Everything you complained about... perfectly valid tactics.

Eve and dust aren't really about "fair" more about here's stuff do things with it whil we eat popcorn.

2) To provide a battle shield to allow your districts to generate clones in 'peace'.

If you have only one district and it is underpopulated with clones then you can use an alt corp to launch an attack on your district. When the battle occurs, there is no real fighting and the attack fails. Net loss of launching the attack would currently be 40m - 200 * 50k = 40m - 10m = 30m. Essentially, you've ensured that the district generates 75 (or 100) clones for 30m. Expensive, but much better than risking a genuine attack where if you lose it costs you 150 clones and the isk to cover the equipment. Compared to a loss, your net gain is 225 (or 250) clone for 30m. This compares favourably to 200 clones for 40m from Genolution.

Notice how a reduction in the base district generation rate would actually INCREASE the need to protect yourself from attack using this method since you'll be vulnerable for longer (takes more days to get clones in the district up to a safe level).

+1

Making the Geno Packs random solves every exploit against them. They can be used to enter the game as normal, although you don't get to pick who you are going after. They can no longer be used as part of any coherent strategy by any group of corps. No locking down your own districts, no going behind enemy lines, no feeding yourself clones by attacking your own districts etc...

Well done! Devs need to look at this option.

The problem will be with Reinforcement timers. What if there aren't any active when you choose to use the Geno Pack? How does it choose? What if you can't be there for the timer that it gives you?

It has to have immediate concequences (isk gone, attack planned) otherwise it can just be gamed. However it needs to be fair to the party paying the 40 mil.

wouldn't this mean your "alt corp" loses 150 clones? -you are going to run out of alt corps very quickly.

wouldn't this mean your "alt corp" loses 150 clones? -you are going to run out of alt corps very quickly.

Even if this was an issue, you would only go "through" alt-corps very quickly. You can't "run out" of them. All you would need is one character and less than 2M isk - something that large corps can have plenty of - and creating alt-corps is otherwise limitless.

And as Absolute pointed out, the alt-corp itself can just rinse and repeat by getting donations and never holding territory.

I've heard an idea of 'bidding' for attacks on territories brought up in various forms. What if there was a time window during which a corp could preempt the attack of another (in this case the battle-shielding alt-corp) by committing more clones than they have by a certain margin? With only 200 clones to compete with for an alt-corp with a Genolution pack, an established corp could move in with up to 300~450 clones and bypass the battle-shield.

This solution would possibly make it harder for a new corp to legitimately secure territory, since an established corp could always preempt their attack and not allow them to ever fight...

Alternatively, make it so that only attacks via Genolution packs can be preempted.

I had a brief thought in the same vein myself. It can still be used to deny genuine fights though, I'll have a think to bring my words together on how. Initial thought is how the 'fnal' battle where the defender has less than 150 clones and will lose the district if they lose. A fellow corp (say your alliance mates, official or unofficial) could 'outbid' the attackers and force a false battle. Simply pay your mates 15m for the 150 clones they will lose!

But what would prevent that other established allied corp from being preempted by yet another attacker with more clones? The only fully defined situation here is when the allies are shielding the defenders with a maxed bank of 450 clones. This shouldn't be seen as a problem, since these clones were not generated instantly with isk, but were displaced from somewhere else on the map, leaving behind a territory completely abandoned. There is a very real cost to battle-shielding in that manner, and it is something that enemies will be able to exploit.

Also, using an established alt-corp with more than 200 clones to attack with (not a Genolution pack) was not one of your listed problem situations. That's just meta-gaming with allies, and as indicated above, it comes at a cost. With balancing, I think it could be made fair.


An issue with this just occurred to me: a preempting system might encourage rapid escalation if implemented wrong (assuming there is a right way). The last thing we need in Dust/Eve is more blobs.

Although randomising the destination of genolution packs solves the issues above, it introduces several new problems:

1) Alliances will be unable to take districts in the same area, so that they cannot work together
It's an MMO - Massively Multiplayer Online game. Since we are allowed to create alliances of corporations, we should be allowed to work together and not merely be another meaningless chat channel

Alliances are eve side atm not dust side, also they can not work together at the moment for any beneficial reason other than trying to control a whole system to make the distance clone loss more effective. Alliances do work together atm aka Ringers.
plus this is for testing purposes so if you want the corps that are ahead of the game with alliances to work together then make them fight to all get near one location. Not start out all huddled together. Plus once eve pilots can be introduced to be paid to move genolution packs you can pick your starting point. that way there is a benefit to use the MMO side of eve, but there is still a stand alone NPC system. The eve pilot version needs a benefit to be used otherwise why not just use the NPC since it's 100% guaranteed. unlike the eve pilot who can be shot down.

2) You do not get to choose your opponent if you a corp wanting to join in once all districts are taken
You completely remove any strategic choices of the corp - the have to suffer the outcome of a dice roll. This is NOT fun gameplay.

This would be fixed using eve pilots. plus an incentive to use eve pilots over the NPC's. The Genolution are Terrible business men after all.

Both of these problems are not ones that you can leave unsolved; and so Genolution randomisation becomes a completely unviable solution which should not be considered.

We need the NPC's for a stand alone system, but we have Eve pilots to have an improved system to use so not completely unviable

Your alliance mates simply sent max 450 (or less, if you need to out-bid by a minimum) and they reinforce their original district from their other districts. I'm not saying this can apply in all circumstances, just that it can.

Then the mechanics for reinforcement might need to be reconsidered with some limitations.