You bring up really good points.

At the moment its all temperate planets in FW space and each planet is suppose to have 10-14 districts on them (not to mention the rest of lowsec will have dust sov on planets). I assume just like now districts will be able to be attacked when the attacker chooses. Which means you could have tons of corps laying seige to 1 district on 1 planet all in the same day.

I'm one of those eve nerds with all the spreadsheets so I always calculate the time, effort, reward in anything I do. Thus my concern

Even if both corps are paid 25 mill for a 24v24 match the match is still bad when you add in vehicle/gear costs. Just using the planet being worth 2 bill a month makes district worth about 175 mill a month in isk. At that rate if the owner is attacked and forced to defend 7 times in a month there goes all the value of the district.

its not really about which corp its about any corp

This suddenly announced lowsec SOV for Dust mercs seems like CCP deciding that FW was too broken for us to even participate in.

ie with the broken state of it Eve side, there isn't enough passion to make Eve FW corps pay us to help them win.

Big problem for everyone.

The next build will be ..... Interesting

So you are kinda giving confirmation that FW battles and player owned districts in low-sec are two very different things right ?
I wasnt there when the thread started but i had a few thoughts on how it could end up working based on the CSM minutes and the recent interviews and other podcasts.

FW fights : Opened to both corps and blueberries according to last CAST 514 with Null and Praetorian.
This obviously implies a change in how the whole system works as randoms can't possibly pay 10 Mil to accept a contract. Or a corp that decides to pay a 10 Mil collateral to try and get a specific district will probably not like the idea of seeing blueberries get in the fight on their side (i know i wouldnt like it.)

Also, having randoms being part of the FW fights means the Player Owned Districts (POD from now on) can't be tied to FW as i, and many other people i talked with, suspect.

So that leaves us with all the economics and mechanics question marks.

=> The way i see it : EVE side already has incentives to use mercs to fight in FW as it can help attacking\defending systems faster. Then, the profit comes from usual FW revenue. The main question is how to push players in diving into those fights as EVE corps wont be able to add any money to the mix to avoid massive flows of ISK being transfered from EVE to Dust that way.

So yeah, that pretty much leaves NPC ISK being added to the mix and with more interesting payouts that usual pub games.
In the end, i'm picturing FW as an evolved pub game.

Eve dude sets contracts for districts for free (or with a fixed broker fee). Those appears in mercenary tabs and then it's randoms and or teams diving in and fighting for more money than a classic pub game. Then district goes into some kind of reinforced state to avoid constant switching from side to side.

POD fights: Like many people said. Would happen in other low-sec systems. Probably not all of those available to avoid corps owning too quickly a vast territory and to make sure that fights happens and actually have a meaning. The scale of how many PO planets are available will be critical on that matter as there aint enough corps with real capabilities to own all of it and maintain enough frictions so that fights happen. You all know that wars (good ol wars, not crazy assed wars) happen when there's only a few of something everybody wants. Either space, or ressources. Or both to make it worse.

Then comes a bunch of questions :
- Revenue : probably a "get X amount of ISK in X time" for every district. "Get bonus Isk for owning the entire planet" etc...
- Attacking\defending Mechanics : The main question there is regarding the first attack on a possible POD. Will it be "i saw it first, i got it" ? Will it require two corps to challenge each other so the POD can be owned the first time ?

Then, i guess it's pretty simple :
- attack district
- reinforced timer then battle opens
- fight fight fight (or not if there aint no ennemies)
- district (doesnt) switch
- Goes into a longer reinforced timer so cannot be attacked again for a X amount of time.

The only part that should involve EVE on those POD fights in the first place are OB. Perhaps some PI bonuses regarding taxes or extraction rates for pilots of the alliance\corp but not much more. Then, when adding orbital artillery and other stuff in a later expansion, the interest for pilots that dont PI will rise. Pretty much like the vision of the 0.0 discussed in cast 514 where dusters are seen as a tool of war just like any other ship rather than another component of system SOV.

So yeah, i freakin can't wait to see that devblog !! Hurry up dudes, we're waiting !!

I know that feeling, Fox Four. Did it myself with a few info releases on the MechWarrior Living Legends forums while we were still developing.

Dont worry you merely just confirm a few ideas. I ve been thinking of this for a long time now. ^^
And come on. Talking is good for the soul ;)

Or at least, just tell me if i m seeing all this the right way or if some stuff are very far from what you guyd are planning. Nullarbor woild be totally ok with you doing that i promess :D

Well, again, I think your point as regards highly contested districts is valid- some districts will just not be worth fighting over.

