POB Change Suggestions

[LuckyOne]

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Suggestion
Type: POB Plugin
Title: Turn POBs into a strategic cap-docking asset

Specifics

• As far as I can tell, this is already partially implemented, but an expansion should be considered
  
• Remove most cap-ship dock points on common stations, planets and smaller pirate bases (for cruisers and up)
  
• Cap ships should be based at shipyards and naval bases (inRP strong points / sell points) and POBs
  
• Optional: Make POB level correspond to the size of capital ships that can dock. Core 1 - up to gunboats, Core 2 - up to cruisers, Core 3+ - up to battleships
  

Potential Problems

• Not sure if it's possible to limit docking for cap ships without affecting transports so some additional coding would probably be required
  
• Possibly the amount of needed materials for building should be rebalanced, so that lower level POBs are a bit less time consuming to build.
  
• Might cause lots of whine because of limiting options for people who love their caps
  
• 1 hour PVP cooldown makes this a bit moot, as most of the time you can reach the system you died in in your cap in less than an hour, however it would still serve as an (in)convenience and leave a bigger vulnerability window to intercept reinforcements.
  
• There should be a possibility to override the limits for events
  
• May encourage more POB-spam in place of cap-spam
  
• May limit RP options in some cases instead of expanding them (but who says you can't RP building a cap mooring point on an NPC base???)
  

Example of Effect

• Reduces the amount of caps in non-core far away systems naturally, even without strong ZoI rules
  
• Reduces the amount of POBs that are built where the builders don't already have a strong in-RP presence (harder to defend if you can only undock from the camped POB).
  
• Reduces the ability to meta-game with 10 different / shared caps docked on every planet and bigger station in a system / House.
  
• Adds goals for both the lawfuls and unlawfuls to aim for, if they wish to contest a system (both gameplay and RP-wise).
  
• Adds importance to inter-faction treaties on docking rights / shared stations.
  
• Reduces problems of caps docking to places where it doesn't make inRP sense (Ranseurs at Rochester, I'm looking at you!) .
  
• Makes sieges in systems on the edge of ZoI a bit more inconvenient if there is no friendly base where a cap could be docked.
  
• Makes faction logistics more important (ammo / nanobots / shield batteries running to POBs)
  
• Makes jump drives more important
  

Further Discussion

I believe this would make Discovery and POBs a more interesting option for both lawful and unlawful factions and make POBs more useful for both gameplay and role-play. Also building "secret" POBs might become a more common thing, so the lawfuls / unlawfuls would mount search and destroy missions to maintain better control of a system and reduce cap-spam.