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Good Point i forgot about the multi run discount, would be interesting how they factor that in.

Also a good point to add on that is that a T2 BPO/BPC can run 300 runs with giant discount

T2 Invented BPC can only a piddly 10...

See here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4526400#post4526400

invention costs based on output.

output is a t2 bpc, market value... there is none.
input value, cost of datacores, R.db, reports or datasheets, etc
invention sounds cheap

then you move onto manufacturing of said t2 bpc costs of input v's output argument

Yet another good point, if it is indeed the T2 BPC that sets the value it could be really vulnerable to market manipulation as there's a very small amount being traded.

There is no market value for BPC. Market value for BPO is WAY higher than average thing it produces (you have to make 1000s to 10Ks for most items to make back the cost of the M0 BPO). This is why CCP decided that for S&I cost scaling calculation, the "fake" market price of a BP is 2% of the value of the item produced by the BP.

This is an important question, and it's the penultimate question every one of us industrialists will be asking ourselves after the expansion hits. You are correct that the tax savings from using a starbase to do research would probably never justify the fuel costs of a starbase by themselves.

TLDR: Starbases will be justified mainly by assembly arrays; assembly arrays will be justified in part by NPC station tax savings and ME depending on the item; the biggest reason for using assembly arrays will be time savings.

Consider the formula for taxes on a damage control II:

BPC of Damage Control I assuming 5% congestion cost and one .99% station bonus ignoring multi-run bonus since we don't have full numbers yet:
12,000 * .02 * .99 * .05 * 300 * 1.1 = 3920.4

Invention for Damage Control II with same assumptions:
700,000 * .02 * .99 * .05 * 10 * 1.1 = 7623

Let's say we double it to make our expected number of successful inventions 1. We'd just double those costs. So for a single 10-run BPC of Damage Control II, on average, we're looking at ~23,086. Across those ten runs, it's roughly 2,300 ISK per unit. That's less than half a percent of the sale price of a DCII.

To manufacture off the blueprint, let's say again we've got 5% congestion, a .99% station bonus and ignoring the multi-run bonus. Looking at the per-unit numbers we've got...
700,000 * .99 * .05 * 1.1 = 38115

Wow, so for just a single Damage Control II we're looking at manufacturing congestion costs that are an order of magnitude bigger than the research-related ones. They're also in the 5% range of manufacturing costs, which is something noticeable enough to try to reduce to improve margins. If you're concerned about my leaving out the multi-run bonus, let me say that there's just no way the multi-run is going to make the research costs involved get closer to the manufacturing costs. What does that mean?

Well, looking at the status quo, starbases and other advantages mainly involve getting research capacity because manufacturing capacity is plentiful. In the future, starbases and other advantages will come from getting manufacturing efficiency because manufacturing costs are expensive.

The main thing you'll get off the starbase at first will be getting rid of the 10% NPC tax. Let's knock that off of manufacturing costs and we've got...
700,000 * .99 * .05 = 34650

By manufacturing out of a starbase you've already saved more money than your copy/invent jobs cost you per unit, 3465. But to get to even 100,000,000 off a starbase from this advantage, you'd have to run (where X is throughput volume per month)

X * .99 * .05 * 1.1 - X * .99 * .05 = 100,000,000 or
X * .99 * .05 * (1.1 - 1) = 100,000,000 or
X * .99 * .05 * (.1) = 100,000,000 or
X * .00495 = 100,000,000 or
X = 20,202,020,202

That's just twenty billion ISK. Run that much through the POS and you've made back the fuel. Although it's a stretch, it's not impossible to do that if CCP lets you have a lot of characters running through just a few arrays (i.e. because no slots).

But wait, there's more.

First, you get a 2 ME bonus on material costs. That doesn't mean much on invent items or especially on DCIIs (low per-unit counts of all inputs so I'm assuming the 2% gets rounded to 0% on most inputs), but on some things (mineral-heavy items) you could see that supplementing the NPC tax savings very quickly.

