This would be really cool, but crazy complicated, but really cool. +1 (x3 posts)

This is well thought out. Thanks for posting it. I will say its just really hard to properly evaluate it since the high level stuff is still unknown to us. I would hope CCP FoxFour or CCP Nullarbor would put up their dev blog regarding this ASAP. Once we see what they have for us then a lot of the detail you provided can be evaluated along with what ccp has designed.

+1

What I want clarification on, is how will this affect Planetary Interaction in EVE online. My character in EVE is very involved with PI, and CCP said that they have installed PI with DUST 514 directly in mind. So I can't imagine the current PI changing too much from what it is, though I'm sure it will change some as realities of these two games interfacing begin to come to light. But as an EVE player, I want to see my PI involvement also make a difference. Possibly a new career in EVE online. A planetary base designer that is paid for his expertise, proven in battle, of designing and placing facilities.

AWESOME STUFF

What I took from the Seeding the Universe talk (link above) is that PI will be totally separate from SI for the time being. It's possible that they will integrate them more later- CCP has hinted a desire to remake PI previously.

This is not official; it is me running wild with stuff that CCP has hinted/said and imagining a system that I think would be cool.

Districts
CCP has said that districts are hexagonal, and possibly about 200km in radius. They have also said that the heightmaps for battlefields are about 5km square. We know that each district will have only one kind of Surface Infrastructure (SI)- mining, manufacturing, etc. We also know that some districts are planned to have supplemental emplacements, which IGÇÖm calling Secondary Surface Infrastructure (SSI) as opposed to Primary Surface Infrastructure (PSI). This is all from the Seeding the Universe talk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNmCRti9dFM

Wards
CCP has already hinted that Districts might have Wards, based on the Gribakir and Fetalis maps that used to be in rotation. This suggests that there can be multiple battlefields in a District.

Rim
These are purely my own invention, being small, outlying areas at the edge of districts.

This is a picture of what I think a District might look like under this system:
http://imgur.com/Oa1NWyc

Primary Surface Infrastructure
One Ward in each District hosts its Primary Surface Infrastructure. These include resource extraction, manufacturing, and something called a Surface Command Center (SCC) which is limited to one per planet and is tied to an Orbital Command Center (OCC). Each of these should be upgradeable with upgrading tied to some skill or other and costing lots of ISK.

• Surface Command Center GÇô Planetary Defense Hub
• Resource Extraction GÇô
-> Noble Metals (Garentium, Taplinum)
-> Base Metals (Magazinium, Ulaminium)
-> Heavy Metals (Iradium, Arunium)
-> Proteins (Vegeproteins, Carnaproteins)
-> Biofuels (Hydrocarbon Fuels, Carboniferous Fuels)
-> Aqueous Liquids (Water, Hydrogen Fuels), and so on.

• Manufacturing GÇô
-> Light Manufacturing (Weapons, Modules)
-> Medium Manufacturing (Dropsuits, Vehicle Modules)
-> Heavy Manufacturing (Vehicles, Installations)

Secondary Surface Infrastructure
These can be placed in the remaining six Wards of a district. The specific example given in the talk was an anti-ship cannon that attacked EVE ships that were near the OCC. However, there are many other types of SSI possible, from production enhancements and warehouses to spaceports and defensive bastions. Each of these should be upgradeable with upgrading tied to some skill or other and costing lots of ISK.

• Spaceport GÇô Three levels (Launchpad, Spaceport, Major Spaceport) each with improved ability to move goods and services off-world.
• Orbital Emplacement GÇô Three levels (Skywatch, Skyguard, Skyfire) each with improved levels of damage against ships in the DistrictGÇÖs skybox.
• Bastion GÇô Three levels (Redoubt, Fortress, Citadel) each creating a reinforced Defender position in a Ward that must be captured to take the district.
• Refinery GÇô Three levels (Basic, Standard, Advanced) permitting conversion of raw materials into useful minerals/inputs for manufacturing- each level improves efficiency.
• Harvester GÇô Three levels (Basic, Standard, Advanced) improving raw material yield for a Resource Extraction PSI.
Factories GÇô Three levels (Basic, Standard, Advanced) improving efficiency of a Manufacturing PSI.

