Saturday, November 14, 2009

POS Incapacitated Structures

I have seen a lot of posts regarding the issues relating to incapacitated structures and the related inability to unanchor the POS until all surrounding structures are unanchored.

I logged in the other night to find one of my White Noise Generation Batteries in an "Incapacitated" state, meaning someone had slugged it out and pounded that structure until it was nothing but structure left. I can see why the pilot stopped at structure - the structure benefits from a 99% Hull Resist with the Tower present. You would need a fleet of BS's to take down the Hull.

So, here I am, ready to pack up and leave this crappy C1, but now I either have to repair 1,500,000 worth of armor or try to destroy 100,000 HP worth of structure with 99% resists... Hmmm.... Forget the latter - only option is the repping route.

The issue here is that while the tower is anchored, it applies the 99% resist to hull for the structures. However, you cannot unanchor the tower unless all structures are destroyed or repaired. Impasse.

This is why there are so many abandoned POS's in W-Space. Basically, I am left with either spending 6-8 hours of my limited play time repping or I take everything except the POS. After making the 500M, I am not going to sweat leaving this 100M ISK Small POS in lieu of repping it - just not worth it. However, I am loathe to leave another POS just floating in space. So, I jump out and bring back a POSprey (Osprey fitted for Armor Repair). I can run the armor reppers while AFK, so rather than spending a some time hunting for a new home, I spend tonight repping the structure. I am 3-hours into it, with a check-in about every 15-30 minutes or so.

During this period, my static LowSec exit respawned to a much less pirate-infested system, and I was able to transport everything except the POS and the ECM structure to a local station. Going to set the Repper for AFK and go to bed. If someone happens to jump in, that POSprey will be easy pickings, but we will see...

It makes no sense to me that you cannot unanchor a tower with an incapacitated structure anchored. If this is about space clutter, then allow the POS to unanchor and then allow incapacitated structures, when the Tower is no longer present, expire like cans do after several hours?

Safe Flying

7 comments:

  1. This is probably a technical limitation arising from how POSes are handled in code. CCP probably just expected that there could be only two things that anyone would want to do to a POS module: 1) repair it, because they want to keep the POS running. 2) Incapacitate it in preparation of blowing up the tower itself.

    I know it's too late for now, but the next time you might want to double-check that the modules are unanchorable before unanchoring the POS guns. As long as the guns are in place, you can use those to get rid of any incapacitated modules.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I couldn't agree more. Likewise, if the tower offlines, there should be some way to recover the structures without onlining it - ferinstance, if it offlines, I should just be able to unanchor the guns and haul everything off. Now granted, maybe this is a more nitpicky wish than yours (which I think is hugely valid,) but it's on my list.

    Additionally, I would *love* *it* if scan signatures would remain constant until the site despawns. I mean seriously, wtf? It seems like a simple database persistence issue... but I"m not a dev, and I don't know their reasoning behind it.

    Anyhow - done bitching now. :D

    -- Rutilus

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shirrath - thanks for the angle on the POS Guns - although I only had ECM's anchored for this small staging POS, I will remember that for the large POS.

    Erin - thanks and I agree with the sigs - seems to me like once you scan them, why should I have to pinpoint them again?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I must agree completely. I stumble over dead POSes with incap'd modules just about every other day.

    And why do offline POSes have shields?!

    In a different note, one WH I stumbled across the other day had a projectile turret and a warp scram, anchored at a moon. With no POS. I assume it had been destroyed.

    Guess what? It's impossible to unanchor those modules. ARRRGH.

    ReplyDelete
  5. One for CSM, I think.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Guess what? It's impossible to unanchor those modules. ARRRGH.
    If you repair those they should unanchor themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I have a similer issue under way. Have a POS in WH. Several Moduels are incapacitated. Can not unanchor modules, RR the Modules to 100%and they still will not come on line and can not unanchor. Freaking Pain!!!

    ReplyDelete