Hi, just a suggestion for a feature to boost small corps.

Several groups of players may wish to run very small corps capable of committing a single well practiced squad to a contract but if battles are corp only they will not be able to do so.

To support the mercenary nature of DUST if formal contracts assigned to a corp (or accepted by a corp) were configured in such a way as to allow the corp accepting the contract to 'add' additional corps to the contract then these smaller corps could be hired to assist.

For example.

EVE alliance puts up a public contract for district lulz-123
DUST corp accepts the contract
DUST corp selects 'add corp to contract and adds the corp' (or adds individual players if easier).
When contract time comes the added corps can also join the battle.

The mechanics could just pay the win reward to the original corp assuming the small merc squad has organised payment terms outside of the game mechanics. The main corp just pays them directly afterwards based on their agreement (sandbox etc etc).

Would be great for small tight knit groups of mercenaries be able to contribute to the sandbox and negotiate with larger corps for their assistance.

t

I don't think small corps should play a major factor. I think there should just be another group entirely. the 'merc squad' could be a group of people who fill a specific role on the battlefield, so a corp can offer a contract to a merc squad to provide armor support or stealthy black ops or whatever specializations that may come to be in dust.