Tertiary Surface Infrastructure
My own invention, these are smaller constructs that fit into the six Rim locations of a district. Each of these should be upgradeable with upgrading tied to some skill or other and costing lots of ISK.

• Warehouse GÇô Three levels (Basic, Standard, Advanced) allowing storage of more materials, finished goods, etc. in the District.
• Transit Hub GÇô Three levels (Basic, Standard, Advanced) allowing easier movement of goods from District to District across the surface.
• Bombard Emplacement GÇô Three levels (Firebolt, Firestorm, Firelord) that enable improved Precision Strikes on the planetGÇÖs surface even without a War Barge.
• ECM Emplacement GÇô Three levels (Haze, Shadow, Umbra) that limit the scale of Attacker deployments in the District.
• ECCM Emplacement GÇô Three levels (Candle, Lantern, Sunbeam) that reduce the effectiveness of enemy planetary ECM Emplacements.
• AA Emplacement GÇô Three levels (Cloudwatch, Cloudguard, Cloudfire) that prevent the deployment of Attacker MCC (1), Installations (2), Aircraft (3) in the district.
• Forward Base GÇô A special type of TSI that can only be built by Attackers who win control of a Rim space. A Forward Base replaces the DefendersGÇÖ TSI and enables the Attacker to bypass the effects of ECM and AA Emplacements in the district.

See, I like this because it contains several similar ideas to what I put forward in a thread of my own. +1 from me.

You've been quite busy Vaerana, +2! But I do have a question...

When you go on to talk about Infrastructure of Territory, and you talk about biological productions (Proteins-> Amino Acids, Biofuels, etc) do these types of Biological productions give an inherent bonus to clone supply should battle occur in the territory? Or even just in the general ward/rim? Or not at all?

So if I had Biomass Plant A in North Ward, would the whole territory have an inherent boost to clone supply, or just Northward, or not at all?

Although the Biomass plant has little to do with clones, wouldn't the resources it create supplement clone supply do to the nature of the production?

Good work though!

Hmm... That's a good question. I didn't really consider it. I still think of clones as being recycled corpses from the EVE lore ( http://community.eveonline.com/background/cloning/clon_02.asp ).

In my mind the major use of Proteins in Dust production was for building Dropsuits. If you look closely at them, most have flexible, fabric-like components. I just appropriated the PI resource and shifted it to a more Dust-y purpose.

Ok I was thinking proteins as in Amino Acid productions.

Now I have another question,

In developing a ward/territory, would you add infrastructure via a simple fitting mechanic or would you actually get to choose the location that a said factory can be built?

For instance you have an open territory and want to place build it up. You want to place an Orbital Emplacement on a mountain to better defend it, would that be possible? Or would it be generically placed?

That would be amazing. Could consoles handle that though?

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=search
I'm very very unclear WHEN any of this will happen.
There is such a mix out there of what CCP CAN do and what it MIGHT do and WHEN?

Sorry if tis was asked but how does this work with the reinforcement timers that they talked about in the Foxfour thread?

Yes, CCP would do the best table-top RP games if they ever do them, they create great setting, print a book and let you dream. When it comes to software it takes them years and years to shape things. But it's good and with no real alternative.

So I haven't seen this referenced yet, but have you guys seen the DUST 514 PS Home station video that looks like it is previewing the district conflict interface? It shows command nodes and a whole planet covered in hexagonal tiles. Its like a 5 second clip though...?

I love these ideas. They fit very well into an idea I posted in a thread a while back about getting rid of "game modes" and making the objectives of each battle vary with the installations present. For example:

An empty district would simply require winning an ambush battle (or series of ambush battles) to gain control of it.

But:

A refinery might require itself to be captured to flip a district. The refinery might have several stages of objectives a la Skirm 1.0 before victory is acheived.

However, this allows a alternate take on objectives; sabotage or hit and run missions.

The same refinery has an alternate set of objectives that if pursued instead of the capture objectives, would destroy the installation permanently, or at least damage it requiring a cooldown of a varyig amount of time before it is operational and productive again, depending on the amount of damage dealt to the facility.

