So I have been on something of a hiatus from Dust for about a month, and in the meantime have picked up Eve which now occupies most of my time. This in turn, has made me aware of the larger scope of New Eden, and the happenings in it beyond the machinations of Dust Corps.

As many of you are probably aware, the past couple of months have been extremely political in space politics. TEST gave the HBC the finger, and in doing so reset the entire balance of power in New Eden. Now they are at war with the CFC (aka the Goons) for control of Fountain and its resource rich moons, as well as warring with some of their former allies.

Enter the Dust mercenaries.

We were all promised meaningful battles once faction warfare and PC were opened up in Uprising, and though they are both an improvement over the old arcade-match-only matchmaking, I still want to feel like I am doing something meaningful to affect the wars between Eve players. In doing this, we become relevant, and the Eve players take more notice, and in turn we become more relevant. Like a successcascade. To do this, They need to open up PC in nullsec. But instead of whatever bonuses they are doing now, instead have district control affect the sovreignty mechanics in a meaningful way.

****WARNING WHAT FOLLOWS IS JUST IDEAS, NOT NECESSARILY BALANCED OR COMPLETELY THOUGHT OUT DUE TO MY LACK OF FAMILIARITY WITH EVE'S SOV MECHANICS. ALL NUMBERS PRESENTED ARE NEGOTIABLE, THEY ARE ONLY IDEAS TO SUPPORT THE CONCEPT****

So, let's say a planet (or moon, **** yeah, let's fight on moons!) has x districts. For every 6 (number negotiable) districts on a planet/moon (hereafter refered to as a celestial), there is one POS anchoring fort (POSF, name is a work in progress). The POSF itself will have slots (H/M/L) that can be fitted with modules to give it bonuses that affect ground combat (L), infastructure (M), and the POS (H). Examples: railgun/blaster turrets (better than the current ones, L), cloning bays (M), shield extenders (H). However, all these modules would be linked by tunnels/hallways/fightable areas to the POSF in one district map, making it awesome and player affected based on what modules are placed there. Now to make it interesting, the district with the POSF can only be attacked once ALL other districts on the planet have been captured by the attacking party. Capturing the POSF gives you several options: you can either destabilize the anchored POS above and cause it to crash/fail within a set amount of time if the corp owner doesn't move it, or my personal favorite, you can choose to assault the POS with Dust Mercs (THIS MEANS INDOOR COMBAT!!!!). If the assaulting force can capture the POS control center and hold it for a set amount of time, they can then switch the control over to the corporation they're fighting for.

Now, in order to make them worthwhile, they need to affect sovreignty. Since I have only a rudimentary (at best) understanding of Eve SOV mechanics, this part is way open to suggestions. I think that the % of districts held by the attacker reduce the time it takes to capture a system by up to 50%. So %100 district control means the system flips %50 faster, 0% district control means the mechanics are the same as they are now.
Now, in order to make the ground battles more realistic/interesting, I think the orbital strike system needs to be reworked: The current war barge orbital strikes stay as current. Orbiting player strikes now do something like this: All ships can be lasered onto targets. The targeting laser is a ground merc piece of equipment. when activated, it stays on for 10 seconds. The amount of time you can keep it focused on your target out of 10 seconds determines the accuracy of the shots inbound on target. Small ships (frigs/destroyers): 3 second delay between shots fired (Eve-side) and shots arriving (Dust-side), 10m blast radius Medium ships (cruisers/battlecruisers): 7 second delay, 20m blast radius Large ships (Battleships): 11 second delay, 35m blast radius X-Large (Dreadnoughts): 15 second delay, 50m blast radius Titans: 30 second delay, no targeting required, entire battlefield inside the opposing redlines is flattened Also, any ships using missile launchers would be able to lock on to any vehicles in the combat zone and fire at them.

Now, in order to make this more than just best-fleet-wins, the owners of districts will be able to "fortify" the module in the district (factory, laboratory, whatever), and place it underground. There are 3 levels of underground-ness, each one being more expensive, and adding more defense from orbital strikes. At level 1, all orbital shots have 100% effectiveness. Level 2, small ships are at 50% effectivity, medium ships at 75, and large+ ships at 100. Level 3 can only be hit by large+ ships, and not at 100% effectiveness. PABattleships hit for 50% effectiveness, Dreadnoughts for 75%, and Titans at %100. This would also give us more indoor levels and give heavies a chance to be more than just worthless punching bags like now. With narrow hallways and closely-defined fields of fire they would finally have an environment to shine in! While we are on it, I think HMGs and FG's could have a deployed mode, where they either mount on a tripod or onto a piece of the level that is there (like a crate or something). Doing so would give them a +%dmg, +%range, +%accuracy boost, making them worthwhile POINT DEFENSE SPECIALISTS!

I think this makes fleet support much more valuable in ground operations, and something to fight for/over in space.
Now, for mounting ground assaults, let's do away with the war barge entirely as far as carrying troops/vehicles/OMS beyond the basic 150 clones for a skirmish match. Or rather, let them still be there, but only carry that base level of s