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CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 621	Posted - 2013.03.14 17:16:00 - [1] - Quote We recently released a developer blog which covers some details of our upcoming Planetary Conquest feature. However we expect that players may still have some unanswered questions which I am going to try to answer here. What happens with the existing corporation battle contracts? As has been pointed out by many of the open beta testers the current iteration on corporation battles linked with faction warfare has a few issues, namely being easy to avoid conflict and a low investment for corporations resulting in abandoned battles. The tie in with faction warfare is difficult to visualize and the impact of the battles is hard to measure. Alongside planetary conquest comes a new starmap where we will be displaying the war zone for faction warfare and the impact DUST 514 is having. We will also be removing the pre-negotiated contracts and instead opening up faction warfare mercenary battles to all players. The battles will automatically start based on demand and then players can join whichever side they like from the battle finder or directly from the map. Does this mean we will be able to queue sync in faction warfare? Yes, provided there are enough spots open up you can organize to fill one side of a battle. We expect this will be home to more organized squads of players who either do not have any corp activity at the time or are not interested in planetary conquest but are after more competitive gameplay. How is the location of faction warfare battles decided? The locations are decided based on recent plexing in EVE Online. There will generally be multiple battles to choose from of which you can see the locations and pick which faction and which planet you wish to fight for. Will I receive skill points for faction warfare and corporation battles? Yes, both the faction warfare mercenary battles and the planetary conquest battles will award skillpoints at the end of the battle. Friendly fire? Yes, friendly fire will be enabled but only for corporation battles not faction warfare or instant battles. This means if you have a problem with someone shooting friendlies you can have them removed from the corporation. 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. How do corporations make money from planetary conquest? Owning districts generates clones and clones can be sold for profit. You will however require clones for battle in order to expand and defend your districts so balancing how you use them will be important. At the end of a district battle rewards are paid out to just the winning team based on the value of biomass from the clones destroyed. Salvage is also handed out to both teams and is based on the items destroyed on the opposing team, similar to a loot drop from EVE. Rewards are evenly balanced among the team members based on their time in the battle not war points. How do corporations take districts from other corporations? The basis of it is you move clones from one of your own districts to an enemy district then battle it out with the occupant. How many clones you take dictate how many you have available for the attack, while the defender gets access to all of the clones on their district. With a fully stocked district we expect you would need to multiple successful battles over a few days to a week in order to deplete a district of its clone reserves. There are a few other subtle rules which should make for interesting gameplay. CCP FoxFour is currently working on a more detailed guide to cover this. What about pre-arranged friendly corporation battles or tournaments? With the corporation contracts being removed, players will need to use the setting of planetary conquest to organize friendly battles. We realize that this is not as flexible as it could be though and so our current development plan is to introduce an arena mode where corporations can arrange a no consequences engagement. This then leads down a very interesting path of tournaments and betting etc. We also want to make sure that when arenas are introduced they have consequences for not showing up to fight, something the current corporation contracts suffer from. Can I have other corporations fight my battles? You can always pull additional players in to corporation battles using squads and if they win they will paid out of the biomass rewards. However our plan is to eventually open up a contract market place where other corporations can be hired to attack or defend districts on behalf of someone else. How does planetary conquest tie in with EVE? There is a gameplay link, but the details are unannounced for now. We will be posting a dev blog about that later on. If you have any additional questions then post in this thread and we'll do our best to answer them here.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 621	Posted - 2013.03.14 17:17:00 - [2] - Quote reserved