This would allow dynamic campaigns. Tactics like actual raids on enemy territory to disable key infrastructure without taking and holding territory would become available, or scorched earth campaigns were defenders destroy their own installations before they leave.

And of course, installation based game modes would make it more variety with the game.

For instance imagine the possible objectives for a skyfire battery compared to a supply dump, or a surface command center compared to those of a war factory... The possibilities are endless.

The scale or importance of objectives would depend on installation size, with main objectives being the large installations, side objectives medium, and minor objecives small installations.

I must type up a thread on this.

Your proposed district systems would work seamlessly wiith my ideas, making a very real and organic connection between PI and DUST battles.

In total agrrement with you on the crux of the merc experience being driven by resource geopolitics + territory investment - there so much good that comes from working fro

I'm thinking the interplay of the right attack/defense mechanics with a resource/territorial conflict driver like yours is what will give us the richest experience gaming has ever seen.

As a working model to iterate on, A'RealFury/Free Beers attack/defense mechanics with Vaerana Myshtana resource/territory conflict drivers are well on the way to giving this merc the full-clonebody-nerdgasm that online gaming promised 20+ years ago.

This goes against many posts I've made on how I don't want to see "walking in stations" implemented anytime soon, but that's because I want other things to be fixed well before that occurs.

But...(WARNING)

What if for pure aesthetics, you could move your Mercenary Quarters planetside/moonside and have a window view of the district?

I'm sure people in EVE have barrels of ISK to throw, and I'm sure it would occur in real life if legal, but basically storm mansions so you can live there.

You got this beautiful view of a mighty fine planet, on occasion, you hold LAV races around the district for fun. You use your beautiful but resource devoid as a firing range and just for your occasional drug deal.

But then Richy Rich shows up and starts a heated battle over your killer vista.

Thoughts?

This goes against many posts I've made on how I don't want to see "walking in stations" implemented anytime soon, but that's because I want other things to be fixed well before that occurs.

But...(WARNING)

What if for pure aesthetics, you could move your Mercenary Quarters planetside/moonside and have a window view of the district?

I'm sure people in EVE have barrels of ISK to throw, and I'm sure it would occur in real life if legal, but basically storm mansions so you can live there.

You got this beautiful view of a mighty fine planet, on occasion, you hold LAV races around the district for fun. You use your beautiful but resource devoid as a firing range and just for your occasional drug deal.

But then Richy Rich shows up and starts a heated battle over your killer vista.

Thoughts?

Well, I gotta disagree with you on Walking in Stations, so I'm loving this. I wants my killer pad on a Plasma planet!

I'm thinking CCP should add a player-designed architecture module to DUST and allow publishing like Spore did - we could then sell our designs for ISK or trade them for officer weapons ^^

I'd love it, but I doubt they'd go there.

Have you looked a Player Owned Station (POS) in EVE?

A POS looks like a phallic symbol floating inside a soap bubble surrounded by a scrapyard.

Still, people will pay stupidly huge amounts of RL money for custom stuff. Remember Second Life? No gameplay at all, but it was like Gallente Central - all glitz, sex, and marketing.

You're right of course - the intelligence of the New Eden playerbase not withstanding, time-to-*****(ttp) has a natural unit measured in minutes from the release of any player-controlled graphical tool, so to speak.

It would add a lot to the appeal of the game to a larger(i.e. the sims crowd) playerbase who would luv to $pend-to-create and personalize.

+ 1
Great idea man, and some great discussion in this thread, if CCP managed to implement the system you described, i could imagine a massive draw to this game because it would involve a good mix of strategy for the RTS guys to fawn over and the fast paced action of the FPS guys.

Personally i'd be interested to see the dynamic of the interaction between EVE and Dust if this became reality as the control of the districts that are heavily built upon would be of strategic importance to the power blocs in eve.

Thats where the we the mercs would come in as the "first strike" as it were, to take the planets while the capsuleers fight above to take the system, would be a great opening move in a sov war and make it more interesting too.