On the other hand, I think MOST districts (after perhaps an initial flurry of activity) will be relatively stable, just like star systems in nullsec.

So, while a capsuleer might have to drop 175M ISK to defend District 4 on Intaki V, most will rarely have to do so.

Indeed, I talked with some capsuleer relatives (RP) and they said that they'd probably use the lowest bidder they could find to do jobs.

That suggests to me that if Corp A is expending 25M ISK in a battle and Corp B is expending 10M ISK, then Corp B is likely to win in the end because they can just keep pummeling Corp A until they go broke.

In my mind, this is how it's supposed to work. Corp battles and/or Merc Contracts should be about expending as little ISK as possible to do the job.

Encouraging people to attack other districts is good but you can't stop multiple corps from just seiging a planet until the owner gives up. I'm a baddie and if somone want to pay me to make you give up your district/planets it will happen.

Thus is the way in EvE thus will it be in Dust

PS dust really needs a test server set up. It's best to let me break the game before it goes live

Oow, I love it when y'all talk too much.

Speaking of talking...

This topic of player owned districts was heavily discussed on the recent Boots on the Ground episode. I noticed we got a few hits from Iceland on my blog, so I'm guessing a few of you folks at CCP have listened to / read of our musings on the subject.

Are we close?

Will planetary districts ever be opened as "free roam" areas, where we can spawn as long as our corp / alliance owns the district and we haven't reached a defender limit (e.g. even if a battle isn't happening)?

Will EVE PI dudes ever be able to build the maps the Dust Bunnies fight over?

Can we just make war barges capitals? (Yeah, that one is really out there, I know...

I quiver in anticipation for this new Dev blog. Also the next patch.

CCP confirms that Telc is right again.

GG newb

lol, but what if the corporation is pure dust side? still need a way to control the system

Yes please also include getting back 10% of your own lost gear if you are on the winning side, just like in eve online.

Forgive my EVE ignorance as I've never played it, nor do I have much of an idea as to how our games will merge effectively, but would not a role for EVE pilots be to actually get Dust mercs to a planet in order to attack a rival Dust corp's district or planet? I know I have heard a bunch about EVE pilots needing mercs to take districts and planets, but I have heard about Dust mercs (possibly?) needing EVE pilots for orbitals. However, I haven't heard much about the mechanics of how we Dust bunnies will get to planets for conquest. I guess up until now I assumed there would be "NPC" ships that always successfully transport us mercs to our desired location. Thus, how we always start in our warbarge waiting to assault the planet in our MCC.

It would be alot more interesting, though, if we had have or contract our own EVE pilots to get us to attack destination safely and if there was a chance we didn't always make it due to intercepting spacecraft or planetary defenses.

Oh so here is one idea for the devs. Let corporations work for gaining a homebase district. This would require upkeep and large investment in building and player count. Say you need 200 mercs to start.

Then make it so your home system can not be taken. Untill you drop below 200 members. Meaning once you push a corp back to one district, you can only win the war by convincing them it's too expensive to stay in the corp and they bail, leaving the district open.

he said it, they're working towards something like that, i KNEW it!

Right now there's almost never an ISK incentive to do a corp battle.

I like them, but I still have to get all of my isk from pub stomping. Giving me isk from pve isn't going to make me feel better either, as I want to have organized matches against decent opponents!

You seem to miss the point not every corp wants to own districts but still want to fight corp battles. What I am hearing is "this isk/reward is in owning the districts". So I assume thats passive isk/resources/lp to be earned for it? Which if I remember correctly is how nullsec became a big blue bag of fun.

Tell me where I am wrong?

PLEASE LET US TRANSFER DISTRICTS TOO!!!! I would love to be able to buy/sell districts but there needs to be a actual build in contract tranfers and there needs to be roles/8 hour window for it

I fully support corps owning districts and planets and having rewards for maintaining them but the economy needs to function outside that. If you make is that all the isk/reward in controlling a district and it takes time to convert that district (I'm assuming again its not a win it, flip it model) then large corps/alliance will do to lowsec when we have done to nullsec.

a way to counter the above is to make defending pay more.

the more you own the more you make. the attackers don't make much initially, but if they manage to take control of the area, once they start getting attacked, they make the iskies(if they can hold it)

One thing -

Talking about districts is a failure.

It's either you own the whole planet or its nothing.

Having to fight 14 simultaneous districts at a time to take or hold a planet would be complete crap.

In other words there needs to be a battlefront such that you can only attack one district at a time and you lose the right to keep attacking at some point after losing 1-3x.

