EVE General Discussion

I thought they did this already but I don't know how often it updates. I agree with you though.

I'm only flying small ships until insurance catches up.

While I agree that insurance payments do not help keep pace during periods of steady inflation, there is another factor to consider.

Much attention has been given lately to isk flow into the overall game economy from incursions, ratting, and missioning, but insurance payments have been less discussed. Using the example of a drake funded by Ratting Incursions or Missioning (RIM), ie isk injected into economy from thin air (ie concord, insurance, etc).

Pilot Generates 60m via RIM
Pilot gains 60m
EVE Economy Gains 60m
Pilot purchases Drake
Pilot losses 50m
EVE Economy loses 0.635m (Market fees/Taxes)
Pilot insures Drake
Pilot loses 9.8m
EVE Economy loses 9.8m (as of 21 Apr 2012)
Pilot losses Drake
Pilot gets insurance payment
Pilot gains 32.8m
EVE Economy gains 32.8m (as of 21 Apr 2012)

---

Totals:
Piliot 33m Gain
EVE Economy gain 82.36m

Further raising the amount of isk paid out in an insurance case would only further accelerate the inflation rates in EVE by furthering the money supply.

This is definately a catch 22 for CCP. They put in insurance to help facilitate pvp, but pvp insurance is likely the primary source of insurance payments. Does anyone have any postings from CCP regarding insurance related ISK flow totals in the game?
I am curious to see exactly how much ISK flow is generated via this a month.

What are the time periods that they are revalued?

What amount of time is averaged into the weighted average?

Insurance is for people that die.

Realistically speaking, to truly make a dent the insurance costs/payouts would need to change several times a day. To appear stable weekly might not let things get too out of whack. To let it slide monthly, in the aggregate it becomes unwieldy. To make the mistake of quartely adjustments, it becomes meaningless. This speaks to the instability of the market itself. In the interest of the old adage, "Be sure it's plugged in before you call the electrician," money supply has to be addressed before anyone monkeys with the peripheria.

One has to wonder if having an insurance system without a certified banking system is workable at all. EVE's economy isn't really an economy without a banking system. Here it can be said it's "only nine years old." That's not very long for an economy to exist to understand its intrinsic qualities. We do have this HUGE capitalist system IRL that might inform upon this system...but EVE has these "rules" that can't be broken. So....

A.) This makes discussing the EVE economy as though it IS one deceptive, if not outright ridiculous.

B.) We may be watching a Roman Candle economy. It starts out kinda slow then fizzles out altogether.

We won't know till we get there. Band-Aids are just that.

I havnt seen any reduction in pvp. I am ceo of a pvp corp. Its all we do, and all we have done for years. So I dont agree. Less ganking in hisec yes, but not less pvp.

Okay, so, CCP assigns value for ships with regard to the value of the ORE it takes to build one - not the refined building alloy, but the ORE. Ipso facto, insurance payouts are based on ORE value. In the EVE economy there is no limit to the introduction of currency into the economy. As a result, it's systemic that there will be too much currency chasing too few goods. ISK into circulation is limitless. Ore processed into manufacturing saleable ships is limited. ISK will continually lose its value. Ore will continually become more expensive, and as a result so will manufactured goods.

Normal economies use a combination of taxation, absorbing money in circulation through a central bank, and controlling the money supply to keep inflation in check, or to bring it under control. Since ISK has two uses in EVE, the first of which is as a points-reward system, in order to control the money supply NPC bounties, and mission rewards would have to cease. However, that would only maintain the current level of inflation. Taking currency out of circulation can't be done as there is no mechanism to do it. All that could be done is wait until manufacturing catches up.

You might add to this the ganking of miners will surely reduce the amount of ore coming onto the market. This in turn will make manufacturing slow down, rather than keep it's "normal" pace. Goods will become rare, raising their market value on the supply and demand dynamic, and the result would be ISK would continue to lose its value, if maybe at a slower rate.

Ultimately, insurance payouts are based on inflation as those are the real numbers and that's how they're being derived. Insurance won't have much to do with what you're paying for a ship, however. And, artificially increasing insurance payouts to try to meet the distorted market values will only add to increasing the amount of ISK in circulation.

This, my friends, is why you actually LOVE a stable economy. Will unconstrained ganking of miners cause the collapse of the EVE economy? There are those involved in trying to organize this to do just that. Is it EVE's Achilles Heel? We're about to find out, aren't we?

Insurance in real life is index linked to the value of the goods you wish to insure... No problem there.

Add inflation / or deflation.

If my house was valued at xxx last year and was now xxx+20%, the insurance company would at least say that you need to pay a bit more this time round - and that they would cover the inflated value of the thing.

OK so the premiums go up to cover the cost. We pay for it. We pay more but at least the top level insurance scheme should be pretty decent; and give a good return. At the moment I can't pay out a brickload for a lowly 50% return on my ship loss.

Remove Insurance all together but the price index remains

When you lose a ship, you are charged that price. No money comes out, you are charged an extra incentive to not lose it.

Gankers are charged for the loss of their boat and then charged for the cost of the ship they shot. Extra incentive to find better targets and factor in the cost.

Simple, effective isk sink. Its harsh, but there should be an associated cost to not lose the ships you own otherwise...where is the risk when you just throw it away?