How many players can join corporation battles?
Planetary conquest will feature 16 vs 16 skirmish battles. Squad sizes are also being increased to 6 players per squad.

So would that be 2 squads of 6 and 1 squad of 4? or will the Conquest battles be 12v12 or 18v18?

Do we have to be enrolled in faction warfare to drop OBS? Please remove this as a restriction.

Was just thinking this.

Any particular reason you dont just make it 18v18 so theres 3 full squads?

will there be a way to track organized corp battles to make it easier for everyone to see which corp has the most wins and against who?

CCP, thanks for the exciting news.

I just have one question: When will we get this?

I know you mentioned that it will be later this year, but can you at least estimate it down to a month, if not a specific date?

I really think that the current corp warfare system shouldn't be completely scrapped. The pre-arranged battles allow for grudge matches to take place and can act as a vehicle for competitive play. Is possible that a system can/will be reintroduced to allow for pre-arranged battles with an eye towards competitive play, but not have an effect of Faction Warfare of planetary ownership?

Will we be able to trade/transfer clones between corps. I'm thinking a corp not owning a district buying clones and passing them to one that does to bolster the numbers?

Not sure if that would be a good or bad thing yet...

Yeah i understand you dont want to exclude smaller corps from gettign in on the action. Just personally i would like to see team size remain as a multiple of squad size. And the fact it is only 2 less than 18v18 aka 3 full squads just made me think hmmm why?

A corp that has 16 probaly has 18 in most cases. Dont get me wrong this is far better than the 8v8 corp matches, and id like to see the size increase more over time, however i know that ccp dont want to exclude the smaller entities from carving out their little corner of space like has become so hard for new groups to do in eve.

Is there any thought around the ccp tables about having differant sized corp matches? So a small planet that only has 5 districts might be 8v8 or 12v12 battles on that planet, where as the bigger planets with up to 24 districts could have
the bigger corp battles. Or something like that, so that small corps can still get some competitive play and larger corps can still get into bigger battles, and yet still give everyone the chance to claim some districts?

Maybe its a crap idea, but i was just thinking what happens to these smaller corps anyway when the player cap is increased again, as personally id certainly like to see us getting up to 32v32 ish numbers at some point.

Will we have access these districts outside of battle? Would it be logical that the defender has some sort of advantage in terms of knowing the terrain etc?

So as a solo player i can now jump into FW battles when they come up

Will i only be able to take part in PC if i am part of that corp, ie i cant just squad up and jump in with them when they launch

Also for FW and PC are the payouts increased?

Question:

Will clones as a new resource feed into eve as a potential revenue stream for Dust 514 corporations.

And is this tied to the various hints dropped by devs over the last year of changes to the eve online clone replacement system?

So large corps can put out multiple attacks or defend multiple locations, where a smaller corp has to decide whether they attack or defend?

There is only 1 hr window a day to attack district A? Win or lose you wait another 24hrs to attack?

So a corp of 16 holds 24 districts and can be attacked at each district that day and they have to fight all 24 or what? do the times overlap? Do the defenders choose the time or is it the attackers?

Another Question:

In future will it be possible to have "Dust Industrial Mongols" acting in a one man corp but defending thier territory by hiring other corporations via contracts and what not?


Edit: or does the present system account for that?

Are there plans in motion to expand the list of facilities we might build in districts? For example, structures that give other defensive advantages than an increase in clone count or expand our industrial options, so that we're not limited to producing only clones? For example, building generic ground vehicle chassis parts that allow you to call in HAVs. Or resources that could be useful to eve players.

How will the moving of clones work? Will eve be involved to other planets or solar systems?

So wait, can any corporation attack any district or do they have to own a nearby district? And if so how does a corporation with no districts get started?

so how many times can a district be attacked in a day? As defenders do you only defend the district once a day or once a day from every corp trying to take that district that day? Or is it first come first served and only the first corp to try and take the district is the only one the defenders need to fight and that district is locked for 24 hrs?

How will this be handled in the event if a defending corporation doesn't have enough people to mount a suitable defense? Say even though their time has been set to be the most advantageous to them only 3 people can be on to defend. Could it turn into a 16 vs 3 fight where the 16 squad can burn through all of their available clones?

how do you plan to stop abusing the "lockout" function?

what stops me to lock a district day after day and make it invulnerable?

lets take this scenario

Sell Clones Scenario 01:

Reinforcement timer set to 12:00 - 13:00
Corporation sells clones at 11:00 on Monday
District state changed to locked
District unlocks at 12:00 on Tuesday -> i imidiatly sell clones after this, is the district again locked for 24h ?

On the wiki article you guys stated you arn't ready to release the concept for eve bonues but invite the players to come up with ideas.

Heres mine:

a) Cargo Hub - Increases the volume of all storage facilities, command centers and starport for Eve PI by 25%

Purpose: Promotes synergy with eve through PI.

b)Surface Research Lab - Acts as 3 additional Lab Slots for PE, ME and Invention. These are avaialbel to corporations eve players available through the science and industry interface. Scientific networking 1 is required to access them (since eve players can drop BPs on planets). If the districts flips during a research job the research is lost.

Purpose: Promotes greater eve/dust player connectivity, motivating eve players to get dusties on board, especiall industry fouces corps for access to extra lab slots.

c) Production Facility - Reduces the time it takes to mainfacture Basic, Advanced & High Tech PI materials on a planet.

Purpose: Renewed intrested in PI? Synergy between eve and dust beyond "nuke it from orbit".

Why are most of the questions always on stuff that doesnt half matter? How bout some legit questions/concerns/feedback here.

