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.

OMG OMG OMG OMG YES! And corpses...

Tau painted white and blue.

On topic: But a fight when no one is defending is not really a fight is it?

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

just thinking more randomness here, what if timers were publicly known things? So if Friday comes around, you know you want to have a bunch of fights for your corp, so you attack different places spreading the attacks out over the time you know your corp will be online?

Just a thought, what do you guys think?

just thinking more randomness here, what if timers were publicly known things? So if Friday comes around, you know you want to have a bunch of fights for your corp, so you attack different places spreading the attacks out over the time you know your corp will be online?

Just a thought, what do you guys think?

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

Isn't it structure grinding that makes timers annoying in Eve? Not the timers themselves?

How much time does it require to move a war barge into place and launch an MCC, and at what point would that be detectable by the defenders?

It would seem to me that defines a minimum attack timer because you can't just drop from an empty sky.

I'm not an EVE player, but it's also logical to assume that you can keep track of how many of what kinds of ships are moving through the gates, perhaps even employing spies to keep tabs on enemy war barges. That would result in a greater warning.

A few more thoughts. Some of this has been said before.


1. Attacker takes district and get 20% of the income the district as a base line (due to some looting) but this will increase the longer they hold it and all income to the owners ceases while their district is occupied
2. With a starting point of 3%, there are always collaborators, the attacker earns loyalty points at 1% an hour until they hit 51% i.e. in 48 hours time. I think if you can hold a district etc for 48 hours it should be yours.
3. Income should derived from the district should increase at 2% an hour as you become more entrenched.
4. If the defender comes back an attacks, even if the new guys are asleep, then it all shifts back to the original owners. Say the attackers held the district for 24 hours and so had a loyalty standing of 27% then this should reduce at 2% an hour in favour of the original owners until it eventually reaches 100%. However, in terms of income it should automatically be restored at the original rate less the cost of damages.

Timers could be connected to the 'orbit' of your warbarge. Additionally, types of orbits that you choose ahead of time (or are even able to choose) would be based on other hostile district defenses, type of invading war barge, and location of the district on the planet.



Geosynchronous/solar synchronous - period of orbit corresponds to rotation of planet, mainly equatorial in inclination. Advantage: low energy, easy to predict timing, more distance covered. Disadvantage: shorter windows of time in each time zone, move distance (threats) covered.

Geostationary - no period of orbit, remains over one location. Time of attack could occur at any moment, vulnerable from district attack at all times.

Polar orbit - can be used to remain in one hemisphere all day and in half the time zones 2x each day. Inclination is perpendicular to equator.

Halo orbit - using other nearby objects along with organic propulsion for a customised orbit. Higher energy, but useful to precisely time exposure to a specific time zone. Minimal exposure to planetary counter attack.

Then you have other degrees of inclination and eccentricity, closed and escape orbits etc. That 'could' be an aspect of designing an attack; creating an approach for your warbarge that makes it least vulnerable to attack while it is stationing. You could justify a 'stationing' orbital approach as required due to the sensitive nature of nanite equipment and consciousness transferral synchronicity.

Most attacks could occur with a geostationary approach directly over a district, but if you had to stage a minimum of 3 hours ahead of time, that would mean your barge would have 3 hours it could be attacked from the district. Alternatively, you could choose from a customized variety of others to reduce your time over hostile districts, or the time your barge spends in outer-space vs. 'orbital/atmospheric space' vulnerable to eve pilots.

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First off, it is key to limit the amount of possible attacks on a district. This is needed or it will almost never be profitable to own a district and they will change hands like hot potatos. If a corp can successfully defend their district it should LIKELY be profitable for them to do so. You could "attrition" the corp by dumping tons of money into your contracts, forcing them to spend a ton to pay for defense. But it shouldnt be possible to just hit them over and over and over forcing them to keep paying for defense. So with that in mind, lets say for the sake of discussion a District can be attacked 10 times per month.

Each attack on a district will have 4 parties.

1) CORP A- The Attack Sponser Corp
2) CORP B- The Defense Sponser Corp
3) CORP C- The Attack Merc Corp
4) CORP D- The Defense Merc Corp

Now, CORPs A and C, and CORPs B and D may be the SAME corps. You may defend your own district, or lead your own attack, but you may also contract it out to a 3rd party.

So, what happens, how does this all actually work out? Right now, who knows, but you don't want gameplay to NOT occur, and you dont want the problem of timezones messing with getting good matchups.