Also a idea just throwing it out there, to have the sov mechanic have both a space TCU and a planet TCU per system , would definitely shake things up if as an alternative to using SBU's a merc corp could hack the planet side one to allow the strike of the space counterpart.

Like you said the power blocs have way too much control ,with the OTEC agreement for the tech moons the isk flow is streaming towards the big blocs as it is. But i divert, keep it up :)

Do you know if the moon mineral rebalancing ever had an impact on OTEC?

But, yeah, I think that planets may affect nullsec sov in some way, like they do now in FW systems? I know that in the Seening the Universe talk, they mentioned orbital defense stations. I wonder if those would affect it...

Of course, then we get back to the question of the biggies zerging all the planets in their space.

The biggest result of the rebalancing was that Tech became even moreso the be-all and end-all for moongoo. Hence the Goon/Test Pax Technia.

There are still other huge supercap fleets out there, but the stark reality is the Goons and TEST, because they're the primary Techholders, are really the only alliances that can recover quickly from large supercap losses.

I hear you re: the very real fear that the alliances will find a way to sew up planets.

We really need to keep hammering away at these terrestrial resource models and battle mechanics until we know we've got a system that's very resistant to planetary stagnation and domination through overwhelming wealth.

The complementary TCU's is an attractive idea for adding much-needed dynamics to SOV. Just as attractive, it separates land-holding from affecting SOV, and leads to more interesting dynamics. Taking districts/planets but not installing a terrestrial TCU might keep you off the mega-blob radar for a little while.

i feel like CCP reads all the terribad threads and skips the good ones.

Well, except for that one on FW Economics. CCP FoxFour spent a bunch of time in that one.

Oh well, I guess I got my hopes up.

Then again, maybe I got too close to the Truth(TM) that is coming Soon (TM) and they are taking out a merc contract to have me eliminated...

One of the best, if not the very best post on these threads.

Keep your hopes high!

I hope we as a community keep this topic on top and I would hope that CCP could at lease acknowledged that they have seen this.

Some guy tried to feed me a little ammonia-scented cube on a toothpick today. I suspect it was a CCP assassin trying to trick me into eating poisoned h+íkarl.

Then again it might have been a nice man trying to broaden my culinary horizons...

Here's my suggestion for the day:

With the destruction of EVE ships above the District, what if, and this might be server breaking, but what if they came down into Dust and crashed on the battlefield?

Here's my suggestion for the day:

With the destruction of EVE ships above the District, what if, and this might be server breaking, but what if they came down into Dust and crashed on the battlefield?

Dude, that would be the coolest thing.

I wonder if that's what the flaming wreckage in some of the maps is supposed to be...

Still, given our current map size, having a battleship crash into the district would pretty much end the match.

It wouldn't make much sense. The battleships are in high orbit. The small bits would break up in the atmosphere. The large bits could literally land anywhere on the planet, not just the relatively small area that is a district.

The ship isn't going to maintain a perfect orbit over the district when its in the process of exploding in several directions at once. Even when you throw realism out the window for the sake of "gameplay" it still doesn't look right.

It wouldn't make much sense. The battleships are in high orbit. The small bits would break up in the atmosphere. The large bits could literally land anywhere on the planet, not just the relatively small area that is a district.

The ship isn't going to maintain a perfect orbit over the district when its in the process of exploding in several directions at once. Even when you throw realism out the window for the sake of "gameplay" it still doesn't look right.

It wouldn't make much sense. The battleships are in high orbit. The small bits would break up in the atmosphere. The large bits could literally land anywhere on the planet, not just the relatively small area that is a district.

The ship isn't going to maintain a perfect orbit over the district when its in the process of exploding in several directions at once. Even when you throw realism out the window for the sake of "gameplay" it still doesn't look right.

It wouldn't make much sense. The battleships are in high orbit. The small bits would break up in the atmosphere. The large bits could literally land anywhere on the planet, not just the relatively small area that is a district.

