As it stands the spare clones would be sold at the sell value of 100,000 ISK and the corporation would have to buy another starter pack.

edit: no ones said anything about warbarge logistics...

Why not allow any corp with no districts AND less than 100 clones be able to buy another 100 from Genelution? That way they wont have to throw those 10 clones away.

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?

Yes, you can just stop fighting. Just keep in mind that there is a minimum of 100 clones lost.

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.

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

Well the liability with having less than 100 clones as a defender is that the attacker has 2 ways of winning (clones or MCC). If you have more than 100 clones, as soon as you lose your 100th, if it looks close, it'd be better to hide than lose everything. Then you get one more round, can be supported by friendly clones, and maybe have allies counter attack a hostile/aggresor district. That would only apply though if you have a way of sending more clones to the district and/or you know what kind of follow-up attack you could face.

I really encourage people to read the rules/strategy of the game diplomacy as a lot of supporting/blocking/defending/attacking sorts of strategies will be similar.

One example would be that you could organize a chain of more efficient attacks so that your enemy 5 jumps away, could be degraded by an ally who is in his system. But in order for that player to be confident in his attack, you attack his most likely threat that is 2 jumps from you and 3 jumps from him.

I meant if you had 105 clones as defender, they killed 100, then you have 5 left. Those 5 hide.

Why at least 21.6 million ISK? Clone starter packs are 20 million and they can be deployed anywhere. No fee for distance on those.

Long example, no need to quote, just to put the point in numbers.
A: 1 corp
B: 4 corps who just bring mercs from main corp to fights

Flip1 (get clones, get district):
A = 100 clones and district
B = 400 clones and 4 districts

Flip2 (first expansion attack):
A = 200 clones and 2 districts
B = 800 clones and 8 districts

20 million for the starter pack. 5 million if you kill all 100 clones and let none get wasted in the MCC. The final 6 mil comes from the district producing at max cap 60 extra clones, cause if it lost the fight, it would lose those clones and the dummy corp is preventing the district from losing. Total net lose. 20 - 5 - 6 = 9.

EDIT: Note this scenario could be used to protect a money farm located behind the district being locked and/or delay while reinforcements showed up.

The 5 million goes to the main corp, not the dummy corp. There's no way to put more money into the dummy corp from the main corp's winnings (actually, just thought of an exploit that would allow this - damn!). And yes you're assuming the district has the SI that increases production - without it you'd only earn 4 million worth of clones, making potential lose of 11M by your maths.

Also, remember that you can only attack if you have 100 clones to move. If the dummy corp loses, they need to either buy (-20M isk) or produce another 2 days (3 days without the production SI, which costs 100M isk) worth of clones before they can attack again. By that time I can assure you another corp has been waiting to jump on the bandwagon and attack for real in the period that your dummy corp is restocking clones.

Now, as for the exploit of actually being able to transfer isk between corps (and I can't see a way to stop this) - corp A gives one merc lots of isk, that merc quits corp A and joins corp B, then donates that lots of isk to new corp. Pretty simple really; can't be detected, can't be stopped, not even really an exploit.

The problem with being attacked before restocking clones still stands.

Ok, there are some bottlenecks, so a planet with 5 districts would lose 45 mil isk a day, but could be protecting a 25 district planet, so the costs could be worth it. Also, a big corp could make 45 million in a day easy through instant battle matches..

As for transferring funds, its easy. Give 20 million to a corp mate through the give money from the corp menu, and then have that guy leave and join the other corp. Once he is there, he gives the money through donate, and heads back to the main corp to get more money for the next day.

Where am I assuming no defense? This is a separate matter from the first, which can happily be put to rest (exp growth non issue with 250 planets).

The issue is (read carefully):
Big corp cannot use numbers advantage because it only gets 100 clones to start with.
Lot of small corps can use numbers because they each get a start.
Big corp can become lot of small corps and for most purposes merge by ringing players regardless of which small corp is fighting.