In regards to planetary conquest (NOT FW):

It is stated these battles will be skirmishes, but the only win condition is to clone the other team out. Why not just make it an ambush since this is the case? Do you not see an easy way out to defending the district? A corporation gets attacked and lets say they even field a full team of 16. They do nothing but sit in the MCC/redline and never lose a clone. The attacking team hacks all the null cannons and destroys the defending teams MCC, but the only penalty for the defending team is that they cant produce clones for a time. But it doesnt matter because they didnt lose any clones did they?

Therefore, destroying the MCC either needs to be added as a win condition for the attacking team, or something along the lines of if the defending team loses their MCC they also lose a percent amount of their clones (with possibly that same percent being added to the winning teams clones). Furthermore on this point, why would anybody field a team to defend their district if the only win condition is by clone out? If you never lose a clone you always win, even if your district cannot create more clones.

Also needing consideration is allowing corporations the ability to set their hour timeframe when they want to be attacked. What will stop people from doing something like setting that hour before or after downtime when there arent many players on so that they run the lowest chance of being attacked. I like the concept of being able to set the timeframe, but one hour is far too short. I would personally suggest something like a four to eight hour time frame when they CAN be attacked (still would get the day to prepare also), but once an attack starts it can still only last for an hour.

Could we also get rid of the vehicle self-destruct in everything but instant battles? Particularly in the planetary conquest matches I could see people calling in militia LAVs over and over to try and boost salvage/isk rates, although Im not sure how successful that would be cause I feel like you would simply get a bunch of militia LAVs in your salvage and you already get those free, so whoopdy do. But personally I feel it is important to get rid of the self-destruct feature in corp run battles and such to give the game more depth through doing stuff like putting a mobile clone unit on an LAV and parking it in a strategic spot. It has balance cause the opposing team could hack it and use it for their own benefit.

Do the defenders choose who they want attacking if there are multiple opponents? How does this stop a corp from.making a dummy corp to attack their districts and locking them up?

Excited for this but i have a Question for the Devs?
I'm not quiet sure about the district taking and my Question is Do a Corporation start of with a district each so the Corp can defend or a attack other Corp controlled district because if we don't start out with one how do we take a district from another corp?

Are we able to start looking at how many districts are on a planet yet? Where will the whole list of information be stored? Will that be a kind of surveying thing?

You may want to add that to your Possible Conflict Resolutions table under District Penalty since I am not seeing that specified anywhere else. As long as that is true, then cool beans. Looks like its all pretty well thought out, good job.

edit: Although the time-frame mechanic could still use some looking at.

On the list of effects due to win or loss conditions, the victory of the attacker in destroying the defenders MCC results in the defender still retaining control of the district. What then is the purpose of destroying the MCC?

How is initial ownership of districts decided? Is it whoever plants a flag first gets it at the beginning?

Ok. So what happens when you implement this system what i am asking is do every corp start of with a district so they can attack other corps districts so that was my question. I'm just thinking like this '' you implement the system and i'm a CEO and i want to take this planet'' if i want the planet who will i need to fight for it if a corp starts out with no district's will i be doing PVE at the beginning of this system

Behold the maddest of the mad scrambles!

Two questions;

1. Will we be able to name our own districts or change their names or anything like that?

2. Will defender or attackers have the option to withdraw or surrender to avoid continued loss of clones in a fight?

some things:

1. Reinforcement Timer Window:

fixed 1 Hour WIndow ? seriously ? Waaaaay too short, the timer windows in eve make stuff (MUCH !) more interesting, especially for Towers, the fact that the defender (of a tower) can fail timing the tower also brings some interesting gameplay, where badly timed districts have to be defended by a random contractor and only the well timed can be defended by the owning corporation

2. Clone generation

A factory that "produces clones" is boring, especially if all factories produce the same amount and the rate can be adjusted by adding a obscure "produce 50% more" module. Clone Production should be tied to industrial skill(point)s and the players (note: plural !) organisational skill when setting up an effective production line. There should be districts of varying quality with different resources available

3. NPC Seeded Market

Meh, get rid of that, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING

4. NPC Clone Transportation

seriously ?

How many districts will be available at launch?

Is there a max amount of clones an attacker can move? And does the amount of clones moved affect the cost of transportation or is it just distance?

What is the timetable for moving clones? Can I buy a million clones and conquer every open district immediately? Or attack every district at once?

Since it will take multiple attacks to take over a district, what's to stop a corporation from simply waiting until another corp almost depletes all of a defending corp's clones and then sweep in and get the final blow? Kill stealing to a whole new level.

OMNOMNOMNOM beaten by a dev so different post now...

When do we get more stuff... i like being able to own districts and i love the changes!

but but STUFF?!?! i need more STUFF!!!!

Lol, but can I buy 10,000 packs and plop people into every single district all at once? Is there any limit on how many districts I can attack?

For a feature release lacking in new screen shots and full of tables its pretty kitten interesting. With only 250 districts open for grabs at the beginning there should be a mad scramble to find space for each corporation. I need time to digest all this information but the strategic element of moving clones around looks really interesting.

Is development far enough along to provide screen shots of what directors will see when planning for conquest?

The Elephant in the room map question:-

Will this be released with a fully implimented - terrain unique to each planet - dynamic/procedurally generated maps

Or will it be ashland, line harvest, manus peak, skim junction, and the wards with the same old fishbowl terrain and randomly generated structues (what we sort of have now) with the SI as a central feature.

Is there any way to transfer or give up district ownership outside of combat? When you take over a district can you automatically remove any structures built there?

Say a corp owns 10 planets and staggers the attack times to defend them.

What are the chances of all 10 being attacked in a day? What happens to a district that is not attack each day?

What happens if all of the clones are moved out of a district?

