You just need to designate starting locations where you are allowed to launch Clone Packs from. I would suggest that these starting points should either be your own district, or if you donGÇÖt own a district, then they should start from a high Sec system.

Planetary Conquest was supposed to be like the board game Risk. Then the restrictions on clone starter packs were removed. This allowed anyone to attack any district in the game regardless of location. It made location meaningless. Think of it as a chess game where any pease whether a Pawn or a Queen can be moved to any square on the chess board in one move. It ceases to be much of a game anymore.

So Planetary Conquest was supposed to be a tactical game at high levels, where each move resulted in a FPS battle. However, the high level tactical game has been removed.

The changes mentioned in this Blog, which reduce the travel penalty on moving clones, simply makes the problem worse. The problem is that with the clone packs you can attack anywhere, so anyone wanting to attack a distant target will obviously use a clone pack. The solution is to restrict the clone packs, not to remove restrictions on the district clones!

I still think the best solution is to go back to the original movement restrictions and simply apply them to the Clone Packs as well. You just need to designate starting locations where you are allowed to launch Clone Packs from. I would suggest that these starting points should either be your own district, or if you donGÇÖt own a district, then they should start from a high Sec system.

Whatever solution you go with, it has to give location meaning and tactical significance or PC will continue to feel like a fight over who can hole the most marbles rather than a conquest of territory.

How about adding the ability to start from a district you don't own so long as the district's owner gives permission? Then district owners can offer advantageous starting points for a price.

The best solution i believe is to have eve pilots owning the districts and building surface infrastructure, timers relative to how long jumps from one district to another take even if its a mere 1 jump away, tough sht welcome to new Eden.

This would mean we would be mercs, eve pilots hand dust corps contracts to attack or defend and it would be great to gain standings with eve corps as well.

I know many wouldn't like this but it would connect the games better and bring way more meta, why the fk are merc corps starting 'transtellar empires' or owning land in the first place?

Yes, that is a fundamental question. Do DUST players want to be more than just mercs? Do DUST players want to be able to build empires? Or are they satisfied with just fighting in other peopleGÇÖs wars.

Even if DUST players have the ability to build empires, there are still plenty of ways the game cane be setup to make being a mercenary viable. Many Corps bring in ringers now, but it is a bit tricky to set that up. It would be nice if there were some game mechanics which made hiring ringers (true mercenaries) easier. Such as being able to setup defence contracts with victory bonus and clone lose penalties. Have the contract only be available to Corporations with a positive standing to your Corp, and have the ability to set standing so you can just give standing to Corps you consider reputable. Make sure that members of the contracted Corp who have Terrestrial Combat Officer role are able to enter the contracted battle, so your own CorpGÇÖs management does not have to get directly involved.

Mercenary Corps with a good reputation would have access to a lot of contracts and could make good ISK. Mercenary Corps that double-cross their employers would lose standing and have trouble getting access to any contracts.

The timers are there in EVE too. They insure that the fights happen in a time when the defenders can muster and defend the district. Without them, how would a German Corp be able to defend against a Californian Corp? How would the Californian Corp prevent the German Corp from taking the district back when their prime time rolled around again. The timers also give the defending Corp time or organized to insure they have enough players online. Without the timers most battles in PC would be 16 v 5 on a good day. The timers insure that fights happen. There is nothing carebear about that. Without the timers, districts would be taken without any fighting most of the time. Only mega Corps with a world wide membership and around 2000 members would be able to hold districts consistently.

I agree that we need more DUST/EVE interaction, and I agree that EVE Planetary interaction should be integrated into the EVE/DUST relationship.

I donGÇÖt agree that only EVE pilots should be able to own territory. EVE pilots already have Sovereignty, the ability to clam entire solar systems. EVE pilots can control space. Let DUST players claim land on planets. If an EVE pilot wants to setup a factory on a planetGÇÖs surface for planetary interaction, they should have to contract a DUST Corp to defend it. But that should not replace Planetary Conquest. It should be a separate system of conquest.

The Corp which owns a district should be able to charge a tax on any EVE Planetary Interaction facilities operating in their district. The owner of a district should furthermore be able to initiate an attack on EVE Planetary Interaction facilities in their district if the owner has negative standing with the district owner.

I have done Planetary Interaction in EVE. I have blown up Planetary Operations Customs Offices (POCOGÇÖs) and spent considerable amounts of ISK to replace them, in order to avoid a 10% tax. I would definitely have paid for a Merc contract if I had been threatened with taxes on the ground. I would also be motivated to support friendly Corps, or DUST mercs from my own Corp, to maintain ownership of the district my PI was setup in.

If you are going to have EVE pilots move clones between planets, then you need to restrict it to a vulnerable ship type, such as the War Barge, that does not move all that fast and is easy to catch if not defended. If you could move clones in a cloaked ship, then distance would be as meaningless as it is now. I also think that gaining a beachhead on a planet should be a challenge, and that it should be a lot easier to attack another district on the same planet than it is to attack districts on another planet.

Anywhere first district attack.

If a corp has zero districts on a planet, it can attack anywhere.

Then they can only attack adjacent districts. If a corp has one District on a planet, it can only attack adjacent planets/systems.

Boom.

Seems sensible to me.

In the future, an EVE pilot will need to transport clones in a warbarge to each district for PC battles. Happy?

EDIT: While enroute, the warbarge (and clones) will be destroyable by other EVE players. Once in orbit, the warbarge will then be able to be destroyed by planetary artillery. Checkmate

Should allocate planets where clone packs are purchased from, perhaps protected by CONCORD and Genolution. Then once a corporation purchases a pack from this planet they pay for transportation and clone attrition depending on where they want to attack. So basically these planets become a staging point for attacks for any corporation willing to pay the costs, instead of having clones spawning out of thin air to attack any district anywhere in Molden Heath.

Then when PC is expanded beyond Molden Heath, introduce these clone pack planets in the new systems but have much less of them, encouraging players to have to capture one district then expand slowly using district clones.