With this in place, do you think it's wise for a corp like PRO with 900 members to rely in 1 starting location and 100 starting clones? They could split and profit:
GÇó if one start fails, they have more to switch to
GÇó by having more attack opportunities they can put many players in use
GÇó the players that aren't their prime have their place, as fights abound. less fights that are more important (one corp needs to win, if you have multiple corps a loss won't bring the whole thing down) would mean that only the elite are allowed to fight for the few district fights (few because of clone amount)

This makes splitting a rather mandatory practise for big corps. In fact most corps would be best off with alternate starts just to see which one takes off best. Trust issues? Use alts as directors.

Main corp loses - alt corp that's doing better becomes main corp.

As opposed to only corp fails - restart.

In the alt scenario you are playing multiple times more players, too. This makes corp members stay. A month of not being allowed in PC because A-team needs to use clones makes members leave.

I don't think there's a problem here at all. I see a trade-off, which is exactly what we want from the game.

As I understand the argument, large corps have to decide between alt corp (high admin, fast expansion, weak defense) or single corp (low admin, slow expansion, stronger defense once established) strategy. Smaller corps don't really have this problem.

That's wonderful isn't it?

No right answer, and bigger isn't entirely better.

Having alt corps doesn't detach from making a corp bigger. In fact, you can make all of them big and see which survives to be your main.

On top of that, you can defend all the corps that you play as you would play one corp up to a point. When the time is right, you can choose NOT TO DEFEND from the main corp so that the main corp can expand without losing any clones to attack.

Analogy from imaginary RL:
You take your 30 friends on a trip to a strange country. The legislation of the hotels there says, that you can rent one room for one group signing in for the first week, two rooms beginning from the second week and four rooms after the first month. This feels very bad and you rent a room for the 30 people group, allowing eight of them to sleep inside while the rest have to get drunk and sleep in toilet or hallway. One day, a friend of yours gets an idea, though. Let's just sign in as multiple groups to get a room for everyone from the first day. Will you do it, or will you force the others to sleep in the hallway while you make sweet love to your A-girlfriend?

Analogy from EVE Online:
CCP decides to put in place a limit on ships a corp can undock in nullsec. They figure, the more POS'es you set up, the more command structure points you generate to use ships. In order to further limit this, there will be a 24h cooldown after installing POS, and the POS will start to generate command points for which you can undock ships. Now your corp of 400 newly gathered pod pilots has an issue. They want ships, but the rules dictate your corp can only undock in 40 ships and 10 ships for each POS in system. Then, one day, a corp member comes up with an idea. Let's bypass this by splitting the corp into 10 corps so that everyone can fly a ship in your nullsec system. Will you consider it, or just tell him to HTFU and go set more POS up, or go back to highsec?

Situation in Dust514
A corporation can have up to 100 NPC clones from day one, restockable to that limit. You have corporations with 700 mercs. The only way for such a big corp to put those mercs into play is to split into corps so that you have more NPC clones to play with, gaining multiple districts and fighting on multiple fronts - because that is the only thing that you can do with the 700 players when fights are 16vs16. In order to have fun for the players, uncapped by artificial clone limit, the corp needs to split into fighting for alternate corps made just to remove the clone cap.

And this doesn't detach from the main corporation at all. In fact, you are just multiplying what you do in the beginning, because it is otherwise hugely capped to what you could potentially be doing. The corporations you make don't need members of their own, since you just bring members from the main corp. All of the corporations can expand at the speed of the main corp, given you have enough mercs for it. You are taking a short cut into controlling all the space your player number allows you to, be it 3-10 districts.

Let's say you can control 6 districts. You put 3 corps in to take 2 districts each, defend the spots, and eventually give them over to the main corp by a timeframe play. This way you make sure you won't need to fight an attacking battle for them. The main corp gets a clone advantage, since it won't lose any to capturing the districts from sister corps.

Let's say you can control a bottlenecked constellation with 20 districts in the endgame, if you get a superior clone production going there. Do the same: expand with sister corps, hold the bottleneck with main, defend with sister clones from the NPC clone attacks and let one corp slowly flip it over without losing clones to attack in the process.

