Missions & Complexes

I guess i might be beating a dead horse here but since i couldnt find a recent thread about that i thought i create one.

I've been mainly an explorer in EVE for the last few years. I have started in Highsec and worked my way through lowsec, wormholes and into nullsec.
I'm mostly doing exploration because i enjoy that the most (i even enjoyed loot-spew :P ) and i could easily make twice the isk/h if i did something else (so i'm not creating this thread to make me spacerich)

The disparity between relic and data sites is completly off the charts.
Both take exactly the same amount of skill and the same amount of time, yet Data sites provide roughly 1/3 of the loot relic sites do.
The greatest offender are the "red" containers. If you hack a relic container of the hardest difficulty you can easily recognize it from the loot. Sure sometimes RNGsus screws you over and you get T2 loot with low value. But still you can tell that this was a different type of container. You get value for doing a harder "hack" and in nullsec you quite often pull 30M+ Isk out of one container. If you get 5M+ from a Datacontainer you praise the lord and to get more than 30M you probably have to sacrifice your firstborn.
In a Data-Site pretty much all Containers are the same, sure overall the value of the hard containers is slightly higher but by just looking at the loot you could never tell if it came from a green, yellow or red container.
Supposedly this should be balanced by faction BPCs but they are pretty rare and mostly not very valuable either.
I believe i got one really valuable BPC (faction tower BPC) in all my exploring and while that is nice it still leaves data sites at a fraction of the value you get from relic sites.
And while i appreciate that the volume of datasite loot was decreased (eg datacores, faction materials) and that new loot (tradegoods) was added those changes didnt do much. The new tradegoods are worthless and no one cares that you can carry more faction materials now since those are worthless as well.


It has gone so far that a lot of explorers dont even bother scanning down data sites any more since you are better off looking for a relic site. I still do all sites but i gets more and more frustrating. Just today i pulled 28M isk out of 4 nullsec datasites...i wasnt even unhappy with that result because its okish for datasites, yet i probably would have pulled >100M isk if those would have been relic sites.

What needs to be done:

-Bring datasites loot value more in line with relic sites (if you need to lower relic value for an increase in data value, fine so be it)
-"Red" datasitecontainers need to have loot that distinguishes them from the other containers (would be nice if the empty or "look you found 1 Carbon" containers would go too...at least for "red" containers)
-Not really related to that topic but please make containers either unscanable or despawn faster. Finding cherry picked sites all the time isnt nice.


What this will hopefully accomplish:
- A less frustrating and overall more stable experience for explorers. Everyone is fine with some RNG and the feeling of winning the lottery but a bit more consistency would be appreciated.
- Datasites will no longer be the shunned stepchild of exploration

Sorry for my bad english and the venting...

The problem is less to do with value and more to do with a fundamental way supply and demand works.

Relic can supplies are very reflective of supply and demand and all salvage materials are moved in volumes which can create quite a significant level of value for the goods.

Datacores etc however... Well they are not consumed in nearly the same volume nor are they at the same demand levels. This is why data sites are generally lower isk per can. Additionally CCP really can't do much to fix this without making some pretty heavy changes to the volume of datacores needed for jobs and even if they made such changes the cost would eventually return to where it is.

That is the nature of supply and demand economics. CCP can't magically fix what isn't broken.

Despawn faster means there are more sites/more loot to inject into market = decrease value of the sites.
Good move would be to place some items with NPC buy orders like in Sleepers Caches. It would remove some part supply and demand mechanism. Some items stolen from hisec corps etc like in mordu sites.

Data site loot table isn't the problem, the problem is demand for all items dropped in data sites is not high enough. In fact New Eden is probably hopelessly flooded with cheap data site garbage sitting in people's hangars that they never bothered moving to a hub.

I dont think you understand the terms "free market" and "supply and demand".

Anything you add to those sites as possible loot will drop like a rock in value.

The ONLY reason relic cans and salvage goods maintain their value is the simple fact that they are consumed at incredible rates.. and even with that fact salvage prices have still cratered from where they used to be.

NOTHING is broken about the sites. This is directly a matter of over supply and adding crap to those cans just expands that over supply problem to other items. The sites are to easy and safe to buff without murdering markets.

