Maken Tosch
263
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Posted - 2012.07.04 13:54:00 -
[1] - Quote
I'm pretty confident that the Eve players will surely help Dust expand like they did with Eve. Knowing them personally, they will jump at the opportunity of being the first to fire their guns for an orbital strike. Considering that battleships and dreads will be used in this and that such ships are common in fleet battles, there is no doubt that those pod pilot will feel more happy to have a greater purpose.
In this case, at least for the Dust mercs who are doing contracts that take them into low-sec or null-sec, there will be no doubt that they will know that there are more than 32 players on the battlefield when they see that they have a 500-800 ship support fleet battling a 500-800 ship enemy fleet high above their heads.
Planets are of importance to Eve power blocs that rely on them for supplying some of the fuel for Player-Owned Structures (POS) which are important for operating research labs for invention as well as assembly arrays for the production of supercapitals. POSes are also important for maintaining the operation of Jump bridges that allow fleets of ships to traverse through a dozen star systems in a single jump, thus cutting travel time by more than half. To any corporation and alliance, time is money after all.
When Planetary Interaction (PI) was first introduced in the Tyrannis Expansion of Eve, players didn't think it would work. But as time went on and as savvy industrialists studied the design of PI production (after various iterations and hotfixes by CCP), it became evident that PI will play a crucial role in cutting down cost of maintaining and manufacturing a POS. In fact, a single player with enough planets and patience can produce a single POS from planetary interaction alone with the exception of having to purchase a few units of capital construction parts straight from the market.
I have tried this before and I was surprised by how easy it was. If you have two accounts and three alts each and with a dedicated hauler, you can produce a single POS rather quickly if you spread the production chains across multiple characters. It's complex to manage as I had to do a lot of calculating and preparations, but it is doable and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only player doing this. This is assuming you are producing from planets in high-sec. In low-sec or null-sec, the resources are more plentiful per planet and therefore much easier and faster to produce and supply a POS.
PI is also used for the production of POS modules such as labs, assembly arrays, shield modules, and much more including (drum roll, please) a Player-Owned Customs Office (POCO) which are deployed and anchored by players over low-sec and null-sec planets after the NPC customs offices have been destroyed to help bypass the import/export tax and instead pass the tax and control it against other PI users who want a piece of the pie you made.
Of course, CCP hasn't been clear so far as to how Dust mercs will affect the PI structures (command centers, harvesters, processors, etc.) if the battles are going to be over districts. CCP, can you please elaborate on this? |