DUST Search - Outreach: A Mercenary Planet

Garrett Blacknova wrote:

I can see this working, but only under very specific circumstances.

1. The chosen planet must have NO inherent strategic value beyond the ISK value of owning districts. This means it can't be in a system that acts as a bottleneck for travel anywhere in the region. There needs to be another planet in the system, and there need to be available planets for conquest in all adjacent systems, unless the "empty" system leads nowhere. A lone planet could be viable in a "dead end" system, but placing a mercenary hub in such a location would reduce the practicality of approaching it in the first place, and remote or dead-end systems have an inherent value as soon as someone holds the route into them.

2. Clones produced by Outreach districts must be at least nominally restricted to Outreach. There are 3 ways this may happen.
2a. Corporations may hold territory in Outreach, but may not maintain a Research Lab, and may not hold territory within 2 jumps of Outreach.
2b. Corporations who hold Outreach must otherwise operate under a STRICT Merc-only policy. Not a single district may be held by Outreach Mercenaries as long as they hold a district on Outreach.
2c. Corporations who hold Outreach are forbidden to move clones from Outreach to other districts, whether to attack another Corporation or to reinforce their own districts on other worlds.

3. While an Outreach Alliance is a good idea, it couldn't function as the sole indicator of membership in the Outreach mercenary programme. The group needs to be open for ANYONE who wants to be involved in mercenary operations in Planetary Conquest. Obviously, a land-holding Corp that's part of a large Alliance should be eligible to use the merc services offered by Outreach, even if (depending how point 2 is handled) they may not be able to hold territory on Outreach.

4. Ideally, all SIs on the planet should be converted to Cargo Hubs (increased clone storage) to make the world minimally viable for staging attacks or as a profit centre, while providing the best defensive capabilities. This would make even claiming a "beachhead" single district on the world a challenging prospect.