Yes. You are looking at wrong circumstances:

When you defend FROM YOUR MAIN CORP on your alt corp, you can choose not to show up - in which case main corp wins, and gets district which is the whole point. You can even push all the clones out from there to attack a rival just before you do that, in order to quicken the flip.

So, you can:
1) get some districts on alt corps
2) defend them normally
3) give them over to main corp when the time comes. Main corp wont lose clones to attack, making it stronger. You make sure nobody builds up a defense at the districts by having placeholders there.

I suppose what you could do is anytime you're attacked you just hide and don't lose any clones, except for the 20% that are turned over to the attackers for winning. However, losing stops you being able to produce any new clones and after a few days your district becomes virtually indefensible and unreinforcable.

The idea is: you defend normally when attacked. You just have the clones to defend individually each expansion, just like you get them for the main base. You just multiply your bases. This requires mercenary numbers, which is what being in 1 corp wont allow to put in usage.

well a quick calculation shows that with the default production rates and the default clone storage it would take 5 days to start making money assuming you buy a clone pack and take over a abandoned district, and then you would make roughly 4 million isk a day from 1 district. so long as the total battle price doesn't exceed 4 million isk your going to make a profit.

This was likely already asked, but if not:

Will the free precision strikes be removed from these battles?

If not, what is the actual benefit of maintaining orbital superiority?

I want to open this up for discussion, we are currently thinking of increasing the clone starter pack to 200 clones. This also means an increase from 20 million to 40 million ISK in cost.

There are a few reasons for this, but before I go into that I want to hear your opinions and thoughts without influencing them.

Here's a problem with the 200 clone pack - it doesn't really allow you to take a district that is well defended (nor should it). Say you attack a district with 300 clones in it. You're not going to lose all 200 in a single battle, but you could very well lose a good portion of them. In the meantime if one of your attacks is unsuccessful the defender reinforces from a nearby district or gets a round of production. You don't get any reinforcement at all. A 100 clone pack forces you to look for the low hanging fruit.

You can do that with the 200 pack as well, but I think it would draw a lot of new players into overreaching. Not necessarily a bad thing. On the other hand, having 200 clones could mean you're more likely to hold on to what you take. It would allow you to lose your first battle and still have a second chance to keep your territory. It would also allow larger entities to expand more quickly.

You can't move them multiple times, I don't think. At least not from the district they move to, because Locking a district is defined by "Not able to have actions applied to it but can be attacked by others."

In other words, you couldn't move 200 clones from District A to District B and then 100 from District B to District C in 24 hours, I don't think. Though you could move 100 from District A to District B and 100 from District A to District C all within the 24 hours since the district that sends the clones doesn't lock, only the one that receives them (link)

Oh that's interesting, so the Lock timer is directly related to the Reinforcement timer? I thought it was in Lock status for 24 hours regardless of when you do something that Locks it.

Hmm, okay, so there's no way to cancel a move or move clones back or elsewhere within 24 hours. So if had 2 districts and you moved a bunch of clones from A to B, then A you realise you moved too many and left yourself vulnerable, you can't move some back to fix your error.

Lore wise this seems a little contradictory to be honest. You can move from A to B instantly but once at B you have to wait to move again.

See this link: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Planetary_Conquest#Reinforcement_Timers

Change Surface Infrastructure Scenario 01:

Reinforcement timer set to 12:00 - 13:00
Corporation changes SI at 11:00 on Monday
District state changed to locked
District unlocks at 12:00 on Tuesday


Change Surface Infrastructure Scenario 02:

Reinforcement timer set to 12:00 - 13:00
Corporation changes SI at 14:00 on Monday
District state changed to locked
District unlocks at 12:00 on Wednesday

Is this scenario possible ?

Day 1 :

200 stack on a district.
Move 100 clones to the district next to the first one
build a SI on each
They are both lock

--> 2 districts on day 1 ? Cause attack an empty district is an imediate capture...

