Dear players,

we want to talk about District Timers, in particular, the not-so-much-intended practice of safeguarding Districts into difficult timezones.

There are a few ideas already on the table, not a complete list and I expect Kain Spero to show up pretty much instantly.

Methods to reset, if we go that way

A) Randomize - all Timers will be reset to a random TZ within the allowed Begin and End settings
B) Redistribute - all Timers will be reset and fixed in a ratio that aligns with average PCU
C) Reset and allow +-X timers around the default District Timer
D) Reset and reduce the available option for Timers
E) Reset and allow incremental jumps from the default Timer, rising exponentially in ISK cost per 30 minutes.


I will add more.

Please discuss.

For me its more like, I'm not going to leave my job to do a PC match. If my corp is working and we always get attacked while we're all at work, are we just screwed until the weekend?

So...basically what you want is districts being flipped basically back and forth daily. Japanese corps attack the American corps, American corps will wake up early for a while but eventually it'll get old. So Japanese corps will just take all the districts they want, and then the Americans will respond by taking them back the following day. Eventually no one bothers showing up because no one wants to wake up at 4AM every day to play a video game before work, and PC turns into nothing but no-shows.

God that just sounds super fun!

I would love to hear your thoughts on the my proposal that Kane linked earlier in the thread, and any criticisms about how it would not work.

I never said in the proposal that you're forced to play pubs. Battle activity during the window would generate fuel, this includes fighting in FacWar or PC.

Anything else?

1. If you're being attacked every day, defending that district every day should generate enough fuel to maintain that district. Additionally if you're attacking, a similar principle applies. As I mention in the thread, it may be beneficial to widen the fuel generation window slightly (Maybe 1 hour on either side) to account for PC attack battles that take place off of your timer but still within your effective daily time of play. The fact of the matter is that if you want to own a district, a proportional part of your corporation must be actively playing any part of the game around the time your districts timers are set up.

2. Maximum window is 12 hours if you consistently fail to generate enough fuel every day. If properly maintained with a reasonable amount of activity during your reinforcement time, the attack window is 1 hour long. You have to severely neglect your districts to end up with a 12 hour timer. Maintaining the 1 hour window would be easy given reasonable levels of play during those times if your player-count is reasonably proportionate to the number of districts held.

3. Again the required activity is relative to the number of districts held. If a corporation only has 16 guys, that's the minimum required to defend a district. It would be easy for 16 guys who play at a reasonable rate to produce enough fuel to maintain the 1 hour timer on a single district. It would however be more difficult for them to produce enough fuel for 2 or more districts. This limitation directly prevents small corporations from holding more land than their numbers should support.

1. Exact values may vary but essentially around that much, since you would have 16 people playing. Additionally PC could generate more fuel per match than pubs or facwar, requiring fewer PC matches to reach your quote and more pubs to reach the quota.

1a. Read carefully. I never said the attack window would increase to 3 hours, just that you would be able to generate fuel one hour prior to one our post the attack window. Values are of course subject to change but as an example if your time is set to 2000, you could generate fuel anytime between 1900 and 2100.

2. Well a small corp can't run multiple PC matches at once, so they would spread their windows out, meaning that the relative amount of activity per hour is still the same. Requiring small corps to actually play the game during the times they have their timers set, is not punishing them for being a small corp. If their districts are spread out over a 3-4 hour time period, then all they have to do is play a handful of matches over that 3-4 hour spread.

As I've said before, the required quota for a 1 hour timer is not difficult to reach, and even a small corporation that spreads its timers out instead of stacking them would have zero difficulty maintaining several districts. What it does prevent however is prevent corps of any size from hiding their districts at odd times where no one in their corporation plays.

1a. This is primarily to give people some wiggle room in when their activity takes place, but isn't required.

2. Um because players should have their districts at times people actually play at? Otherwise you get the same crap we've had before? You state that under the assumption that the profit and benefit of owning a district won't be changed. They will.. Also "A Token Aussie" would be incapable of maintaining an entire district by himself, and even if you had a handful of "token aussies" would have limitations on how many districts they can maintain, especially if you stack them on the same time slot.

3. Problems this proposal addresses
a. Heavily discourages players from stacking districts on the same time slot
b. Heavily discourages players from placing timers in time zones they are not active in
c. Prevents very small groups from holding large chunks of land, but allows them to hold a reasonable amount relative to their size
d. Avoids the rigid mess that is Static Timers
e. Requires people to actually play the game in order to gain benefit from it

1. Again just wiggle room to account for games that start within the window but end after it. Not a required feature, just a thought.

2. And they can move it out if they want, but its going to be a hell of a lot harder to defend if they do so because it doesn't have proper maintenance (thus a larger attack window). So sure, do as you want, but its going to be a lot harder to properly defend.
2a. It would be closer to 8-16 people playing a normal amount within the time frame.

3a. Fuel generated is distributed evenly between all districts within that time. Meaning that if you have 2 districts in the same time slot, you need double the activity in that time slot to maintain it. Additionally because profitability is also tied to maintenance, it would become increasingly less profitable the more you stacked timers. So if a corp wants to make money, it's going to avoid stacking timers and then just hiring ringers to defend it.

3b. It doesn't stop it but it heavily decreases the effect.

3c. We've been over this, small groups will not have an issue maintaining multiple districts if they're placed in their normal play time. This doesn't punish small groups unless they pull shenanigans like stacking timers or sticking them in odd places.

3d. We disagree on something. I'm shocked.

3e. Oh god requiring people to play the game so they can play the game? What was I thinking?! *falls over* Sorry but you shouldn't just be able to sit back and relax while the profit rolls in and then only show up when someone attacks your ****. One should have to actually do something if they want to make money.

2. Only if all of the districts are stacked at the same time. If you have 4 districts, timers set back to back, 8-16 people could play a reasonable amount of time over the course of 4 hours, and meet the quota. If you put all 4 timers on the same time slot, then it would take 4 * (8-16) so 32-64 people. The point is....don't stack timers on the same time slot unless you have a ton of people to maintain it. Spread them out...and it's perfectly reasonable.

3a. Sure, feel free to bring large amounts of people into your corporation to help you defend your PC. Is this a bad thing?
3b. Sure, then you'll be a mostly Australian corp ;)
3c. Only if they stack their timers. If they can commit to 4 districts in PC spread out over 4 hours, surely they can play the game over those 4 hours.
3d. lol let it go on record that Sparky thinks the system that ultimately came out of the cheesiness of the Blue Waffle's collective rectum "Aint that bad". I think my work here is done.
3e. Further evidence that you don't really care about what works best overall, rather what works best for your personal preference of play.

Oh Sparky, at least you're consistent in your irrationality and inability to actually read and fully comprehend what people say before vomiting out your opinion.

No I'm saying that I've explained it to you multiple times and you clearly don't understand it. If you really think I think 500 people should be playing at all times, then you've missed the point completely. And to be honest I have better things to do with my time than try to explain this to you.