What we know so far about DUST 514
The information presented so far has been sparse, with little more than the overarching vision presented at GDC Europe 2009. With such little information in the public eye, the more vocal players in the EVE forum community did what they do best – panic! Whenever an EVE announcement of any significant nature is made, people seem to assume the absolute worst case scenario in the absence of evidence to the contrary. I used to do it a lot too and to this day I still catch myself occasionally jumping the gun after an announcement or devblog. With so many people acting like the sky is falling, it can be hard to separate the facts from the speculation. The following is a list of some important facts we currently know about DUST 514:

• Dust will be an MMO in its own right, not just an extension to EVE.
• Dust is planned for release on the current generation of consoles, with no PC version being mentioned thus far.
• Dust players will be privy to a form of the EVE cloning system.
• Dust players will be able to buy configurable, modular vehicles and weapons.
• The Dust battlefields will include a Battlefield-style commander system and RTS elements.
• Permanent structures can be deployed inside battlefields for a particular session of the game.
• EVE players will be able to fund and arm the Dust troops.
• Planets will be divided into distinct districts, and battles will likely take place over individual districts.
• EVE players can contract Dust mercenary groups to invade planetary districts on their behalf.
• Dust will form part of the EVE sovereignty system for faction warfare and 0.0 territorial warfare.
• According to the game-play footage in the video presentation, attacks may be planned from the control deck of a kind of orbital station or ship.

Space battles
Throughout the presentation on Dust, it was made clear that ground battles would augment rather than replace the current space-battles to decide territorial control of areas of space. With that in mind, the battle for a planet will probably be fought in two stages – one an epic clash of fleets in space played in EVE Online and the other a series of tactical combats played in DUST 514. I find myself trying to fill in the gaps and speculate on what the space battle could be like. In the video, ground attacks were planned from an orbital control deck on a ship or structure of some kind with a titan clearly visible out the window. Since we’re moving away from using POS as a sovereignty marker, it’s possible that what we’re seeing in that video is a new sovereignty structure in planetary orbit or titans in a new deployable role – used as a control station of sorts. With this in mind, I’ve begun to form a vision of what the new system could be like.

What it could be like – The space battle
Control of a system may go to the alliance controlling the most planets in the system. To control a planet, an alliance would have to control over half the districts on that planet. Before claiming districts on a planet could begin, a control station would be constructed in orbit that would serve as the point of contact between the Dust players and the EVE players. EVE players could use this to deliver weapons, structures, vehicles and clones to the Dust commander to deploy during battle. The alliances warring over a planet would each install their own control station in orbit and alliances would clash over events related to the control stations.

For example, the station could be configured to drop a troop transport on the planet once per day at a specific time to reinforce or invade a district, enabling a Dust battle in that location. One alliance would organise a fleet for that time to destroy the transport before it gets to a warp gate leading to the planet. The other would send a fleet to push it through by using remote repair carriers to keep it alive and destroying the enemy fleet. The station itself could be invulnerable while the alliance that owns it controls at least one district on the planet, making it a battle over the planet rather than just shooting down a structure or titan with dreadnoughts. Once the planet is completely owned by one side, they could then destroy any enemy control stations in orbit that haven’t been dismantled and evacuated.

What it could be like – The ground battles
Given the company behind it, I have to imagine Dust will be as close to “EVE on land” as it gets. With the successes EVE has had in player-determination and emergent game-play, I can only imagine Dust will harbor a similar system of conflict, resource-domination and political machination. Corporations in Dust could possibly opt to set up a home base on a planet somewhere on which they can control resources to build vehicles and weapons, defend their land territories and invade the territories of other factions. In a sense, it would be a land-based equivalent of EVE’s territorial endgame, with corps battling it out over areas of land, forging alliances and hiring each other to assist. When contracted into action by an EVE player, a Dust corporation could clone-jump to the target system and begin a campaign there.

While the EVE players might use the control station to organise the strategic deployment of troops into different sectors of the planet, the Dust commanders would use it to co-ordinate a specific battle in one particular district. Like in the Battlefield series of games, they would likely have access to a top-down satellite map and could issue orders to their team. Artillery could be included in the form of orbital weapons platforms and the Dust commander could even deploy structures or make vehicle drops from their stash as the game progresses. The cache of weapons, vehicles, structures and spare clones would be provided by the EVE players, making Dust players who can get a job done without using as many resources much more valuable as mercenaries and raising the price they can ask for their participation.

Summary
With so little information on Dust released, we can’t help but speculate on what it could mean for EVE Online and how it could work. While some people are in a panic over the possibility that console gamers might be given control over their sovereignty, I prefer to take a more optimistic outlook. The ideas I’ve presented here on how it might work are little more than my own personal ideal and I’m sure other players will have their own ideas on what they’d love to see come out of the system. CCP are going fearlessly full steam ahead on this seemingly impossible plan but rather than predicting their failure, many in the industry are watching with a curious optimism. I think that’s because if there’s one company that has proven they can do the impossible, it’s CCP Games.

Article from http://www.massively.com/2009/08/23/eve-evolved-dust-in-the-wind/