Genolution starter package clones: 100 -> 200
Genolution starter package ISK: 20M ISK -> 40M ISK

Clone generation rate: 40 -> 100
PF clone generation rate: 60 -> 150

Minimum clone loss: 100 -> 150

Clone sell value: No change
Minimum clone movement: No change

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.

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

"Both locked and under attack attack have two variations, the online and offline version. A district can be locked-offline or locked-online."

An unowned district is in the state of unowned. Which is not listed there... woops.

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.

You have a problem when a corp can win every battle but still lose their district.

With a minimum clone loss of 150, the attackers won't bring any less. That means the defenders would lose 75 clones if they managed a win with a 2:1 KDR. That's what you need to just break even (assuming you don't have other clones available to move).

So less than a 2:1 ratio will result in a whittling down of available clones even if every battle is won. Eventually the defender will be cloned out of their district.

Things will go better for the defenders if they can win by MCC destruction, but I don't think by much.

You need to balance the replacement rate against expected losses at a decent KDR. Demanding 2:1 is a bit much.

Random question that i cant find the answer to:

It seems that there is no real value of clones outside of planetary conquest. Is CCP going to create a demand for these surplus clones to be of value? Will these clones initially be sold back to NPCs?

Will you really be selling them? Wouldn't you instead be moving them to the front lines to bolster your forces for other attacks and defences? I mean the average front line territory under sustained assault needs between 2 and 5 territories to support it depending on which currently suggested system you choose..

That should be the cost you have to pay to move your clones from one district to another on the same planet

Also, I've been thinking that currently the Research SI is the weakest of the three available and could do with a bit of a buff in some way. I understand that the Production and Cargo SIs are good for bolstering your defense and profit margins; how about if the Research SI as well as decreasing attrition, also decreased the cost of moving clones?

The defender losing the district even when winning each battle can happen when they are constanty attacked by starter packs.

A corp with deep pockets can wipe out a smaller corp simply by outspending them. This can be done via a splinter corp if they currently own a district.

It's expensive, but not prohibitively so if you manage to keep it close to 1:1.

There's one major flaw with your example, and that's the fact that, given your criterion of equal skill level, the attackers should be winning as much as the defenders are. In other words, every other attack should be successful and therefore would not only reduce the clones of the defender by 150, but also wouldn't allow them to produce any more, bring in any reinforcements, nor would they bolster their reserves by stealing clones from the attacker's left-over supply.

I'm not going to run any numbers because I think it'll turn out whoever wins the first battle is going to probably end up winning overall or it may end up that defenders have a slight advantage because of the 20% thing (although the attacking district never stops producing clones regardless of outcome), but that's sort of how it should be. If the attacks were hitting with 2 districts, it would be a completely different story. I don't see a problem with that mechanic.

Alright I ran some numbers just to see how it would turn out.

Assuming loss of 100 clones by attacker and defender every battle, meaning 50 left over for stealing by the defender if they win. Roughly the same criteria as Blacknova earlier.

Clones not lost in combat but destroyed in MCC destruction do not get biomassed and sold. If clone count reaches 0 due to minimum clone loss, conflict resolution is considered to be "Defender kills all clones"

This doesnt de-incentive attacking. Some mechanic could just add a feelin of "set-back" just like losing as a defender gives you that feeling as you dont generate any clone.

Clones not lost in combat but destroyed in MCC destruction do not get biomassed and sold. If clone count reaches 0 due to minimum clone loss, conflict resolution is considered to be "Defender kills all clones"

Equal skill in combat suggests a 50/50 chance of either side winning.

I'm 99% sure that quote refers directly to the ISK gain from damaged/destroyed clones in a fight, ie 50,000 ISK per clone. It does not mean that any clones left over aren't stolen (20% anyway) by the defending team. In other words, the defender will get the ISK for the 100 clones destroyed and biomassed in the match (not 150), but will still get 20% of the 50 remaining clones as reinforcements (though not ISK), so mathematically, 140 clones were destroyed on the attacking side (100 biomassed for ISK), with 10 defecting to the defenders.

