PoB Siege Mechanics

[Thyrzul]

Just a few words in defense of the recent change, since I was (at least one of those who were) propagating the direction of change and helped devs picking the extent of it by visualising possible outcomes of each change through spreadsheets made out of an old one originally made by Karst about four years ago.

Many were complaining (and for some reason still complained after the change) against timezones and that huge fleets can destroy their bases within just a few hours while they were working or asleep. Buffing the hulls was meant to fix that by stretching siege lenght to days so the defenders have enough time for their attempts at defense. Side effect: sieges became more RMB-grindy.

Others complained that they don't/can't have the required warship fleets or even the ship classes to effectively siege a PoB. Nerfing the repair rates was meant to fix that by reducing PoBs' regeneration capacity so the attackers can achieve progress with less firepower while additional ships won't make much of a difference. Side effect: with a big enough fleet siegers could reproduce the timezone issue.

A mathematical example for comparison: in the old system a Core 5 PoB with 3 repair materials was immune to 12 warships, fell in 3.1 hours to 13; in the new system a Core 5 PoB with 3 repair materials was immune to 1 warship, fell in 155 hours to 2, and even 20 warships would need 6.1 hours to take it down.

Actual example: the Tau-29 event lasted over two days despite the massive playerbase and fleets on both sides, the massive battles and only 30 minutes respawn penalty.

I consider the test resulting positively, because the implemented changes did what they were meant to, fixed at least some of the issues, while pointed out other flaws.

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Perhaps we can't fix all of the issues with these mechanics, but until we have a viable and sensible alternative of a mechanic - and turning them into SRPs isn't a mechanic, just administrative restriction of the system in order to mitigate the effects of this mechanic and what Disco's playerbase does with it - I'm of the opinion that we should seek further means to tweak what we have at hand.

In accordance to that I'd rather look into what possible tricks can be added to how repair material consumption and repair mechanics work, perhaps adding a synergy effect or other balance to each material individually. That's something the recent balance change did not cover, but maybe the next one could.

Additionally, since Laz said he's looking for ideas for new mechanics, and that he's about to finish the rework, I'm curious about whether it would be possible to add a partial deconstruct feature, according to which destroyed PoBs would respawn upon next restart with one less core, only Core 1 PoBs would be destroyed permanently. It's not a new idea, and it's not mine originally, but I've always found it an interesting one.

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