So are you basically asking all the various wardec allies that join for free can shoot each other freely in concord space? I think you'd need some work on the overview so they could decide whether they were shooting the target they allied against or each other.

I'm not a game programmer, but it seems that adding some conditional situations to AI isn't a massive undertaking, it's simply "if player EWAR = true set EWAR=O" (or whatever it is actually written as).

Well here is A solution ... please critique it if you see a problem.

1. Concord fees per defending ally are only payable if you are in the process of adding an ally that would take the total size of the defending force over the total size of the attacking force. This will make it prohibitively expensive to massively outblob a small wardeccer (as in small scale mercenary actions) while still allowing a massively outmatched defender (ie 9000 vs 100) to add many alliance for free so they can balance the fight.

2. Introduce 2 week contract periods with auto renewal if either side likes the deal (ie its free) You don't like a war don't renew.

3. Consider leaving mutual decs alone because this alone gives the defender chance to assemble a counter force that can make an aggressor NEED to negotiate an end to the war. There is no reason to deny allies to a mutual declaring defender - all this means in essence is that the defender is removing the attackers automatic right to back out of the war while saving them the wardec fee. Its a transactional tactic - it could be left alone (especially with the 2 week contract periods allowing allies to leave).

4. Then if you are feeling adventurerous - improve the system a bit with iteration -> Once the defender starts paying concord fees (because they have added so many allies they now outnumber the attacker) - let the attacker add allies on a 1-1 basis so the war can escalate (both attacked and defender having the chance to up the stakes by shopping for appropriate allies etc.) With this scale of fighting (ie both attack and defender are relatively matched in numbers - EACH allied choice will matter a lot and people will shop for the right mercs on their capability and reputation.

I think that solves the problem.

Giant ass Goomswarm / Test decs vs little corps and alliances can be dogpiled and frankly they should be. Its fun, its a game, we play for fun and everyone said they liked that.

Small merc decs against similar surgical targets are likely to make the defender think carefully about who they hire because these will attract concord fees and let the attacker escalate if too many are hired.

This serves the needs for huge ass mayhem wars for fun. AND serious small merc fights for profit. There is no need to disadvantage one part of the community to protect another.

Can you see anything wrong with this solution?

ANYONE with ANY knowledge of war, or warfare ( being different from a " fight", singular) knows that when 2 forces are fairly evenly balanced, they fight. when they are not, they do not fight.It's very simple, really.

as a general rule things are a hell of a lot more complex than you would think

for example: this could heavily add to server load by requiring the npc ai's to poll all ships on the grid which they may not be doing already

I think the biggest issue here is that we're trying to solve different issues. I'm trying to bring the merc trade back into EVE and you're trying to add some measure of fairness into wars, which Isn't really a design philosophy in EVE.

Why would I want to balance a fight? That's never really been the goal in EVE and the war dec system wasn't built for that either. I understand that it's annoying when a big alliance war decs you, but that's hardly new to EVE. Big alliances get annoyed with bigger coalitions outnumber them and so on. That's a fact of life in EVE and we're not likely to change that direction anytime soon. The other thing is that war dec prices are determined by the value you get from them. If you want to go to war with someone, a higher number of potential targets should be more expensive. If you're a smaller alliance, this makes you a less attractive target, unless you've made someone angry in which case you're responsible for any social repercussions you've created.

Letting attackers add allies conflicts with the notion that attacking someone is risky. If you decide you want to go to war with someone, the consequence is that he could punch harder than you anticipated. If this is just about stacking up allies, the power of that choice fades away a little bit.

But by allowing the Defender to enlarge the war and even the field a little more you turn them from helpless victims into people who just might have a fighting chance and start shooting back.

Moreover, even if you managed to recruit every hisec trash corp in your free and idiot proof crusade, you'd STILL never be able to do any meaningful impact against the ebil alliance since you won't actually go to where it lives or operate cooperatively.

Moreover, even if you managed to recruit every hisec trash corp in your free and idiot proof crusade, you'd STILL never be able to do any meaningful impact against the ebil alliance since you won't actually go to where it lives or operate cooperatively.