What is this « sovereignty » thing?

Alliances can claim sovereignty over solar systems, which provides them with protection for Outposts located within them. In turn, having sovereignty over a system enables alliances to build up and improve the infrastructure within the system with the usage of Infrastructure Hubs.

Player alliances can claim sovereignty over systems in 0.0 space which are not claimed by any entity yet, or they can contest another alliance‘s sovereignty claim. It is not possible to contest an NPC entities sovereignty claim over a system, be it in Empire space or in 0.0 space.

The Sovereignty Lifecycle.

A system begins as unclaimed and neutral. At this point, any alliance may drop a Territorial Claim Unit (TCU) in the system to claim sovereignty. After five minutes, the TCU is anchored and will take 8 hours to online. The controlling corp’s CEO receives a bill to pay for the TCU, which they must pay now, or in 8 hours the TCU will simply remain offline.

A Territorial Claim Unit

Sovereignty on its own is mostly meaningless until the system has an Infrastructure Hub (IHub); this is where the system begins to get interesting, as the controlling alliance can install upgrades based on how long they’ve controlled the system, or how frequently it’s used for ratting or mining. The Ihub takes an hour to anchor and another hour to online. Once online, the IHub renders the TCU invulnerable.

Eventually, the system offers something that a hostile alliance wants, and that they’re willing to take by force. They jump in their fleet while protecting haulers who they have anchor some Sovereignty Blockade Unit (SBUs) at 51% of the gates in the system. Three hours later, the infrastructure hub becomes vulnerable, but so is the SBU; the attackers are organized and quickly reinforce the IHub. The Ihub will go into reinforced when its shield, and a second time, armor, have been put down to 25%. There is no reinforced mode for structure.

The TCU remains invulnerable, but the iHub is now reinforced. For the next two days, it cannot be attacked, while the SBU anchored by the attackers is made invulnerable, at least until the iHub is out of reinforced. At this point, the defenders can eliminate the SBUs and secure their space once again, but if the attackers are successful, they will reinforce the IHub a second time.

Artwork showing an Infrastructure Hub in space.

Stations (Outpost) provide the same protection to the TCU as IHubs do: TCUs are invulnerable until the attackers have anchored SBUs and claimed the station.

Reinforcement timers are different for the iHub and the Station; the IHub has two configurable 24 hour timers and the station offers two configurable 48 hour timers (these values are not absolute, as there is a two hour deviation enforced by CCP). If both structures are present, but only one has been reinforced, the attacker’s SBUs will remain vulnerable.

Finally, the iHub (and the station if there is one in the system) falls, rendering the TCU vulnerable. The defenders still have the option of eliminating the SBUs, but if they fail, the TCU will fall, and the attackers will be able to anchor their own TCU. At this point, if they’re quick enough, they can drop an IHub and reap the Military and Industrial indices that the defenders had built up, however the sovereignty index will be reset.

Missed Bills, aka « another way to lose your sovs ».

A quick way to lose a lot of sovereignty is to rely on the automatic bill payment option and not having someone active who can monitor it. If a sovereignty bill is missed, then sovereignty is immediately dropped in all affected systems. This does not make a difference in cases where the total stored in all wallets could pay the bill; it must be in the correct wallet division.

Some words about the impact of an IHub.

Development Indices

There are three development indices: the Strategic index, the Military index, and the Industrial index. Each of these are divided into five tiers and increase based on different criteria. Higher levels of each index enable the controller to install different upgrades into an infrastructure hub in that system.

If there is no infrastructure hub in a given system, the indices will continue to rise and fall, however their progression details won’t be available and no bonuses will be applied.

Strategic Index

The Strategic Index is the duration that an alliance has held sovereignty. Sovereignty Index levels increase based on the duration that the system has been held.

Level 1 = Sovereignty held for 7 days.

Level 2 = Sovereignty held for 21 days.

Level 3 = Sovereignty held for 35 days.

Level 4 = Sovereignty held for 65 days.

Level 5 = Sovereignty held for 100 days.

The strategic index will allow the holding alliance to install structure like Jumpbridges or Capital Ship Assembly Array if the upgrade is added to the system’s IHUB.

Military Index

Systems with a high ratting population will see an increase to their military index. If ratting in a given system ceases, this index will go into decline. The military index determines what kind of military upgrades can be added to the system’s IHub.

Industrial Index

Mining affects this index. Reduced mining in a given system will cause this index to decline. The industrial index determines what kind of industrial upgrades can be added to the system’s IHub.

Source : http://wiki.goonfleet.com / http://wiki.eveonline.com