Citadels - First View

Both Trinket's Friend and Bex have posted in their, respective, blogs about the coming of Citadels and how large they will be based on the following image:

I've been involved in the manufacture of two stations so far in EVE Online:

• one, was periphery, when I was in Providence and I provided some materials for that but did not participate in he actual setup or assembly.
• the second was as a favour to a friend in a (renting) null sec alliance who needed a lot of PI and minerals but did not want it to be known they were buying them (I also helped move about 11m m3 from high sec to null sec via my JF's)

I'm not sure which station I helped with for the second one, alas my friend left the game just after the jump changes, and I never found out what the station was.

Show Me The Money

Both TF and Bex talk about the cost, after all if you want one you've got to have the bank roll for it because if it's anything like a station or other structure it will need minerals, PI products and perhaps a few other things to make.

The image above shows the purported size of a medium citadel compared to an Avatar titan. very impressive in terms of size but we still don't know how CCP are going to deal with the logistical needs or costs to assemble one.

TF has, logically, inferred that a POCO could be considered a "medium sized" structure and setting up one of these costs around 100m ISK. A POCO needs four PI types and a gantry to assemble and these come out at around that cost.

Now it's ridiculous to imagine that this would be the cost of a citadel, it's too little for this structure, a more reasonable cost base would be in the low billions. Personally I think between 1.5 and 3 billion is what it may cost. I see either a large amount of minerals or perhaps a new "framework" object (like the POCO gantry) that you create, move into place then fill with extra materials (in the same way you construct stations) then after a period of time your station is complete.

Between 1.5 and 3 billion ISK for a medium structure seems reasonable to me.

Time-wise, it will take at least a couple of weeks to make one. Unless you're a major null sec alliance who hordes and has large stockpiles of materials, in which case you'll be able to assemble as soon as you can move it.

Speculation

Details on citadels are still vapour, we don't know anything about:

• handling loot/destroyed structures
• how defence weapons will be controlled/configured to work
• system indexes and influence of any structure on them
• vulnerability windows/protection
• whether structures will function/be deployable in wormhole space and, if so, how that will exert influence on WH system
• ship docking/mooring
• taxes/fees/(any) fuel use requirements

and a host of other questions I and others will have. We are starting to see information forthcoming but so far its just from the art department. Hopefully a devblog or further "leaks" will come soon and allow players to start understanding this major new game mechanic.