In dust the majority of gear/vehicles will be npc and not eve side built (there is a super long explaination but you will have to take my word for it). Lots of economic and logistical reasons to many to list is why.

Aurum items will also be npc so there wont be an issue.

[CCP]CmdrWang: Q: After a period of transition will DUST economy be 100% player driven? or will there always be the NPC seed for all items ?
[CCP]Hellmar: like with EVE our desire is you build a truly player driven experience but what taken decades years for EVE will also take time for dust, we have learned a lot but most importantly we have learned to be careful on this front and measure our progress as we go along
[CCP]Praetorian: We want the economy to eventually move towards being player driven, but this will be an iterative process. We can't really say to what extent and when this will be.
[CCP]Jian: of course, there so much we can do along these lines with the EVE/DUST connection, and we want to take full advantage of it. like everything else, we're going to do it in steps

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.

..... 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?

If I am an EVE player, and If I have control of multiple systems.... and my planet can only be invaded by a system that is contested or otherwise not under full sov... then that means that my only planets not making money under the worst case scenario are on the front line.

Because... they are my shield planets. They are shielding the rest of my income, which isn't being taxed by constant contracts and battles from mercs. You could even say that the majority of their resources goes to defense, whereas all the planets behind them (in the currently uncontested systems) go straight to my pocket.

Certainly, if we only figured in the income from a front-line tech moon during a war, an alliance would go broke in no time flat. But it doesn't work that way. They have many, many, many tech moons deep inside their space which do not go under attack every week. Why should planets operate differently?

For FW, don't let districts be invaded unless they are on the front -- in a contested system. For nullsec, reality will sort out itself out the same way it does for POS warfare. Someone should probably have to physically fly a war barge over a planet to even begin an invasion campaign and that isn't going to happen deep into enemy territory with much degree of success on the long term. So that solves the profitability problem there, as well.

Am I missing something else?

Because it seems to me that a war-torn world probably shouldn't be making much income, except for the ones doing the fighting and the looting. This problem kind of solves itself.

=> I very much like the idea of attack capabilities being limited to the number of MCC a corp owns. Would avoid brainless spam of district attacks.

=> I very much like the idea of a corp attacking a district taking ownership of it over time if the defender never makes a move. And looting ISK from the wealth it generates. Mechanics of losing\not losing MCC though shouldnt be that strict. A corp should always have the opportunity to back out its MCC, just fleeing the field. (No ISK at all if fleeing)

=> I very much like the idea of standings for defensive contracts. Pretty much like devs already mentionned a long while back.
Give standing requirement to districts so only specific folks can defend it when you decide to actually fight back the intruders.

=> Wardec, meh il like that less. Merc corps shouldnt need to declare war. THey're mercs, they fight. period.

Overall, those ideas are a good way to go i believe.

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.

The control % is great idea but I donGÇÖt like the idea of having to be on for 48 hour to make sure the other side doesnt fight back while youGÇÖre asleep pushing you out.

My idea is we have the reinforcement timer as we do in eve but take advantage of the short match turn around that we have in dust and have a battle window where multiple battles occur.

the battle window is from when the first match starts eg 3 hour window and as many matches as possible are done within this window.
Only one battle window (campaign) is open per day and opens around district owners X time the following day.

here is an example of my idea using current match types and a single battle window.

Corp A declares invasion on Corp D at a cost depending on how many other invasions they have active at the time.
Corp D has set a timer on their district of x and the first battle is scheduled for a time +-1/2 hours around x

1st battle is 8v8 ambush map Corp A are attackers Corp D defenders- If defenders win Corp A are pushed off the planet and the invasion fails quickly If Attackers win they gain 5% control bonus to district (cbd) and progress to 2nd battle

2nd battle is 12v12 ambush OMS with Corp A attackers again Corp D defenders - if Attackers win they gain 15% cpd but if defenders win no one gains cpd.

3rd battle varies on previous match result

if Attack won 2nd battle : 3rd round is 16v16 skirmish with Corp A attackers again and Corp D defenders- attackers win means they gain 30% cpd defender wins no CPD is gained either side

if defender won 2nd battle : 3rd round is 8v8 ambush with Corp A defenders and Corp D now the attackers - if Corp D attackers win the gain 5% cpd and push Corp A the defenders off the planet.

With every match attackers win the battles will scale up offering more player spaces and cpd rewards a loss will scale the match down in size and switch the attacker defender roles.

4th battle if the battle window is still open a 4 match can occur following the rule above.


with this system no one Corp can gain full control of a district in one day and no one loss can cancel out all the work (which is currently possible in eve)

District facilities and isk generated from districts can only be earned if a Corp has 60% control or higher meaning with this system it is possible to have long drawn out stalemates where neither Corp can gain advantage and cannot gain benefits of the district promoting important decisions to keep the war going or withdraw and give all control over to the other corp.

with good pushes control of a district will take a couple of days at best and in case of stalemates may cause district to never be won be either side.

Rewards after each battle are in the form of salvage of battlefield winner gaining majority. Isk is only rewared when a merc contract is issued either per match, per battle window (reward split between number of matches and rewarded depending on how many of those one and is given out when window closes), pre district and is only earned once the district is finally captured.

Corp A and Corp D can issue defend/attack contracts to allies corp B/C to fight on there behalf or be issues to them selves to reward there own corp members participating in the battle if they win.

When the battle window is closed corp A or B can choose to withdraw from the district which for a cost gives up control of the district ending the invasion.

OMG OMG OMG OMG YES! And corpses...

that is not what CCP says;


from the CCP interview on IRC a while ago: https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=327837

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.

You could make the argument that what you lose in isk efficiency you can make up in coordination experience.