You can only buy clones from Genolution if you own no districts and you pick an empty district for delivery of the 100 clones? I'm assuming at that point you own that district and can't purchase any more clones and you are limited to the 100 clones for the first day.

So right now, a maxed out district with a production facility will net 60 clones per reinforcement time that they will then sell to genolution for 100k each or 6mill isk. Otherwise a district will make 4 million isk each day.

So from clone profit alone it will take 25 days to pay off a normal infrastructure investment. It would take 17 days to pay off investments with a production facility.

Either way, it seems that district profits alone will not be able to sustain thinly stretched war mongerers this doesn't even include logistics costs.

When this is deployed we'll still have separate economies? I'm guessing so and that we'll need to look to corp donations from our mercs to grab our first district.

I assume that this is a default infrastructure that does not give bonuses?

So corp tax's still wont be available?

Can we move clones out of a district if we don't own another?

Seeing how you do not continue travel costs above 7 jumps am i correct to guess that the initial launch will be limited to 1 low sec region ? (would also fit the 250 districts)

So its like a large game of risk and the first day we all drop our flag in the country (planet/district) we want/can afford.

The next day all hell breaks loose and you start acquiring your neighbor who put his flag to close to yours

Question is there a strategic
way to build your empire if you own all three districts around the center one. Can anyone attack any district or is there a foothold/beachead that acts like a bottelneck forcing players to acquire district a to get to district b then on to c where all the goodies are stored?

I understand each is essential its own but if a corp owns a planet wouldn't it make more sense that there is only one district that someone can attack to establish a beach head?

Which region?

How will Genolution transport the clones in EVE? Will there be NPC ships flying around that EVE players can destroy and loot clones from?

Can you only buy 1 package of clones at first, or is it unlimited? For example, if you buy 5 packs for 100 million ISK then you can just conquer 5 unoccupied districts very quickly in the beginning. Or are you limited to just 1 pack of clones and 1 district attack at first?

So to be clear here. 'Clone cost' is the total amount of clones you are left with after the move?

1) So a clone cost of 20% means that if you attacked with 100 clones you would arrive on planet with 20?
2) Can multiple districts from the same corp attack the same district? 100 from A and 150 from B attacks C?
3) Can you cancel an attack. I.e. if you do an 'all in' move with all your clones from your district, and someone attacks that sending district, are you basically then screwed?

Are direct ISK transfers between Dusters going to be available by the time district ownership launches?

If I log in on the first day and immediately order my batch of clones do I immediately take ownership?

If someone wants the same district on the first day can they schedule a battle for the following day or do I have to hold that district for a day before someone can declare an attack?

Once I buy clones I have to wait for 3 days to have enough clones to start my rampage if I didn't luck out and get the SI that increases clone production?

My head hurts.

Right now I've read the Wiki piece I have two questions at the moment.

1. What is the dispersal pattern for the initial district seeding. High, Low and Null sec? All three or just one.

2. District actions. With the complete lack of roles available to a corp, Just CEO and directors I think I can speak for what many CEO's will be thinking.

District actions should ONLY be the purview of the CEO and not directors. It's not that I don't trust the guys I've picked for directors, they do sterling work in D-UNI but they have the director role because it was the only one available to give them and it gives them nearly as much power as the CEO.

The CEO should have some definite separation of power from the rest of management other than being able to pick the logo.

A question
It states that a "Surface Research Lab Decreases the attrition of moving clones by 50%" does that apply to just the district that houses the infrastructure or all of a corps districts? and if it does apply to all districts would that allow you to stack its effects?

Thank you CCP, this is the kind of information we are craving.

Are there any plans for a capital installation? Something much more expensive and limited to one per corporation?

If a corporation wins a district with an existing installation does it remain or is it destroyed in the process?

Will a corp's standing with genolution affect the cost of clone purchases from it?

What is the thought behind making clone transportation so limited?

So this means that clones spoil?!? That's so gross!

Let's say an ally wants help in a battle and provides a squad leader to bring in some of my guys. We use their clones for the battle? It sounds like freelance mercenaries will have it easy since our "employers" will be the ones footing the expensive part of the bill.

Will we be paying for MCCs in this release?

so that mean's that districts with SRL's are going to be the natural staging points for the inital attacks on a planet and once you've got districts on a planet you can upgrade them for more clones...

hmm this could get interesting. also will we see some kind of planetary control mechanism that will give benefits to the SI/PI of the corp with the highest rating on that planet?

The 100 are lost: some to casuality from travel.

yeah i thought it would just wanted clarification hopefully FoxFour will get to it

Welcome to New Eden

Tried to read the whole thread and I didn't see it here or the wiki pages but I may have just missed it:

Conquest will be in the next build. Will we be notified long before the update or will it be more of a "Extended server downtime, oh also expect to download this giant update."

Can I get short clarification on the worth of specific planets, or how to combat exponential growth?

Since the ISK generator mechanics is equal to districts, it only makes sense to try and control as many of possible, instead of strategic ones (except for locations). In EVE, you have moon minerals that make locations worth defending over others. Is there a mechanic in place to make for strategic conquest, e.g. bottleneck systems allowing access to attack a region?

This is particularly awesome, as the good outfits can be hired to flip a projection district deep behind enemy lines, allowing attacks on multiple planets. A mechanic that helps combat the inevitable blob conquest by making big empires have a small weakness internally, asides from constant frontier struggles.

Still I think strategic resources are needed. Hoping the EVE link will be a PI boosting one, or even a moon mineral yield boosting one. This would make it worth defending a particular district to the last man, instead of just taking one from some weaklings to replace the lost one.

I'm sure I read somewhere that you can take up to 300 clones for an attack. Also, you don't have to go 2 jumps for an attack. You could just attack districts on the same planet and take 100% of your clones.

