I'm going to build an example using the following list of criteria:

1. Both teams are similarly equipped and have equal skill at killing other players. This means there should be approximately a 1:1 K/D during each battle.

2. The attacker holds their own district, thus allowing them to send only 150 clones (instead of the 200 you'd be sending in a Genolution pack).

3. The attacker's district isn't under attack, but they only hold one district.

4. The Defenders are holding a district with a Research Lab, meaning they get no bonuses that relate to defense of the district.

5. The attackers are on the same planet as the defenders, meaning no clone loss on their attack.

Using these criteria, it's obvious that a defender who is winning has all the advantages. I'm going to present two scenarios below, working with the above criteria, one where the attacker has a Cargo Hub, and one where they have a Production Facility. For simplicity's sake, we'll assume the defender is winning the battle by MCC destruction, but after killing 100 clones and losing 100 of their own.

Cargo Hub:

Day 1:
Attacker starts with 450 clones. Sends 150 to attack defender. Defender has 300 clones, and loses 100. Attacker loses 150 clones, 50 of which survive the battle. Of those 50 survivors, 20% are given to the defenders.

Day 2:
Attacker has only 300 clones left, meaning 150 left after launching the attack. Their 75 clone production means they have 225 left in the district post-battle. Defender recovered 10 clones from the enemy, and 75 clones are produced on-site. They have 285 clones remaining.

Day 3:
Attacker has 225 clones left. That leaves 75 after launching the attack, plus the 75 being produced that day. This means you only have 150 clones left. If you attack again on day 4, you will be abandoning your current district to do so. I wouldn't call that a viable strategy when you've been destroying the profitability of your own district to inflict minimal damage against the defenders.

Day 4: No attack happens, but a new one is scheduled for day 5. Now-stalled attacker has 225 clones again, but the defender has a full 300 based on only 45 of their 75 clones produced. That means they get PROFIT from the remaining 30 while the attacker is earning NOTHING because they're spending all their clones on attacks.

Production Facility:

Day 1: Attacker starts with 300 clones. Sends 150 to attack defender. Defender has 300 clones, and loses 100. Attacker loses 150 clones, 50 of which survive the battle. Of those 50 survivors, 20% are given to the defenders. Because there are only 15 clones left, launching an immediate follow-up attack will result in the attackers cloning themselves out of their own district before they produce enough clones to retain the territory.

Day 2: No attack happens, but a follow-up is scheduled for the following day. The defenders are only down 15 clones, and that means they make a profit from selling the other 60. Attacker has 225 clones after production.

Day 3: Attacker sends 150 clones from their district. After production, they only have 150 clones, meaning they lose the district if they follow up with another attack. Obviously, this means the attacker can lock down an enemy district on alternating days as long as they manage to go without any need to defend their territory.

Conclusion:

Attacking and NOT winning in Planetary Conquest will quickly become unsustainable, and achieves too little to be a cost-effective way to "grind" an enemy district down. I don't see this being much of an exploit, if at all.

EDIT: Just re-read the wiki page, and spotted something I forgot in the "notes" section of the combat resolution.


...oops.

So you're going to be wearing down the defending territory at a rate of 25 per attack if they win with 100 deaths each time.

An important question:

Defender positioning. Will defenders start with NULL cannon control? Will they start at a near location to bases as opposed to attackers who need to find a way in? Will defenders control all installations in the beginning of skirmish?

Anything else than the above scenario feels unintuitive and odd to me.

Not at this time no.

An important question:

Defender positioning. Will defenders start with NULL cannon control? Will they start at a near location to bases as opposed to attackers who need to find a way in? Will defenders control all installations in the beginning of skirmish?

Anything else than the above scenario feels unintuitive and odd to me.

It's the current Skirmish mode being used, so I would guess no to those questions (although some of the current maps favor one side to a certain point, Manus Peak for instance).

But I agree that we need actual defender vs attacker modes soon, but I think they are aware of that.

I agree with this design idea. The Geno Pack has no travel cost associated with it, and so must be made inferior to using your clones and paying to transport them from your district, to the point of invasion.

The Pack serves to allow corps who have no foothold in a district yet to get a shot, not as a spec ops option for mercs/raiders or to otherwise bypass the clone travel degredation 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. A is attackers, D is defenders. The first numbers after each day is the starting forces(after clone reinforcements), the second line is the outcome of the battle, and the third line is the aftermath.

Those numbers are not surprising at all. For the sole fact that even when attacker and defender both win a game, attacker gets 2 clone reinforcement when defender only gets one (check my post above). And you're forgetting the fact that most fight wont play out on the same planet and that includes attrition. Also, what are the odds that this attacking corp isnt attacked at the same time while committing all those clones in the conquest of one district.

FInally, it only makes sense that a corp attacking over and over and over again a district ends up wearing out the defenders clones if they cant manage to win more games that their assailants. It's called a "siege" situation. And in most historical cases, it never ends well.

Now, i would like to suggest something for discussion. What if an attacker couldnt attack the same district for 24h when losing a fight ? Or could still attack it but not using the same base district to move the clones for 24h ? Adding some kind of cool down.

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..

I don't generally like the idea of anything that further de-incentivizes attacking or makes it harder to do so. I do think the Defenders should get more than 20% of unused clones, though. Closer to 40%, maybe. If that means letting them reuse biomass instead of selling it (or instead of stealing 40% of remaining clones), okay.The attackers not only have several means by which to deplete their own clone reserves if needed, but also decide exactly how many clones they send to a battle (with a minimum of 150, obviously).

