Hey everyone. I've got a few updates to our plan to share, including one change happening in Inferno 1.3 tomorrow and some tweaks to the earlier described plan taking into account all your excellent feedback and our conversations with the CSM. This stuff affects both this thread and the other one, but I'm just going to post it here because splitting it up doesn't make much sense to me. I'll just link to this post from there, and we can keep the combined feedback here.

Firstly, we have the Inferno 1.3 patch releasing tomorrow which will represent the beginning of the Empires' preparation for the storm of new immortal infantry they see on the horizon. Most of the changes will be invisible to capsuleers, with the significant exception of Empire influence being increasingly exerted on the temperate planets of their contested zones. The four Empires have all begun to construct installations on the surface of temperate planets within factional warfare space that allow them to affect the system control to a limited but noticeable degree.

At this point the installations are being set up by local militias allied with their ancestral nations, so the planet control is being exerted by the original owners of the system, from before any FW sovereignty changes. This means that until the new mercenaries of DUST 514 begin deployment, the planet control will belong to the historical owners based on region (or another way of putting it, the builders of the stargates in each system). For instance, all temperate planets in Black Rise will exert influence for the Caldari, and all temperate planets in The Bleak Lands will exert influence for the Amarrians.

This influence will take the form of an increase or decrease in the number of Victory Points required to make a system vulnerable. If the same Empire controls both the planet and the Infrastructure Hub, the system will become harder to conquer through a higher VP threshold. If one Empire holds the Ihub and the other holds the planets, the system will become easier to conquer through a lower VP threshold. The influence exerted by each temperate planet is 12.5% of the standard VP threshold in either direction. Most FW systems have either one or zero temperate planets, and the maximum number in any FW system is four, giving a maximum possible VP threshold influence of 50% (12.5*4).

This planet influence will be adjustable once the DUST 514 Mercs are unleashed, but in the meantime it will present a static adjustment of the landscape that may influence which systems each Militia chooses to reinforce and base from. This change will take effect with Inferno 1.3 tomorrow.