3. The Clone Issue.
The teaspoon effect mentioned above is the biggest barrier to AvA combat in EVE. One way to work around this is using a partial cloning system something like the current Jump clone system. Before battle commences a character would port themselves into a basic clone which could be produced for a fraction of the cost of a standard clone or jump clone. The character’s skills and implants would be saved and the character would return to their standard clone once the battle is over. Specialised capital ship modules could be developed which produced basic ‘cannon fodder’ clones en masse. Because none of the skills needed for flying a ship, or all the necessary implants and such for plugging the avatar into their pod, would be required in an AvA combat situation such clones could be produced quickly and at a lower cost than the standard clone. These ‘cannon fodder’ clones could be pre-loaded with selected skillsets (the classes of other squad based combat titles) allowing commanders to tailor teams to specific tasks. If a cannon fodder clone dies, the character is ported to another waiting clone and sent back into battle, either from the facility on an external capital ship, a captured cloning facility or the aforementioned cloning shuttle.
4. The Costs of AvA.
Fleets should only be able to mount a boarding action against a station if they can afford it, and an alliance or corp should be able to spend money on anti-personnel measure within their stations to make life for the boarders more difficult.
On the attackers side, there are assault ships, clones, weapons and equipment to pay for. Each respawn would have to be paid for, though as I’ve mentioned before the cost of assault clones would ideally be a great deal less than that of standard or jump clones. Commanders would pay a respawn cost up front, the more they spend the more respawns they get and when they run out they would either have to pay more (in resources or cash) to continue the assault.
Weapons and equipment would add a whole new branch to the manufacturing economy in EVE, either an alliance would do this themselves or buy weapons in from elsewhere. Buying in from elsewhere will obviously leave a money trail which the enemy could follow whereas making your own weapons would be harder to trace. What it boils down to is that the overall cost of a boarding action to capture an outpost or station should be roughly equal to or greater than the typical seige and bombardment required at the moment, the greater cost should balance out the greater speed with which a station could be captured through such actions.
On the defenders side upgraing the internal defences of their station would be the main cost, though a minimal respawn count would be included in the standard resource cost of running the station. More respawns could be bought or resourced for, but once they’re gone the defenders have nothing left to defend their station with and it will fall automatically. The addition of external defences may be something worth thinking about, light weaponry to take out assault shuttles would be one way of relieving the pressure on the defenders and of course an assault wouldn’t even be able to begin if the shields are still up so sheild reinforcement may also be an option.