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 627	Posted - 2013.03.14 17:49:00 - [3] - Quote Kain Spero wrote: 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? From the OP: Quote: What about pre-arranged friendly corporation battles or tournaments? With the corporation contracts being removed, players will need to use the setting of planetary conquest to organize friendly battles. We realize that this is not as flexible as it could be though and so our current development plan is to introduce an arena mode where corporations can arrange a no consequences engagement. This then leads down a very interesting path of tournaments and betting etc. We also want to make sure that when arenas are introduced they have consequences for not showing up to fight, something the current corporation contracts suffer from.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 636	Posted - 2013.03.14 18:20:00 - [4] - Quote jackbubu wrote: Also what about downtime, will you block 11:00-12:00 as a reinforcement timer? Yes the hours either side of downtime are not available for setting the reinforcement window.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 640	Posted - 2013.03.14 18:50:00 - [5] - Quote XANDER KAG wrote: 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. Corporations can expand into nearby unoccupied territory to claim it. Does this mean that every corp gets one free district or do our CEO's pick a planet?I'm not asking for fairness but will small corps even have a real chance at controlling these districts for any amount of time? You pay 20 mil ISK to put your first deployment of clones down on to an empty district and then you own it. You can also deploy to an occupied district but you'll need to fight the owners for it. There should be plenty of room for everyone.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 644	Posted - 2013.03.14 19:26:00 - [6] - Quote Free Beers wrote: BursegSardaukar wrote: Free Beers wrote: CCP Nullarbor wrote: Can I have other corporations fight my battles? You can always pull additional players in to corporation battles using squads and if they win they will paid out of the biomass rewards. However our plan is to eventually open up a contract market place where other corporations can be hired to attack or defend districts on behalf of someone else. How ***** stupid is this? Are you just too lazy to code a contract system? You have hundreds of *** people working on this game and you can't code a God Damned Contract System to take districts for other corps. We talked about this in irc last summer and this is the you come up with almost a year later. I don't want to play ***** sim dust514 null. Come on man you guys are better then this. Whoa... Perhaps they want to see how the core conquest system works before implementing the Merc contract system. If the system is broken as all hell at launch, they wasted the time making the merc system entirely. I'd rather they devote the guys who would be doing the contact system to making sure this conquest system is flawless before iterating on it. As a parallel: Why introduce War Decs into EVE if the PVP mechanics aren't figured out yet? Step 1-You own district A on planet and you want district B,C,D,E,ETC Step 2-You create contract (either open or confidential) on merc contract window. Step 3-We accept your contract Step 4-We win district Step 5-We get paid you gain control of district. Step 2 needs to be coded. End of Story. Why its not already in dust is beyond fail by ccp. That's the plan, just not for this release. Yes we would like it all delivered right now but unfortunately making games takes time.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 646	Posted - 2013.03.14 19:30:00 - [7] - Quote Alcare Xavier Golden wrote: CCP FoxFour wrote: jackbubu wrote: 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) Correct. Which region? That one. points


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 650	Posted - 2013.03.14 19:57:00 - [8] - Quote Kain Spero wrote: How many planets will we be fighting over when this launches? Around 250 districts with 5-24 on each planet. :math: Kain Spero wrote: If you own no districts and buy a batch of clones can you then attack anywhere? How many clones can you have if you don't own a district? The initial deployment is 100 clones for 20 mil ISK, but you only have access to that if you don't own any districts.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 650	Posted - 2013.03.14 20:06:00 - [9] - Quote BursegSardaukar wrote: 1) Are the maps going to correspond to the types of installations in that district? The terrain and visuals of the location are constant, but the primary building on the map is defined by what surface infrastructure is deployed. The weather and some other things can vary though. BursegSardaukar wrote: 2) Is the layout of the map for a district going to be identical every time that district is fought over? Yes, except if the SI changes. BursegSardaukar wrote: 3) Can the owners of a district place defenses as they see fit? Not yet. BursegSardaukar wrote: 4) When the match starts, do the defenders already own all the null cannons by default? No, but I like the idea of original skirmish which had similar to this. So maybe in a later release.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 655	Posted - 2013.03.14 20:09:00 - [10] - Quote KAGEHOSHI Horned Wolf wrote: 1) The ownership condition for attackers is depleting the enemy clones that the district contains? Yes. Although that may take multiple battles. KAGEHOSHI Horned Wolf wrote: 2) Is there a limit to how many clones defenders can bring to one battle? Is it automatically the amount of clones the defenders have stored on the district? The defenders get access to all of the clones on their district. Whether they choose to use them all up is up to them. KAGEHOSHI Horned Wolf wrote: 3) If you attack a district, win the battle, but didn't successfully gain control of it, do you get any sort of priority on the net window of attack? I ask because you could do like 90% of the work to take a district, and some other corp swoops in and defeats the defenders, and takes the district that would otherwise be yours. There is an exclusivity period for 1 hour after the battle start time to schedule a follow up attack during which the defender cannot move more clones in and other corps cannot attack it.



CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 655	Posted - 2013.03.14 20:10:00 - [11] - Quote Beren Hurin wrote: CCP FoxFour wrote: I should clarify 3. No you cannot cancel the attack. Think carefully about how many clones you want to attack with. You can however move clones from district A (which you own) to district X (which someone else owns) and then move clones from district B (which you also own) to district A. Once another district attacks district A though you cannot move more clones to it. This is alot like the rules of Diplomacy. Which kind of begs the question of reinforcements...How will allies factor in to all this? I love diplomacy. It has been a big inspiration for this design.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 655	Posted - 2013.03.14 20:12:00 - [12] - Quote BursegSardaukar wrote: I asked wayyyy back in this thread about OB's being decoupled from WPs to make it more valuable for Dust mercs to have EVE friends and for EVE friends to show up and help a Dust team. Any plans for this? Not at this stage.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 655	Posted - 2013.03.14 20:15:00 - [13] - Quote Kain Spero wrote: Would it be possible to implement a way for one to abandon our district if we only own 1 district and take our 100 clones back to roam space? You can sell all the clones on your districts. You'll get ISK for the sale and leave the district abandoned. You can then relaunch a starter pack of 100 clones somewhere else.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 668	Posted - 2013.03.14 20:16:00 - [14] - Quote Zahle Undt wrote: Forlorn Destrier wrote: Zahle Undt wrote: I'm very confused (nothing new for me) and probably won't really understand things until we get to try it, but what would be the actual mechanics of attacking and defending? So lets say Tritan wants to attack a district owned by STB, STB gets a message they are being attacked and they get to set a time for the battle? Do they have a fixed time window? The way this is sounding is, all you need is 16 awesome players and you're golden, that would be a real shame. IMO the attack/defend system should work like this. Corp A attacks district owned by Corp B. Corp B now has 1 hour to muster its best defense. Both corps can pull in anyone willing to fight for them through squad mechanic. Any members of corp and the corp's alliance can join the battle individually. This gives corporations incentives to make allies and have their back watched at all times and to recruit from all parts of the globe. Defenders have advantage of knowing terrain and having preset installations. Attackers should have the advantage of timing the attack. The defending corp sets a reinforcement timer - attacks only happen when this timer runs out (and there is a 1 hour window until the next reinforcement stage happens). When you attack, the attack is set for the window that happens at least 24 hours from when you "attack". So basically, you attack, then the next day there is the actual battle to give you time to organize a defense (your own players, ringers, etc). Attackers will know when the window is and can plan accordingly - so if the window is too inconvenience, you pick a different target. This leaves the problem I foresaw where all one really needs is 16 good players more or less. Time window for actual battles should be much shorter than 24 hours. I understand CCP wanting to give small corps a chance, but this system, as is, makes numbers mean nothing. Bigger corps can hold more districts because they can defend simultaneous attacks. It will scale to the size of your corp.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 668	Posted - 2013.03.14 20:18:00 - [15] - Quote Reav Hannari wrote: CCP Nullarbor wrote: The defenders get access to all of the clones on their district. Whether they choose to use them all up is up to them If a defender chooses to hold some clones back and loses then what happens? The attacker wins the district but what happens to the reserved clones? The defender loses at least 100 clones regardless of how many they consumed. The remaining stay at the district and the attacker can launch another attack if they wish.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 670	Posted - 2013.03.14 20:55:00 - [16] - Quote Gunner Nightingale wrote: CCP Nullarbor wrote: Reav Hannari wrote: CCP Nullarbor wrote: The defenders get access to all of the clones on their district. Whether they choose to use them all up is up to them If a defender chooses to hold some clones back and loses then what happens? The attacker wins the district but what happens to the reserved clones? The defender loses at least 100 clones regardless of how many they consumed. The remaining stay at the district and the attacker can launch another attack if they wish. When you say they can launch another attack, does that battle commence immediately or does it take place again 24 hours later? Edit- Also with the squad count going up to 6 will the WP requirement for PS/OB still remain 2500 or will it be increased? The following day at around the same time.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:29:00 - [17] - Quote KAGEHOSHI Horned Wolf wrote: When you win a planetary conquest battle. do you personally get money, or does only your corp wallet get the money? The individual players on the winning side will get their share of the biomass value.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:32:00 - [18] - Quote Kevall Longstride wrote: The placement of district seeding is going to be crucially important. A Dust corp with a link to a big Eve one can effectively remove any chance of their opponent using OB by blockading a planet and destroying ships that come near a district to give ground support. OB's are an important asset and to not even be even able to use them is going to put a lot of corp off even trying to set up a ground presence. It will be in lowsec, so more accessible than null but obviously not without risk. It may become as much of a conflict driver in space as it does on the ground.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:36:00 - [19] - Quote Ghural wrote: Will EVE players be able to view ownership details of the various districts? We are working on it. Ghural wrote: Will mercenary installations appear in planetary interaction? No. Ghural wrote: Will there be any new skills added to the game relevant to planetary conquest? Not initially, although I'd be interested in hearing ideas on what the skills might affect and who should be responsible for training them.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:37:00 - [20] - Quote Beren Hurin wrote: Also this doesn't say what the rewards will be in FW merc battles. Just SP? The same as Instant Battle. We may decide to scale them differently later on though.



CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:38:00 - [21] - Quote Breakin Stuff wrote: What other things are being included in the next build? the conquest clone thing is cool. But there's been new weapons promised, new dropsuits, changes in mechanics, none of which have been covered. What else is happening? You said yer changing how laser rifles work. How? You said heavies are being looked at. I'm rather interested here, having invested heavily in Forge AV and am pretty much expecting another nerf to enjoy. i'd like prep time to determine if I'll bother with the new heavy stuff or swap to logi entirely. There's hundreds of questions like this floating around, many of which have been at least hinted at being in the next build. We'll have a reason to take planets. Cool. I'm down with that. What about the rest of the build? I want my gallente heavy suit. I realize it probably won't happen soon but still. There's a lot more information I need before i'll be happy about the introduction of this new iteration promise of the game. That's not for us to say or related to this thread. There will be more information from other teams as we get closer to launch though.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:39:00 - [22] - Quote Panther Alpha wrote: What is later in the year ? and are we talking about this year or.......20 years from now ? Because i'm not getting any younger you know. It will be in the next build (ie an update via PSN) but we have not announced a date for that yet.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:41:00 - [23] - Quote Rubico wrote: Creating clones as a commodity implies there will be demand for that commodity. Will purchased clones be required for battles in faction war? The demand is from NPCs for now. We would like to introduce them and potentially other district related resources into industry in EVE. Planetary Conquest is a stepping stone to realizing that vision.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:43:00 - [24] - Quote Absolute Idiom II wrote: What is the point of telling us the cost of the SI (100 mil) if we cannot change the SI in the district once we own it? You can.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:50:00 - [25] - Quote Laurent Cazaderon wrote: Did i understand correctly that defenders wont be able to send in some more clones from another district for one hour after an attack ? Correct, the attacker has an hour exclusivity period from the time the attack started to decide to launch a new attack. During this time it is not possible for the defender to move more clones in or for anyone else to attack it. Remember though, if you win the defence your district will regenerate clones before the next attack, plus you get the biomass payment and the 20% bonus on remaining clones so it is possible to actually come out ahead after a successful defence. Laurent Cazaderon wrote: Do we have to pay for the MCCs ? i think not but dont think i saw the answer anywhere. No.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:51:00 - [26] - Quote Laurent Cazaderon wrote: You need a minimumof a 100 clones to launch an attack ? Is that minimum amount pre or post attrition effect ? Pre-attrition.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 01:55:00 - [27] - Quote NIKIA BETHUNE wrote: I read most posts but I may have over looked if anyone asked this critical question. Will there be fronts? Do you have to be touching a district to attack it? What if I'm using want to use a district to supply my war front is that possible? Or can u attack anyone anywhere..... There will be fronts in that the further you move clones the less will make it, encouraging conflict to be localized. This will create a landscape of sorts but no clear war line or anything. We don't want to artificially limit the combat too much, who you attack, when and where should be a decision for the corp directors.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 02:16:00 - [28] - Quote hershman001 wrote: You say youre turning your attention to the planets... CCP, shouldnt you turn your attention to the broken game mechanics? Terrible Hit detection Unable to traverse uneven terrain Poor controls all around for vehicles, dropsuits and interfaces. Text, font, icons, reticule, and other HUD items that are color washed invisible half the time. Ridiculous low fov for an fps. Invisible walls in every map This is only the beginning. What is being done to fix these issues? That line may be a bit misleading, there is only one team working on this feature. We have many other teams working on polishing and iterating on the things you mentioned, but that is not the focus of this blog or the forum discussion.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 02:16:00 - [29] - Quote Vaerana Myshtana wrote: Absolute Idiom II wrote: So after you initiate an attack on a district, you then have an hour to start the battles. If you go quickly, you could start 2 or maybe 3 battles in this period? As long as you START the each corp battle within the hour, then you you get to complete them? If I understand correctly, there can only be one battle per day. The attackers have a one hour window after the battle to initiate a battle for the following day (same time) before another corp could do so. Correct.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 03:02:00 - [30] - Quote S Park Finner wrote: Are all the state transitions correct? It is far too late to decipher that S Park Finner wrote: If the attacker wins the match but does not take the district and chooses to move clones in is it true that the defender gets no chance to reinforce from outside the district? Correct, the attacker gets an hour window after the battle starts to attack again before reinforcement can move in or other corporations can attack. S Park Finner wrote: Does the district continue to produce clones while under attack (I think the answer is yes) The district will produce clones just before an attack unless they had previously lost an attack the day before in which case it is stalled and not producing any. S Park Finner wrote: To make this work I had to create the new state "Within one hour of Battle Start" -- is that legitimate? Yes, 1 hour after the battle start is the attacker exclusivity period. S Park Finner wrote: I have not seen any place where the "offline" state is reached. Is that correct? A corporation can sell all of its clones abandoning the district. It then goes offline.



CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 03:04:00 - [31] - Quote Garth Mandra wrote: CCP Nullarbor wrote: jackbubu wrote: Also what about downtime, will you block 11:00-12:00 as a reinforcement timer? Yes the hours either side of downtime are not available for setting the reinforcement window. So for a normal DT there is a total of 2.5 hours where battles won't be happening. Right in the middle of AU primetime. Understandable but still a pain in the bum for us. What happens with abnormal DTs? I guess that is why there is a whole hour to either side. What abou super-extended DTs? It's a 2 hour window from 10-12 and being an expat Aussie myself I feel your pain. For now though it is a safety measure against DT related exploits. We may reduce the window or remove it entirely in the future. Extended downtime or unexpected server outages have a fall back scenario which just reverts all of the state before the conflict was scheduled.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 03:14:00 - [32] - Quote HowDidThatTaste wrote: On day one how many districts can corporation buy clones for? If money wasn't the limiting factor. It seems that you can only advance after the initial purchase 1 district a day if they are unoccupied.? You can only buy the initial deployment pack if your corporation does not already own districts. So 1 starting district per corp.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 711	Posted - 2013.03.15 03:15:00 - [33] - Quote Vaerana Myshtana wrote: Dumb question on behalf of my relatives in EVE: Does invading a district automatically create a wardec in EVE? If members of my corp/alliance can OB my enemies and vice versa, shooting a potential OBer would carry a security status penalty unless there is a wardec or limited engagement created automatically. No this does not affect wardecs, however the battles will take place in lowsec so you can shoot them above the planets all be it with a security status hit. Or you can choose to wardec the corporation in EVE as well.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 780	Posted - 2013.03.17 17:12:00 - [34] - Quote This is fantastic discussion guys, we are loving the breakdown and perspectives people are providing. Regarding the proposed numbers, if it turns out that owning districts is not worthwhile and corporations are not motivated to fight over them then we will very likely re-balance things so that they are.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 781	Posted - 2013.03.17 18:37:00 - [35] - Quote slypie11 wrote: At this point, I don't see the reasoning behind defending your district. Defenders have no advantage, and you can always take it back. But if you do decide to defend it, what if you are in a small corp and everyone is offline? Will the enemy just take it for free If you choose not to defend you will lose 100 clones and stop production for the day. Those clones and the production cycle equate to ISK you could have had in the corp wallet instead. Also you need to keep in mind the winner of the battle gets biomass which at the moment is 50% of the value of all the clones destroyed including your own, paid directly to the people participating. Combined with salvage from the enemy team you have every reason to show up to a defense and may in fact make a profit from it.


CCP Nullarbor C C P C C P Alliance 783	Posted - 2013.03.17 21:30:00 - [36] - Quote Django Quik wrote: ca ronic wrote: If my district is going to be attacked and I cant find anyone in my corp to fight, can you just invite 16 players in from other corps. Or does the squad leader have to be in my corp and then go out and fill a squad with players outside the corp? From the outset you can only bring people into the battle if the squad leader is in the corp - squad size is going up to 6, so that means you only technically need 3 corpmates online at the time of the attack. That said, you get to choose what time each day you want to defend, so just set it for when you're most likely to have plenty of your corp online. Eventually the plan is to be able to put the contracts up for the public to defend your districts but given the state of blueberries, would you really feel safer doing that? Actually technically you only need 1 person online because you can have them create the squad of 6, pull the outside corp members in to the battle then drop squad and repeat for the remaining squads.