A problem I see it stupid militia fit blueberries eating up clone reinforcements by constantly throwing themselves at the sphere.

I can alredy see the feed:
"daaoaod suicides... x 50"

How are we gonna prevent people from suiciding to make the thing more valuable? I think suicides shouldnt count towards the biomass rewards

I can alredy see the feed:
"daaoaod suicides... x 50"

How are we gonna prevent people from suiciding to make the thing more valuable? I think suicides shouldnt count towards the biomass rewards

On the contrary, I definitely think suiciding in public areas should count toward the biomass value of the harvester. Technically, hacking the harvester is suicide, however leaving the opportunity for players to chose the location and time of death in the context of adding value to harvester only opens up new ways of thinking about the war economy and value of life in the New Eden universe.

When you go into a battle you still have the ability to choose warpoint-centric options which net you additional experience in matches. On the other hand, you have the choice to boost your bank by securing control of biomass harvesters and adding to their value with your own body (Remember: this action of suicide to the harvester does not net warpoints, and in turn faster skill progression). Sometimes the goals associated with these choices overlap and sometimes they don't. The key point is the choice exists. I see novel potential here. Possibility to warp a lot of the conventions of win states we've come to understand in many first person shooters.

Sure it may subvert public contracts and faction warfare making their outcomes far more volatile. However, if you are concerned with the behavior of the other players on your team, go ahead and join or start a corporation that shares your ideals.

This is a good Idea and supports the creativity of the player base but that fifteen percent is a lot , in comparison to how long the game plays out and how many clones have to sacrifice them selves divided by how many clones die. That would be a great deal of a bonus. If they take your ideal and put it to use they just might cut your percentages in half and increase the division , because now not only are the launch pods important , now this becomes of strategic importance , even more so because you get a cut of the gross , so it's like money in the biomass bank so to say. This is a great idea though and I hope CCP looks into this.

Hack time depends on current shield and health strength at the moment a player connects with the harvester. Attaching to the harvester sphere doesn't immediately kill the sacrificing player. What does occur is the sphere deconstructs the player at a constant rate of 60 hp/sec. A player in a deconstruction phase cannot be 'killed' technically by small arms, as such fire only speeds up their deconstruction process. This includes headshots. The only way to prevent a player from successfully changing control of a harvester is to forceably dislodge their husk from the terminal via a one hit kill concussive explosion. This can be done with remote explosives, grenades, and forge guns for example.

You also have to take the clone limit to account. The harvester doesn't grant the limit a stay , if I'm correct , it just recycles the clones. So I can't see people running in droves to sacrifice themselves , because there is still a team limit and if you don't win the game then it doesn't matter. So in introducing this new tec , there must be lessons , so to say so that people won't misunderstand this new tec and what their goals should be in accordance. But with this being said the limit should be increased by ten to compensate for the adjustment. Ten should be enough for a whole game duration.

Right, a suicide harvest hack does lower the clone counter, but that clones value is deposited into the machine. Raising the normal clone counter by a marginal amount for public and faction warfare matches is fine.

An extension to the harvester idea came up that I'd like to run by everyone. What if it was possible to siphon off clone biomass into LAV/Dropship transport container modules? These would be used to refill Biomass levels in CRUs, raising clones counts by very small levels per successful transport.

So how many clones are we talking about for this siphoned transport container business?

I was thinking 4 (small) and 8 (large container) clones per transport.
The powergrid requirement of the large container would relegate it to being used on a logistics based tank for example.

I was thinking 4 (small) and 8 (large container) clones per transport.
The powergrid requirement of the large container would relegate it to being used on a logistics based tank for example.

Would you make the canisters explosive, making them more dangerous to carry? Chalk it up to some way in which the container refrigerant works.

I'm not a fan of that. Also, refrigerants are usually inert gasses. Sure you might get a pressure explosion and a toxic vapor cloud, but no flame.

I like the toxic cloud idea from an damaged canister. It's a temporary area of denial after effect.

Snip.

That makes sense. I guess I glossed over the whole logic behind the extraction of harvesters when hammering out these other details.

In terms of lore, the biomass could be transported instantly once collected via localized wormholes to the MCC or a space platform.

As cool as this sounds, I don't think it makes sense. Why does this machine arbitrarily decide to payout after one team has retreated/been killed off? Wouldn't the surviving team "rehack" it after the enemies have been defeated and thus collect the end match reward?

I think it would make more sense if it gave the controlling team the ISK as it collected each body. In other words, the machine collected the remains as they appeared and was wired to give the controlling team a "recycling refund" and hacking it would be changing where the money was being routed to.

I don't think it's entirely realistic to have recycled cloned refuned in real time. Instead, I think it would work better if clones are sent to the MCC as the are much closer to the battlefield for short range uplink tethers to 'feasibly' work. Here on the MCC they exist a bonus isk bank that is rewarded to the victor because they did not lose their ship.

But the biomass can't be sent to the MCC. Or at least not if tankers are going to be able to run biomass from the harvester to the CRUs.

Also, it's realistic for there to be an instant refund because the machine is paying you for what the biomass will be worth. I think of the harvester as a recycling center for the workers who are normally at the areas we fight at. Considering that, think of how real world recycling works. If I take a bag of glass bottles to a recycling center, they pay me for the bottles then and there. They then take those bottles and recycle it later.

Normally biomass will be transported to the MCC, however when a vehicle or foot solider is in range with the correct transport module the Harvester's protocols change and divert incomming biomass to that player.
The harvester does not hold reverse biomass, so a player must wait near the harvester while soliders are dying within its range.

Normally biomass will be transported to the MCC, however when a vehicle or foot solider is in range with the correct transport module the Harvester's protocols change and divert incomming biomass to that player.
The harvester does not hold reverse biomass, so a player must wait near the harvester while soliders are dying within its range.

TL:DR Battle Paradigm

Do you risk a lowered defense of the null canons in order to protect harvesters which add high potential isk cargo to your MCC, or do you defend the null canons in order to protect the MCC and the biomass profits on-board?