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eve:player_owned_starbases:pos_setup

Player-owned Starbases Setup

For information on Personal Towers contact the logi-office channel in Test Discord
For information on Corporation Towers refer to TEST Command Forum


Location

Things to consider

Instaundock

If this is going to be a staging tower or a Jump Bridge tower, consider finding a moon that would be an instaundock from the station in that system. This helps with getting off station grid faster if there are Reds on the station and helps to prevent bouncing on the station if the POS were to be behind the station.


Standings and Sovereignty Restrictions

In order to anchor a POS tower in any system that is 0.4 up through 0.7, the corporation that is putting up the POS tower must have high standings with the empire faction in control of the system. These racial standing requirements are based on the security level of the system (0.0 to 1.0) and not the “true-sec” rating of the system. Even if the true-sec of a 0.5 system is 0.48, your corporation will still need 5.00+ standings in order to anchor the POS tower.

Once the POS tower has been anchored, no further checks are done for the anchoring of modules or for putting the tower online.

Standings are re-calculated daily at downtime and is a straight average of the unmodified racial standings of everyone who has been in the corporation for at least seven downtimes. If a pilot does not have any standings at all with the racial faction, then they are not counted towards the standings. If a pilot has been in the corporation for fewer then seven days / downtimes, then they are not counted towards the standings.

To see which pilots are affecting the standings, go into the Corporate UI, the “Standings” tab and look at the “Liked By” tab. Right-click on a faction where the corporation has postive standings and choose “Show Composition”. You will be given a list of all of the pilots who are currently affecting your standings with that faction.

This is why corporations who are doing hi-sec POS towers will sometimes have to remove alts and members from the corporation who are dragging down their standings before putting up additional POS towers. It is also possible to buy existing corporations with high standings and anchor POS towers before the standings drop at the next downtime (or after seven days in some situations).


0.8 to 1.0 Security Systems

  • No POS towers may be anchored in 0.8, 0.9 or 1.0 systems

0.5 to 0.7 Security Systems

Requires standings with the faction that owns the region. If you are unsure as to which faction controls the system, you can look at the Sovereignty in the upper left corner of the screen. Or you can use 3rd party tools like DotLan maps which have a sovereignty overlay.

  • 0.5 system requires 5.00+
  • 0.6 system requires 6.00+
  • 0.7 system requires 7.00+

0.1 to 0.4 Security Systems

  • No standings required.
  • No Starbase Charters required.
  • Modules related to moon mining and reactions restricted to 0.3 or lower

0.0 or Null-Sec Systems

  • No Starbase Charters required.
  • Sovereignty not required, but anchoring a tower in another alliance's system will send a notification to all members of that group with appropriate roles. Don't expect it to survive long unless you've first gotten permission to deploy your tower.
  • If deployed in a system where your alliance holds Sovereignty, a 25% fuel consumption discount will be applied to all Alliance control towers in the system

Choosing a Tower

There are four different races (plus faction) and three different sizes of POS. Depending on the reason for the tower will greatly affect which race and size you choose. See Player-Owned Starbase Control Towers for more information.

Standard towers vs. Faction towers

Faction tower BPCs are currently not in the loot tables ingame due to CCP removing them over concerns about how common they were, particularly in hisec where they are unlikely to die. So, what's ingame now faction-towers wise is what's going to be in-game indefinitely, thus prices will likely continue to climb.


Fuels

Starbase Charters

All POSs located in hi-sec space (0.5 to 0.7) require starbase charters in order to operate. These charters are race-specific based on the region where you are placing the POS and are bought with Loyalty Points from NPC corporations.

All size towers require 1 charter per hour.


Fuel Blocks

Control towers consume a certain number of fuel blocks per hour. There are four types of blocks, one for each race, the difference being which kind of isotopes are used in their manufacture. They are manufactured like ammo (using a blueprint in a station or POS ammo or component assembly array, in batches of 40).

  • Amarr, (True) Sansha and (Dark) Blood towers use Amarr Fuel Blocks, which use Helium Isotopes
  • Caldari and (Dread) Guristas towers use Caldari Fuel Blocks, which use Nitrogen Isotopes
  • Gallente and (Shadow) Serpentis towers use Gallente Fuel Blocks, which use Oxygen Isotopes
  • Minmatar and (Domination) Angel towers use Minmatar Fuel Blocks, which use Hydrogen Isotopes

All blocks require Ice and Planetary Interaction products to manufacture.