Well in the interests of PC, I'm curious if these districts that we control would allow any other industrial production facilities besides the clone affecting ones. With the economies split there isn't much drawing the average EVE player to PC besides good will toward alliances with the hope that one day all these manic ground troops might prove useful.

I suggest that CCP allow industrialism on these districts to be tied in. Gives the EVE players an incentive to set roots in these systems with increased production capabilities and output. Might get the industrialist corps interested at any rate.

Another idea to bring more interactivity. An EVE fleet could install a satellite defense system geo-synchronous with their favoured district. This would allow the district the ability to destroy or damage incoming clone assault packets sent by Genolution, Increasing the attrition rate by a modest percentile. These satellite defense networks could be destroyed by a hostile fleet, but it would be necessary to hold the system for a period long enough to root out all the cloaked satellites. This would allow more context and purpose for fleet involvement other than, "Nuke the CLONES!"

Pryke out.

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.

24 hours notice for every fight.

Discouraging raiding playstyles so that people can passively farm.

No advantage to attacking versus farming your clones.

No difference between districts so no reason to move around once you are fat and have the timers you want.

This design is too conservative imo, it needs some more meat and spice.

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.

Sorry if this has been covered but just got in from work after thinking about this and wanted to get it down while on my mind

Surely there should be a mechanic in place to allow defenders to reinforce to at least their pre attack levels with some room to also increase numbers if they successfully defend their district. Otherwise there is a possibility that corps will just abandon districts if they know that a large corp/ alliance has targeted them and may even be coerced into doing so by prior arrangement.

A big alliance with big resources can basically guarantee victory through attrition even if they lose some battles. It doesn't seem right that a defender may win a hard fought victory but with significant clone losses which under the current system it can't replace in 24 hrs if a well stocked alliance continues its attack with a restocked clone attack force.

In this scenario the defenders could lose their district even though they win every battle!

A small corps that realizes this in a fully stocked district can abandon and receive either 30 mil or 45 mil for selling their clones which gets them a new clone pack. They are not in as great a position as they were but better than kicked from district with all clones destroyed and they now have the means to go and try and usurp someone they have a chance against with a clone pack.

Big corps that know this can sweeten the deal by prior arrangement with some extra isk and why would the little corps refuse? they can't win over time as a defender and its cheaper for a big corp to part fund an abandonment.

The 100 clone production rate partly mitigates this and it is almost solved if on a PF but otherwise I think this is a real issue.

Under current proposals, district defenders are 100% doomed to fail if up against well stocked rivals even if they win all their battles.

Thoughts?

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.

You appear to have missed the edit on my post that you're referring: Here, I'll repost the quote that I got from the Wiki where this scenario doesn't play out quite how I said it would originally...



If you only send the minimum 150 clones into battle and you lose, any survivors are killed off instead of letting the winners sell off the excess.

Also, both of our examples were assuming, at best, attacking from a district on the same planet, and at worst, attacking from another planet in the same system, but with a Research Lab to negate the clone losses. If you want to have 150 soldiers on the ground a couple of systems away, you're going to be sending more than 200 clones. That's going to have a HUGE impact on how fights play out when this goes live.

Equal skill in DIRECT combat means that face-to-face on the battlefield, there's a 50/50 chance of either side winning the encounter. But in an objective-based game mode, the focus is no longer on direct combat, and because the suggested scenario I was working with had been a scenario where the attackers were LOSING EVERY TIME, I was presenting a defender's worst-case scenario in which this would actually logically happen.

think what will end up happening a lot though is that the attackers will have a couple of goes and either burn out or decide they probably need to save some clones for their own defense and then some other corp will jump in and finish the job, seeing that the defenders clone count has already been reduced somewhat. Ooooor even if the attacker manages to take the district, they'll have reduced clone numbers from hard fighting, leaving the district vulnerable to another attacker in the same manner.

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

That would be good logic, apart from the fact that this addresses a very specific scenario:


That says you're wrong. It's the same part I missed the first time I read it.

Which is why I was emphasising that I was working with the presented scenario where the defender always won the battle, but lost their district through attrition anyway. That was the scenario presented, and what I was providing is a situation by which that could happen in basically the worst possible way for the defenders. It's also why I specifically emphasised equal skill in DIRECT combat, not equal skill in all areas. That argument is a completely separate one to what I was actually addressing.

Ships, moon resources, control towers, ammunition, modules, etc. are all conflict resources in Eve Online yet plenty of people buy and sell them like the New York Stock Exchange. But that doesn't mean the vast majority of the players don't use those resources to start conflicts. Much of the reason for buying and selling (once the market opens up to allow a player-controlled economy) is to fund for wars. Much of the reason for farming is to fund wars. So far, Eve Online has thrived under this system and I'm confident it will help FPS players as well since it provides a supplemental source (secondary) income to the average corp needing to find ways to fund their battles.

If you're small and good, winning every battle, I've shown the numbers in a particularly bad situation where you're suffering 100 clone deaths per battle, and you're still only suffering a net loss of 25 clones - less if the attackers brought more than 150 clones per attack and you win by MCC destruction, or if you have the Production Facility SI.

It would require a minimum of 4 districts to sustain attacks like for any length of time, and it would require more than a week of constant attacking to grind the target district down in this manner.

7 days x 3 million ISK = 21 million if you hold the required number of districts and can go for a week without ANY of your districts being attacked at the wrong moment, and assuming any attacks that do happen are repelled with minimal losses on your part.

7 days x 40 million ISK = 280 million ISK if you hold no districts and are really, REALLY serious about wanting that particular district and money is no object.

Either way, the defenders spend a grand total of 0 ISK making you fight for it for over a week. Who's really getting the better deal here?