EVE General Discussion

You should already have pos gunner alts for siphons, I recall the Goons declaring siphons will be no problem since all their pos will have gunner alts to blap them.

Actually if I'd bothered to be active on this forum when the siphons were introduced I said they were also a **** idea, because it would mean anyone doing reactions would have to log in multiple times a day and warp to their POSes to check for siphons and blow them up.

That's also yet another mechanism which isn't leading to more fights or conflict.

Having read the 80+ pages of the discussion from the Dev Blog thread, I am wondering if I missed something...

Infinity Ziona, what is your point exactly?

As a conflict driver, the unit isn't nearly good enough.

Using the device solely for its bubble effect is being looked into by CCP; its one of the few replies given so far from CCP about ESS issues.

The premise of nerfing all of 0.0 in order to afford this added content is full of gaping holes, as there are 8 regions of 100% bounty rats still waiting to be fixed by CCP since CCP fixed the mineral faucet 'problem' in April 2012 that the Drone Regions represented. Surely if those NPCs were at all balanced along the lines of the NPCs throughout the rest of New Eden, CCP could then afford to make an ESS-like object that really would drive content and give those tending 'farms and fields' reason to stand their ground much differently than there is to do at this time.

The unit itself further devalues already sub par space. The MTU was a useless addition to the game from the perspective of anyone living out in Drones. The ESS, as is, is just plain awful. There are no particularly good options other than Anoms in Drones, so this blanket nerf is a true 5% reduction that most other regions will not suffer in relative terms, as loot drops of various kinds offset bounty rewards by a vary fair margin.

Every alt dedicated to babysitting this monster is an alt that could have been doing anything else more productive. Babysitting the ESS is a 100% nerf to alt income, and for some players, that would be a direct nerf to 50% of what they are able to produce under current game conditions.

Surely they are joking?

As an aside, this new content is so newbro unfriendly, I can't believe it make it past any degree of CSM review. It's shockingly bad. If you, Infinity Ziona, have spent the time and isk to make the ESS a non-issue, then Bravo! I personally spend time and invest isk developing newer players, and this is just one more bar to recruiting as far as I'm concerned. I haven't had to rat for income in a very long time, but its a place to start folks that need to train combat skills and learn to cut it, out on their own, far away from the teets of Empire.

Like the idea or hate it, how about we all demand that at least CCP make its implementation profound and at the very least, make it great?!?!

Heh, ESS causing PVP. Always a funny joke.

Thank you for confirming you have no idea how to calculate profit per time spent.


Roaming gang spotted 5 jumps out.

A) We have enough dudes to engage it. More often than not that means we have a roaming gang of our own already a jump out from engaging them, because they have been looking for something to shoot. The only people ratting are the ones who can't come roam for one reason or another, therefore none of them are going to reship to join the fight anyway. The fight never comes to the system and they rat undisturbed.

B) We do not have enough dudes to engage it. The two or three guys that happen to be ratting dock up. They never had an ESS out, because with so few people it's not worth the time to drop and pick back up - let alone the risk.


So everyone has a POS now?

Lets run through some simple math. 4 guys are ratting. A fifth shows up. Do you:
A) Put him on an ESS for a 10% income increase, then spend time dividing the spoils
B) Have him rat too for a riskless, hassle free 25% income increase and say **** the ESS.

It takes an 11th man to sit on the ESS with (very marginal) profit. Show me a null system that consistently has 11+ people ratting to make this worth while in any sense of the word. Or at least one that can support that many at a competitive income level per member.


My recent exploration sites I managed to get in the last couple of months:
OE + Rattlesnake BPC + Pith A boost amp
OE + Pith A explosive deflection field (20 mil)
OE + Pith A explosive deflection field (20 mil)
expired before completion because real life. No OE, just some crap bounty and wasted travel time.
OE only
expired before completion because real life. No OE, just some crap bounty and wasted travel time.

The raw number of what this produces is a small part of the equation. There is something called opportunity cost for all the time spent in the process. My anecdotal evidence suggests i should have just kept ratting in my home system or clone jumped to high sec.

I'm actually more surprised that CCP allowed a single structure to dictate the primary income for a vast majority of people living in null sec.

This cannot be stressed enough.