Second, you get to run things through the starbase faster. Right now you get 25% off the manufacturing time at an equipment assembly array, and you're going to get even more time off after the patch. But assuming you made 300,000 ISK per DCII including all costs, if you can make 25% more of them, for the same amount "time" you will be making 375,000 ISK. You will also be able to recoup those NPC tax savings more quickly. Now, this bonus might be more or less worthless depending on what your workflow looks like. If the invention BPC takes 10 hours instead of 13, that might not help you much. But what if it makes it take 22 instead of 30? The time difference can be huge or small depending on how you live and how much you check EVE. (Note: these workflow benefits might also result in people using MLs/AMLs, but that seems unlikely to me on modules since no slots means 3ish hour jobs for everything; it might be more relevant with T2 ships though.)

Outside of the invention world, getting to make 25% of a T1 commodity might be a huge deal. If there's some frigate out there (not saying there is one) where you make 3% margins on 400,000 ISK at 22 units per day, you can suddenly make 29 units per day for a 31% increase in total profit. Those benefits could apply in the invent world if you make your own T1 items and components, too.

So, assuming whatever bonuses/costs get associated with array numbers at a starbase, really this will come down to some very nitty-gritty details about volumes ran through the starbase, workflow benefits, T1 vs. invention, etc. But in general, yes, starbases will be harder to justify in this brave new world unless CCP comes up with some amazing new bonuses.

Oh.. yeah... to the scaling cost....

In a system with 5%* usages cost scaling (after discounts for facilities) at NPC station.

Let's say the output is a 1 million ISK mod. 1M * 0.05 * 1.1 = 55K ISK to run the first.

10th is then 50.2K

300th is 2.7K

* I am not sure 5% is really how high fees are likely to be. I suspect people will spread out more, except in null, where they are, and will remain, VERY lumpy.

ah, I didnt make myself understood. was talking the change of using input price versus output price instead.

It would just make better sense in my opinion on the use of input v's output argument and possible implementation. Apologies if I frustrated you on that.

besides with T2's, the use of decrypters will change the input value of costs rather than output of the actual item to be sold. the ships will still sell for about the same but cost of materials can change dramatically

I think playstyle choice and possibly the small time manufacture for self v's huge corporation manufacturing in the billions for strategic cruisers and the like. Also dont forget the advantage of the specialized work crews is systems

From the rookier reaches: I was very negative about the reproc changes, positive about the research changes, and am ambivalent about these industry changes. Some concerns that economic power will be further concentrated and that the changes, ahem, add *too much* interest (ie players at the lower end - not the ones set up optimally - but younger highsec accts, perhaps only in NPC corps, must keep tabs on so many variables just to make sure they are not running at a loss that it becomes unfun - players who are trying to be rational about their manufacturing that is, there seem always ppl who sell at a loss)

An earlier poster gave a current manufacturing cost for the Abaddon of <10k compared to the devblog example of 4-10mill. I looked at a Catalyst for comparison which go for about 1.1mill on the market and they cost about 1.5k to make now, which would rise to 22-55k, working on 2-5%. The margin on entry level manufacturing is not very big, so 2-5% is quite a bit.

I am expecting that manufacturers will be less able to pass the increased costs onto buyers of lower end stuff, than for more expensive items. So perhaps those that have the resources will move to higher value items, where even with the same margin, the profit for a button click is much greater in isk per hr.



I'm a believer... for now ;) (Still not over the Recall voting). Pace, other posters who say 'Inflation!', the increase in manufacturing costs seems appreciable and deflationary. Inflation does not seem to be much of a problem, except for PLEX, so hopefully the reproc changes will move ppl into blitzing missions and generating isk that way, and the increasing cost of PLEX will return some isk to the money supply from the wealthy in EVE who are themselves functioning like temporary giant isk sinks. (Only if they are using the PLEX for something other than accumulating more isk of course)