I have a theory that this is the initial cause of the nap fests.

You sure you want this?

24players x14 districts....

24x14 = 336 players already to go into matches simultaneously.

Sounds...idiotic

Just make sure you put in district transfer in dust ASAP.

-districts can be taken and sold off. Just like mercs can be paid to take a planet. There isn't 100% chance they will. Selling a district afterward is just another market for stuff. Dust needs this economy function

Red tides to win means resource cost.

Most obviously in clones, if your 24 cheapo fit militia players are up against my 12 (2 squads) of prototype fit players, you're gonna be spending big on clones (our (implant-less) meatsacks all cost the same, but you have to have more to have a chance at winning). If we're also taking down your cheap equipment as soon as it lands and shooting down your cheap MCCs as soon as possible, you're gonna be fighting resource loss. Not to mention the home field advantage, knowing the good spots (say, a mass driver resupply-drop uplink-revive logi and a sniper/scanner fit scout on a roof locking down a primary chokepoint built in PI mode that your cheapo militia snipers can't even reach). Sure, one of my men is worth thousands of yours, but each one of them might go through multiple battles without even going into armor.

If you field a full 336 man deployment to tackle all 14 of my districts at once, I can pick and choose what is most important (probably, in this case, clone and equipment stockpiles), defend that, and wait for reinforcements.

But i can see large corps like PRO mounting wave attacks if they have to. So if you successfully defend a district they can instantly field a new team and basically repeat the process until they finally take control. part of me worries that taking districts will just end up as a game of attrition.

This almost makes me think you guys are starting to look into alliance mechanics. It would make sense that it would be an option to make a district open to allied corps to help defend, or even to attack.

I see no reason why attrition shouldn't be a viable tactic. It's just important to make sure it's not the ONLY viable tactic.

Corp A has 24 People
Corp B has 2400 people

Corp A has 100 Territories
Corp B wants them.

Corp A can only fight one battle a time, Corp B can simultaneously attack everything A has in one go.

If pure anti Zerg methoods where instated then 1 man corps would ruin most of dust. Numbers are going to help protect you player empire while you sleep, while you work, while you are logged off, and in more places than you can possibly be at any given time.

Now granted corp A can call in reinforcements and Corps C - Infinity could interfere with corp B's activities as well but who says they can't screw over corp A more. After all most corp gankbears are vultures they will pick at a wounded beast until it dies.

You're forgetting the simple fact that with more people a larger corp can cover far more ground, doesn't matter how small the battlefield is, you must know that there are MORE THAN ONE BATTLEFIELD to fight.

You may call this zerging, but corps that cannot match invaders per battle will be losing most of their ground no matter how good those 24 are, if anything they're going to get skill farmed and resource the farmed the heck out of while heckling the 24 guys to give up and join or quit that corp though morale warfare. After all the only thing more deadlier than a HAV is a propaganda machine that crushes your corp under its treads.

More man power usually will equal more freedom to respond, attack, defend, and resource, one team of 24 guys may be their best deal and the rest are cannon fodder or non combatants part of the logistics, supply, and command chains.

I think that depends on a number of factors-

Transport: In EVE, there are distinct routes one must travel to attack systems with say, Tech moons. This does not seem to be an issue in Dust. That can actually help promote conflict as getting there isn't an issue.

Abundance: With 4,000? temperate worlds yielding ~40,000 districts... Not much incentive for conflict unless there are 10,000 or more active corps.

Profitability: If the potential profits from a planet are too high, EVE Alliances will get back-flooded with ISK from their ground pounder members and only TEST and Goon will own anything after a bit. If the profits are too low, nobody will fight for anything except as a last resort.

Diversity: If districts produce a variety of resources, that can be a conflict driver. Requiring player corps to control a wide variety of resource types to achieve optimal profitability or manufacturing efficiency is another factor. For instance, if Magazinium and Lumaminium are both needed to make Assault Rifles, then corps would want to control two districts instead of one.

My solution- Resource depletion and renewal. Make districts "play out" after awhile and require expensive retooling or an annoyingly long cool down period. That makes districts profitable, but only if you keep conquering fresh ones or are patient enough to wait for refreshment. The crummy districts would also make a good source of PVE- from Rogue Drones to scavenging materials. They are also less likely to be well defended, giving newer corps a shot at taking them.

Dynasty Warriors made me learn a lot about that part of chinese history
Btw, Zhuge Liang actually wrote a book about Sun Tzu's book.