The real high rollers of the nullsec alliances do not rat.

Anom ratting is the minimum wage for living in nullsec, and for most nullsec alliance line members it is money in and money out to fund the PvP which attracted them to nullsec in the first place. Complex farming isn't even that big of a step up, no matter what crap numbers Infinity Ziona throws out, because they are both random in terms of encountering them and random in their pay outs. Goons in particular already farm complexes so much that the Rattlesnake's price has been driven down to the level of more easily farmed Navy Battleships. Rattlesnakes haven't been nerfed either. None of the Pirate battleships have been rebalanced yet.


People who want the multi-billions to fund supers and all the support alts do it with moon goo/reaction, farming Incursions or wormholes, playing the markets or doing high volume production in highsec.

5% nerf isn't a huge deal, but imagine the outcry if CCP decided to nerf veld and scordite by 5%, or mission LP rewards by 5%. This 5% sucks on principle because it hits the poor of nullsec, and it hits the poor areas of nullsec (drone regions) particularly hard because they can't just make up for it by dropping an MTU.


If CCP is really concerned about isk inflation, and really wants something we can fight over, then make the ESS something that gives out concord LP and more gives out more LP the longer we can keep it alive. Get rid of this even lower bounty risk bullshit because we already have to risk hundreds of millions in ships to defend the stupid thing. And scrap the nonsense about letting people come in and steal the bounties out of the thing. Hostile gangs can already deny us isk by attacking the ratters, and as Infinity Ziona keeps pointing out, since we have few ways to secure our borders, anyone can come in and make isk in our space.

As it stands now, the ESS will be shoot on sight and kick any blue that anchored one in GSF space. It is just too prone to abuse and drama. If all it did was add LP to my wallet the longer we kept it up, it might actually be something worth defending.


One more point on the ESS as proposed, because I might have missed some one pointing out this tactic.

So there is this stupid 'pay it all to me' button that is suppose to pay out the withheld and bonus bounties as tags after about a minute. I'm going to put my alt in an interceptor, fly through enemy space, and hit that button on every ESS and then keep moving. I'm already rich (because I do things that pay far better than ratting) so I don't need their isk. More importantly, I know that making these poor slobs manually divided up and deal with those dumb tags will cause drama, and I'm sure some of those systems will just have 1 guy steal everyone elses bounties and just blame it on me. Maybe I would even go so far as to have my main and some friends follow behind and camp the tag can in a stealth bomber, just to lob a bomb at the tag can and any local who tried to pick it up.

It is just such an awesome way to grief people who use the thing. Imagine a button you could push that would take 20% of the ore in the holds of every miner in a given highsec system and dropped it all in a single can by the sun, just so you could watch them fight over dividing it back up to the rightful owners. That's if I didn't pop the giant ore can with a Thrasher as soon as it spawned. The whole thing is just that broken.

Just want to chime in also. The ESS structure is a load of rubbish, sorry CCP. The risk/reward ratio is way off meaning no one is going to use it, that needs to be changed for a start. Perhaps if that is tweaked then it could be better but I still don't like the concept of it fundamentally.

Why don't you like the ESS concept:

1.) It has the potential to boost your ratting income: Immediately, you gain a potential 5% boost to ratting income, and that level increases to 10% over time. It is low maintenance, as a ratter don't have to take tags to empire to enjoy the rewards, it takes 60 seconds to deploy, and it takes 60 seconds to cash out and scoop when you're done ratting.

2.) It follows the risk vs reward paradigm: To get the increased ratting income, you must risk 15% of your income off the bat. This can be raided by anyone if you fail to defend it.

3.) It is a small gang objective, meaning it is a device small groups can spar over.

Now, I believe it has some areas for improvement:
a.) I would prefer a better risk: reward ratio. Perhaps a 5% risk of ratting income for a 10 or 15% reward.

b.) I would prefer it have a longer access time. Frankly, in order for it to be an objective to spar over, the locals need time to form up a response gang to the hostiles accessing it.

c.) It was a terrible mistake to give interceptors bubble immunity, and that should be revoked, or the bubble immunity mechanic needs to be modified (so nullified ships are pulled into bubbles, but can still warp out of them).

Oh please....How MANY times have we heard this?

But just in case, please send me all your stuff...