Apologies if this has been addressed. My main concern or question is about the income being balanced with EVE Online. I want this balanced so that we can hurry up and allow ISK transfers between the economies!

It seems that there is some sort of built in limit to how much corporations can control (which I think is great in principle!). Let us say that a corporation on average can maintain N districts per player (where very likely N < 1). Number of districts that can be controlled will be limited by at least these two factors, though they are probably the most important:
1. How many fronts the corporation can manage to fight on simultaneously
2. How many clones are produced in order to be able to attack other districts

So what is a reasonable estimate for N? Perhaps you guys have estimated this already, in which case you can plug that value in. Let's say a corporation can manage 1 district per 30 or so players. This is probably optimistic for your average corp, but pessimistic for a very active corp. That is, from 30 or so players, this means you will have enough numbers to be able to form a full defence squad each day, with reasonable quality players. This gives us an estimate of N = 1/30.

Each district produces 40 clones, or 60 with an upgrade, so let's set it optimistically to an average of 50 clones per district per day. Each clone has a sale price (if I understand correctly) of 100,000 ISK, or 0.1 mil ISK.

That gives us a profit per player in the corporation of around (N * 50 * 0.1) in millions. Other sources of income include public battles, though the income here is negligible compared to EVE Online profits. There are also the profits from winning district control battles, but I will exclude these from the estimate for a simple reason -- profits gained in district control battles are taken from other players. This does not represent increased wealth in either ISK injections OR item injections (by contrast, mining in EVE adds minerals to the game, missions add ISK and salvage). It merely shuffles around (with attrition) the wealth in a part of the game. So I think we can reasonably estimate an average income per player by excluding this. In fact, since wealth is removed from the game due to a battle, the estimate I provide will I expect be higher than the actual. That is, the estimate of wealth per player per day is a maximum for a well chosen N.

Now for some incomes:
N = 1/30 = 167k per player per day
N = 1/16 (for your more active corp) = 313k per player per day

Perhaps we need to be more optimistic and estimate a tight knit group of 16 players that's available for two or three battles a day, fighting a defensive war on a few fronts, allowing them to control upwards of 10 districts (since they don't get attacked at all districts at once). In this case:

N = 10/16 = 3.13 mil per player per day

Remember that this is a maximum estimate for the chosen N. Of course, there will be anomalous corporations that do particularly well, but as I mentioned this success will involve wealth transfer rather than creation.

So in summary, it seems to me that these profits are woefully inadequate to compete with EVE Online. Planetary Interaction in EVE Online (pessimistically) can generate perhaps 1 mil per planet in high sec for very minimal work, and let's say 4 planets for a relatively unskilled player. That's 4 mil per day for one character that has no risk involved, and takes nowhere near the skill or effort that district control will take. Have I missed something? Or misunderstood something important?

I want ISK transfer between these games, so if my analysis is right, let's please get the profits higher :)

that would only work if you could merge corps, instead you would need to abandon the corp freeing the territory.

Sweet! Now we're lookign at interesting things here.

• PI bonus: scales with nullsec PI scaling, making low truesec planets coveted. This is the best proposed bonus, as it scales with truesec.
• POS fuel reduction: if linked with the clone reserve mod, makes otherwise worthless frontier systems easier to defend on dust side while making them easier to fuel on EVE side.
• POS manufacturing bonus: absolutely lovely link to EVE. This could be related to specific reactions by planet, in order to make some planets coveted reaction POS planets. E.g. the POS manufacturing bonus for a specific reaction could be 500% so, that it makes sense to control that particular planet in order to make that particular reaction.
• Moon mineral yield increaser could be added. This would scale with the moons, becoming very valuable. The percentage should be minimal though, prehaps 5%. This mechanic would also allow for more vivid moon mineral market, as the valuable ones would be pumped with yield increasing planets first, and the next bottleneck would follow afterwards.

I know, that is why I asked are there any PLANS to connect those two features. We have heard so much talk about FW being the first deployment link between EVE and DUST. So far that link is almost non existent and there is too little incentive for militia to work with us. Especially since targeting specific systems is not easy...

Some of us have been preparing for the FW link with DUST for a while now, engaging in diplomacy etc. Where is it?

I love the PC feature and I hope that something like that will be connected to FW at some point.

Well, that's true when you add all the ISK you need for SI, management, etc... it's a lot of work and money...

But it looks like an issue. You avoid direct conflicts, you're working on economy without deploying expensive clones/vehicules, easy conquest.

With an active corp and a lots of members, ISK is not really the big deal...

A quick question about the player owned districts;- will they be in 0.0 or will we have some in high sec?

You cant transfer clones between corps so each would be even until one produces more. 1 corp with 1 district (no upgrades) can attack once every 3 days (40Cl a day, 100Cl needed). 1 corp with 3 districts can attack everyday with spare.

Its economically and tactically better to have more districts as you can attack, and enforce your own districts, more effectively.
But you need to have more districts which is how this convo started

\o/
pff devs explain it better thanks

Wait how many starter packs can a single corp buy on day one then? I thought it was just one...?

If a corp with no districts attacks a district with 450 clones, and wins by blitzing the objectives, what happens? They (probably) won't have a full 100 clones in the district any more. Do they lose the lot and have to buy a new batch? Do they keep what they have, but get the option to buy another batch to put them above the 100-clone attack requirement? Can they press the attack with whatever's left?

If they get to buy another batch, then win with more than 100 clones left from the partial batches, still without reducing the defenders to 0 clones, will they be eligible (since they still don't own a district yet) to buy ANOTHER 100 clones when they attack again? If that's possible, will it mean that a Corporation can attack a high-value district and start off with over 200 clones when they take over?

