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So Greyscale,

I have seen aloy of replies from you in this thread, almost all of them reguarding things that in my opinion were correct in the first place and the player base just didn't quite understand them (sec status, mineral distribution and what not.) But when are you and Affinity going to start answering the real questions of why you deem it nessasarry to not give drones loot or better faction loot for that matter? Is it just because you don't have the answer to your own reasoning or that you hadn't thought about it? I seen you quote a post with "sugestions" that have been circulating the forum for weeks if not months and say good ideas, yet you probably haven't seen them before.

Somewhere in this thread one of the two of you said that you have listened to the playerbase and had good feedback, but I do not see anywhere in this Dev blog that hints to that fact. Ok, so I understand that changing the loot tables for hundreds of NPC's might be time consuming, I also understand that it might also take a while to build drone loot tables from scratch. But why do something half*ssed and screw over 1/5? of null sec for who knows how long just because your lazy or don't have the time? I can also understand that this might just be a directive from (Soundwave? or some other management figure?) to get the drone alloys removed in escalation or else. But, they too have said that they listen to the playerbase. Get their sorry *sses in this thread and read the comments and realize they need to either find the resources to do this right or they just need to delay the Drone region changes. If this has really been on CCP's agenda for as long as you say there should have been plenty of time to prep for this and do it right.

I also dislike your half truth and half explained answers. The main one that I would like answered is if the security status change is going to be a rerandomization of all of the systems in drone regions or if they are going to be manually changed given what current statuses are. I just moved into a new system and I want to know if it is going to go from a -.9 to a -.1 over night. The second is how you can justify giving us the "same progression of bounties" as the other regions yet give us no loot and expect that to be equal. Before anyone says "Not all regions are meant to be equal" just shut it becasue if that was the case you wouldn't be removing drone alloys from the game.

As I have stated in other posts in this thread and others, I believe you all are not putting the time and attention that should be warrented with this scale of a change and simply ignoring the playerbase it affects like you have done in the past for other Drone region changes. I would like some sort of comment on these issues and not something that you are simply clarifing for people that were understandable changes in the first place.

I, too, hate everything.

A lot of questions are being answered about the same topic but when we try to ask you about the "balance" of the drone region you keep looking away. Please say something so we dont think you are avoiding us.

Each npc in the game had loot (until incursions). The income of a ratter comes from bounties, loot and officer modules.
Whats the reasoning behind only bounties to drones? no time? no idea what to put in? Please say so. Maybe we can help.

En each other region sometime haulers spam. will drone regions have them?

Salvage of the drones is subpar. will you look into it?

Deadspace/exploration.

" In Crucible 1.5, released on 13th March 2012, he added 3 more deadspace sites, bringing us to a point where we now have all 1/10 to 10/10 pirate deadspace sites in game, bringing this project close to completion. "

Now that drones are like any other. will you look for drone deadspace sites? As you mention completion its seems drone deadspace isnt going to be look at.

Most of us like the changes to bounties but it seems you didnt take into acount that you will nerf the drone regions so much.


EvA

Source: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1106787#post1106787

The decision not to add normal loot was due to a melange of reasons, including: we're phasing out Meta 0 loot anyway, so it wouldn't be a huge amount of extra stuff; we don't have any clear template for what sort of modules drones should drop; drone truesec, even after the change, is still noticeably better than the rest of nullsec (on average ~33% lower) so the average bounty income is expected to be higher than elsewhere; we anticipate that a large proportion of drone ratters won't be bothering to scoop loot anyway as there's no pressing need to dual-box once we remove the alloy drops, and looting is inefficient and somewhat risky; and it'd be a reasonably large chunk of work that given the above considerations we feel would be better spent elsewhere (eg, removing the Meta 0 loot).

The decision not to add additional faction loot beyond the drone parts (which need some love, but which *are* nevertheless present) was mainly just because identifying what they should drop, and potentially adding and balancing new equipment, was too big a task for us to take on right now. This is a long-standing problem with drones that isn't really related to this issue, same with the complexes and profession sites. However, this change does put us in a much better starting-point to address these problems.

The sec status changes aren't a re-randomization, they're a upwards (towards 0) adjustment of each system's sec. The process used to determine the amount each system is adjusted was intended to "smear" the bulk of the sec upwards without compressing the range too much. Systems around -0.5 shifted the most IIRC, and systems at the end moved the least (the -1.0 systems didn't move at all). Also, can't remember if I said already, but Cobalt Edge is untouched because it's a long-ass way from Empire and it didn't have really amazing sec in the first place.

