Upgrading and Upkeep of Sovereign Solar Systems in Dominion

This blog will provide an overview and details on two parts of the new sovereignty system in Dominion.  The upgrade system which unlocks resources or the ability to anchor strategic structures and the upkeep system which is the fortnightly bill your corporation will need to pay for each solar system you are managing on behalf of your alliance. 

The Upkeep System

The Upkeep system is the fortnightly (14 days) sovereignty bill each corporation will receive for every solar system they are managing and replaces the role of starbase fuel costs in our new sovereignty system.  The base cost is currently 20 million ISK a day and mirrors the approximate current daily operational fuel cost of five starbases fuel cost.  On top of this base fee is an additional fee for the infrastructure hub and any strategic upgrade (the upgrades which allow you to anchor the current or future sovereignty limited structures).

This boils down to the table below when projecting your future bills:

Current Summary Upkeep Costs per Solar System

These values including the names are very much open to further changes!

When is upkeep paid?

You must pay your first bill whilst the Territorial Claim Unit structure is being brought online.  If the first bill is not paid during this period, the Territorial Claim Unit will not come online.  You will then need to pay for each solar system every 14 days after that which will be listed as the 'sovereignty bill' for each solar system in your corporation wallet.

What happens if we do not pay our sovereignty bills on time?

Your Territorial Claim Unit structure and Infrastructure Hub will go offline and therefore all your upgrades as you will effectively have lost sovereignty.  It should be noted that assembly array jobs will pause, not cancel, if the starbase or capital ship assembly array goes offline now and any sovereignty dependant structures will similarly go offline like cynosural jammers and the like.

A note on the automatic payment of bills improvement! 

Many of you are aware of this addition on Singularity but to draw attention to this enhancement to the rest of you since it is appropriate we mention it whilst talking about bills.  It will be possible with Dominion to have your regular rental bills of various sorts (office rental, alliance maintenance, sovereignty bills, war bills etc) automatically paid if you choose.  This is setup in your corporation wallet > Bills tab.  There you will see two new tabs: Automatically Paid and Automatic Pay Settings. In the latter tab, you can select which bills you would like to be automatically paid and for all bills which wallet division you would like it paid from. 

Any current or future bills which you have setup to be automatically paid will then appear in the Automatically Paid tab as opposed to the regular Payable tab you are used to.  In there you can see which are queued for payment and opt to manually pay them anyway if you desire. 

The new system will try to pay the bill two days before the due date and then every four hours after this point.  A notification mail will be sent to the accountants in the corp that you do not have the funds available to make payment with each failed payment attempt so that you have a chance to transfer money between divisions for example in time.

Figure 1: Screenshot of the new corporation wallet tabs for autopayment

Upgrading your space!

If you have an infrastructure hub online in your solar system, you have the potential to install new infrastructure upgrades for that system.  The upgrade interface is accessed through the context menu of the infrastructure hub when in range.  There you will see a window detailing all the possible upgrades there are - the ones you have unlocked and can install if you so choose, the upgrades you have already installed and the upgrades you have not unlocked yet.

Installing the upgrades is easy, if it is unlocked, you can install it by being a station manager and dropping the upgrade from your cargo onto the upgrade in the menu as directed.  You will get a classic "are you sure" confirmation and then it will be installed.  If the upgrade is online, then it is providing the appropriate effects.  If the installed upgrade is offline for whatever reason then it will have a red offline indicator.

Figure 2: Screenshot of the Infrastructure Hub Management window showing where you can monitor and install upgrades to your solar system

Three flavours of upgrades!

There are three types of upgrade linked to the index which forms the biggest part of their pre-requisites to unlock them:

 - Strategic - allow the anchoring and onlining of the current and any future sovereignty dependant structures like jump bridges and cyno jammers

 - Military - allow your systems to have additional anomalies and other exploration dungeons within your space such as encounters and complexes and wormholes

 - Industry - allow your systems to have additional hidden asteroid belts and mini-profession sites

The three development indices!

You can see in the sovereignty dashboard and infrastructure hub that the three indices all have five levels.  The pre-requisites to installing any upgrade require that you have some level in one of these indices much like how the skill system works. 

Sovereignty Index

The sovereignty index is one you should all be familiar with which is identical to the current sovereignty level system you have now and is based on days you have held sovereignty for according to the following scheme

Lvl 1 = sov held for 7 days

Lvl 2 = sov held for 21 days

Lvl 3 = sov held for 35 days

Lvl 4 = sov held for 65 days

Lvl 5 = sov held for 100 days

The levels at which each strategic upgrade is unlocked is the same as the current sovereignty level limited structures.

Activity Indexes

The industry and military indices are activity based, where the level you reach and the rate you reach it at are based upon maintaining a certain activity level within your solar system.  It does not matter who performs the activities in your space though we do show in the sovereignty dashboard who the top contributors are.  These index levels are required for the Military and Industrial upgrades so if you are looking to increase the resource levels within your solar system then you need to be performing the related activity to begin with.

If your activity rate decreases or stops then the activity indices may decay to the point where some of your upgrades may go offline as you no longer meet the prerequisite activity level. In that case you will find fewer resources in your space but if you are consequently not utilising the existing resources anyway due to whatever reason, this may not be a bad thing.

Industrial Index

The industrial index is based upon two activities taking place within your solar system.  These are mining and mini-professions are based around the volume of ore mined and the successful use of hacking or archaeology modules within your space.

Military Index

The military index is based upon killing NPCs, a favourite past time of many of you and you get more points, the bigger the NPC is.  Simple and straightforward!

The Benefits of Resource Upgrades

Note the names for the upgrades are not final!

Pirate Magnets - add two additional guaranteed anomalies per level to your solar system

Ore Prospecting Array - adds one additional guaranteed hidden asteroid site per level to your solar system

Entrapment - increase the chance significantly of a DED complex being located in the depths of your solar system

Survey Networks - increase the chance significantly of mini-profession sites being located within your solar system

Quantum Flux Generator - increase the chance significantly of a wormhole being discovered within your solar system to w-space.

The Costs of Resource Upgrades

Resource upgrades cost a relatively small amount of ISK (we are looking at a range of 50-500 million ISK) to purchase and require a certain existing appropriate activity level.  The last and important cost is the effort to utilise the resource once it is unlocked and that is up to you to match the resource levels to your required solar system activity levels and how concentrated you want your space to be.

In Closing

With Dominion, you will have the power to improve your space as you choose and gain increasing power over these choices. In the future we are looking to add more upgrades as new content is developed and to create even more options and paths to upgrade your system along. 

As with anything in development, the final figures may change before release to Tranquillity.  Your feedback and questions are welcome as always.

Ave - Chronotis