Also, if you attack and win, then choose to continue, can you make another attack somewhere else? If your corporation is attacking a district, you don't have control of one yet, does that mean you're still eligible for a Genolution pack for an attack somewhere else? Or are you limited to only having one attack at a time when you don't own any territory.

On a totally separate aspect of the topic, we need more freedom to assign roles (whether we can name those roles or not) to corp members. And this WILL be needed for Planetary Conquest to be viable with large Corporations where there's a hierarchy and members are given specialised roles within the corporate structure.

At the moment, there are 3 tiers.

1. CEO
2. Director
3. Member

There's VERY little that a CEO can do which isn't also available to all Directors. Members effectively have no say in how the Corporation is run as far as game mechanics go. The former is a problem, the latter is fine for MOST Corporations, but it would be nice to have some flexibility on that. CEOs need more control over the organisation and the access they give Corp members (including Directors). This should include freedom to not only remove or limit certain access, but also to add certain access that currently only the CEO is given. In effect, if not name, it should be possible to have a Corporation run by 2 (or more) characters with full CEO access.

Keeping members as a baseline with no access level is a fair starting point. Eventually, being able to give members limited access to certain functions would be nice, but unnecessary.

Directors are currently always given full access to everything. So far, there hasn't been enough freedom within the system for this to become a problem, but with the introduction of PC, this would be too easy to exploit in the name of trolling, espionage or general silliness. The easiest (though not ideal) fix would be to add a "Board Member" tier between Directors and Members. This new tier could have limited access to the Corp Wallet (able to move X amount of ISK per day from the wallet) instead of full access, and wouldn't be able to interact with the planetary conquest system directly. No moving of clones, and thus no declaring of attacks, no purchasing of SI or Genolution clones, etc.

A better option would be to give the CEO (and anyone he designates) the ability to alter access on an individual level. As a base, when a CEO is naming a Corp Member as a Director, they can just go with the default "all access" or they can restrict certain areas to define a Director's role within the Corporation. Combining this with the "Board Member" idea would make for a relatively easy system to manage, but still give significant control to the CEO and anyone who's able to access this system.

Eventually, it would be good to have a variable "Corp wallet access" setting so individuals could be given the right to draw limited funds from the Wallet without needing a title, and the level to which they can do so would be variable from one member to the next depending on their role and importance to the corp. And even better options would be if you could set a "retainer" where you pay your members to remain in the Corp (either per battle or for duration of service), and set taxes based on time (1% of current ISK per day) or activity (1% of ISK earned per battle). Another thing that would be nice - unnecessary, but useful - is the option to create custom titles. Either working within the established framework of CEO/Director/Member (and maybe adding the "Board Member" title as well) and allowing you to rename those positions, or allowing CEOs (and authorised personnel) to create titles and access levels as they see fit and assign them to members of the Corp.

In addition to my previous (already huge - sorry) post, there are also the problems with Alliances and EVE Interaction to be considered.

How long before we get Alliance tools in DUST?

And more importantly, will a Corporation with no assets in EVE, and no affiliation with any EVE-based Corp, have access to any form of Orbital Strike? I'm hoping we're going to at least be given a Precision Strike from our Warbarge. We DO get to bring a Warbarge, right?

How often can you set your reinforcement timer?

I may be reading this incorrectly, but the wiki states that just the act of setting a timer makes your district invulnerable, whats to to stop someone from bouncing it around the clock and live permanently invulnerable?

Okay cool, I can see the other people's points though, that the stacking properties on the eve side would be better if districts were united under 1 corp.

But i've been thinking about a valid strategy with sister groups where you have a shell group take a planet, fill up their clones, and then sell them all right before parent attacks them. Not sure how mechanics affect this...does it become locked after you sell?

I think you edited out your link to the wiki page here for some reason?

That's a very... elegant solution, and answered most of the other questions nicely.

Thank you.

Also, glad to hear that the corp management side is being looked at, although I think some of the larger Corporations may see it as a higher priority than it is for someone in my position right now.

As for the Orbital Strikes, I'm glad there will be some form of support available to those Corporations without EVE connections. While less powerful, I think a Precision Strike will probably be sufficient - particularly with FF being turned on (finally).

I'm confused...The wiki says "The specific action of selling clones will cause the source district to be locked. " but also the table says that the ending state of selling clones' source district is still online. Maybe the table should read "locked, online" for source district new state, then?

This is, in fact, a completely separate question that I was working towards, but not really sure how to phrase.

I'm still not entirely sure what to say about this.

At present, it seems like MCCs will be free, and Warbarges will be a source of free off-map support for those without EVE-based assets.

For an initial rollout, I don't have a problem with this, but I'll be expecting that setup to change eventually.

Just change EVERYTHING push the on button and hope for the best

...Not too much of a mixup. I was hoping that was how it was anyway because I wanted to be the first to coin this term (or something like it):

Biomasscade (B-scade)- Biomass + cascade. When a spy or disturbed director sells all of the clones in all of a corporation's districts causing complete vulnerability to be taken over, and then runs away with the profits. It's bound to happen...

For those who don't know a 'failscade' in Eve is when an alliance loses ownership of all of or much of their soveriegnty because of the maintenance bills that they do not, can not, or forget to pay out of wallets that often are stolen from.

Could you make a single page version of this thread with only the Dev posts?
Or, could you compile a Q&A thread that has all the questions asked and answers given?

The Devs tend to quote the question they are currently answering and having a single page with all the Dev posts would make it much easier to search for an answer that might have been on page 5 or 17 or 22.

Thanks.

Thanks for answering these questions, its definitely making a lot more sense now.

I have another:

What happens if two corps in the same Alliance try to move onto each other's spaces?