Same progression of bounties was because, as above, we're not anticipating the meta1-4 loot making up a huge chunk of the actual profits being generated, and because the sec status in the drone regions is *still* really damn good.

It sounds like you just squared the truesec.

Do you get a good deal on tinfoil?

So I have to write this all again because the forums just failed me again.

First of all Greyscale I would like to thank you for answering my hard questions on behalf of alot of people. I would however like to rebuttle some of your points here.

1. "we anticipate that a large proportion of drone ratters won't be bothering to scoop loot anyway " You do realize that ~70% (im guessing) of people in the drone regions have alt accounts for salvaging because of alloys right? I personally planned on keeping mine to salvage and loot just because that is what I am use to. If you would like for all of us to cancel our second account and leave you with who knows how many less subs, removing loot from drones is probably the fastest way to do it.

2. "so it wouldn't be a huge amount of extra stuff;" It is still "stuff" that you are not giving us the option to. You say that you are bringing Drone regions in line with the other factions in Null yet you are starting us out at a disadvantage. If creating a loot table is too time consuming or difficult then increase our bounites by say ~5%? Then at least we will have the same opprotunity for income as everyone else.

3. "This is a long-standing problem with drones that isn't really related to this issue" You just proved our point and why we are fighting so hard to make sure you do this right now. If it has taken this long and nothing has been done about these obvious flaws then we all know it won't get fixed in the future. That is why you need to take the time now that you are addressing the drone lands in order to fix these issues.

4. "which need some love, but which *are* nevertheless present" This I have two viewpoints on. One, before this patch drone faction spawns "sentiants" were 80% of the time worth 10-60k yes thats thousands not millions. They were worth LESS than a normal drone battleship unless they dropped capacitor consoles. Two, at least now they will have a static isk value set to them that will at least make them worth more than a normal battleship But what about the 100+million mods that other regions get? We still get nothing but parts for drones which we have to make that are worth mabe 1 million a peice.

5."The sec status changes aren't a re-randomization" Thank you so much for clarifing but I just want to clarify a bit more. So for sake of argument lets look at Cobalt edge that didnt change. So if I had a -1 system today after the patch it will remain -1 and in other regions if I had a -1 system it might be a -8 or some other relevant number that was scaled "upwards". This is how I read it but we have all been worrying that our -1 system might become a -0.1 system after the patch and viseversa for a -0.1 becoming a -0.9 or something.

I just want to thank you again Greyscale for finally answering the hard questions even though you still need to look at changing your plans in my and many others opinions. My post was more thought out and better written but the forums ate my post so I had to rewrite so I appologize.

One "Plan B" for them would be to "fix" some of the null-sec ores which are still pretty bad, like Spod and Gneiss.

Today's ore prices (+/- 5%)

Veld 178 Scor 156 Pyro 222 Plag 161 Omb 104 Kern 166 Jasp 276 Hemo 320 Hedb 308
Gneiss 181 DarkO 294 Spod 131 Croc 388 Bist 389 Ark 470
Trit 5.92 Pye 6.87 Mex 53.5 Iso 93.36 Nocx 942 Zyd 1869 Mega 3575 Morph 11394

Jasp/Hemo/Hedb are all pretty balanced.

The problem is that Gneiss and Spod trail way far behind DarkO. Most of that is due to the ore size being so large. If Gneiss' ore size was dropped from 5.00 m3/u down to 3.00 m3/u, it would boost Gneiss from 181 to 301. Which would put it right in line with the other low-sec ores. Spod has a similar problem and needs to be changed from 16 m3/u down to 7.5 m3/u, which would boost it from 131 to 279, bringing it right in line with the low-sec ores and the ABCs.

Or they could also consider boosting the yield on T2 strips, making both the T1 & T2 crystals better.

Or improve the barges / exhumers. Such as bringing the Procurer up to the Retty's current production level, as the Procurer is currently a joke of a hull, outmined by moderately skilled mining cruisers. Bring the Retty's production level up to be halfway between the old Retty and the Covetor. Add more low/mid slots and PG to the Covetor & Hulk to make them more powerful to increase m3/hr potential.

Most nullsec ratthers don't bother looting anyway. Looting takes time that could be better spent collecting bounties in the next anomaly.