So that is indirect benefits really telc. Indirect benefits such as PI bonus or higher LP conversion is for individuals not acutal corps in the militia. There needs to be direct benefits to the corp that owns or wants to own the district/planets for mercs to be employable on a consistant basis.

again so many unknows to work with but the fundamental philosophy of beind and isk sink to eve seems counter productive and broken now

Morathi I agree with the added bonus to dust mercs to play in the corp battles. That is a way to entice and reward with out more isk going to into eve. It just can't be all npc dust side rewards. There needs to be a balance and relationship between pilots/mercs

I know ccp is focused hard to deliver the best mechanics they can. However, if the econmic part isn't there worked out a head of time we could have the best faction warfare system possible and nobody will care.

I just don't want to fight for the Caldari Corporate Dogs, or those deep south Amarr Slavers

Not a bad idea free beers but beta i guess is here to make new emerging corp and solidify foundation of other. Yes you have right corp battle system is terrible right now so why dont give 2xSP and 2x isk 3xsalvage more than pub in the next build, other corp will be more interested and the challenge and the diversification for corp will be better, you have absolutly right with the district system but i maintain my opinion, its too close , i want ccp talk about district come soon in the next build so that fix every dust player what is the kind of game ccp want to bring

Sound good at first but it's actually the worst idea ever :p

Two sister corps will just sit there and farm the hell out of each other ^^"

No offense meant

Sound good at first but it's actually the worst idea ever :p

Two sister corps will just sit there and farm the hell out of each other ^^"

No offense meant

I truly appreciate Free Beers bringing up this topic because I feel it can not be discussed enough.

Some members of CCP did discuss that one of the purposes of Dust is to act as a type of ISK sink, however this is not its only role. Dust, like many things will have the proper incentives to motivation pilots to take part in it if they have "potential benefits" similar to what CCP has discussed previously. The key word here is "potential."

Like all things in Eve there has to be risk involved. Those successful and well coordinated should be able to profit while allowing those disorganized or overconfident to bite off more than they can chew. Right now CCP has only presented us with future ideas or potential benefits. FW is just the beginning and so harbors very small (if any) examples of this.

People not involved in FW in Eve may not truly understand what the purpose of FW truly is in Eve Online. FW is a place for unorganized groups to form-up, it is a place for small group pvp, it is a place of little risk and little reward. FW is only the beginning levels of true PvP and in no way represents the true combat of Eve Online nor will it be the primary gauge of combat for Dust 514 future. It is just what we have right now.

Make no mistake that FW when it comes to DUST/Eve interaction is little more than a test bed of what the future holds.

In the beginning I know there will be organization that will dump billion into Dust if for no other reason than just to say they own Planet A or completely Destroyed Planet B. That being said unless CCP comes forward with the true, tangible benefits and risks of planetry ownership then msot of us will jsut continue to speculate until we bore each other to death.

Theory crafting is great, but when there is a time for what-ifs and a time for substance. The time for real solid info and decision making is now. The whole don't worry it will be cool stuff won't cut it for much longer.

The thing is there has to be an ISK answer to the "why" of the Capsuleer putting up the contract. An Eve pilot isn't going to sink money into Dust corps fighting over districts out of the goodness of his heart.

District control affects FW capture status of the system.

I get Beers' point about the cost of a serious battle, but I suspect most district battles will be happy fun fun time with Zion vs. ScIdama or some other no name carebear corp.

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

I'm digging all the logic, Beers, but one question for you:

Are you assuming that every district of every planet will be fought over every month?

Do we even have a rough estimate on the total planets/districts?

From what I remember of my FW days, there were a whole hell of a lot of planets. If there's more than can be reasonably fought over (yes, there will always be hotspots, but speaking macroscopically, some planets will get more attention than others) there's going to be profit in it somewhere.

I imagine that battle hotspots will happen like a roving, incredibly hot spotlight.

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

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

Or it could be we have different ideas for FW battles. If FW battles and those for control of SOV were identical in all aspects it would be a bit redundant. We want them both to offer something different and to be different than the instant battles. More on this soon.

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 !!

... O_O

I may have talked to much... Back to work for me.

... O_O

I may have talked to much... Back to work for me.

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.

BLARGITY!

Hey guys,

Been reading this thread and really want to respond. First and foremost thank you for this thread. These types of discussions are really awesome and help us a lot.

You guys make a lot of really valid points about FW corporation battles; unfortunately, or fortunately depending how you look at it, they won't apply to FW battles much longer. One of the design goals we have right now when it comes to battles that are not the instant battles is that the corporation paying for the fight should be the ones owning the district and controlling who gets in.

I am not going to go into much detail here because I and CCP Nullabor are writing a dev blog on it, but I want you guys to know that we agree with a lot of what you have said and are working on a lot of improvements.

I will also note that your estimate for how much a planet should generate is pretty close to what I have listed in my documentation right here... No matter how much a district makes though, we want to encourage people to attack other districts because giant NAP fests are terrible.

No promise on when the dev blog will be out though.

... O_O

I may have talked to much... Back to work for me.