*throws a smoke grenade into the room*
*knocks out FoxFour with his fist*
*FoxFour wakes up in a dark room with a single hanging light bulb over his head that is barely working*
*sees a shadowy man sitting behind a table with a nova knife carving the words 'there is no fate but what we make' on the table*

[Maken Tosch] - I know you are wondering why you are here. I can assure you that it will be much less painful if you cooperate. Now, what does the dev blog say?

*voice from the distance*

[old woman] - Honey! Your cookies are ready!
[Maken] - Ma! I'm in the middle of an interrogation!
[old woman] - Don't talk like that to me. Now come here and get your cookies! I made them into dinosaur shapes like you asked!
[Maken] - *sigh* I'll be right back.

one would hope that each of the districts will contain their own specific deterrents and obstacles for attackers so its not just infantry v. infantry skill on the line but more a positive buffer for those who own and a negative one for those attacking.

varying the terrain and what the map has on it so that the same 24p(or those with same skills) cant be suited for every fight. would like to see class specific roles that pertain to the gear that each type of dropsuit can harness ie: heavy's HMG can be used to drop damage levels of gates breaching buildings and structures whereas a scout's speed boost and light frame could pass by automated defenses or pressure plated traps. seeing something of this nature would be exciting.

that said, i would like to see a single district takeover feel more like a dungeon raid where it cant be cleared in one go, attacking corps may need to make multiple trips to squeeze the defending corps till they grab control.

i feel im in agreement with Beers and would like to see a dedicated marketplace for district and/or planet transfer but it cant be solely on ISK alone, a set of exp of the player (if sold to just one merc) and exp of the corp as a sort of requirement IS A MUST! this could be the "wrench" in attackers or defenders planning when it comes to those looking to control the planet.

I HATE it when DEV's talk like this. I can never tell if they are suggesting things that should be possible soon, or if they are thinking long run. DON'T TOY WITH MY HEART!

I'm also seeing possible scenarios where teams may post contracts for cheap to see if weak teams will take the bait to attack their own districts in hope that they make money on the salvage.

There are going to be holes in any system that is put into effect, the goal is to make it the best system for the majority and just take the others with a grain of salt because no matter how much they change the system it will never be perfect.

exactly. And that's why all those talks about million here, million there make no sense to me.
If the planetary conquest in Dust achieves to end up like EVE's 0.0 you 'll be able to say you succeed. As as flawed it may be, it's still a freakin damn good system for a single shard persistent universe with player oriented conquest !!

So devs, dont break you head. Go with something simple, dont add too many control system. And build from there.
As you said before, what you should focus on is having something as tweakable as possible, and with as many layers as possible. Beyond that, it's all experimentations.

Dust can't be turned in to a 23/7 job.

because the timer Idea would be horrible in dust

So the advantages of large corps shouldn't be zergfest514 but more of a defensive one. Which in turn allows them to reap the benefits if they maintain rewards.

You've refered to a sandbox multiple times. In a sandbox this option would be viable. I understand we are talking "priority" of options presented though. The option to sell districts would be huge, so many differentials in the metagame would present themselves if this option was included. Otherwise the only 2 ways I can see to dump a district is abandon it (if option available) or let someone take it.

I agree with priorities.

Excuse me for being a software nerd and being so insistant about this. I think there is really a great need for it. Even if its implemented very simply in the next build.

Create role and just give it to CEO
Let it have the same transfer function as CO offices
Will have to have a interface to piggy back off though.

We don't need a market place right away we have 3rd party services. Plus I would rather districts be handled in the back room as it makes the meta game more fun. Having a district market place turns this into a real estate game and gives out way to much info and will cause super griefing.

What the **** Caz? He said nothing about the subject the just spouting random statistics out of his ass then referred specifically to Kain, myself, and Imperfects. If thats not off topic then I dont know what the **** is. Don't defend him for being a dumb ass because you disagree with me.

For the record none of this is about disagreeing at all. I read what he wrote and I understand what he is saying. Him calling me and imperfects out over it is stupid and why he got the response he did.

Now stay on topic

Okay lets start with a timer. I'll try to keep it brief and not write a novel I completely understand why we have it in EvE and understand how bad it would be without it. In dust I don't think an "attack window" timer or having to "seige" a district 8 hours a head of time to be fair to the district defender will work.

To me this slows the game down and takes a lot of timing/tatics/strategy and meta game out of it. I go back to the fps player and the fact that most will want to log on and look for a fight (yes there are hardcore players that will always be on) To me the idea an alligance/loyalty persistance standing model is better suited. I know I have spouted it many times before in this thead so I won't bore you with it again.

