This ties together several ideas.
1. Powerplay Commodities are pretty useless right now. Even with rank 100, you're only getting about 500 tons per hour, which even if you could haul them nonstop translates to a pretty pitiful amount of merits, about 3000 merits per load, or about 18000 merits per hour.
2. Stronghold carriers are not serving their role as hubs as well as they could.
3. There's not much pvp in Powerplay at present.
So here's the idea.
Powerplay Commodities should be produced in response to player activity.
Basically, the more pledged players playing around a certain Stronghold Carrier(IE, within 30ly), the more are produced. THIS becomes the limit on how often people can haul; the carrier needs to produce more to haul, slowly over time. Since they're not so freely available, you can buff their effectiveness substantially; ideally, they should be quite valuable in terms of merits, to compensate for their limited availability. A couple examples:
1. Many players actively playing around a stronghold carrier. Commodities are constantly produced at a good rate - but those players are doing other things. Do they take some time to haul these, or do they wait and hope nobody notices them and steals them before their gold rush ends?
2. One commander doing his thing in an isolated area. Commodities are produced fairly slowly, but steadily. He can play for a day or two, then run a few runs of powerplay commodities at high efficiency to more difficult to acquire systems. But the commodities will be sitting there for longer.
And everything in-between.
Next, make it so attacking a stronghold carrier damages this production rate. The more you damage the carrier and support ships, the less powerplay commodities it produces for a while. Hostile players could choose this if they just want to slow down an enemy.
After that, make it so attackers can STEAL any unused powerplay commodities, and use them to fortify their OWN systems. But - and this is crucial - make it so these only spawn in hackable cargo bays in Open, and that the production subsystems are also only attackable in open.
Now, what's the result of this? Attacking Stronghold Carriers becomes a highly valuable way to fortify your own systems, but it can only happen in open, and it only happens around active strongholds where there are plenty of defensive players. This SHOULD naturally lead to organic pvp around there, as hostile players try to sneak in to steal powerplay commodities before they can be hauled away, and defenders try to fight them off to allow their haulers to get them out instead. It will also tend to naturally lead to larger powers coming under attack more often, as they have more players and therefore generate more powerplay commodities to steal. Being attacked should also be linear; maybe each damaged system delays production by 30 seconds, to further advantage smaller powers, regardless of the number of players in play.
Note: The open only requirement would only apply to the attackers, not the owning Power. Haulers only pressure would be hauling these commodities away asap, to prevent them from being stolen. Everyone should be having fun here.
This creates a benefit from both sides; defenders get a nice way to gain merits, especially for systems lacking better ways of fortification or acquisition. Attackers get a nice way to fortify AND can undermine at the same time. Defenders can fight and feel justified doing so just slowing down the damage or theft, or even just destroying the stolen commodities to prevent them from being used by enemies! And, of course, you've got a good place for organic pvp, but modified by the fact that you really kinda want to steal stuff as you go, too!
1. Powerplay Commodities are pretty useless right now. Even with rank 100, you're only getting about 500 tons per hour, which even if you could haul them nonstop translates to a pretty pitiful amount of merits, about 3000 merits per load, or about 18000 merits per hour.
2. Stronghold carriers are not serving their role as hubs as well as they could.
3. There's not much pvp in Powerplay at present.
So here's the idea.
Powerplay Commodities should be produced in response to player activity.
Basically, the more pledged players playing around a certain Stronghold Carrier(IE, within 30ly), the more are produced. THIS becomes the limit on how often people can haul; the carrier needs to produce more to haul, slowly over time. Since they're not so freely available, you can buff their effectiveness substantially; ideally, they should be quite valuable in terms of merits, to compensate for their limited availability. A couple examples:
1. Many players actively playing around a stronghold carrier. Commodities are constantly produced at a good rate - but those players are doing other things. Do they take some time to haul these, or do they wait and hope nobody notices them and steals them before their gold rush ends?
2. One commander doing his thing in an isolated area. Commodities are produced fairly slowly, but steadily. He can play for a day or two, then run a few runs of powerplay commodities at high efficiency to more difficult to acquire systems. But the commodities will be sitting there for longer.
And everything in-between.
Next, make it so attacking a stronghold carrier damages this production rate. The more you damage the carrier and support ships, the less powerplay commodities it produces for a while. Hostile players could choose this if they just want to slow down an enemy.
After that, make it so attackers can STEAL any unused powerplay commodities, and use them to fortify their OWN systems. But - and this is crucial - make it so these only spawn in hackable cargo bays in Open, and that the production subsystems are also only attackable in open.
Now, what's the result of this? Attacking Stronghold Carriers becomes a highly valuable way to fortify your own systems, but it can only happen in open, and it only happens around active strongholds where there are plenty of defensive players. This SHOULD naturally lead to organic pvp around there, as hostile players try to sneak in to steal powerplay commodities before they can be hauled away, and defenders try to fight them off to allow their haulers to get them out instead. It will also tend to naturally lead to larger powers coming under attack more often, as they have more players and therefore generate more powerplay commodities to steal. Being attacked should also be linear; maybe each damaged system delays production by 30 seconds, to further advantage smaller powers, regardless of the number of players in play.
Note: The open only requirement would only apply to the attackers, not the owning Power. Haulers only pressure would be hauling these commodities away asap, to prevent them from being stolen. Everyone should be having fun here.
This creates a benefit from both sides; defenders get a nice way to gain merits, especially for systems lacking better ways of fortification or acquisition. Attackers get a nice way to fortify AND can undermine at the same time. Defenders can fight and feel justified doing so just slowing down the damage or theft, or even just destroying the stolen commodities to prevent them from being used by enemies! And, of course, you've got a good place for organic pvp, but modified by the fact that you really kinda want to steal stuff as you go, too!