Yagihige
Crux Special Tasks Group
Gallente Federation
698
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Posted - 2014.03.30 19:24:00 -
[1] - Quote
We currently have Public Contracts in hisec space, Factional Contracts in FW and Corp Contracts in Molden Heath lowsec space.
I envision a new kind of contracts, Local Contracts.
So, for this to happen i would expect two things to be added to Dust: Travel and P2P Market. How they are implemented is irrelevant to this idea, they just need to exist.
Anyway, Local Contracts would be battles that occur only with/against players in the same system/constellation/region. The actual extent to which these battles extend is up to CCP. I personally would make it happen with players within the same constellation but this depends on numbers and could even be with players within the same system, keeping it very specific or within region making it a little bit more usual.
Next, we'd need conditions for these battles to happen. A logical one would be that at the time you wish to start a local contract, the local constellation has more than 32 players inhabiting it. The game could check other requisites that would stop players to fix battles, for instance if it had 40 inhabitants but 24 of them belonged to the same corp/alliance, no local contract would be initiated. Another requisite would be all-time SP. In hisec it could allow newish players to take part but in low or nullsec you'd need to have a certain amount of SP to be able to participate.
Now we need to know what these contracts would be good for. So, if we were to have the P2P Market implemented, fighting in these battles would benefit you in terms of which items you are allowed to buy from that market or how much % you have to pay in fees. I call this market affinity or market standings.
So, let's say you are in your original home in Dust. It's a hisec system and you have access to the NPC market just the same as we have right now. Being a system where players are deployed when created, it has more than enough players for these battles to happen most of the time. You don't have access to the P2P market since your market standings is at 0.
If you fight in these battles, when you win your reward is the usual ISK payout and a little increase in market standings. This would make it depart even more from Pubs where you earn ISK and SP and from FW where you earn LP and SP. So Local contracts, you get no SP, just ISK and Affinity. Anyway, you win battles, you get more benefit from the P2P market. Seems simple enough.
But let's say you decide to venture off to another place in the universe besides your original place, to either lowsec or nullsec. NPC market could become more limited in lowsec and pretty much inexistent in nullsec. When you first get there you have the lowest market standings possible. Each day you login in that location you get a minimal increase in standings. This is so you don't have to orchestrate battles on purpose. However, I'd institute a restriction to the number of people that get this benefit. I'd envision that when travel opens up, each place has a limit of licenses that you can buy to get access to the P2P market. Above that limit, people would need to win local contracts to increase standings. Likewise, losing local contracts would decrease your standings and if depleted, you'd be expelled and immediately taken back to the location from where you traveled to get there.
This expulsion would happen in nullsec and also in lowsec but with more tolerance for lowsec. In hisec, you could travel freely but your standings could still get depleted and close your access to the P2P market.
I imagine this having some interesting outcomes, with corps moving together to specific locations, setting up shop and defending against newcomers that try to gain access to that market too.
Travel would cost money so you'd need to think through where you'd go to. You could get there and not engage in combat but you'd have no access to market. You could just roam hisec in search of better prices and have more laid back battles or venture to nullsec, where, if EVE pilots finally could start manufacturing Dust items, you'd have a lot of offer at better prices. EVE pilots in control of those places would want us to travel there to buy the items manufactured by them.
Of course there would be a lot of things to iron out but i think something like this would be a great advancement in connecting Dust with EVE.
em ta kool t'nod
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