Raven Tesio
Liandri Hel-Jumpers
Liandri Covenant
35
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Posted - 2012.10.13 12:50:00 -
[1] - Quote
Bojo The Mighty wrote:In the thread about DUST and EVE Intergration, we talked about this, and I was told that they will most likely not let DUST players take planets away from EVE players, how could they defend themselves? What if the DUST players in their corp aren't present?
HTFU
I mean what's the point in Hiring Mercenary Corporations or having DUST members IF not to own Planets?
What I would propose would be this:
GÇó Planets are divided into "Sectors" ... personally I still think the original Hexagrid idea was good, sure this would mean these sectors would be unrealistically large areas of control but look at Civilisation. That doesn't dilute the experience that each of the grid squares can be 100-500km across, you still end up with 1 City Per Block thus a single "power" base.
But then again this is no more unrealistic than right now our Planetry Facilities can cover 50,000km on the large planets.
I mean seriously you want to worry about realism, that would be a starting point!
GÇó As with Civilisation, each of these Sectors would then have an average from the material layer to determine the resources available on it.
GÇó Each Sector would then have X Slots to build a Facility on (think Fitting Screen), where the Facility "Modules" then determine what it's purpose is. This would likely fall in to the catagories:
1 GÇó Command
2 GÇó Resource
3 GÇó Storage
4 GÇó Production
5 GÇó Logistics
6 GÇó Personel (City)
The idea with this is we're changing PI to work similar to how the new Starbase System is likely to work in EVE.
For DUST Corporations (Players) this would be how they create their own "Stations" as it were... where while they would technically live with their "Offfice" being the Command Center, they can expand out more facilities provided the Logistics and Personel support is there the maintain the growth to cover all the Territory that either they "own" or "rent".
This would work the same way for EVE Players, the difference being that obviously they would either need to use their own DUST Corporation or hire Mercenaries to fight a Sector to take ownership.
All of the associated "settings" just as with the Player Owned Customs Offices (POCOs) would be set Per Planet, rather than individual territories; but could be based upon Standings how much "rent" is charged.
For AFK Fights (i.e. Fights that occur while you aren't around) then it would be down to that Corporation (be it DUST or EVE) to make sure that they have defences there. The AI would control them during this initial assault, so Corporations can fight right away... but Victory would only place the Facility in to "Reinforcement" (just as is the case with EVE Player Structures) with the owning Corporation setting the Reinforcement Timer obviously for when your players are actually online.
This timer would be visible for both DUST and EVE Players showing like a (!) Icon or such, with the timer available if the Sector is actually clicked on. During this time it would be invunerable to another attack, it also means Resources from that Facility / Base would be "locked down" and unavailable to the rest of your Planetry Network.
Territory that has no "Facility" on it, what you will have instead would be Town; where a local AI Drones would fight, but it will be up to the controlling Corporation to make sure they actually station some Drones there. If the attacker is successful, then these areas would enter "Seige" that would work like Reinforcement; but unlike Defending Facilities, the Attacker will be allowed to Fortify their own position with a Temporary Base (if they have the ISK) with rudementary defences.
Now for DUST Corporations obviously this would be a considerably more involved mechanic based on how Active they are, where-as for EVE Players they would setup a "Defense Contract" for Mercenaries to take up.
GÇó Facility Costs would be measured in Man-Power (FOOD) and Maintainance Costs (ISK). As such a well developed Facility just as is the case with Civilisation would be one that can balance these attributes.
You could actually go one further with this allowing for the "Population" to also have a Civil Unrest Rating. Providing Pilots and Marines with several options of how to maintain their territory, if for example someone leaves their Facilities alone for long periods... they could come back to find that the entire territory they did have has become either neutral or been taken by another Player Corporation.
It would be up to the players managing this aspect to really focus on not only creating profitable "Countries" as it were, but also keeping them happy ... or at the very least fearful of any sort of uprising due to Military Supremacy.
Yes I know this all might seem quite complicated on the whole and would likely take a while to properly implement, but if you think about it. This would make for incredibly compelling gameplay, especially with both EVE and DUST Players vying for a strong powerbase on a given planet.
If you have it so that the planets are unique not in the PI Materials they currently have, but rather they actually have different abundancies of Core Materials, Moon Materials and Gases not all of them but perhaps ones that are used in common production requirements. Then you have two infrastructures that can work independantly but also would then work far better with trading between the two...
I mean that's the absolute beauty here, that Reward will not be vs Risk as much as it would be vs Effort.
The sheer strategic element alone, would be fantastic as BOTH sides will WANT to fight over highly valued territory knowing that it isn't about who can "blob" but rather the skill of the Mercenaries (or their own forces) that will determine success of holding with their skill at macro-managing that maintain them. |