitoring how they impact the dynamics of New Eden. Please use this thread to leave us feedback on these changes.

These mechanics aren’t super clear, but the way reinforcement times are calculated aren’t changing - these will be the same as they are currently.

The times you see there are the minimum reinforcement times, which we call the base duration.

So if it’s in wormhole space, the base duration (currently) is 1.5 days.

It then finds the time corresponding to the first [defender chosen hour] that happens after the base duration (this is the defender’s “pick the hour” mechanic) and then adds 3 hours of jitter on either side of that.

Example: Defender selects 15:00 as their preferred hour to defend. The structure is in lowsec. Structure shield is bashed at 11:00 on a Tuesday.

First, find the base duration. Since the structure is in lowsec, that means its base duration is 2.5 days.

Next, find the time corresponding to the next [hour chosen by defender) that happens after the base duration. Since the shield was bashed at 11:00, the next corresponding hour would be 4 hours later at 13:00, but the base duration hasn’t passed so this is skipped. The next available chosen hour would be on Friday at 15:00. This is the ‘choose the hour’ mechanic for defenders.

Finally, add ‘jitter’ to that time, + or - 3 hours in either direction. Let’s say the jitter was -1, that means the structure will become vulnerable on that Friday at 14:00.

This is how it works already and should continue to work. There are some (probably better) examples than this one I just made up on our support site and EVE Uni, for those that would like to look into these mechanics a bit more.

These are not included in these changes and will continue to function as they do currently. (Still have their shield damage cap)

Bit wordy but I made some tweaks to hopefully clear that up.

Because the reinforcement is armor, services remain online in medium structures when reinforced and industry jobs continue running.

Based on feedback we are going to be increasing the new minimum armor reinforcement durations for Medium-sized structures as follows:

• Medium structure in Wormhole/Triglavian system: 2.5 days (was going to be 1.5 days)
• Medium structure in Null-sec system: 3.5 days (was going to be 2.5 days)
• Medium structure in Low-sec system: 3.5 days (was going to be 2.5 days)

This will give Medium-sized structure owners slightly longer advance notice of a defensive requirement.

Additionally the random jitter time which is applied when picking the reinforcement exit time for Medium structures is being reduced to +/- 1.5 hours - so a potential window of 3 hours (down from +/- 3 hours - a potential window of 6 hours). This will narrow the uncertainty of the exit time for the defenders, making their choice of exit hour more meaningful.

For years players have said citadels replaced outposts and POS - but neither replaced either one close enough. I personally liked where this was headed as if you remove the fact that POS use stront and M citadels use a digital timer, their RF and kill cycle would be pretty dang close → therefore we would finally have a replacement for POS or very very close - these changes fix the one drawback to the old POS where you could only go a max of 1D 17H without checking on it to see if it was RF’d - you get notifications either way - but the same rule applies - now the time between RF and kill is a bit longer - allows you to find friends get ready etc. but it stilll leans more towards full POS replacement.

You know the minute you get war decked that you need to start preparing. High sec gets far more notice in that regard than anybody else.