No, those are far too small. Those are transport ships of some kind, but not warbarges.

Those are supposed to be amarr dropships.

You mean RDVs?

I am pretending that hundreds of DUST mercs are living in warbarges that they all chip in for. Like giant flying apartment complexes.

That's how I justify it in my head... the idea of each merc having his/her own warbarge is silly.

We are experimenting with at least allowing players to walk around solo in the Warbarge Command room, because it's just a room we have. I think it would be cool.

Are we getting new art assets in dust for the warbarge or is it going to just be new menus or reusing the match waiting room.

The CPM have seen some early concept 'stuff'. Not going to give specifics out because so much can change in development. But we'll ask Rattati nicely if he can share something soon.

You want the latter of the two to become easier? Buy more Aurum.

I like this concept better than mercs owning warbarges, but I would prefer the following...

- Corporatiins own war barges.
- Mercs own small pod ships (our merc quarters) that dock to war barges.
- Mercs upgrade their individual pods and the corp upgrades the war barges.

^ This.

Dear Players,

I want to describe the premise of the 1) Mercenary Warbarge and the 2) Warbarge Flotilla.

The Uprising is over. Mercenaries have taken to the skies in makeshift or stolen Warbarges.

The Warbarge is your mercenaries base of operations.

The Warbarge is presented as a new screen in the NEOCOM.

The Warbarge can be upgraded using Warbarge Components.

Each upgrade adds a single new Warbarge Platform.

Each Warbarge Platform houses a single Warbarge Subsystem.

The Warbarge Subsystem can be upgraded using Warbarge Components.

The first Warbarge Subsystem is the "Mobile Factory" that generates Components at a rate, and can be upgraded.

Subsystems can give bonuses and/or produce a "yield" that can be claimed. Those that have yields, also have a max capacity.

For the first phase, we are working on these Subsystems:

Phase 1 - Merc Warbarge
Mobile Factory - generates Warbarge Components
Market Network - generates ISK
Battle Statistics Center - SP boost
Augmented Ammunition Facility - Primary weapons damage boost (we wanted to start with armor rep or max armor, but it was difficult, eventually we want to have a choice here).
Armory - Increased number of fittings + something smart
Experimental Laboratory - creates a random number of weapons, up to officer but also new Experimental weapons, meta level 9, better than proto, need level 5 primary weapon skill.

Phase 2/3 - Merc Warbarge
Salvage Drone Bay - more EOM salvage
Reprocessing Plant - turn gear into Nanites
Code Research Center - generate Hacked keys
Augmented Armaments Facility - an ingame bonus
Focused Laboratory - creates specific weapons using Nanites and Components

Phase 2/3 - Warbarge Flotilla (Corporation Warbarge)
Mobile Factory - generates Warbarge Components // OR // The Flotilla depends solely on donations of Components from Members
Mission Network - Corporate MIssions are available to all Corp Members, with higher rewards // AND // possibly some earned Activity Points that are needed for Flotilla Actions
Clone Vats - generates Clone Packs // MCCs if we change the name of Clone Packs to MCC's // may need Components to claim
[img]Hangar[/img] - upgrade MCCs or more owned

Phase 4 - Warbarge Flotilla (Corporation Warbarge)
Space Elevator - claims unique resource from Districts owned
and more

Other Subsystem Ideas
We had tons of ideas, and I will share them in another thread.


Please discuss

Q&A from thread
1) Merc Warbarges will not need Skills - Flotillas will need a CEO/Director of some level to run as any Corp mechanic does.
2) Some Flotilla Subsystems may stack with Merc Subsystems, yet another reason to be in a strong Corporation and help it grow
3)Manufacturing skills are not currently in our plans, and that's just to keep the designs simple, not because it's a bad idea
4) ISK generation, is meant more as a reason for new players to check in and get your ISK yield than another alt farm. It will require some investment to get to a high enough level to alt farm.
5) The concerns about in-game bonuses are loud and clear. The intent is for this to be at max like a single complex dmg mod.
6)Experimental is between Proto and Officer, they are hard enough to get, so they don't require extra skills above lvl 5, Specialist Weapons will only be in FW, Experimental only in Warbarges
7) Taxing Components instead of relying on Donations - doesn't sound like teamwork. This is also the first foundation of player trading so we may need that step towards player trading.
8)Phases are development cycles, I want you to know there is a longer roadmap, with Phase 1 being the foundation, later Phases being rolled out over the year.
9) Flotilla Actions would be to claim a generate Clone Pack from the Warbarge Flotilla, or move it from System to System to attack Districts
10) Yet to be fully designed, but the plan for Flotilla Upgrades is that it's always upgrading, if it has Components, just choosing the cheapest one to work on next. Otherwise it's too reliant on failing due to a CEO not logging in, etc.
11) Components will be earned with the Mobile Factory, more to be earned by upgrading the Mobile Factory. They can also be earned through Salvage/Strongbox/Mission Rewards and bought for AUR.
12) A level 5 Warbarge has 5 Platforms. Every platform has a fixed Subsystem that can be upgraded so no need to purchase the first Subsystem. Later we may introduce choices for Platforms.
13) Everyone gets the Warbarge for free
14) You can only build a single Subsystem of every type, and the Platform is automatically populated with it when it gets upgraded, there is no choice of Subsystems, the Mobile Factory goes into Platform 1, Market Network into 2, etc. Later there may be choices.

Absolutley love it
Although I have to echo the strong concern about the proposed in-game bonuses.
(This will make balancing even more difficult, just when we are about to crawl out of that hole.)

In my opinion, any in-game bonuses should be limited to non-combat perks.
Such as:
- Warbarge Frequency Stabilisers - bonus to available Bandwidth
- Warbarge Artillery Bay - gives incremental access to the different OBs (we have now)
- Warbarge Decryption Databank - gives bonus to hacking speed

Will probably come up with more later...

Edit: Clarified the OB mechanic as incremental, I.e you don't have access to everything at once

I dislike this entirely. I enjoy the thought of being a one-person private military.

Imagine how awesome this game would be by now if CCP Rattati was leading it two years ago. o_o

I think the point is that that Titan still came from someone/somewhere. The only ship you can get for free in Eve is a rookie ship, which is incredibly barebones. Mercs should be starting out and building up similarly. Some kind of very simple equivalent should be your starting warbarge (more like a 'war-shuttle', or perhaps 'war t1 hauler', retrofitted with the sweet blackops stuff that lets it bypass planetary defenses)

Already get those, there called starter fits.

Why is everyone griefing over new content, intangible content mind you.

I just wanna roll around in my space fortress in peace. Would loved to have been able to load it with maulers and go aggressively takin planets and stripping systems dry in eve

Because this development time could be used to address other arguably more tangible content features that have long been on the back burner.

I'm very excited about Warbarges...

...BUT...

...There is one thing that worries me:
I got this kind answer from CCP Rattati in another thread

So: we will all have a Warbarge for free, our warbarge will upgrade itself passively with its Mobile Factory, it will soon start generating passive isks with the Market Network and it will later passively generate experimental weapons.

So: why shouldnt I create 99 alts and have isks and experimental weapons created passively while I play on my main?
I will even be able to send those weapons from alts to my main because we are going to have the market.

I think this is a major problem. How are you going to avoid it?

not necessarily

Why would you engage in land battles for small amounts of ISK if you can afford a capital ship?