IF they can fight, can the Alliance then bombard the match for either side?

This all sound very exciting, a big thank you for Fox Four for a 28 page (and counting) Q&A!

A) Do the defenders have an MCC as well or only the attackers (aka original skirmish/skirmish 1.0)?
B) Is there a match timer (what if no one did anything during a match, what would happen)?

Is the following scenario accurate?
Defenders have 200 clones in a district.
Attackers land 250.
Monday's battle: defenders lose 100 clones and attackers lose 100 clones
Tuesday's battle: defenders lose 100 clones and attackers lose 100 clones
Attackers have 50 remaining clones on the district so it becomes their's
Wednesday, the former attackers and now district owners have 90 clones on the district

Question 1: Is this the beginning of the installation system descibed in the "Seeding the Universe" talk at fanfest last year? If so, are these considered the big hubs, or are they medium or small installations and will look more appropriately-sized when we get the bigger maps?

Question 2: Given that the "you'll be able to see starships in orbit over your district in the next build" is still valid, is there any chance we'll be able to see ALL the ships on-grid above the district, so we can watch the low-sec pirates blow our orbital support ships out of space?

Proposal 1: Can our corps charge a fee for Eve PI installations in our districts? This would allow a little bit of cross-game transactions, without too badly affecting either economy. It also would promote one corporation to do PI and own the planet to avoid the fees. The corp holding the majority of districts on the planet could potentially gain control of the customs office, as well.

Proposal 2: Structure construction times. Give each structure a period of time when it is under construction. Say a week. If you have a battle during that week, the structure is rendered under construction, with cranes and scaffolding, giving more variation and immersion

Proposal 3: This is a cheap, cheap one, but it would go a long way to adding immersion: Merc Quarters in a district: All you'd need is a window. Render a specific view of that district depending on the structure present (so ever MQ would have the same window in the same district). All mercs to select what district they live in. If the district falls, make them choose another. Mercs with no districts have no window (are on a station). Have the window closed during a battle within that district.

The one we are currently using. Some closed beta testers remember a different skirmish. Nothing will change for you.

So w'e're going to have stacked attrition costs?

Can't you just go through the Dev-posts forum tab...?

Not the prettiest, but you can subscribe to it. It's a search query so it will give you all dev responses. Someone could spend a couple hours summarizing everything that has been said, but there is still a lot between the lines that we will need to reason out.

Can a Corp choose to NOT use all their clones in defense of a district?

Say you have 300 clones when the district is attacked, would it be possible to only fight with 200? And if so, would that mean a loss by cloning out would forfeit the district? And in turn from there, would the surviving unused clones be sold on, or would you be able to move them to another district?

Can you buy/sell single clones? or will they be in batches of 10-100-200?

well, fantastic stuff, it's the start of what I have been waiting for since start of closed beta. It's taken me all day to read throught he thread and I have a couple of Q's

As a defender or holder of a district can you move clones out of your district to another that you own and leave less than 100 clones in the original district?

As I understand it, a corp that does not own a district buys a pack to fight for a district they want. This may take several days of clone attrition to achieve. The attacking side has it's surviving clones sold back at half price after the battle. In order to continue they will have to buy another pack to continue the attack the next day and so on until success. Is it viable to expect that small corps will be able to afford up to a potential 100 mil ISK expense to take a district?

If true this may spark some interesting tactics, such as the attacking side preventing the hacking of null cannons to prevent MCC destruction on either side while attempting to kill as many enemy clones as possible. Mind you, the defending side may exploit this by retreating and making the battle last over an hour so they could reinforce, an unlikely scenario but possible!

Defending side may also know that attacking corp is small so they remain in Mcc and sacrifice 100 clones knowing attackers cant afford to come back, assuming thay had plenty more in storage of course! lol

If you "just stop fighting" in this scenario, what happens? Does the enemy team have to kill your MCC to end the battle? Is there some form of penalty for a "surrender" decision? Or would something else happen?

Wait, does that mean you can buy multiple packs as long as you don't have a district?

So what happens when nobody captures ANY of the cannons?

Also I've done the math on MCC/null cannon damage mechanics, and unless they start to tweak them it is not possible for matches to last that long, UNLESS we can have the single objective map and the mechanics work different on them (I haven't actually tested them on that map).

MCC missiles and null cannons do ~500 damage per second to somebody and MCCs have ~2.3 million HP. That means if you have JUST the enemy MCC on you and ONE Null cannon half of the time ([750 HP/s] & note: it would be splitting its damage with the other MCC) then it would take about 51 minutes for either you or your enemies MCC to go down.

The way to make a match last the longest is completely splitting NC damage. As a result all maps have a maximum and minimum length.

5 objective maps are the shortest because they have the most 'stuff' doing damage.

But basically HP/s damage for longest times on maps is (# of Objectives)/2*500+500.

So 5 objective limit is 22 mins,
4= 26 mins
3= 31 mins
2= 38 mins
1= 51 mins

So there is no way to stall and reinforce as far as I know.

My point there was that if the attackers control the battle so well they can keep the defenders away from the NULL Cannons and not have to cap any themselves, they could drag out the battle WAY past an hour...

I'm coming back with my projection on the first day.

LetGÇÖs do this properly.

Mother corp = A
Sister corps = B1-B2-B3-B4-B5

A need to provide at least 21.6M ISK to each sister corps nâá 108M ISK, and 3 members each to prepare defenses nâá 15 people.

