I like the idea, but I think it is out of scope of what is possible to implement at this time. In a perfect world I would like to have it implemented the way you suggest, but there are limits to what we can expect right now.

I like this idea too and it perfectly describes a part of what selecting a district for an attack should be. Corp CEOs and directors would arrange an attack through the starmap like usual. The only difference is that instead of selecting icons representing districts, an actual district on the planet itself would be highlighted. But you may be right though. It would be a while before this is possible.

Great stuff fox, I particularly like the three stage fight for districts.

Only problem I see in the whole proposal is the no timer for raids. This could leave small corps at a disadvantage if another corp simply raided their district repeatedly while no one was on and claimed all their clones.

Simple fixes for this would be to exclude the option for a simple raid. In other words when you win a raid it would force a timer for the second phase as opposed to letting the squad leader simply claim the remaining clones from the defender or having raid timers which would enable battles for 3 hours a day.

I'd love to see a hex map for districts and a way for districts linked together to provide bonuses. You really don't get any sense of these being places on a planet with the way districts are now.

There needs to be at least a 24 hour heads-up before a PC. I know it's sandbox, and as far as EVE goes, almost anything is allowed, but what would completely kill PC for a lot of corps would be the ability to launch a battle that starts in 5 min. If a corp has 5 people and maybe 4 more in a chat, and the attacking corp already has 16 ready to go, then it'll get really bad for those 9 people if they try to defend, and Dust will leave them feeling really sour that they're not in their corp's prime time.

If the game was as big as Planetside 2, then that would work because there would always be a ton of people on. But with 16 v 16 and timed battles, a 5 minute launcher just isn't right. We need at least the 24 hour heads-up.

Great stuff fox, I particularly like the three stage fight for districts.

Only problem I see in the whole proposal is the no timer for raids. This could leave small corps at a disadvantage if another corp simply raided their district repeatedly while no one was on and claimed all their clones.

Simple fixes for this would be to exclude the option for a simple raid. In other words when you win a raid it would force a timer for the second phase as opposed to letting the squad leader simply claim the remaining clones from the defender or having raid timers which would enable battles for 3 hours a day.

Then recruit. The raids should be persistent. I think it would provide big corps that used numbers and smaller more elite corps that rely on near perfection.

I finally settled on how to deal with District Timers. #8
I rewrote the Multi Stage Approach to taking Districts to cover Player Owned MCCGÇÖs. #4

The economic reason behind owning districts in the first place still needs to be ironed out. My proposal makes clones a means to an end, rather than the end in and of themselves, so we need another component.
- I think Factories and Shipyards are a good start though.

I liked everything here!

This is the one thing that will keep Dust fresh without tons of dev work, fixing the ability for the players to change the landscape through group participation.

Something to consider - I also think that CCP (CPMs or Devs) need to give themselves a little bit of the hand of god approach from time to time. If things are not balanced then maybe they need to give themselves some beastly suits and go raid a few districts quick from the biggest corps. Pull some balancing acts in that way. Call themselves like outring raiders or something which shows up when you offend them too much. Don't be immortal, just tough to kill and become the intergalactic big bad.
A similar though is to pay some mercs in gear to do your bidding this way but make it so they can only use the gear in theaters you have pre-ordained.

The system will get gamed by some corps and alts, so be prepared to have the all mighty gods of war offended and shake things up. Maybe reward someone for being the betrayer in a high corp and reward strictly them. This is why the game masters of D&D used to exist.

I finally settled on how to deal with District Timers. #8
I rewrote the Multi Stage Approach to taking Districts to cover Player Owned MCCGÇÖs. #4

The economic reason behind owning districts in the first place still needs to be ironed out. My proposal makes clones a means to an end, rather than the end in and of themselves, so we need another component.
- I think Factories and Shipyards are a good start though.

I finally settled on how to deal with District Timers. #8
I rewrote the Multi Stage Approach to taking Districts to cover Player Owned MCCGÇÖs. #4

The economic reason behind owning districts in the first place still needs to be ironed out. My proposal makes clones a means to an end, rather than the end in and of themselves, so we need another component.
- I think Factories and Shipyards are a good start though.

Just a minor thing: You have Production Facility twice in your Districts post. Was that intended?

EDIT: Also, great work by the way! I'm loving all of this.

Good catch. The first time I was thinking of the Production Facilities we have in PC now. On the second one I was thinking of the Caldari Production Facility socket. I changed the second one to "Fabrication Plant".

Stuff

Not really been involved in PC but enjoyed the read.