If clone count reaches 0 due to minimum clone loss, conflict resolution is considered to be "Defender kills all clones"

You can't say equal skill and then give one side an advantage in combat, whether it's objective-based combat or not. Equal skill means equal skill in everything. Gun game, players, strategy, etc. Limiting the scenario to direct combat for the purposes of PC-related discussion is pointless considering all of the matches are going to be objective-based.

true but the situation still stands, you could be small but pretty good, win all your defensive battles but still lose your district in a few days depending on your clone losses in battle. A well stocked corp/alliance may well choose to continue on the offensive even if they are not winning battles because they know that eventually they will get the district. If the defending district is restocked after winning then it is much less likely to be bullied off it's district by corps who are just bigger but not better

Of course, if you lose then you lose your clones and your new total is the new maximum you can be re-stocked to, but I'm also still inclined to allow a mechanic that allows some guaranteed increase in clone stocks if you keep winning consecutive attacks

I see what you're saying now. They're going to have to tweak that, since the only time I imagine someone sending so many clones that more than 150 will reach the district is when they're confident they'll take it. It's interesting, though, if they send 200 (none lost on transport), and lose 100 in the battle and lose the battle itself, does the 20% get taken away from the remaining 100 or only 50 because they have to lose 150 minimum?

Regardless, it's possible after you take a hostile district, it becomes Unlocked, meaning you could just reinforce it if needed, giving even less reason to send more than 150.

Ah, I missed the very first line of Skihids post, which says the defender wins every battle. The more interesting question is why the defender loses the district every time even with the same skill level and number of victories (with in many cases relative-little clone loss by the attackers), which is what my long post in the previous page is about.

Your point is good and obviously we are talking about the big corps being very determined in it's task but 150 clones a day is the product of two districts or less which doesn't seem to me to be a big drain if you have many districts and the little guy has no ally's to lock reinforcing district.

This also brings me back to my previous point that small corps could be bought out of a no win situation for them and abandon to order at a preset time allowing big corps in hassle free for a price plus whatever the small corps gets for its clone sale

Nope, it has been said clone movement is done instantly. So when setting the attack, your 150 clones would 'leave" your district and idle in the targetted one. Unless it works differently for fights.

The whole point of this post was to raise questions.

ok so the "dibs hour" gives you the possibility to not wait 24h+ before rematch. Makes sense and thanks for clearing the air.

Let's hope Foxfour or Null can give us an answer regarding clone movement timing when setting an attack.

Devs only need respond. Fanboys will not be acknowledged.

Q1 When will the system expand beyond 250 districts?

Q2 Is it worth while to found a corp on Dust?

Q3 Will ANY other game modes be offered in the future?

2) EvE is an important part of this game, whether you want it to be or not. People with EvE links are in a good positiion in Corp battles because of the orbital bombardments (people without an EvE ship above their district get no OBs in PC). That doesn't mean you have to get an EvE player in your corp; you can find yourself an alliance to join (many form everyday and many accept smaller corps under their wings) and have an ally send an EvE ship to help you out.

Honestly though, yes small corps are going to struggle in PC unless they are very skilled and dedicated. If you want easy time casual play, stick to pub games or Faction Warfare because this is entering hardcore mode here.

Here's an idea that might provide the reinforcement answer - if an attack fails, the attacker doesn't get the 'dibs hour'. Successful defense means you could call in reinforcements before another attack could be sent.

Not sure what you mean - where does the extra RT come from? If all that happens is that the attackers lose their 'dibs hour', it doesn't stop someone else (or even the same attacker) from launching an attack; it just gives the defender a chance at a very small window to send more clones to the district before an attack is set. It would only be one RT.

Question: When capturing a district for another corp do you obtain their infrastructures or are they destroyed are you put in your own??

I thought it was predetermined which SI is on a district. As in we won't know pre-launch, but each district will have the same SI no matter how many times it changes hands.

Just came here to make sure this gets to 100 pages long, also a question , if the planet has a pair number of regions and they got split down the middle. Lets say Zion owns 3 districts and GAG ows 3... who owns the planet?