Have you played EVE yourself? I really think you should at least play EVE a while before you come up with ideas to merge the two games.

You should know that once a normal ship (frigate to battleship) hits hull damage, it wouldn't take long for it to blow up. The matchmaking between EVE and DUST would have ot be out of this world for it to work. But even if that were still possible, it wouldn't be fair to the EVE player. EVE is more about planning out your skills and searching for the best fit. It's more about numbers really. When you lose your ship, it should be because you failed by EVE standards, not DUST ones.

DUST players are mercaneries. They get paid by giant corporations and rich capsuleers that fly around in EVE. Not all EVE players should be forced to use mercenaries. Let EVE players fight against each other, a bombardment from the sky or a cannon attacking ships would be nice. But entering is just too much.

Four months later, Daren Athaksis was confirmed as one of six-thousand three-hundred and fourteen reported casualties resulting from the destruction of the Apocalypse-class battleship "Dam-Imud." His post was filled within three days. His family was not notified.

From the chronicle hands of a killer

Like said above, this simply won't work. It's a nice idea, but it is merely a pipe dream with no practical possibility :(

Like said above, this simply won't work. It's a nice idea, but it is merely a pipe dream with no practical possibility :(

^

Allowing mercs to board EVE ships, frankly, isn't practical for either game. The lore behind EVE ships is that capsuleers, by themselves, can command any ship with minimal space for life support, living quarters, etc as they need only a minimal crew. The "capsule" itself allows the capsuleer to command any ship virtually by himself, and renders him effectively "at one" with the ship. If a capsuleer needs none of that space, he can fill it with extra modules, or cargo, or whatever. This means that there would be hardly any space for a dust merc to board or fight.

Need to start with outpost boarding.

so a titan is only flown by 1 person, ok. what about all the lights and decks are they for the 1 person the however many kilometer ship, 1 person?

Just because one person is in a pod doesnt mean the rest of the ship is deserted. This is indicated in the novels, as well as on EVElopedia. Depending on the faction and ship size, there are various support crews. The beginning of the Empyrean Age novel starts with an infiltrator on an Amarr ship, with the crew reacting.

For the time being however, boarding ships isnt practical. What needs to happen though, to give that CQB feel, is to make it mandatory for an eve alliance to take a station/outpost, would require the use of DUST mercs to gain entry and take objectives. Otherwise, the only option is to destroy the station, somethign eve players have been begging for, opening the option to punative conquests.

man arnt you the hero on the K/D leader board with 14 kills, man wonder how you did that?

Just because one person is in a pod doesnt mean the rest of the ship is deserted. This is indicated in the novels, as well as on EVElopedia. Depending on the faction and ship size, there are various support crews. The beginning of the Empyrean Age novel starts with an infiltrator on an Amarr ship, with the crew reacting.

For the time being however, boarding ships isnt practical. What needs to happen though, to give that CQB feel, is to make it mandatory for an eve alliance to take a station/outpost, would require the use of DUST mercs to gain entry and take objectives. Otherwise, the only option is to destroy the station, somethign eve players have been begging for, opening the option to punative conquests.

My immediate reaction is that losing a ship outright to Dust players would be a pretty terrible thing. But, then, it is EVE. I don't know, maybe smaller ships (battleships) could be destroyed outright, but anything larger really ought to simply experience penalties of some kind. It would just be really frustrating to lose your ship to something you can't really defend against at all. Yeah yeah, adapt or die, blah blah. Still.

Otherwise though I really like the idea and I'm sure we've all been hoping this'd show up on the roadmap sometime. Boarding actions would be pretty awesome, intense fights.

Another consideration: How long does the average Dust game take, vs. the average EVE fight? What are the odds that a particular fight would still be going by the time your Dust boarders actually started doing damage to the ship you fired them into?

I proposed in a post that EVE ships be given new module slot for 'internal security' modules, to defend against and counter boarders.