User:Erwin Madelung/Sandbox2

Cynosural Fields

Cynosure (pronounced like "sigh no sure") is a little-used word. It means a guide, or a person or thing that draws attention towards itself. It was once the name of the North Star, making it a very appropriate name to give to the cynosural fields of New Eden.

Ships with a jump drive can only jump to cynosural fields or beacons. Cynosural fields are generated by the ship module Cynosural Field Generator. Cynosural fields and their generators are colloquially abbreviated as cyno. A cynosural field can be seen on the overview from any place in the system and is "warpable". Cynosural beacons are provided by the navigational structure Pharolux Cyno Beacon (colloquially simply called beacon or cyno beacon).

In order to jump, a jump drive must first lock onto a cynosural field, or "cyno", at its destination. These fields can be produced either by the Cynosural Field Generator modules, or the Cynosural Generator Array, which can be anchored at a POS. The module can only generate a cynosural field in systems with a security of 0.4 or below (low-sec or null-sec), and the array can only be anchored in sovereign nullsec. It is also impossible to produce a cynosural field in wormhole space.

The Field Generator module requires the  Cynosural Field Theory skill to operate. For a ship to activate the module, it must have 500 units (200 m³) of liquid ozone in its cargohold, which is consumed when the module is activated. The amount of fuel required to "light a cyno" is reduced by 10% for every level of  Cynosural Field Theory the user has. The cynosural field stays active for 10 minutes, during which time the ship generating the field is unable to move, dock, or eject its pilot. (Other systems still work as normal.) It's dangerous enough to be immobile in lowsec, but it gets worse: when the cyno is active, it appears on the system overview, so that anybody in the system can warp to its location. It also appears on the universe map. As a result, most ships that light a cyno are expendable frigates. The Tech 2 Force Recon cruisers get an 80% reduction to the cost of lighting a cyno, and are only rendered immobile for 5 minutes, but they're expensive ships for lighting a cyno.

The cynosural field generated by the Cynosural Generator Array is always active. The array must be anchored at a starbase by a member of the alliance that has claimed sovereignty over the system, and has also installed the Cynosural Navigation upgrade.

Once the cyno is lit, a capital ship in the same fleet as the ship lighting it (or in the same alliance, in the case of the array) can right-click on the pilot lighting the cyno and select "Jump" to jump to the field.