A suggestion I have, remove the ExCs and add a universal module that scans in the sane fashion but can be equipped to any vehicle

Sounds like fun! My own personal suggestion is that you could encounter other players looking for the same thing. That could really add to the tension especially if you have AI enemies too. Obviously it would be great to have PvE only mode and a PvP/E mode too.

Edit: I forgot to mention the mining laser, why would it be an ineffective weapon? It's a laser designed to cut through rock and mineral, plus any defenses you come up against would have armour designed to protect against high velocity plasma etc, not mining lasers! Maybe the current description of mining lasers in EVE explains this?

I don't know about the whole low PVanything idea. I'd just as soon kill you and takes your rocks. Welcome to new Eden.

Hot damn son!

Please add some of this into the discussion on GD boards. I'm linking you up there for refference if you don't mind

This is some great stuff!

PvE Discussion:
https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=49714&find=unread

I thought about that, but I figured that slapping a scanning module to a HAV would make exploration too easy.



I suppose that PvE only would be High Sec, while PvE/P would be Low and Null Sec, with some difference between Low and Null, but I don't know what it would be. As for the mining lasers, that's exactly why I did it that way. Besides, the mining laser is equipment, not a weapon, so you can still carry something to defend yourself.

How exactly? More than likely you'd be able to bring the tanl into the match anyways

I was working under the assumption that you wouldn't have MCC or War Barge support on mining/exploration expeditions.

Why no war barge? If your corp can afford to buy one and send it then why not?

Just want to let you guys know that you should read some of the older posts. A majority of them are locked but still relevant and actually have went through an evolution of discussion.

I just assumed that most corps wouldn't be willing to divert an entire war barge to support an exploration or mining expedition. I suppose it wouldn't hurt anything to allow it if the corp was willing, though.

I want to investigate sleeper sites (complexes?) like they do in the Immortal Clone trailer.

I was also thinking that the Dust corps would perhaps be able to at least buy a war barge and choose its deployment zone. This could be almost like owning an area and as long as your war barge was in the location you could re-explore the area as often as you liked/until all the resources were depleted.

If we think of an expedtion in terms of matches for example each could have a time limit of 30 minutes until you run out of air or something. As long as your war barge was in this location you could end the match and redeploy as quickly as the game could load it again.

That would be worlds of ****** up though. As I understand, our cloning technology is Sleeper-based no? What if it reacts to our presence and we end up fighting some kind of crazed Sleeper entity?

For something as simple as exploration though ... why put a time limit. Keep in mind we're currently fighting on Temperate planets only ... meaning it could support life even without environment suits.

Edit: I forgot to mention the mining laser, why would it be an ineffective weapon? It's a laser designed to cut through rock and mineral, plus any defenses you come up against would have armour designed to protect against high velocity plasma etc, not mining lasers! Maybe the current description of mining lasers in EVE explains this?

the one thing that came to thought is. While exploring a Sleeper Tech Structure, A coded virus activates your implant. From that day on all others see is "514 514 514...." when you txt in local, corp ,or private chats. And eve voice is also disabled.

ohh i hope no one takes me seriously.

-"What was up with you yesterday? You were acting weird and you didn't answer when we tried to talk to you."

-"I wasn't online yesterday"


If CCP ever makes it so we can investigate sleeper bases, we'll all be too scared to even go.

i'd rather enjoy an exploration like that, since it would be a nice break from fighting other players. we'd even have a chance to get some nice temporary gear, or blueprint salvage to make a stack of weapons from [those salvaged prints would NEED to degrade a little after every use, so make growth still important].

i would rather be sad to give up my assault suit, but i understand the need... but only a side arm? a single SMG against well armed intrastellar pirates? gotta be something better, i'd think a light slot only, since you need a weapon with punch if you're taking on people that ambush others for a living

Why would we need a dedicated Exploration Dropsuit? Couldn't we just use a logi suit with scan mods?

Well technically yes we could. But look at it this way, they're supposed to be coming out with a Pilot's Dropsuit for us crazy people in the whirly-birds so why not make a suit for the exploration guy?

Adds more variety and it would help people with specialized roles. I know that I for one would definetly spec into that Pilot suit and Exploration suit if either of them ever come out. I like how these roles sound and I'm very keep on seeing whether or not CCP will try something like this in the future.