And you seem to be some guy who thinks using "supply&demand" and "free market" makes you some kind of genius.
News flash, those concepts arent too hard to grasp,

Let me put it in words you seem to understand: I want "crap" added to the site which is consumed at incredible rates (to keep the value stable...you know supply&demand....look i used the magic words....acknowledge my genius). This might be stuff that didnt even exist before on the "free market" (there, magic again...) or it might be existing stuff which obv then needs a new outlet...

And the sites are broken since there is a vast difference in relic and data sites for the same demand in time and skill, and they are broken in the regard that all containers in data sites provide the same loot allthough they are not created equal.



This seems kinda hard though. For datacores sure, just by multiplying the current amount by an arbitrary number. For decryptors....i dont know if that would make sense flavor wise...or they would need to be reworked quite a bit.
Besides this would probably ripple through big portions of the EVE-Market which seems kinda excessive....

Ok then. Pick an independent branch of the market which is not represented heavily already besides datacores that can be moved into Data Sites. Oh yes... and you can't completely clusterfk that market by allowing all of those items to be freely and easily obtained in the massively over-farmed exploration sites.

Datacores are dirt cheap and data sites are useless because everyone and their brother runs every single site they run into and floods the market. Switching the containing goods to anything else just transfers the problem. As i mentioned before even T1/T2 salvage loot has seen pretty darn hefty price reductions thanks to the pathetically easy and safe exploration sites.

Seriously to make billions a week in nullsec exploration you need a covops cloak, probe launcher, and the ability to read a map.. That's it.. No corp, No sov, No friends.. In eve its almost less risk than highsec mining.


I will however handle one part of your argument for you. Partially because this kind of debate is healthy and partially because exploration does need some tweaking.

We have a mechanic in eve already to allow for extra "magic" income to be added to loot tables without touching the markets in any way whatsoever. Blue WH loot. Only sold to NPC buy orders. With the drifters lore arc just starting up data sites have the possibility to have these types of items added without it being functionally absurd.
Downside.. for a profession that is already a Niagara sized isk faucet to the game... adding MORE value to it without added risk seems like a terrible idea.

Ok lets go with the NPC idea since that is probably the easiest.

At the moment datasites contain techdata, it would make perfect sense for them to hold also strategic data concerning pirate operations. NPC-Corps would be willing to pay for that kind of intel. And with NPC buyorders there would be no problem keeping the prize stable or keeping the amount of isk created under control. Just add them to the red containers with a small chance to find them in other containers too.

I really dont see a problem with that creating too big of an isk faucet. First of all there are way bigger offenders compared to exploration. And you can still control the number of sites available quite easily (Number of spawns, respawn timers etc.)

I really dont agree that everyone is doing those datasites already. I find them aplenty, left alone by explorers. Sure they are "free" isk but they still take time to complete and at the moment you are better of spending said time finding something more valuable.
It might be a problem that if datasites become more attractive the value of cores/decryps drops even more if that is even possible...

However i do agree that nullsec sites need to be tweaked in difficulty.
They are way to easy to scan down, the should be moved more into the direction of sleeper caches.
In addition the hacking should be slightly more difficult, i cant remember the last time i lost a container.
Also the explosion for failing the hack twice might be tweaked to damage nearby ships, enough to kill an untanked Exploration-frig...
Basically the hardest relic/datas should need a specialised char+ship....



And you dont make too much isk doing exploration...
I could easily double my income while still flying only a frig and still needing no sov, corp or anything else.
If you really wanna complain about easy isk look at incursions (harder to get into but 0 risk), look at fw (super easy isk flying a frig with barely a risk if you have half a clue) and look at the whole nullblock-circlejerk (the true carebear easy-iskmode) or the elitist WH bears who claim to have such a hard life.....

CCP mentioned they want them to be "manufactured" by players.

17.04 was my "birthday". Two years of exploration, two years CCP try to make this sites usefull, no effect. Everytime they are doing tweaks sites become worse and worse.

Geez, exploration went to **** when CCP made it so anyone can easily scan down sites, and changed the spawn mechanics of sites.

As has been said, market sets the price, quantity of people running data/relic sites is high, spawn rate of sites is high, random is random.