Again, if you actually win your fights you can recoup the costs of clone packs much more quickly than previously. After speaking with a few people I do see that the adjustment of being forced to kill every clone in battle may need to not happen in this pass.

Some numbers:

3x Clone Packs at 45m = 135m upfront cost

ISK paid out destroying 450 clones on a hub = 90m + ISK from clones lost while attacking (avg 80 attacker clones x 3 x 200k) = 183m ISK

Potentially profit after just taking one hub = 48m ISK

The ironic thing is the worse your KDR while still winning your fights the more likely a corp will turn a profit breaking into PC.

3x Clone Packs at 36m = 108m upfront cost

ISK paid out destroying 450 clones on a hub = 45m + ISK from clones lost while attacking (avg 80 attacker clones x 3 x 100k) = 69m ISK

Potential profit after just taking one hub = -39m ISK

Days to wait until hub is full = 450 total - 70 remaining from attack / 80 = 5 days

Days of full clones without launching attacks needed to make profit for passive generation = 39m Cost / 8.8m ISK in clones sales per day = 5 days

That's 10 days you have to hold the district in order to turn a profit in addition to winning the initial matches.

The math looks great for a corp already in PC but for corps that are not.. its pretty much impossible to get in...

That is a short term solution to appease idealists who haven't thought anything through.

Say I defeat everybody in PC and take 100%. I'm so good in fact that my team manages to completely de-moralize every last team in PC into refusing to fight.

So now I'm sitting on an empire that generates no income.

What kind of a stupid system is that and why did we even bother taking land if it does nothing? Never mind the economical pointlessness of the concept, it'd just be bad game design. Win everything and get nothing. Great idea.

The only reason you would remove passive income is to appease bad players who never belonged in PC in the first place. Bad players losing in a territory war is a normal thing, it's supposed to happen. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That's what a slippery slope is and it's working exactly how it needs to.

I've grinded all the isk I've earned and I would throw any amount away just to see those rich, mechanic abusing people lose it all. See how they protostomp then when they have to worry about isk like everyone else.

We must appease the carebears it must be done.

Snappy quick answer:

How long does it take a single player to earn 9 million (the price difference in clone pack) by grinding pubs using BPO gear? Are you really trying to make the case that corps suddenly have to spend months longer to get into PC? Give me a break.

Longer serious bizness answer:

How are corps (that are not in PC already) making the money for clone packs today? How has any corp ever made the isk needed to buy a clone pack before they actually had districts to print isk for them?

Remember, PC is high level content, and it should take some level of effort and time to prepare a corp to compete and enter Molden Heath to begin with. The fact that there's time and effort involved in ramping up towards PC (both financially and in troop training) isn't really a problem. Before I was in Onslaught I was a member of D3LTA FORC3, one of many corps early in the game's history that made a pointed effort to save isk because we knew PC was a personal goal for the corp. Charismatic leaders with a goal for the corp to work towards don't have any problem finding that isk.

Besides, the per-clone cost isn't being raised at all here, corps are just buying more clones at a time (giving them a greater margin in battle to win the initial attack with). We're really only talking about a 20% greater investment to buy a clone pack after all.

In terms of taxation - that means the difference between a 5% tax and a 6% tax. Or raising a 10% tax to 12%. This is quite reasonable to ask especially if it means the corp is able to provide content previously unavailable to its members. I'm confident that many corps will find the difference between participating in PC or not worthy of this slight additional investment.

Also - tax is hardly the only way to raise funds. 9 million isk today is fairly trivial and could easily be found by even a handful of small donations from individuals from within the corp. Again, corp leadership confident in their ability to win an attack and enter MH may even front this initially themselves, if it means greater income once the corp is in MH and fighting other corps regularly. I think you're dramatically underestimating the myriad ways that players can work around a clone pack cost bump to achieve their goals.

Ummm.... what happens when you send a clone pack and people no show.
If your enforcing kills for ISK, less prepared corps have more incentive to avoid getting smashed while costing the attacker to lose money and any chance at earning biomass payment.

"Oh but you get that juicy district."

Corps will not have incentive to hold any more districts than the amount of battles they want to have daily.
This adds to the incentive of no-showing when you don't want that many districts.
There are already too many no shows. =*(

I somehow got the impression that CCP thinks that there is too much ISK in the system. And when there is too much ISK then the AUR sales drop down. So the logical reaction is to eliminate the only passive income source. I wouldnt be surprised if the cost for equipment would increase soon.