Well technically yes we could. But look at it this way, they're supposed to be coming out with a Pilot's Dropsuit for us crazy people in the whirly-birds so why not make a suit for the exploration guy?

Adds more variety and it would help people with specialized roles. I know that I for one would definetly spec into that Pilot suit and Exploration suit if either of them ever come out. I like how these roles sound and I'm very keep on seeing whether or not CCP will try something like this in the future.

OK, I see your point now. So the heavy suit has the best armour, the scout suit has the best speed, and the exploration suit would have the best scan precision(?)

alalkit. few game have non combat gaming. its something that i would like to see. and while we're at it, how about building up defenses and the like

there is a lot they can do but there is a lot they can't do I want PVE and many of your ideas seem fun.

the problem I would have with PVP is how would they get to you? look at dust right now, how do we get to different system? teleport? will we have to have "set destination" and after X amount of time we are in that system? chances are we will simply just be every where at once.

for PVP, if I am doing exploration how do they find me? scan me down and try and take the loot? that is silly as dieing would mean little loss either way
randomly appear in a queue? sorta like what we have now but puts you in someone elses scan site... that's dumb as it makes it ungodly easy.

Honestly, at this point in time, PVP in dust should be done on the battlefield, not elsewhere.

I approve. I personally love preparing for some kind of "oncoming storm" either literal or metaphorical.

While we're talking about exploration and mining, what about salvaging? Going into an area where there's just been a battle, and picking the wreckage clean. Could make for some tense standoffs between scavengers if there's been an especially big fight.

While we're talking about exploration and mining, what about salvaging? Going into an area where there's just been a battle, and picking the wreckage clean. Could make for some tense standoffs between scavengers if there's been an especially big fight.

If there was something like a salvage class who could run around a battlefield (either during or after the battle in question) and loot the bodies and wrecks of vehicles for interesting stuff ... the game would have to stop letting dead clones vanish off the field.

on Salvage mode. two squads. make it up to them if hostlie or not. proxity vioce between the two. lets them work out a deal, 50/50 or we shoot you, type deals. put a CRU far away for each squad. the maps could be large wastelands that had a battle on some time ago. this makes it feel like each squad has enough room to stay away each other or hunt them down.

How about having jump clones or bases? We could very easily have an EVE player give out contracts to fulfil duties that they are incapable of doing. The way I see it:
- EVE player sets up contract.
- DUST player accepts contract.
- EVE player either flies to, or is already at, the destination. Here, they would drop what I will refer to as a "jump beacon".
- DUST player warps to jump beacon.

Sounds a little basic sure but even for no player involvement such as a "quick match" then a beacon could just be set up on the nearest planet (as long as the DUST player could fund it) and the expedition could give lesser rewards than if you worked with a player as, quite obviously, you wouldn't be getting the contract payout!

dust players shouldn't have to rely on eve players, it's a bad mechanic for us. first off there will almost definitely be more dust players than eve players, it's going to be terrible to have to rely on them to move.

2nd the average eve player isn't going to courier contract a dust player and if they do I can imagine it costing to much to be effective, this mans the average duster will be stuck in the starting area for weeks.

The dead clones/vehicles could still vanish, but some of their gear would remain. Like the old Medal of Honor games, when you killed a guy his body disappeared but his weapon was still there.



What I was picturing was more of a free-for-all situation, where you show up alone or with your squad/corp, and there's a bunch of other squads on the field.

I dont think battles in New Eden have limited to the stars. normal humans have fought on the ground before. and Eve ship crash, right? so dust merc could find said crashes, fight over it and sell eve ship parts back to the eve players.

*goes to EVE forums*
*sees that cheap starship modules are worth 500 000 ISK*

Gentlemen, I think we can work out an agreement. *loads scrambler pistol under the table*

dust players shouldn't have to rely on eve players, it's a bad mechanic for us. first off there will almost definitely be more dust players than eve players, it's going to be terrible to have to rely on them to move.

2nd the average eve player isn't going to courier contract a dust player and if they do I can imagine it costing to much to be effective, this mans the average duster will be stuck in the starting area for weeks.