With the Raids is there a possibility that they could be tied into the mercenary aspect of the game? i.e the attackers initiate the raid and the defenders are unprepared for it without enough members online to mount a defence.

If a high enough ranking member of the defenders corporation is online they can put out a general call for mercenaries currently online whom they have to pay x amount, either negotiated on a per individual basis or based on stats etc to join the defence team for that raid only.

It means that they'd be able to field a full team, at an additional cost, BUT also adds in the risk of either a) getting a bullet sponge such as myself or maybe even a ringer that will sabotage the defences from within....... maybe because the attackers offered them more or maybe striking lucky and temporarily recruiting the clone that turns the tide.

Would be a way to get other people involved and introduced to PC matches, possibly help with recruitment if you find a good un.

Again though not sure if this is workable, viable or what is and isn't possible.

As to the raiding, I had some ideas on how they would unfold myself.

Main Points:

-Corps can set a district to be vulnerable to raiding for a 1 hour period on the fly (aka, they can set it to be the next hour, so long as it doesn't overlap their normal vulnerability period) They may do this multiple times, potentially chaining them together for long periods of being "raid-able"

-Districts that are open to raiding receive some sort of bonus. Fluff-wise it's the district diverting power from the normal defenses that make it invulnerable to super-charge production. During this 1 hour period, the district produces something useful.

-Raiders can attack (as you proposed, Fox) to attempt to steal Biomass / Other Productions from the District. To counterbalance things they can only steal production up to 110% of what the district would normally produce during this 1-hr "supercharged" period.

-After the first successful raid on a district, it "locks" for the rest of that 1-hr vulnerable period. If the District Owners enter another vulnerable period (of their choosing) then this unlocks the district for further raiding.

-The outcome of a raid isn't a binary "all or nothing" outcome, with the potential for the attacker to gain some to all of the potential pool of supply / biomass that is at stake. (50 - 110% of the boosted output) Note all of these outcomes count as a "successful" raid.

-Since the District Owners -CHOSE- to unlock the district during this time, battles start 10-15 min after the Attackers declare their attack.

The overall idea with this raiding structure is to provide a method for both defenders and attackers to gain something by allowing a district to be raid-able, such that both sides have incentive to do so. The 1-hr period is small enough that the Defenders should be expected to be able to field a full raid-sized team on short notice. (The choice of a defender to chain together multiple of these sessions is their own, each 1-hr session is treated as separate from the others)

Raiding should cost some funds on the Raiders part (in costs of clones, and the equipment that needs to be deployed) It is very important that this cost be less than ~50% of an "average" win's earnings. (Clones not included) In this way a raider can be profitable with only a 50% win rate, and more than that allows additional earnings.

On the Defenders side, the production boost should be such that it is worthwhile to hold at least one battle with reasonable clone losses and still turn a profit. If the average successful defense costs MORE than what would be earned by the production boost, then nobody will do it.

[
Warbarges


Raiding Warbarge:
Clone Capacity: 100
Clone Vat Capacity: 1
MCC Capacity: 1
Clone Mortality:
1 Jump 0%, 2 Jumps 5%, 3 Jumps 10%, 4 Jumps 20%, 5 Jumps 40%, 6 Jumps 80%.
Raiding Warbarges use Cryogenic technology to lessen the effects of jump disruption on clone brains, in order to give them more effective range.

A Raiding Warbarge can in theory take a district, but you would have to win 3 battles without losing more than 100 clones, and that assumes the District is less than 2 jumps from your starting location.


Warbarge:
Clone Capacity: 500
Clone Vat Capacity: 4
MCC Capacity: 3
Clone Mortality:
1 Jump 5%, 2 Jumps 10%, 3 Jumps 20%, 4 Jumps 40%, 5 Jumps 80%

The base model Warbarge is primarily designed for taking Districts, although it can be used for Raiding as well.


Supply Warbarge:
Clone Capacity: 500
Clone Vat Capacity: 8
MCC Capacity: 6
Clone Mortality:
1 Jump 10%, 2 Jumps 20%, 3 Jumps 40%, 4 Jumps 80%
A Supply Warbarge is setup for producing clones quickly, and makes certain concessions which reduces their ability to maintain clone stability during transport.

The Supply Warbarge is designed for carrying supplies, such as replacement MCCGÇÖs, and for growing clones. This ship it meant to replenish the districts you already own, rather then attacking other districts. It can be used in hostel attacks, but since it is setup for clone production, rather than clone transport, so it has a more limited range when used in Attacks and Raids due to higher Clone Mortality.

How do you think about a matter of using many ringers?
I think that at least a corp should have their 12 members .(16 vs 16)