So here is how I imagine it will happen.

CORP A puts out a 20 mil ISK contract for an attack on CORP B. This contract has a specified time for the attack, and this time is a anywhere from 12-24 hours out from when it is created. All contracts can either be public or private. Meaning I can set a contract that is available to ALL DUST corps, or just specific ones. This allows me to use connections to get a good DUST corp to lead my attack or defense, or just put something out there for attrition or desperation.

Once CORP A puts out the contract, two things happen.

1) A listing appears for the contract, allowing DUST Corps to accept it. They can see when the match will take place so they can be prepared.
2) CORP B is notified and they must put out a defense contract.

So CORP B now has 12-24 hours to put out a matching contract. They can talk to some of their allies, or contact some famous corps, or they can just post a public contract to everyone. Either way, corp B ends up posting a contract for the defense.

So now both contracts are up and available. Depending on if they are private or public, some or all DUST corps can accept.

Now one of 4 things happens.

1) Neither contract is accepted before the scheduled attack - Both corp A and corp B are refunded and nothing happens.
2) Both contracts are accepted before the scheduled attack by CORP C and CORP D and a game of DUST is played.
3) The attacking contract is accepted by CORP C and the defending is not. CORP A pays CORP C the contract, CORP B is refunded, but the district changes hands.
4) The defending contract is accepted by CORP D and the attacking contract is not. CORP B pays CORP D the contract, corp A is refunded but an attack is used up.

In the case of 2, CORP C and CORP D play a match. Depending on the district this may be 16v16 or 24v24 or whatever. It is up to the corps to fill those teams, if they do not you can see 24v8.

The winning team gets the ISK of both the attacking contract and the defense contact and all the salvaged loot from the battle. The losing corp gets nothing. This prevents crappy corps from accepting contracts and getting the money and just losing.
At the end, all 4 corps get a report of the battle. This allows CORPS A and B to review CORPS C and D and see if they made a legit effort and put up a good fight. If not, they can blacklist them from future public contracts, possibly even review them for other corps to see.

I think this system keeps DUST acting as a money sink for both DUST and EVE while providing incentive for both universes to participate as long as they win.

Real physics-based orbital mechanics would add a hella lot to EVE & DUST on several different levels. We need it.

There are a couple of issues.

First & foremost is that the oldest legacy code in EVE is the pyhsucs/celestial mechanics engine, and it is entangled in a hideous cthulonic fashion(mmmmm.....tekspeak) with just about every other piece of EVE code. Please jump in Devs, been awhile since i've heard anyone speak directly to this.

The refactoring project required to fix this is huge, essentially a complete rewrite of the core EVE code. I like to think of it as the programming equivalent of the CCP viking-entity stripping naked, greasing itself up with seal fat, holding its knife between its teeth and wedging itself down through a wee fissure in the rocks so they can drop down onto the back of a primaeval cave-bear that has been terrorizing the village. Or something like that. Things could get messy.

Secondly, there is a valid concern that if this is done it would completely mess with the bookmark system in EVE. This is true, but i say tough cookies. The moral of the story is don't pick a fight with Issac Newton re celestial mechanics. Sooner or later, you'll loose. Time to bow your knee to the master, CCP.

firstly, Corp B would have to place something at the hostile district which slowly takes it over. For example a CRU or other expensive looking stuff. They can decide to leave it undefended and do something else. Corp A can wake up, see the notification about the attack and decide the blow the district siege equipment away. Thats when the match starts. If A waits to long the district is lost. A decides when the counter attack starts, B joins and fights or loses.

its like eves FW mechanics, but you don't have to wait at the plex beacon till the timer reaches 0. You place something there and come back if somebody notices it.

Sorry, flawed system if not modified:
After B's "attack" of placing the structure, A could wake up anytime(?) from 1h to 20h? And then initiate the fight?

That would mean B has to be ready for fight for 20 hours, all the time! Unacceptable.
Some timers for future fights are necessary.


[SUGGESTION:]
Possibly that each districts holder can set some hours of a day, for example 18-22 each day their own TZ clock. During that time interval there can be attacks on the district, provided 1h signal has been given in advance for defenders to prep for battle.

The attacker would most likely hire an attacking corp to whom the sime hours are fine! Remember, third parties in merc warfare...

Is some corps hold several districts, they CAN set the hours same for all, or they can spread them a little bit. Their choice.