The core part of it has a similar effect to a timer though and doesn't punish the defender for not being awake. Simply put if you attack and no defender is there you now "occupy" the district. There then is a 8 hour cool down where no standing changes. After that the occupying corp get say 1 point an hour in standing. They have to reach 51 standing to take control district(though while occupying the district they do reap the rewards).

So the owner of the district would still have to fight to take it back or risk losing control totally. The district owner will also have time to take it back. The amount of time is always based on standing to there could a war of attrition over 1 district in some instances

"Perhaps you think you're being treated unfairly? Good. You know it would be unfortunate if I had to leave a garrison here."

Corp B's loyalty would increase while depleting Corp A's loyalty.
Corp A would schedule an attack on the district (after the 8 hour cooling off period when corp B took district)
Corp B has X hour notice (say 4 hours for simplicity- I agree there needs to be a a warning a head of time)
Corp B chooses to fight and fields a team. (
Corp A wins battle and takes back district
Corp A's Loyalty would increase while depleting Corp B's loyalty ( As long as corp A's loyaltiy is above 50 they are in control not just occupying it)

clearly i am not allowed to sleep or i miss Fox posts

^ This is the point exactly. +1.

It's the underlying resource politics that need to inform the discussion of mechanics. This is how you build a system for longevity and playability. These systems need to be built fron the bottom up if they are to have any kind of coherent structure to them.

If you make the design error of trying to paste an arbitrary set of mechanics onto an underlying set of resource mechanics what I'd expecty you to end up with is a system with inherent pathologies.

Done right, player actions are driven and connected to real politics and hence other players, and not merely driven by max/min-ing a ruleset.

In this example I assume the attackers are from the UK and attacked my district while I was sleeping. So yeah they won without a fight from us.

Districts and planets need to be battled for not just flipped over night like the old FW system. At the same time it can't be a grind like nullsec sov

Taking a district when the defender doesn't put up a fight needs to have much less reward nor loot.

Ill write up a the Pros and Cons as I see on this and give you a novel to read when you get in tomorrow

I'm really +1ing something general but important when trying to design for complex systems.

A'Real Fury's post is a perfect illustration of how if one implements a resource model that supports the kind of player dynamics you're looking for re: District conquest/ownership, mechanics naturally evolve out of that resource model.

We can see from the ideas developed in his post how naturally they flow once his resource model is set, and how fertile having a model is in terms of content development.

Now imagine trying to design the same kind of rich player behavior from a top-down Ruleset for District/Planet conquest and development. It's the back-engineering project from hell. And if anything needs to be changed later, god help you. Whereas a change to the resouce model propogates changes organically through your whole system.

And apologies if this is perfectly obvious to all concerned - i was getting worried with all the discussion about mechanics not grounded to anything. Maybe it's assumed in the discussion and I'm just not seeing it. Better safe than sorry, though, so i'm making a point out of it.

We love seeing you around and answering posts Fox but aren't you up past your bedtime?

What faction do you play?

I love my Necrons and Dark Eldar. I also play Gray Knights because I love my inquisitor 28 models and Chaos SM.

So many cool models, so little time :(

[quote=Free Beers]The main point I was trying to make is that one match shouldn't decide if you win or lose a District.

My MD too, oh please! 4meter snow blizzard splash !

CCP FoxFour, what's your thoughts on seasonal Forge Guns that shoot fireworks instead of live ammunition?

c'mon who do you play tau? eldar? space marines, imperial guard?

and bones the gameplay isn't persistent you're right but the meta game is, and there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to go "hey lets hit this district tonight" and be able to attack it, if we went with your idea you could end up with a situation where you have enough players to attack the district now but you can't launch an attack for 12+ hours. the same is also true of the defending corp.

I SWARE!!!! if you put reinforcement timers into dust, i will paint your server pink, and advertise free pink shiny stuff on the web!

..... What about reinforcement timers that can be influenced by the actions of smaller groups?

Like with what happens currently in Faction Warfare and the "dust influence" affecting the percentages on how easy/hard a system is to capture?

So we take a 12 hour reinforcement timer and for every 8v8 corp battle... shave off thirty minutes? This way we have more collateral damage and generally more combat out of sovereignty conflicts?

While that can certainly be justified I do believe that a limit should be placed on the length of time the district can be protected while the corp is offline. Mainly because you may end up with a situation where a new corp comes in claims a district, actively defends it for awhile, and then doesn't log on for weeks or months or more effectively taking that district off the market permanently.