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Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 170	Posted - 2013.03.25 15:42:00 - [1] - Quote If you're a fan of Battletech lore, you already know where I'm about to go with this. I would like to propose the creation of a planet/organization for independent merc companies free of the complicated and convoluted politics of alliances and the like. In the universe of Battletech, Outreach is a planet that is (de facto) owned by a mercenary company known as the Wolf's Dragoons. This planet became their base of operations as well as an oasis for other mercenary companies. Different factions from across the galaxy would travel to Outreach to find a mercenary company to take their contract, ranging from planetary governments needing an experienced force to bolster their militia to Soveriegn States wishing to contract large merc companies to help in their latest war against their rivals. I want to create something of the sort here in Dust. A planet whose districts are completely owned by independent merc companies. The mercs of this planet would have a non-aggression pack and the top 10 merc companies of this organization would each have at least one district. On the metagame side of things, we would create an organization that would bring together all the independent merc companies into one place, making it easier for prospective employers to find a company to fit their needs. This would facilitate relations with the Eve mega-corps that will be employing us as well as those Dust corps that will need ringers for their on planetary battles. We can create a website with profiles on each affiliated merc company as well as links to their own websites. We can create the standards by which merc's are contracted in our universe, through trial and error. By sharing this resource together, we will be able to pass through the rough birthing phase of Dust/Eve interaction with far more ease than if we each tried to feel it out alone. What do ya'll think?
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 171	Posted - 2013.03.25 16:22:00 - [2] - Quote Yup, thats basically what I'm looking to create. I see the individual corp ownership of districts and a reward for participating in the pseudo-alliance. If you lose face (go rogue on a contract, drop from top ten rank), you lose the district and someone else gets it. I think the organization is more important than the planet. There is no real system in place for mercs to get contracts with eve corps right now. In this recent event, I'm sure there were tons of eve pilots/corps that would have loved to hire some dust mercs to help their favored faction win. I already plan to do a lot of work (already started) to facilitate relations between my merc corp and eve. Might as well let others benefit from my work, since this will not be a zero-sum game situation.
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 173	Posted - 2013.03.25 18:20:00 - [3] - Quote Thanks for the advice. I don't think this kind of competition would be a bad thing, as long as the landholder corps are legitimately worthy (not just fiends and alt corps). It would give the corps that choose to participate in the Outreach Program a reason to put effort in what we are trying to establish. I think.
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 173	Posted - 2013.03.25 19:52:00 - [4] - Quote Just one planet, so that (once it's ours) it can remain neutral. If attacked by an outside party or if a landholder goes rogue, the rest of the planet attacks them. No aggression beyond the planet will be sponsored, but individual corps are allowed to do whatever they like. I see this as a loose affiliation. Like how a bunch of professionals get together and create an organization and then give other professionals seals of approval. Like a guild. Or a how colleges get accredited. We will set the standards, the bar that other corps must surpass. If a corp plays by our rules, we vouch for them, and accept liability for them, in return for a small commission on contracts (5%?) and a tax on property(5%?). If a company can't complete a contract to the employers satisfaction, the larger organization steps in, and either ensures it's completion or offers a full refund (on it's own dime). The merc company then receives a red flag and drops in standing. We could probably create a system of rating for corporations from F to AAA, and as your rating goes up, your contract cost goes up. Want to spend a minimum amount of isk? Contract the D rated merc company. Want guaranteed success? Contract the AAA merc company. Your rating will be calculated based on some formula with variables that include your average SP per combat merc, gear rating, whether or not you can field a full 16 and for what % of the day you can do so, and your employment history.
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 185	Posted - 2013.03.29 18:20:00 - [5] - Quote As long as I continue to play Dust, I'll be putting effort into making this happen. Since the next build isn't until may 6th, I'm not doing to much more than musing and testing the waters. Might make a post in The War Room
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 193	Posted - 2013.03.30 00:04:00 - [6] - Quote Garrett Blacknova wrote: I can see this working, but only under very specific circumstances. 1. The chosen planet must have NO inherent strategic value beyond the ISK value of owning districts. This means it can't be in a system that acts as a bottleneck for travel anywhere in the region. There needs to be another planet in the system, and there need to be available planets for conquest in all adjacent systems, unless the "empty" system leads nowhere. A lone planet could be viable in a "dead end" system, but placing a mercenary hub in such a location would reduce the practicality of approaching it in the first place, and remote or dead-end systems have an inherent value as soon as someone holds the route into them. 2. Clones produced by Outreach districts must be at least nominally restricted to Outreach. There are 3 ways this may happen. 2a. Corporations may hold territory in Outreach, but may not maintain a Research Lab, and may not hold territory within 2 jumps of Outreach. 2b. Corporations who hold Outreach must otherwise operate under a STRICT Merc-only policy. Not a single district may be held by Outreach Mercenaries as long as they hold a district on Outreach. 2c. Corporations who hold Outreach are forbidden to move clones from Outreach to other districts, whether to attack another Corporation or to reinforce their own districts on other worlds. 3. While an Outreach Alliance is a good idea, it couldn't function as the sole indicator of membership in the Outreach mercenary programme. The group needs to be open for ANYONE who wants to be involved in mercenary operations in Planetary Conquest. Obviously, a land-holding Corp that's part of a large Alliance should be eligible to use the merc services offered by Outreach, even if (depending how point 2 is handled) they may not be able to hold territory on Outreach. 4. Ideally, all SIs on the planet should be converted to Cargo Hubs (increased clone storage) to make the world minimally viable for staging attacks or as a profit centre, while providing the best defensive capabilities. This would make even claiming a "beachhead" single district on the world a challenging prospect. I think I love you man. #1 yes, a planet near the "core" would make more sense from a RP perspective, as it would be a business center planet, so that is what we would probably go for. But the planet chosen will depend not only on what planets are available and their locations, but what corporations are taking what planets. It would be a bad idea to **** off one of the top dogs at the very beginning. #2 these are very good points you raised and must be contemplated further. 2a I assume this would keep the merc companies from using Outreach as a staging area? 2b I LIKE this idea the most. If you want to be a landholder, you must be representative of the ideals under which Outreach is founded. 2c I think all clones created should be sold and the profit taxed. #3 this is why I don't want a full alliance. It might be necessary depending on what functionality we gain by creating an alliance to operate under. The whole point of being a true merc is to have relative freedom from the politics of alliances and whatnot, right? #4 idk about that. If a landholder corp goes rogue, that would make it that much harder for us to take it from them. (the tax would pay for operations taken on a planet/organization wide scale like this)