The ship isn't going to maintain a perfect orbit over the district when its in the process of exploding in several directions at once. Even when you throw realism out the window for the sake of "gameplay" it still doesn't look right.

it would be space port to customs office. then into eve players holds who would then haul to market.

eve is not like dust for the market an item bought or sold in one station stays in that station until you move it. this is why we have trade hubs.

you may find thesse diagrams useful for renaming the products as they already exsits in eve and come from pi (planetery interaction) http://www.eve-online-fan.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Eve_PI_Diagrams_v1_4.pdf

a lot of the base products are not very useful to an eve pilot due to low value and size. it only really becomes worth moving them with the 2nd tier and even more so the third. some products as you can see on the diagrams are very complex to make requiring several planets to make.

CCP would have to kludge something since EVE's old celestial physics engine is pretty awful but hard to change.

In response to Original Post;

Can infrastructure be destroyed? In the sense of an MCC.

In response to Original Post;

Can infrastructure be destroyed? In the sense of an MCC.

Subcontractor - Three levels (Basic, Standard, Advanced) improving manufacturing speed and efficiency for Manufacturing PSIs. (NEW)

Could cease fire agreements be made? So say to very evenly matched Corps with lots of supplies and the battle is beginning to falter because people are logging off. Could Team leaders make an official cease fire agreeing to stop fight for an intermission then pick it up at an agreed date? Because that would be nice. It would add a nice intensity to playing.

"Man this battle is killer, been at it for four days now!"

Hmmm... Never thought about it. Although I suppose if the corp battle mechanic moves away from from the "I bet you 10M ISK that I can kick your dupa" system to actual district conquest it would be less relevant.

For instance, let's say I'm attacking your district (yes, I know, but play along) and our two corps have been fighting pretty constantly for so long that we're all hallucinating from lack of sleep.

If my corp simply stops attacking and loses the current battle, then everything stays the same unless you counterattack. I could email you and negotiate a ceasefire, but there doesn't necessarily need to be a game mechanic to enforce it. After all, if your corp is as tired as mine, then the likelihood that you could retake my Forward Base or something is about as small as me taking your Refinery.

Heck, even if one side or the other starts using IBBs (Instant Battle Blueberries) instead of corp members or OGCs (Ongoing Guard Contract mercs) for defense, the odds would favor the fresh players over the worn-out pros.

But then wouldn't battle progression be lost if the game just ended? And so you are favoring replacing the tired with the fresh to keep battle more constant rather than consistent (which could definitely work).?

Is there going to be a way to sell districts?

OP makes me feel like the Dust beta should look more like this.

Ooohh... Settlers of Catan!

I've got kitten for sheep!

I actually only just saw this thread, not sure how I missed it but I am really sorry. I am going to hold off responding for now as I am really busy right now, but I have bookmarked this and will be back to respond. Keep up the awesome discussion though guys! :D

I honestly don't know if it's in the cards. There was another thread where it was discussed and CCP FoxFour seemed to suggest that it was not really a priority.

I guess for me the priority needs to be on resource diversity, and to make district conquest feel like warfare instead of just a single Ambush match.

these would last hours or even days we would just have to make sure that you have enough corp members online at all times to keep up the fight

Our corp is huge.
+1

http://dust514.com/news/blog/2013/03/planetary-conquest/

WHAT!

The primary wartime commodity in DUST 514 is the military-grade clone. In order to gain a strong foothold and assert dominance in a region, you will need a steady supply of replacement bodies. Controlling a single district will generate clones over time. If you end up producing more than you need, the excess clones can be sold for profit.

It's WAY shy of what I'd like to see, but... Well, it is a beta.

Of course, they have also promised us a market in this upcoming build:



Nothing about other forms of money/resources, though.

However, if I am understanding the devblog correctly, it sounds like all district conquest will be AMBUSH with the defender's clone count being drawn from the district.

My guess, then, is that Genolution will ferry attackers to districts and supply clones to them at a cost. The defender will be able to resist with whatever they have in the district.

So I have a few questions about the Sov grinding that was mentioned in the dev blog/forums. CCP NULL said that attackers bring with them a certain amount of clones (as many as they want), and the defending district has whatevers on the district.

Soooooo heres a few questions about that....