The quantities are:

  • Small: 10 blocks / hour, 7200 / 30 days
  • Medium: 20 blocks / hour, 14400 / 30 days
  • Large: 40 blocks / hour, 28800 / 30 days

Faction towers use less (10% less for tier 1, 20% less for tier 2). You also get a 25% discount if your alliance holds sovereignty where the tower is anchored.

With a fully researched BPO, the materials required to make one batch of 40 blocks (and therefore to run a large tower for 1 hour) are:

There are two competing theories on tower selection vs fuel availability. Some POS owners will choose a tower based on the region in order to reduce the distance that isotopes will have to be hauled. Other POS owners will choose a tower based on attributes and are willing to haul isotopes from other regions. If you do not have access to an orca or freighter, you may wish to choose your tower type based on isotope availability within the region or neighboring regions. Some people just don't care and choose the tower based on what they are going to use it for. Those people import their fuel from high-sec.

Formerly, consumption of liquid ozone and heavy water was based on powergrid and CPU usage. With the switch to fuel blocks in Crucible 1.1 this is no longer the case and the quantities above hold regardless of what modules you have online. Generally heavy water is cheap, while liquid ozone is 3x to 4x more expensive due to its use in cynosural field generators (needed to use jump drives).


Strontium Clathrates

The fourth component that is refined from ice (besides isotopes, liquid ozone and heavy water) is Strontium Clathrates. Unlike the other fuels, Strontium Clathrates are only used when the POS is placed into reinforced mode. There is a separate fuel bay for Strontium Clathrates in the tower called the “stront bay”. As explained on the POS Warfare page (google it), you should always put at least 1 hour's worth of Strontium Clathrates into the stront bay.

  • Small: 100/hr, 4166 max units for 41.7 hours
  • Medium: 200/hr, 8333 max units for 41.7 hours
  • Large: 400/hr, 16666 max units for 41.7 hours

As a general rule of thumb, if you put “N” units of Strontium Clathrates in your tower, you should keep a spare stock of “N” units Strontium Clathrates in a nearby location. That way, if the attackers leave you alone after the initial attack, you can quickly replenish the “stront bay”.

In addition to this, if you are timing your POS specifically so that it exits in a good timezone, you should have a small supply of stront within the POS shields enabling you to do this.

If you are putting up a personal tower, it is a good idea to fill the stront bay to max, allowing you the greatest amount of time to evac your things. if it is a Corp or Alliance tower, refer to someone important and they will tell you how much to put in, and how much to keep on standby.


Summary Fuel Table

POS fuel usage per hour
Tower size Small Medium Large
Charters (Hi-Sec only) 1 1 1
Fuel blocks 10 20 40
Coolant 2 4 8
Enriched Uranium 1 2 4
Mechanical Parts 1 2 4
Oxygen 5 10 20
Robotics ¼ ½ 1
Heavy Water 37.5 75 150
Racial Isotopes 100 200 400
Liquid Ozone 37.5 75 150
Strontium Clathrates (reinforced only) 100 200 400

Corporate Roles

In order to allow people other than the CEO or Directors to manage the POS, you must hand out some corporate roles.

Config Equipment

This role does not have any direct role on starbase equipment, but the starbase management panel's structure access tab may be used to grant access to some structures to users having this role.

Config Starbase Equipment

Do not hand out this role lightly. People with this role can unanchor your POS structures or even the POS tower. They can change the POS force field password, bumping pilots suddenly out of the POS into the arms of waiting enemies.

Allows:

  • Viewing contents of Ship Assembly Arrays.
  • Access to the “Force Field” and “Defense” tabs of the tower management UI.
  • Take from Ship Maintenance Array.
  • See the true capacity in use of Ship Assembly Arrays, but only view/take according to corporate roles for each tab.

Starbase Defense Operator

Allows:

  • Pilot to take active control of POS weaponry.
  • Pilot will receive Notifications if any corporation starbase or starbase structure comes under attack.