So now that all the little guys are in PC to be able to gain ISK by farming

It gets nullified

While veteran corps that have been farming forever (NS, AE, ERA etc.) Stay with 50 billion ISK+ without having to no longer fight

And clone packs increased to 45 million ISK a pack

So cargo hubs would theoretically take 135 million ISK to take (If you win every battle)

And the only people with that kind of ISK are corps that have been farming forever (NS, AE, ERA, etc.)

CCP Logic

Some numbers:
3x Clone Packs at 45m = 135m upfront cost
ISK paid out destroying 450 clones on a hub = 90m + ISK from clones lost while attacking (avg 80 attacker clones x 3 x 200k) = 183m ISK
Potentially profit after just taking one hub = 48m ISK

If you attack with a district then you would weaken the district you attack from and open it to attack. Also, if you think friendlies can organize self attacking over 100 districts every night, fill those matches, and extract ISK more power to them.

Its not like pubs have any continuity of isk either.

This also doesnt include the losses incurred in the use of any decent gear. Being profitable with a clone pack will require a top PC corp smashing some small corp that doesn't have the skill to compete.

Which might seem fine on its own but the barrier to entry for any new corp is far too high. Completely active ISK with such a substantial price on clone packs means you pretty much cannot compete without districts... similar to how it is now.

The math looks great for a corp already in PC but for corps that are not.. its pretty much impossible to get in...

Even if you limit a corp to a single clone pack attack per day or something. There has gotta be a better way to lower the barrier to entry for corps without districts.

In your math you are forgetting the average cost of 200k per dropsuit lost. 600k for each tank lost 800k for each ADS lost. NTM you r number are all wrong most likely you not going to actually kill 450 clones. They will lose 150 for each attack, but you only get paid for clones that get killed. Clone pack attacks are total ISK loss anyway you look at it.
I really don't have an issue with the clone pack changes. The problem is how unprofitable normal district to district attacks will be.

o7

Let me put forth an idea in the form of a story. I'm a vase store owner. I've got 5 in town (don't ask why people need so many vases). Jim opens up a shop next door to one of mine. I don't like this. Not one bit. I decide to go to war. I invite a few of my best friends over and we start throwing vases at Jim. He throws some of his back. End of the day hits and Jim and his cronies are out cold. Lots of vases are lying broken on the ground, our inventory is down at the Main Street shop, and we now own his shop. The broken vases are near worthless, they can be sold to crafters for pennies on the dollar. All the fully intact vases can still be sold to Genolution...I mean customers, if we choose. Another shipment of vases comes tomorrow to every shop, so we transfer some from the Oak Street branch to the Main Street branch (so we have more to throw if Jim comes back), leaving Oak with some space. Max shipment is 80, total space available is 400. We may sell as many as we like each day, taking away from the 400 cap, leaving us more vulnerable if we sell more ammo to make more money. Or we can sell none, keeping ourselves fully stocked. Meaning every day you must make a choice, how many vases do I think I can sell and still win a fight with Jim.

I'm not saying all of this to come off as a sarcastic jackass. I just feel like getting paid based on unkilled clones/unbroken vases that you sell manually makes more sense than getting paid for the remains, which should be near worthless. Also, with this system it would encourage people to win with the least deaths on both sides. I'd like to hear thoughts thrown around about whether or not this would potentially work for a PC system.

EDIT: What if active payout for the winner was something like:
(Number of clones remaining from pack) (individual Clone Cost) + (Number of clones destroyed in battle) (1/10) (Clone Value).
Just an idea.

Argetlam, I am afraid that you are guilty of excessively torturing a metaphor.

Corps without land get a free clone pack every X amount of days, to do with as they wish.

All those ideas can and would be gamed by shell corps. The foundation is even already set up via all the locking corps that were created back in the days of locking for profit.

Or maybe they did this to enable player generated content, because that drive moneyspending more than removing the ISK fountain. Get rid of your tinfoil hat sir.

The damage has already been done. It is irreversible, without having a complete asset wipe.
Only exception should be to the aurum/officer items, and blueprints.

All isk based items, should be be completely reset. All of them. That is the only way the proposed changes would bring balance to all.