Day 1 :
Every corps take 1 district on the same planet, A in the middle (just for the style ;))
Reinforcement timer set (for an EU corp as us) EVE time :
A : 20.00
B1 : 21.00
B2 : 22.00
B3 : 23.00
B4 : 0.00
B5 : 1.00
District are locked, but they can be attack. If they are lock, you canGÇÖt build a SI. So 24h later, each district will have 140 clones (x6 = 840)

Suppose that a corp attack one of the district, we can defend it easily with the ringer system. Just need to count on our tactical and FPS skills. But on day after, just the corp that attacked has a prerogative to attack again. But they canGÇÖt buy another clone set to attack the day after. So youGÇÖll have a window to interact.

Well, just for the example, no one attack us during the first day.

Day 2 :
A build Production Facility nâá up to 60 clones a day. Attack on B1.
B1 sell 139 clones.
B2-B3-B4-B5 no moves

Day 3 :
A has 2 districts with 100 clones on each (follow me ;)), and build a production facility on the new district.
B2-B3-B4-B5 have now 180 clones
No moves at all (A canGÇÖt empty a district)
If we are attack on others districts, we have enough clones to defend it (suppose ;)) : ringer system

Day 4 :
A attack B2 nâá 60 clones left on the first district, the new one has 160 clones.
B2 sell 219 clones (100,000 ISK each)
B3-B4-B5 no moves.

Etc, etc, etcGǪ

So for each sister corp, itGÇÖs 2 days to capture their district, keeping enough clones on each to defend them, earning ISK for A selling clones, capturing new district without fighting, members of sister corp wait 24h until join mother corp (what else ?).

So ok, this system is weak the 1st day, and maybe the third. After that, itGÇÖs just syncGǪ

Once again, donGÇÖt really know if itGÇÖs realistic (at least, it is to me), but it does need a simulationGǪ


Edit : on day 4, A become A1 and A2... A week or 10 days max to have 6 district without fighting...

I was enveloping the economics here, and wont disclose what I've figured out so far, but what it sounds like is that much of the profit will be split between eve and dust with maximal profit coming from people who can tie both together the best.

But basically the lowsec Dust economy will only grow IF both A) more money is being brought in than destroyed, which is especially more easy if B) more clones are being produced from planets than are being lost to death and bought from Genolution.

IOW :
Genolution purchases are isk sinks.
MCC clone losses are unrecoverable resource sinks.
Player kills by winning teams are a conservative resource loss, but isk fountain.
Planetary clone production are resource fountains.
Genolution clone sales are resource sinks, but isk fountains.

Questions.

1. Are these districs gona be "stocked" with defences like turret installations, resupply, bunkers, sniper towers, buildings, etc in random areas or premade maps like minus peak etc... Or are we gonna be able to buy these buildings, installations, cru's, turrets, etc. from the marketplace and in the 24 hour window after we plant our flag, will we be able to plant our defencive structures were we want with an RDV. ??

2. Will we be able to fight with our alliance corporations if they need help or if we do. Or will we be able to hire mercanaries to help us out?

3. If the player/squad limit is increased is the vehicle limit also increased.

4. If we get 100 clones for 20 milion isk for a 1 time only at the start to take a district, then we defend the distric the next day and lose 20 clones in the process and the attacking team looses all 100. Do we then have 80 clones remaining, and how do we create more.?

5. Are the distric maps allready made up and set in stone, or will we be able to change the map we want to defend for that district.?

6. Will Dust514 be available on the PS4 at launch.?

Thanks CCP love the info and this bad a$$ game is gonna blow any other console game out of the water. This is what all us dudes and dudettes have been waiting for since the first build.

Can I interject at this point and mention that this thread has gone on far too long without degenerating into mindless drivel and the same tired stereotypes. If we aren't careful the Dust forum's immune system will soon begin to reject it.

When FW/PC takes affect will we be given a corporation warehouse for all the equipment we cant use but others can for a price, Or will we be able to trade with other merc's.?

Just to be clear.

I didn't mean to troll the dev blog and planetary conquest system, and didn't want to find a way to exploit it for me and my corp especially.
If I play DUST today, it's for what is coming ;) !!!
Just want to be sure that some corp don't fin a way to not just play the game.

All I want is a fair game, and I'm still not 100% convince. If every defenses are win, we can imagine a lots of things... And the economic/clone production system. In my 1st scenario, a theory 840 clones for 1 corp (84M ISK), the 108M to form childs corp will be reimburse in 2 days....

Well, it's just theory....

What I want to understand is this:

(another example so people see my concern)

Option A: Corp of 200 members (random number) starts off by getting 1 district. They expand from there on normally.
Option B: Same corp makes 4 alt corps with 5 squad leaders each. These alt corps do the excact same thing as the mother corp would, and they bring mercenaries into fight from mother corp. The 200 member corp reaches its peak districts 5 times faster, creating clones 5 times faster, being able to attack 5 times faster etc.

The only limit here is merc number in both cases, BUT as you have 5 corps you reach the limit divided to those corps 5 times faster. You stomp all competition, because you are able to attack with 5 corps bringing ringers while the single corp would just do its thing slowly.

The thing is, the main corp can still do its thing normally. They just bring ringers from the alt corps, since the player base is the same. So the same 200 players get 5 times more stuff done by making 5 corps so they can utilize their mercs fully from the start.

Now the 200 player corp would die of boredom trying to get fights for all the members, with clone amount being the cap. With 5 corps, you have 5 times the clones to get fights with for a good long while.

It feels intuitively very broken. I don't think the CCP posters have fully gotten an idea of how important it is to start off with alt corps and cross ringer fighting, if not for anything else than getting more fights. The base corp still builds at its pace, while the bonus corps are extra. And they can be eventually merged by giving free wins to base corp.

EDIT: in other words, this effectively bypasses the limit put on purchasing NPC clones by just doing it on alt corps.

and stalling hat empire growth is one key reason why the initial clone cap is in place. multicorp bypasses it.

Ah right okay - that fixes that then.