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 195	Posted - 2013.03.30 11:38:00 - [7] - Quote I want to start at ideal and work backwards to practical and functional. So, in an ideal world, outreach would have a merc corp rating system. graded from AAA to D, with a suggested contract cost per level. Do ya'll like this idea and how would it work? N = number of mercs you can field G = average gear level of these mercs 1 = militia 3 = standard 5 = advanced 7 = proto 9 = officer S = Average SP of these mercs C = contract history (w/l ratio in contract battles only) An A ranked corp would be able to field 32 players with proto gear and at least 7 mil sp with a w/l ratio of 3.0 (pulling numbers out of my ass) (NG + NS)C=(328 + 327)3= 1440 And D would field 16 players with std gear and 3 mil sp with a W/L of 1 = 96 So if we set A at 1440... AAA = 3000 AA = 2000 A = 1400 B = 700 C = 450 D = 100 I think with numbers like this, you could have a variety of corporations at high ranks, i.e. those with a lot of good plays and those with a small number of elite players. We would have to set up a system to monitor the sponsored corporations, like have alts in their corp who can check up on them, make sure the numbers they give us are legit. We will have to create modifiers for stuff like skill with A/V and how good they are with vehicles, though w/l ratio might take care of that. Let's run PFBHz though this formula. They can(would) field about 16 people I think, maybe 24. We will take 16 to be safe. From their videos we know they run proto/officer gear so we will give them a score of 8 for gear. Their average SP is probably around 6.5 mil (some with 7.5 some with 6 or less(rare)) Their win/loss ratio is like 18-24 or some god aweful number like that. (168 + 166.5)18 = 4176 This would make them a very strong AAA ranked corporation, which would demand the highest price but all but guarantee success. If they started to lose more battles, they might drop down to an AA unless they increased their numbers or increase the quality of their mercs (gear and SP)
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 196	Posted - 2013.03.30 16:52:00 - [8] - Quote This is just to "rank" the corps. And a better system is definitely needed. I just made that up on the spot while drinking coffee. We will need a system to either rank individual mercs, or else have a price per merc system that relates to rank. I foresee a lot of our corps being hired to "soften up" a district before the contractor makes the final assault. I bet we can get as many as 15 contracted mercs in these battles. Just transfer squad lead, leave the warbarge and get another squad. The more people you can supply, the more districts you can attack per hour and the more hours you can attack consecutively. We might have to make it so that corps have a different rating for each hourly window, since few corps can keep full strength 24/7. We can fix the new corp thing in two ways. One would be to give the new corp a small modifier, like .1. This will make their first contract super cheap until they prove themselves. Or we can allow new corps to challenge one of the established corps and if they beat or nearly beat them, they get that rank. Outreach would sponsor these ranking tests, so that the challenged corp wouldn't be risking any assets in the brawl. Also, I think for the ranks of AA and AAA, there must be a higher standard to counter new corps on a win streak from getting to highly ranked. Make A the highest rank you can get until you can fought 10 PC battles. Make AAA 25. hmmm... maybe make AAA really exclusive. Like only allow 3 corps to hold that rank and to achieve that rank, a AA ranked corp has to challenge and defeat them on the field of battle. Outreach would sponsor the challenged corp. Thoughts?
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 200	Posted - 2013.03.31 00:24:00 - [9] - Quote guilds back in the day worked pretty much exactly like this; a loose affiliation of craftsmen of various skills who agreed to cooperate in the creation of a system of standards to monopolize the market. There is still plenty of competition within the system, but the ranking helps mitigate this. Journeymen don't compete with masters because they serve different types of customers. I see this operating the same way. Corps will WANT the endorsement of Outreach because it will increase hireability for their corp. When a corp is endorsed by Outreach (if we call it that), employers will have a good idea of what they are hiring. Otherwise they would have to guess based on reputation. And internet reputation can be... misleading. The ranking system will help make the competition constructive, since corps of different ranks will serve different types of clients. This is more for when we get integrated with Eve than PC. I see it going like this. Eve alliance A has declared war on Eve alliance B. Billions, even trillions of isk worth of assets are at stake. Alliance A attacks a system and hires the best Dust corp money can buy to help them take the planets in that system. They hire the triple A ranked Bunnies, hoping for a quick victory. Alliance B knows this system is critical, if they lose it, they will lose many more. So they too seek to hire a triple A corp. If they can, they will out bid alliance A on the Bunnies. Or maybe they won't. There are still 2 other corps ranked AAA. Both corps have a grudge against the Bunnies, so a bidding war ensues and alliance B is able to hire the Goblins for only 500 mil to do everything in their power to counter the Bunnies. Alliance B also has a strong industrial background and start churning out proto gear in huge quantities for the Goblins to use. Alliance A takes the system, losing many Titans in the process, though the Goblins are able to counter the Bunnies on the ground (if the Bunnies would have been able to defeat the Goblins, alliance A might not have lost NEARLY as many ships in space). Both Dust corps make a tidy profit and gain much notoriety in New Eden. The grudge between them though, is hotter than ever. In a different scenario, the combined Eve/Dust alliance Derpswarm is attacking an smaller alliance from all sides. Derpswarm uses all their Dust mercs to fight the major battles and hire quite a number of C and D ranked corps to attack targets of lesser priority and soften up hardened targets. The smaller alliance hires a few A and B ranked corps to try to hold on to key points while they scramble for support from other small alliances that recognize the threat of Derpswarm. The horde must be stopped.
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 201	Posted - 2013.03.31 01:45:00 - [10] - Quote That's cool bro

Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 211	Posted - 2013.04.11 02:41:00 - [11] - Quote "Outreach" is just the seed of the idea. What it will become is something unique to Dust.
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 212	Posted - 2013.04.11 06:13:00 - [12] - Quote Bojo The Mighty wrote: However, and mind you I didn't want to read every post, wouldn't Alliance BS prevent such a planet? The top tens are all in alliances, and the EVE side of things may get aggravations rising, either from "lack of loyalty" in dust side of things for letting corps coexist, or ultra patriotism, where the corps continue to fight amongst the planet on behalf of their alliance. Well, if you owe allegiance to an alliance, then you're not a true mercenary then, are you? You can still register with us, but being part of an alliance will probably exclude you from being on the "board" for outreach and thus a land holding partner. Maybe. If being in an alliance is not a conflict of interest, then that changes things. Also I started a thread here
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 212	Posted - 2013.04.11 06:48:00 - [13] - Quote I somehow think your services would be useful
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 214	Posted - 2013.04.15 15:54:00 - [14] - Quote Since mercenaries send to be a solitary lot, I wonder if having an individual merc ranking system might not be better (and we can give corps either a different ranking or an average ranking). What kind of options exist? We could work with a formula like the one I floated for ranking corps; some combination of SP, gear, and KD/R or WP/D. Another options would be a peer ranking system, where each member would be ranked by either a "council" of core members, or by all members. Shouldn't be too difficult to set up a poll. hmmm, I have an idea. Let's say we called ourselves the MRBC (mercenary review and bonding commission) or something like that. We set up a website where registered mercs and merc companies would get ranked based on the performance reviews of the "Council." This "Council" would be made up of one or two key members from each of the core mercenary companies that make up the MRBC. To have a seat in the council, a merc would need to have a lot of knowledge about DUST 514, know the in's and out's of each class so they would have a clear picture of what a merc should and shouldn't be capable of. Through our website, we would facilitate communication between mercenaries and potential employers through a public forum and other means. We could also get people with video capture and video editing skills to create "Mercenary Spotlights" for the best mercs that register with us. (I have video capture abilities). Having a well designed website would be key. Right now there isn't much interaction between Eve and Dust, but that will change (one day). Eve metagame is very intense and corporations and alliances will go to any length to ensure their interests are met. The services of highly skills mercenaries WILL be in high demand one day. Our website/organization would focus on finding that talent and getting them noticed by prospective employers. If we can create a system of review that is more reliable than leaderboards, our services will be successful. We all know leaderboards aren't everything, so it's definitely possible. For this to get off the ground, I will need people to throw in on the idea at the ground level (this level). We only need to work out the framework right now; we have months til we need to go gold, but being committed to the idea early will help ensure it executes properly.
Sontie VENGEANCE FOR HIRE 219	Posted - 2013.04.15 21:00:00 - [15] - Quote It shares some features, like that mercenaries will be associating and that their are certain rules those who choose to affiliate themselves will have to follow... but it won't be political. Outreach (or whatever) will not take part in PC or FW directly. It will not support or oppose any faction in game. Just for clarity's sake, do you remember what it reminds you of?
Sontie Ill Omens EoN. 238	Posted - 2013.04.29 15:47:00 - [16] - Quote I'm bumping this thread. I also think that having a planet at this stage is probably getting ahead of ourselves. We need to prove that this service is needed first. I'm gonna paraphrase what I've heard someone else say, "...I could get shafted and my only response would be to blacklist you and try to tell as many people as I know not to work with you." Without some kind of merc guild in place, individual mercs and small merc companies would be at the mercy of their employers. The employer could choose not to pay them or not (for reimbursement stuff). But if they get black listed by a respected and well known organization, one with a website that a majority of mercs register through, then that employers would be proper ******.