Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Etienne Saissore]

The depot is a planned new structure which can be anchored like a container and act as a mobile base, with a ship maintenance array and a corporate hangar array. The full details are not yet known. In principle, it should be possible to build towns out of these.

To my knowledge, no direct advantage from anchoring depots close to each other has been announced, although a lot of ideas, like unlocking station services, shields etc once a certain number of depots is on grid/connected and so on have been circulating on the forums.

Trading between strangers in the middle of nothing is based on the container mechanics. In low-sec, a group of depots would be like having all the eggs in the same basket. It seems unlikely, that commerce or defence would do much to incentivize town formation.

If the anchoring mechanics does not change, then the depots can be within 5 km (3.1 miles) from each other. The two densest formations which can be built with this constraint are the face centered cubic (FCC) and hexagonal close packing (HCP) structures:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
If a chosen depot is buried deep in the interior of such structure, then it might be difficult to access the hangar and maintenance arrays due to bumping mechanics.

In some systems there are gates, landmarks and stations within a few ten thousands of kilometers apart. Creating celestial bridges between them has so far relied on corpses which last only for an hour, and on containers, which only last for 30 days. With depots, one could in principle connect the grids for an arbitrary length of time.

What other reasons there could be to anchor the depots close to each other, other than aesthetics, or pure RP?

[Alain Colcer]

uhm, i didn't thought of the grid-fu applications, those will be interesting to see how null-sec blocs exploits.

But from a logistical perspective, i think that station-less systems that have either good "exploration" sites or a large ammount of asteroid belts will benefit the most from having these anchored at deep safes.

Low-sec systems without any valuable moon and devoid of stations for example are a good choice.

[Makoto Priano]

Wormholes. Totally wormholes.

[Elmund Egivand]

My dream of opening a used spaceship shop is coming to fruition.

[Lyn Farel]

I would really enjoy seeing whole junkcities in space someday.

[Syagrius]

This makes me very very happy!

[Silas Vitalia]

Have HP and destructability of these things been discussed?

If they don't have timers and just raw HP it will be interesting to see how they are used at all in lowsec, drive by blapping will be very appealing.

If they have a reasonable amount of HP, then these will be an excellent on-grid refitting tool that won't require capital commitments.

IE small gang A anchors one of these on their gate camp with refits / ammo / charges to handle whatever comes on scene.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Drive by blapping is not going to be a thing in any-sec, Silas. Depots will have a short reinforcement timer similar to starbases. It has not been stated how long it will last or if it will require stront. What has been stated is that the owner can come pick up the depot and save their stuff even if it's reinforced.

[Gaven Lok ri]

If they are that hard to kill, they are going to be huge in FW. Especially if you can preload them in a station. Load up a campaigns worth of reships into one, drop it in the target system and have your corp live out of it until the system battle is over.

[Saede Riordan]

Wormholes. Totally wormholes.

This.

[Graelyn]

I think it will change the game (on the campaign scale) more than almost anything else in the last few years.

Based, of course, on the specifics.

[Akrasjel Lanate]

Drive by blapping is not going to be a thing in any-sec, Silas. Depots will have a short reinforcement timer similar to starbases. It has not been stated how long it will last or if it will require stront. What has been stated is that the owner can come pick up the depot and save their stuff even if it's reinforced.

I think it was mentioned on EVEVegas during Fozzie and Rise presentation something about 48 hours timer but not 100% sure and im to lazy to go check it.

[Silas Vitalia]

Much like low and null, I think in facwar these will be used mainly to 'set up' engagements.  Everyone can see the timer and know something is going to go down in 'x' hours at this location.

It's like a flashing billboard ad for pvp.

[Gaven Lok ri]

Heh, it can do that, but thats not going to be the main FW use.  Think of the ramifications for the constant ship changing in a hard fought system capture campaign.

One of the defender advantages right now is that the offense can't dock in system, this means reship times are much higher for them, so the defender can really play that to their advantage.

The ability to park one of these in a system you want to attack will completely change the mechanics of how you attack a system.

[Katrina Oniseki]

Much like low and null, I think in facwar these will be used mainly to 'set up' engagements.  Everyone can see the timer and know something is going to go down in 'x' hours at this location.

It's like a flashing billboard ad for pvp.

Again, not really.

They can be picked up at any time even during their reinforcement timer. You don't need to wait the whole 48 hours before scooping your depot. So, let's say someone drives up and blaps your depot. It goes into ref, and has a 48 hour timer. With 47 hours still left on the timer, you drive by in your frigate and scoop it up.

It was mentioned on the original announcement that you "wouldn't need to fight for it if you don't want to, just pick it up and go"