It's still a sustainable tactic at least in the short term though. The richest corps could easily lose a few hundred million isk to secure a handful of districts in the first few weeks and be happy with the outcome.

Couple of questions, sorry if I missed an earlier answer:

1) An important mechanic will be the queue on "who gets to attack". How would this be iterated?
2) Will the maps be enlarged from the skirmish of present, or perhaps in later versions of PC?

Would other clone numbers stay the same? Minimum movement of 100 clones? Max clones without cargo 300? etc.

You will increase the splits corp "issue" ... If you stil need a minimum of 100 clones to attack...

Just to go back to this point quickly - Am I understanding correctly that attacking an unlocked district works on a first come first serve basis? So should an attacker choose not to continue attacking, the attack will go to whoever launches an attack first after the exclusivity hour is up?

I don't quite understand the exclusivity period. I realize the corp that attacks gets first dibs to attack again, but does that 1-hour exclusivity period include the attack itself or just setting the attack?

In other words, if we attack at 2:00-3:00pm, and want to attack again, will we be attacking at 3:00-4:00pm or will we have to set an attack and it will launch at 2:00-3:00pm the following day?

Also, does having your district in a state of Under Attack prevent your district from attacking anyone else?

Yea, that last paragraph is what I was wondering (I've read the wiki multiple times). I sort of changed the terminology to easily distinguish between Setting an Attack (deciding you want to attack a district and waiting the 24 hours) and Launching an Attack (when you're actually doing the fighting itself).

The 1-hour exclusivity means you get to Set an Attack, but have to wait those 24 hours again to actually fight the battle--okay I get it. Thanks.

How does the Reinforcement timer on the first day work? If I set it for the next full hour after taking my first district, would I get those clones that same day?

Question :

Still a minimum of 100 clones loss ?

Cause with a 200 stack, what happen if game ends at MCC destruction and not clone depletion ? Does the attacker get any refund or something ?

So the first RT depends on the district 1st capture ?

So you can't use the rest to attack the second day. You only sell them half the price ?

Good to know, thanks.

And just to clarify, a district keeps producing clones during the Reinforcement timer even if the status is "Under Attack", right (assuming they haven't had their MCC destroyed in an earlier battle)?

Wait, what? I thought you only produce clones if you win?

Background info:
The preliminary leaked Dust-EVE bonuses were into POS production (days off supercapital cooking times?), PI (low truesec planet booster for isk generation) and a seemingly meaningless POS fuel reduction.

With that in place, if gen-bombing would be allowed in nullsec later on, or if lowsec got a meaningful Dust-EVE mechanic, it would make a lot of sense to shut down remote places to e.g. stall supercapital production. This would be a possible link for EVE alliances to hire Dust mercenaries.

This is why the instant clone bombing from alt corps needs to be looked carefully so, that the mechanic fits EVE. After all, what happens in Dust is relatively meaningless - the rewards for owning planets will come mainly from EVE for those of us who play both games.

Now the mechanic that allows behind the lines work is an enriching one for the EVE link, so there should definitely be one. I'd have it rely on EVE eventually, and I'm sure the genolution pack is just a placeholder as far as nullsec is concerned. Still, it's good to get it right from the get go so that CCP won't need to change it drastically later on.

I'd like to know what sort of information we'll be able to see on districts before attacking: e.g. current owner? current clone count? current SI?

Also, I'm under the impression that the one hour attack option is valid even after a loss, so you could keep the district locked into that "under attack" state, which I'm pretty sure means they can't reinforce from another district.

The question is for empty districts...

I guess I'll just keep asking questions.

I see that sending reinforcements to your districts Locks it, but it doesn't prevent any clones from being produced does it?

Like if I send Reinforcements at 01:00 and the Reinforcement timer is set to 02:00, I'll still get all those clones the district would normally produce at 02:00 right? Also, the clones I'm using to reinforce arrive immediately, right?

If your RT is set at, for example, 12:00, you could move clones to the district at 11:00, then do so again at 13:00. That's 2 hours apart. Not within the same 24-hour RT cycle, but still well within 24 hours.

The only problem is if any of the districts involved are attacked during that time, because the "under attack" state blocks them from reinforcing or being reinforced.

That's SI though, are we to assume clone reinforcements work the same way?

As mentioned in my post a couple above yours, I got it wrong in the post you quoted (although this answers the question posed immediately after my post).

But it also brings up another question I'm curious about.

What happens with reinforcements or other actions that occur DURING the RT window?

With that 12:00 to 13:00 window, when would a district unlock if you shipped clones to it at 12:30? Would it unlock in the middle of the RT the following day, or do unlocks like this only happen at the beginning of the RT?

Does such a dramatic increase in clone generation also come with some increase in max number of clones you can have in a district? It seems like unless you have a cargo hub, you would lose even a fully-stocked district in 2 waves. Is more shifting of district ownership one of the goals here?

Otherwise, I like the changes a lot, especially being able to make more money per district.

I noticed the states a district can be in are online, offline, locked and under attack. Are they mutually exclusive or can a district be in several states at once?

Also, what state is a district in if it is abandoned or before it has been taken the first time?

Are those different from each other in some way?

Is "unowned" functionally different from "offline" in any way?

Just something I want to note. I hope the regeneration timer has some nice helpful timezone features. Right now corp battles are just confusing with figuring out what the time in GMZ is right then and figuring out how long until that battle happen.

50/100/400

You are correct, however you lose 30m per attack instead of 20m per attack now (as a raider).

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Planetary_Conquest#Distance_And_Its_Effect_On_Moves

It's that, I think.

Would be nice to know if the ISK prices are all being scaled up to match, or if they're just putting a minimum cap on the transport price...