Starbase Fuel Technician

Allows:

  • Deposit into Ship Assembly Arrays, but not view contents or capacity used.
  • Deposit into the tower fuel bay, and to view fuel quantities.
  • Deposit into the stront bay, and view stront quantities.
  • View “Structures” and “Processes” tabs of the tower management UI.
  • Take from silos(?).

Setup

  • If you are in Dreddit, you will need the POS Setup title to do this. Ask in the Logistics Discord channel to obtain this title. For everyone else, ask the CEO or a Director.

Required Skills

  • Anchoring 3

Quick Overview

Before setting out to setup a shiny new POS tower, keep in mind the following points:

  • Anchoring and putting a tower online takes a long time. Allow 15+ minutes for a small tower, 30+ minutes for a medium tower and 60+ minutes for a large tower.
  • You will also need a lot of time to anchor modules, especially if you have a complex setup.
  • A corporation that is not a member of an alliance can only anchor a single POS tower per day per system. However, a corporation could anchor multiple POS towers in multiple systems on the same day.

Anchoring the Tower

What to bring

  • Use a Blockade Runner at first. Bring the tower (8000 m3), at least 1 hour (900 m3) of Strontium Clathrate, and fill the rest of your cargohold with Fuel Blocks (min 150 m3 for 1 hour).
    • NOTE: The Prowler is the only Blockade Runner that can not fit this much cargo. It is recommended that you use another racial Blockade Runner. This can be done by any ship witha big enough cargo hold, such as a Hurricane with 7 Cargo Hold Expanders, any racial industrial or even a Nyx if you are so inclined.

How to launch the tower

  • Verify target system and planet-moon location.
  • If there is no station, create a safe spot. Preferably a “deep” safe-spot that is more then 15AU away from any celestial body and not inline between two celestial bodies.
  • Warp to the moon at 100km.
  • Right-click the tower in your cargo hold, choose Launch for Corp.
  • Right-click the tower in space, choose Anchor Stucture. The Control Tower will move to a server determined position at the center of the grid on the moon.
  • Right-click the tower and bookmark its location with a meaningful name. e.g. ABC-12 3-4 (SystemName Planet-Moon).
  • Warp to your safe spot and wait for the anchoring timer to end.
Small Medium Large
7.5 Min 15 Min 30 Min

Initial Fueling

When the timer is up, warp back to the tower's bookmark at 0km. Now you can fuel the tower and put it online. You must be 'within 2500m' of the tower in order to access the fuel/stront bays. (This will uncloak you if you are using a Transport ship)

  • Right-click the tower, 'Access Strontium Bay'
  • Drag and drop the Strontium Clathrates into that bay
  • Right-click the tower, 'Access Fuel Bay'
  • Drag and drop the fuel into that bay
  • Right-click the tower, choose 'Put Online'
  • Warp to your safe spot and wait for the online timer to end.
Small Medium Large
7.5 Min 15 Min 30 Min

Basic Tower Configuration

After the tower has finished going online, and for as long as the fuel holds out, the tower will now have a protective force field bubble around it. At which point you should warp back to the POS tower and finish the initial configuration. Most importantly: 'you must set a password before the shields will keep unwanted visitors outside the bubble'

  • Get on grid with the tower and be within 50km
  • Right-click the tower, choose 'Manage'

General Tab

  • Enter a good, random password (NOT the Alliance default).
  • Check 'Allow corporation member usage'
  • Check 'Allow alliance member usage'
  • Click 'Apply'

Defense Tab

  • Check 'Use alliance standings'
  • Check 'Attack if standing lower than and set the value to '0.1'
  • Check 'Attack if at war'
  • Click 'Apply'

Tower Kit

If you are deploying an Alliance tower, deployments are done with pre-sorted tower kits in the Logistics hangar. If you are doing a personal, PAC or Corp setup this may be different. After the initial tower setup and configuration is done, fill your Rorqual with these modules and as much fuel and stront as possible.

  • 'NOTE:' You can put Stront in the Rorquals Fuel Bay.

Once the Rorqual is loaded, have a cyno lit at least 170km from the tower, or at a friendly station, and jump your Rorqual in. Your Rorqual should have a 100MN warp drive fit. Warp to the tower and pulse the MWD for one cycle to speed up your warp time.

  • Fill the Fuel Bay and Strontium Bay with the fuel you brought.

