So I was just discussing with some other devs and I've come up with an idea for BvB slots. As you all know, the Base Rebalance removed the restriction on how many BvB kits you can lay. This change was made for various reasons and I don't want to get into a debate about those right now. What I do want is to see what people think about the following additional mechanic:

Once you own a neighboring gal for 24 hours, you can drop 5 BvB kits (currently unlimited).

For each "Amplifier" you build and deploy in neighboring gals, you get +5 BvB kit slots. An Amplifier might be a permanent drone, or it might be a sticky base item, or something else entirely. The main fact about them is that you can't get them back after you deploy, so it's a sunk cost.

You can deploy an unlimited number of Amplifiers in any owned galaxy, but they are not cheap. Going off the current pattern of things, they will probably cost credits + Industrial Commods or raw T0 commods and you won't be able to warp with them. So you'll have to build them in the same galaxy you want to use them in.

I like it, personally. It also gets rid of all the quantity over quality arguments that have been made recently.

Euhm, if you're making all these changes, .... Why not just not touch bases?
It seems you don't like how cheap people can attack other people, it also seems that want people to sink commods in a BvB fights, it also seems that since you wanted more BvB, that you've cut down on it, because .... people need to sink in items to be able to deploy more kits. It's not like there are other uses for commods atm. *cough* *cough*

Also nothing about what the idea is or how long it would take to build. Nothing about "you will need to get a BP from a random AI base probably", just like the billion of latests addition to the game.

I don't know what you want from me. In the other thread you've complained multiple times about quantity versus quality in BvB since the base rebalance. Now you are saying we should just leave the system alone.

I've just come up with the idea today so I don't have all the specifics yet. Right now my best idea for these is that it would actually be a sticky holoprojector item, so you can have only one per base. The BP would be easily obtainable or even inbuilt into all base kits. It would take up to a week to finish building the item, maybe more maybe less. Of course, you could start Amplifier builds on multiple different bases at once.

Depending on the cost of the amplifier, yes. Something like that would need to be a team investment, not something that someone like 13, who just attacks anything and everything he deems unworthy can build one of for dirt cheap. SS already costs nothing logistics wise to siege someone which is fucking dumb, considering the cost of siege is actually huge...

But for the most part I agree with Konan, there is a problem with BvB but "OMG guise wot if evrything iz free?!?!?" is not going to fix it. All you are doing is destroying the intricacies of endgame basebuilding.

Please keep your responses focused on the suggestion.

EDIT: How about some credit sinks... like 10b raw credits (or more) + the commods to build one...

Sure, I was thinking 20b off the top of my head for each +5 Amp item, but that is totally up for discussion. It would probably also take a fair amount of raw materials or IC's and as I've stated you would have to build it right there in the outpost galaxy. Current idea is that it would be a sticky holoprojector item so you get one per base.

20 sounds fine to me, but then I considered territorial disputes and wars. In a territorial dispute the player stands to gain a lot more than they pay for a good galaxy, making it a no brainer, and in wars with a larger aggressor hitting a smaller player, it brings up the possibility of the aggressor forcing the defender to pay the cost of the amplifiers in the event of a surrender. Maybe a suppressor item to compliment it? Equally credit sinky, but cannot be built/equipped if an amplifier is active against the galaxy. That way someone can gamble on whether they need the suppressor for 20b before the fact, but cannot make one in the middle of the siege.

The suppressor could be a straight -50% to any amplifiers acting on the galaxy. Since it wouldn't get used most of the time, it would just be an expensive precaution, I don't think it would cause huge problems, especially since even with one active, you still only need 2 amplifiers to get to 10 kits which puts you well past what you need to BvB a standard galaxy, and well within the usual expectancy for a well built and defended galaxy.

Well, atleast this time you're asking for community input. You've just manufacterd a shit ton of useless base gear, and a commod sink out of bases.

You said the sticky holoprojector gets destroyed on warp, so I thought you had to make it inside the enemy team their galaxy to be able to BvB with more then 5 kits. But it seems like you need to be on a neighbouring galaxy to make it? You will need a week to defend your outpost? Sounds like a hel of alot of fun to BvB someone. Atleast the aggresor will have to put some effort to protect it, I guess? Not sleeping for 7 days ...

I still don't get that you want to fix the quantity vs quality thing by putting a soft cap on the quantity.

tl/dr: The sticky holoprojector idea is still not fully thought through, so I won't complain further about it. It's more the idea that is what makes 2 strategies which are well balanced right now, just broken or stupid.

Interesting counterplay in that suggestion. I will be bringing this up at the dev meeting today so I'll see what everyone thinks.

I do want to highlight that the main focus of this change would have to be in delaying the ability of someone to drop a monster BvB with only 24 hours of warning. That's why I said it might take up to a week to build Amplifiers. As you point out, it'll be hard to balance the cost in a way that works for all contexts. I'm not overly worried about the cost of Amplifiers being included in surrender terms, because it is already possible to demand surrender payments (sometimes quite high).

Yeah I changed my mind a little after my first post. The current iteration is that you build sticky holoprojectors on the bases in your owned galaxy (the one that's adjacent to where you want to BvB). The bases will then glow red or whatever to show everyone how many Amplifiers you have active.

Which two strategies are you referring to that would be excluded by this change?

Right now Quantity vs Quality is a viable strategy (13). And Quality vs Quality is also a viable strategy. By adding this, the Quantity vs Quality strategy gets a hit, and by the update in general Quality vs Quality is also stupid because the defender in times they loose, can just deploy more kits. And the defender still has drones so Quality vs Quality becomes Quality vs Quantity and then you get in the first strategy but the roles of attacker & defender are changed.

How about nerfing ICs? Who cares about credit sinks if you can just print more credits.

I love this, so basically still no restrictions to base slots if youre willing to put in the creds and resources to up it from 5? Thats great. Think it balances the fact that someone with multiple more accounts then someone else can easily shit on another person with enough knowledge.