Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I think the current proposed Industry redesign is FUBAR.

Overly complicated.
Destroyed reason to have a high sec POS (limited slots), without replacing with new reason (POS hit with most of the same fees as stations).
If we do have a POS, no reason to have more than one facility of same kind. One component assembly array could be running all the components for multiple titans, concurrently.

Goals:
Remove hard cap on slots.
Scalable for future player growth.
Scale cost to usage to push people apart.
More decisions for players.
Break as little of existing game play as possible.

Proposal:
Overtime Fees:
Remove specific slots and replace it with a max optimal concurrent jobs. Can run more jobs, but you have to pay overtime fees.

cost = (install cost + time usage cost) * (1 + max (current jobs - optimal), 0) / optimal)

If a factory has max optimal of 50, then 50 or under is just base cost. Start the 51st job, cost = 2% more. 100th job = 100% more than base. 150th = 200%.

For scalability, every so often, the max optimal can be adjusted based on changes in total universal hours. Example: Every 10% increase in total universal job hours, increase all station max optimal by 10%.


NPC Standings Adjustment: (don’t remove reason for standings)
In NPC stations, increase costs by multiplying costs by ( 100% - 10% x max (your standing to station owner, your standing to stations faction, your corp's standing to station owner, your corp's standing to Station's, faction's standing)) . Players with low standings can have adjustment improved by corp’s standings, but players with good standing cannot have adjustment made worse.
0 standings increases fees 100%. 5 standing increases fees 50% higher. -10 would triple costs.


Retain Ability to Delay Start: (don’t break ability to get known cost if willing to wait)
When requesting a quote, show current jobs running and price for immediate start. If above max optimal, allow players to explore future time to see when current running jobs end and delay start to when there are fewer jobs running, with lower cost. (More decisions)


Outpost Throttling/Slot Upgrades:
Allow owner to assign slots to 3 pools: corp, alliance, blue standings. If an outpost has 50 max optimal, they could, for example, assign 10 to corp only, 20 to alliance, and 20 to any blue. When installing a job, player gets quoted their best cost of the type they are eligible to use.
Can maintain the max concurrent jobs increase for upgrading manufacturing outpost instead of having to go to ME bonus. (Don’t break max efficiency.)

Achieves stated goals:
You can always start a job immediately, but higher costs in high use stations push people apart. Track and modify max optimal of stations based on iniversal jobs being run.

Why this is better:
1) Easier to implement. Increment current jobs when requesting a quote or delayed start job begins running. Decrement when quote expires, job completes, or player submits job with delay start. Do not need to track hours by solar system. No need for discounts based on facilities in solar system.
2) WAY easier to understand.
3) Station could be expensive enough to make a POS worthwhile.
4) Reason to have multiple facilities of same type at POS.
5) Allows throttling of outpost to non-corp/non-alliance members.
6) Can't have 2000 titans under construction in a single array, concurrently, without INSANE prices.
7) Reason to have good NPC corp/faction standing.

OK, PACK IT UP GUYS, OP DOESN'T LIKE IT!

What CCP is doing seems neat.

It is hardly just me. From the comments on the DevBlogs, even CCP Greyscale seems to not know what to do with some issues.

He solicited for ideas on how to keep POS viable. Idea of semi-bringing back slot count to avoid cost scaling "good idea".

They're looking for some way to cause POS to need multi-facilities of same type.

Not sure what to do with outpost throttling.

I can't imagine that he's super happy that we will be able to build all the components for 100 super carriers, in a single small POS with a single component array.

Not sure what to do with NPC/faction standings.

It would be a mercy killing.

Actually, it is here -> https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=340393

1: As opposed to industry as it is right now, which is the very model of streamlined perfection... No. Industry in EVE should be involved and complex, otherwise it wouldn't be entertaining. As things stand, they seem to be managing to both streamline it AND make it more interesting.

2: So... your complaint is that you WANT to play glorified gas station attendant to a needlessly obtuse relic of a game mechanic which decreases your available inventory size and renders you more vulnerable to wardecs while eating into your profit margin with running costs and spams you with notifications every time it gets thirsty?

3: Not actually the case because assembly arrays still only have limited storage capacity. The hard limit on how much these things can make is no longer their number of slots, it's their hangar size. But see point 2.

CCP thinks industry is too complex right now, and that profit should come from conscious choice, not obscure knowledge and needless complexity.

Unfortunately, while they take away complexity with one hand (new UI) they give it back in droves with the other (solar system usage costs, stacking discounts), and then flt out destroy some mechanics.



Meaningful choices, risk v. reward, recruiting tool, your little bit of flag in space.

I think the Player Owned Starbase is an interesting game mechanic for those that choose to run them. The beauty of EVE is that it is supposed to accommodate a wide variety of play styles. Also, the market should reach equilibrium where the hassle and cost of a POS will stabilize at slightly under station cost. If you want easy, use station and take lower profit. If you want max profit, then put up with the thirsty POS.

This is the type of meaningful decision CCP says it wants... Not some tiny 3-5% mark-up at station over POS that makes station always the most price efficient, safest, no brainer optimal choice.



Load it up, start job... it empties out. Fill it up again, start job, it empties out.... repeat to start all my jobs. No different filing the same array 10 times or filling 10 different arrays one time each... except the 10 arrays take more power/cpu. To deliver, reverse the process. Deliver, remove items, deliver, remove items, deliver.... No difference between emptying one array 10 times, or 10 arrays one-time... except less travel time.

AND, people have actually requested expanded capacity to align with the infinite slots, and Grayscale said he's looking into that in hopes it would be something/anything to make POS worthwhile in the face of infinite station slots and POS getting hit with most of the fees stations have.

Actually, I keep a lot of the changes detailed in the series of DevBlogs.

The main thing I attack is the solar system wide usage as means of pushing people apart... then a bunch of complexity (discounts) and breaks that come from not basing costs off usage of a specific facility.

you do realize that in order to use a POS, you'll need the BPO in the POS array, right?

**** putting a T2BPO in a POS array.