1.) Can you redistribute clones from one district to another while its in its "seige" mode?? Thus making it impossible to out grind their clones simply because they make a whole planets worth per day?

1/b.) Can attackers see the clone count on each district before attacking?

2.) Can a corp launch mulitple attacks on every district at once if they want to? or do they need to own a district adjacent to whatever district they want to attack?

3.) if the answer is that they do, how does a corp go about attacking a district on a planet entirely owned by one corp?

4.) NULL only mentioned winning a district by out grinding the other teams clones, ok thats fine but what if the other team just doesn't show up? You cant grind out their clones if nobody is there to die...

5.) so that leads up to me asking if theres going to be some other method of taking a district.... like via objectives or something?? Do the defenders have to actaully..... defend an objective? like a massive console that just blows up their mcc if we capture it? or perhaps like the current skirmish?? (i hope not).

6.) also regarding the whole market/selling clones. Is the market regional? does it work like how eve does where you have to pick up the items bought at the station it was sold at? Or will it all be just one massive market? If it is a regional system then how will that work? what type of transport can dust players used? Personally i would like the regional system as it makes the market more complex, but i could understand if thats just not something we want to do with dust.

Well, I guess you're just awesome too.

We should form an awesome club.

Indeed we should.

I love today's announcement, but I hope they implement a system similar to what you and I have put forward in the future.

[quote=Marston VC]So I have a few questions about the Sov grinding that was mentioned in the dev blog/forums. CCP NULL said that attackers bring with them a certain amount of clones (as many as they want), and the defending district has whatevers on the district.

1a) If I understand the wiki ( http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Planetary_Conquest ) correctly, a district "under attack" cannot have clones moved into it.

1b) The devs said in their thread that people can see the clone count of districts from the starmap.

2) Corps can apparently launch as many attacks as they want, provided they are within 7 jumps of the target, have the clones to spare, and can actually fight all of those battles. If they attack, but lose, they lose at least 100 clones.

3) Apparently, you can pay Genolution to transport clones from planet to planet. Thus, you can drop X (minimum of 100) number of clones into any district. However, you lose a certain percentage based on the distance you move. So, to get 100 clones to a district 7 jumps away, you would need to move 500.

4) The losing team always loses a minimum of 100 clones. If one team doesn't show, they still lose 100 clones. Thus, if you attack District 9 three days in a row and they are no-shows, you would kill 300 clones and take the district.

5) At present, the method seems to be that we would fight skirmish battles ("Capture NULL cannons to destroy hostile MCC"). It is in the best interests of the defenders to destroy the attacker's MCC because they gain 20% of the attackers' remaining clones and potentially lose less than 100. It is in the best interests of the attackers to kill as many defending clones as possible to reduce the number of potential battles that it will take to capture the district.

6) As it looks from what I've read, the market will still be a region-agnostic NPC market.

yup most of that has been covered in the main announcement thread at this point.

Let's get down to Nitty Gritty

Economics, SP, and Eve

So given that infrastructure will be pricey so to keep it level on the Actions Vs. Consequences as well as to prevent everyone and their mother can't operate mining facilities and Space Cannons. But let's compare the income of Dust Vs Eve. ...

In the end, the ISK advantage Eve Corp had brought the hell down on Dust corp.

Did they say that they are not doing this in the dev blog?

I actually only just saw this thread, not sure how I missed it but I am really sorry. I am going to hold off responding for now as I am really busy right now, but I have bookmarked this and will be back to respond. Keep up the awesome discussion though guys! :D

What about upgrades that can only be built on held districts?

If you want a dueling arena, or a VR practice room, or a drving course, you can install these upgrades. Destroying an opponents training facilities is far more interesting than cut their profits by .05%. Also gives space a "home" aspect that you can't simply abandon certain districts willy nilly because a tough challenge came knocking on your doorstop.

That would be cool.

Let me add those up at the front.

Done. I put up a spot for other people's suggestions in the third post. I gave you credit!

Added to the list of suggestions.

Great job, OP! I would love to see the features you mentioned added to the game.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot that I already posted my support for this thread, but it's still great anyway.