That's what I'm saying, we don't rely on them, we utilise them when we can. I also like the idea mentioned above of some kind of hub system and the beacons I mention above could very easily be bookmarks akin to EVE's current system.

I'm not sure I agree completely. Sure we shouldn't have to rely on them for everything, but there's nothing wrong with relying on them for some things.

One thing that hasn't been discussed much is W-space. If we want to investigate some real Sleeper ruins and other advanced, dangerous, exotic locations, we need a way to get through wormholes. I can imagine purchasing a clone bank and having an EVE pilot carry the clone bank at high risk through a wormhole and drop it on a planet. (Granted a lot of these places are already owned, so the corp that owns the system can also contract Dust mercs to land and investigate planets. But in any system that can be corp-owned, there's always the risky possibility of sneaking in.) And then, once you get what you came for, you'd need an extraction plan. Could be a lucrative, high-risk job for an EVE pilot to support pirate mercs this way.

Interesting thread with many cool ideas this! Just posting to show my support for these ideas

One thing that hasn't been discussed much is W-space. If we want to investigate some real Sleeper ruins and other advanced, dangerous, exotic locations, we need a way to get through wormholes. I can imagine purchasing a clone bank and having an EVE pilot carry the clone bank at high risk through a wormhole and drop it on a planet. (Granted a lot of these places are already owned, so the corp that owns the system can also contract Dust mercs to land and investigate planets. But in any system that can be corp-owned, there's always the risky possibility of sneaking in.) And then, once you get what you came for, you'd need an extraction plan. Could be a lucrative, high-risk job for an EVE pilot to support pirate mercs this way.

Goric, do you ever have any bad ideas? +1

I have maximum astrometrics powers. I'm putting up a billboard at Jita 4 "have cloak-able ships, will travel."

The notion of WHs only having a limited time frame and, therefore, any exploration of celestial bodies in said WHs by a Dust merc crew makes me have tinglies. I'm just picturing a cloaked Eve pilot in chat telling the merc squad leader to hurry up and get their ass outta there all panicky and such as he sees a small armada of corp owned ships in D-scan.

Bam, you get in, make the bread and you're out like a thief in the night!

Aww, thanks!


I know, this actually excites me a lot. The time-sensitive nature of the contracts, the high-risk, high-stakes, high-rewards nature of the work, the fact that every second counts for the DUST players on the ground to get back to their extraction point, making decisions about whether to try to harvest something valuable if it might slow you down and endanger your mission. It could be so awesome!

Much like the rest of the game, it could be awesome but probably won't be for a while. I love this game when it works but it definitely has a lot of flaws. My point here is mainly to just not get overexcited for the possibilities as they are endless :)

Ahh who am I kidding, go nuts! How about the roles that we play in WH space? Would we have entierely different suits and fits just for that?

You would definitely use different fits in PVE from what you'd use in PVP, but I think you'd also have different fits depending on what you were planning to encounter. Getting swarmed by rogue drones in hisec might involve trying to maximize your firepower, whereas Sleeper tech might include both drones and traps (and maybe organic or other terrifying threats) that would require a completely different setup to counter.

Imagine that you have certain specialized roles for the ground team as well. For example, you might encounter points at which you have to avoid detection and shut down a security system so your team can get through. Your heavy sporting an HMG filled with EM ammo isn't going to be able to manage that, but that's why you hire a scout with minimized dropsuit profile and the skills to hack the Sleeper security systems. He manages to hack the system but trips the alarm while doing it and gets killed. The rest of the team has to fight off increasing numbers of drones before they can get through the security door to safety. The heavy sacrifices himself to keep the team safe, and then the logi drops an uplink on the other side of the door to let the heavy and the scout spawn back in. There are four possible passages and your surveyor is 70% sure you want to go down the one on the left. And the adventure continues...all the while, your escape plan is sweating up in space, maybe avoiding the local system owners, or maybe fighting off Sleeper ships coming to respond to the invasion.

Yes, we're talking probably 3-4 years in the future at least. But part of what's fun about this game, and the community in general right now, is the possibility. Playing with the possibility and being a part of shaping fundamental aspects of future gameplay. To me personally, this part of the game is more fun than actually being in-game--and that's not meant to disparage what's already there, because I still have fun jumping into a squad and playing matches and customizing my fits.