I like the idea of time zone

the district owner should not be able to set times, there needs to be that mystery or fear of an impending attack at all times even if its not in your corps "prime hours" there needs to be that feeling of loss for those who have districts even if they have goine on a 7-planet district capping spree in the AM's in US prime time. that evening battles could start and all that progress could be lost before that corp could rally at their best time.

timers do need to be placed so that corps can do their preparing anywhere between a 2-6h window, if not then tug o war feeling would be endless.

the district owner should not be able to set times, there needs to be that mystery or fear of an impending attack at all times even if its not in your corps "prime hours" there needs to be that feeling of loss for those who have districts even if they have goine on a 7-planet district capping spree in the AM's in US prime time. that evening battles could start and all that progress could be lost before that corp could rally at their best time.

timers do need to be placed so that corps can do their preparing anywhere between a 2-6h window, if not then tug o war feeling would be endless.

the district owner should not be able to set times, there needs to be that mystery or fear of an impending attack at all times even if its not in your corps "prime hours" there needs to be that feeling of loss for those who have districts even if they have goine on a 7-planet district capping spree in the AM's in US prime time. that evening battles could start and all that progress could be lost before that corp could rally at their best time.

timers do need to be placed so that corps can do their preparing anywhere between a 2-6h window, if not then tug o war feeling would be endless.

Regarding off-hours attacks:

I talked a little about this here (https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=583770#post583770), but it was pretty bland.

There are two potential sources of defenders aside from the holding corp (DefCorp).

One is an Ongoing Guard Contract (OGC)- a negotiated contract in which another merc company agrees to defend your district for X fee per merc per battle, plus Y bonus per merc per battle if they win.

The other is Instant Battle folks, paid at a generic X per merc per battle divided up like the current pub match payouts.

So, if your district is attacked (with no timer), all of your corpies online at the time and all of your OGC mercs online at the time get a BIG FLASHING ALERT that there is a Corp Battle imminent.

From that moment, a 15-minute timer starts. This is to allow potential defenders time to get out of matches, call their friends, etc. The attackers and defenders can deploy into their War Barges and get ready. Periodically, more BIG FLASHING ALERTS appear to any member of the DefCorp or OGC who aren't in the War Barge.

At the 13-minute mark, the battle floats into the Instant Battle rotation. Any unfilled slots get populated from the Instant Battle people and the battle starts at the 15-minute mark.

They fight.

At the end, the Instant Battle people get Instant Battle type payouts from the DefCorp. The DefCorp pays the OGC based on the contract. The DefCorp members get nada, but hopefully their bosses will pay them later.

I strongly disagree on the underlined part. That would be so disheartening for the weaker corps as it would hamper their abilities to try to rise and even the motivation to try to attack.


A good solution would be to have complex enough contract system:
Basic minimum payout for accepting a contract (?) 5% of total contract value.
Standard wage for showing up in battle and trying. 20% of total value.
Bonus for winning. 75% of total value.


How about?

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EDIT: About 'using up an attack', there lies a danger that a sister corp will have a dummy merc team attack the district, using up all of the allowed attacks.
Thereby making the district invulnerable to real attacks.

Having ongoing contracts paid out per battle could work, and it would help reduce the need for a longer delay to have the corps make a deal for a contract.

However, here is the problem that might be minor to some, or major to others. You want your corp's success to be based on your corp as a whole, not 3 dudes from your corp + 5 dudes from another +8 from the contracting corp.

One of the best ways to tell if a corp is worth contracting will be their wins/losses, how will that work in a mixed corp situation? Would the corp get a win or loss for EVERY member participating in the battle? Or just one? To really show the skills of the corp fairly, i would think it would have to be 1 for every member, so the more members a corp has involved, the more it sways their standing. Losing a match where you had 1 corp member in it shouldnt ding your corp the same as one where you had 16.

Well, I think it comes down to relationships. If your corp builds a strong relationship with a large, multi-time zoned corp and negotiates an OGC with them, then you're rarely going to have Instant Battle Blueberries (IBBs). In addition, i think it would be helpful if the people in the War Barge could organize players into Squads and Observers. That way, if your corp has enough players online at the time, you could handle it yourselves and the OGCs could stay and watch or go do something else.

I only suggest putting in the IBBs as a way to make sure that no battlefield is ever totally undefended.

Of course, I would think that since multiple battles are needed to take a district, your would rarely need outsiders except for surprise attacks and raids.