Anchoring Modules

Once the tower is fueled, online and the shield is up, you can start anchoring modules. But first, keep in mind the following limitations and common mistakes:

  • Only one module can be in the process of “Anchoring” or “Onlining” at a time
  • Batteries (weapons / electronic warfare) must be mounted at a minimum distance outside the POS bubble
  • Arrays should be located inside the POS bubble, at a minimum distance from the tower
  • Anchoring is a two-step process
  • If your ship is moving, the anchoring box will also move

To anchor a module:

  • Right-click it in your cargo hold, 'Launch for Corp'
  • Right-click the item in space and choose 'Anchor Structure'
  • A translucent green box with white arrows will appear
  • Drag the box around with the arrows
  • Right-click on one of the arrows, and choose “Anchor Here”

After anchoring, you can either leave the module offline or you can right-click the module to put it online and active. When moving the green box with the arrows, every “step” is about 960m. Most modules need to be placed a minimum of 1920m away from the nearest module (2 steps).

Anchoring modules (especially lots of them) is one of the most frustrating things. A good tip is to manually place the first two modules (top and side) and then to use the “Look At” function for every subsequent mod. If your POS doesn't look neat and pretty, people will ridicule you.

Once all your batteries are anchored, if they are guns, they will need ammo. This must be done by manually flying out and putting the ammo into each gun.

Each battery has two bays, the active bay and the storage bay. If your gun is offline when you add the ammo, the ammo will appear in the storage bay. As soon as the gun goes online, the ammo will be sucked into the active bay.

You cannot remove ammo from the active bay. Ever.

Moon Miner Setup

If you are setting up a moon miner, Liarali has created a lovely video showing you how to to properly set it up, including how to chain the silos (very important!).


Maintenance

Fueling

One thing, as a POS fuel jockey, which will make your life easier are spreadsheets. Ideally, you should setup a spreadsheet such as the EVE POS Fueling (blank) and use it to track:

  • Fuel costs (by querying EVE-MarketData, EVE-Central or EVEMarketeer)
  • The fuel supply that you have stockpiled.
  • How much per hour the tower currently consumes.
  • The amount of fuel in the tower.

The spreadsheet should also have a feature where, if you tell it how much fuel is in the tower, that it will tell you how many units of each fuel type to take out to the tower to get a balanced fuel load.

You can also check the fuel amount and time left by being at the POS and using the Fuel tab in the POS Management window


Stronting

If your tower gets shot, and you successfully stop it being destroyed after the reinforcement timer, you will need to rep the tower to above 50% shield (or leave it and let it replenish naturally). Once it is above 50% you will need to refill the Strontium bay with the correct amount of stront.

You can check the stront amount and time by being at the POS and using the Fuel tab in the POS Management window.


Ammo

If your tower uses any gun batteries other than lasers, you will periodically need to go and refill the ammo on all the guns.

If your laser batteries use faction crystals, you'll need to replace these occasionally as well.

Tear Down and Mothballs

Eventually, all things must come to an end and it is time to tear down your tower, or move it to a new location, or just go on temporary hiatus.


Tearing down a POS Tower

Taking a tower down is faster then putting it up, but you should still allow a few hours if you have lots of modules anchored. You will need some sort of industrial ship (T1 industrial, T2 transport, orca, etc.) to scoop the modules to your cargo hold. If you are working on scooping up batteries outside the shield which are spread apart, then an afterburner module will be very useful.

  • You must be within 3000m of the module to initiate the offline/unanchor process.
  • You must be within 2500m of the module in order to scoop it to your cargo hold.
  • The tractor beam will not work on unanchored modules.
  • Labs, storage, guns, etc. will have to be emptied of any contents before they can be offlined.
  • In order to unanchor the tower, all modules must be taken offline and unanchored.

Mothball

Sometimes you'll want to save on fuel costs but not entirely abandon your location at the moon. This is done by unanchoring any expensive modules, then taking the tower offline. The POS shield will vanish and everything that was online will go offline. Note that since the tower is now defenseless, you should only mothball towers in hi-sec (or possibly player-controlled null-sec).


Additional Reading

Example POS Setups - Sample setups. You may wish to also reference these informative pages:

Fueling calculators, POS fitting calculators, etc.

eve/player_owned_starbases/pos_setup.txt · Last modified: 2019/05/08 17:05 by Fof