Assembly Hall

I only recently started inventing T2 items and I've run into problems with being able to sell the BP copies I invented because of the -4/-4 issue.

Basically it would seem that large a penalty makes the ships I would produce lose money. With the very best decryptors, I would still have ships that can't build for even an unresearched original.

I don't begrudge BPO owners their better profit. Those darned things are expensive. What I do think is a problem is that having no original places one at such a disadvantage it's almost not worth inventing.

Currently using META items increases the chance of invention and not by much at that. I would propose the benefit of using a META 1+ item modify the penalty from -4/-4 by however much the META level is. This would mean a maximum of ME10/PE10 (before decryptors) which would still be rather low for a researched level (and how often would X-types be thrown away anyway?). It would only disadvantage a BPO holder if they didn't bother researching like the ought to have.

There is still a problem, though. Ships don't have a meta level that I can see in game. For this I would recommend assigning all ships a meta level of 2 and allow them to be used to invent -2/-2 BPCs which could be further affected by decryptors. The ships wouldn't be able to get more than a few positive ME but they would be worth building.

Like I said: I'm a noob at this, so it's possible I'm still thinking this through badly but it seemed like a way to make inventors lives easier without screwing BPO owners.

/dons flame retardant suit

they need to replace anyones t2 bpo with ME and 50PE of t2 bpc, I would say enough to keep 1 in production for 2 years.
this would crash the respective markets, but at the same time, remove t2bpos and anyone who spent isk on it should be able to make it back.

First: You already mentioned that much of the T2 BPO system was setup 5 years ago to preserve the value of T2 BPO's. Do you really think that most active t2 BPO's are still in the hands of players that won those lottery? I don't think so.... It is far, far more typical that active T2 BPO's are in the hands of investors that bought their BPO's using the isk they earned through years HARD WORK.... stripping players of their assets after they worked hard to achieve them seems like a horrible idea, and not at all necessary!!!! To elaborate: imagine if you spent several years of accruing isk and bought a titan..... And then CCP decided titans have had their time in the spot light, and nerfed their functionality to that of overpriced dread, or maybe they just removed the titans from the game and gave all titan owners 20 dreads as compensation. How would you react? Would you be ok with it? I would be pissed!!! Now, the titan example is actually a poor comparison because titans are player built, meaning they can proliferate and become so prevalent that the benefits of having a titan are available to all players. On the other hand, T2 BPO's have a static ingame quantity that does nothing but decrease. Additionally, they are NOT game-breakingly overpowered, even if they are profitable.

Second: What T2 Production are you exploring??? Sure, a t2 BPO has an advantage over a t2 BPC inventor (which I'll elaborate below), but so what. If you are producing items which are ubiquitously used (like a warp disruptor II, or a 150mm autocannon), the t2 BPO producer creates only a small, small percentage of the actual ingame production. In other words, the T2 BPO holder is not your competition!!! In truth, unless we're talking about rare and low-use t2 items, the majority of production is done using invented BPC's. The reason many beginner industrialists have a hard time competing is because many, many producers secure inexpensive materials to build their items.... Be it cheap sources of moongoo, cheap sources of minerals, and/or cheap sources of PI!! I've heard many small-time manufacturers claim the minerals they mine are "free".... and that is your true (& problematic) competition, not some scapegoat BPO holder!!!

Third: Not all invention is equal: I'll admit I haven't spent much time deeply exploring Ship production (mostly I've dabbled in AF & Inties), but I invent a lot of ammo and modules. These are my observations:

Inventing a BPC: A significant portion of all t2 manufacturing costs comes from creating the t2 BPC. Statistically speaking, the baseline cost to create a max-run BPC has an expected cost of 1-3m isk, and should be valued at twice that to cover your probability swings. For a standard 10 run t2 BPC (most modules and ammo), that means just gettng the BPC costs 100-600k isk per run. This cost is often minimized or belittled when groups acquire cheap datacores. Hell, many people consider their datacores "free", which they shouldn't. It's the cheap-supplied inventors that make your stiffest competition!!!

For Module Production: The difference between producing a T2 module with ME/PE at -4 vs a Perfect ME Levels is usually around a 2-5% difference.... On a 1 million isk item, this would be a 20-50k isk difference, which is NOT a significant amount. For module production, the cost of inventing your BPC is the majority of your markup when competing against a BPO holder (~100-600k isk / item) . Note, t2 modules very in use... and you really need to look at the market value and the movement of an item to see if producing it is worth your time.
In March 2012, the percentage of modules produce from invention:

• 93.95% of T2 Gyrostabilizers,
• 89.77% of 1400mm II,
• 87.34% of 425mm Rail II,
• 82.00% of Tachyon II,
• 74.23% of Torpedo Launcher II.

For Ship & Ammo Invention: The difference between producing T2 ships/ammo with an ME/PE at -4 vs a Perfect ME is quite significant. The production costs off an invented BPC often run 150-250% of the perfect run BPO. For t2 ammo, which has a long production time and is used ubiquitously, T2 BPO's are very profitable, but only produce a small market share. The majority of your t2 Ammo production competition comes from inventors, not BPO holders!!!! T2 Ships, on the other hand, run the full gambit. If you're producing an Eagle or a Sin, ships which have the market viscosity of molasses, then you really need to research the profitability in manufacturing them or you're a idiot!!!! A T2 BPO holder can produce the major market share of these ships and much cheaper than an inventor... But SO WHAT.... you don't produce these items for profit because their movement is too little to be a good investment. These are items that are usually produced for direct use (meaning you already have a buyer on the line before you invent the BPC, and you only bother producing it when you can beat the market rate!!). For higher rate items, like a Vagabond or a Jaguar, then the market share of BPO holders is low enough that you are again primarily competing against other inventors.
In March 2012, the percentage of modules produce from invention:

• 90.23% of Hulks,
• 67.85% of Sabres
• 65.01% of Wolves
• 22.16% of Pilgrims
• 6.00% of Eagles

Production Data Source

TL;DR;
Unless you are building slow moving ships and items, T2 BPO's have very little influence on an item's market value.
The ME level of your invented BPC has very little influence on the production cost of Modules, but significant influence in Ship and ammo production. Any new mechanic to alter ME levels will only truly help ship and ammo production...

Finally, I believe risk vs reward should be maintained... Any new mechanic that increases ME levels should require MANUFACTURING in low/nullsec, NOT HIGHSEC!

For me, the issue came up when I started inventing Ships, many of which would cost more to produce than the sale price on market.

Owning a BPO would seem to be the least risky way for someone to produce copies to use in production and BPC contracts. I don't really want to affect their reward but on a purely RvR the BPO owners have it easiest, even when you consideer the initial investment, as they hold their value or are actually good investments for resale later.

Mods may not be as bad but the successes are costly when you add the failures and then tack on an additional 40% waste mechanic. It makes invention suck.

I don't want to see the BPOs disappear, just make it so the inventors can compete. If I had a non decrypted gyro II bpc with an ME0/PE0 made with a META4 mod, I doubt the BPO owners would even notice, as any mod BPO they own is likely to be at least ME50. It would still cost more for me to produce, it just wouldn't suck quite as bad.

Since there are no META ships to use in invention, I'd suggest using UU chips for their invention. Make them use the appropriate chip and attach a +4/+4 to its use to provide an ME0 item.

E:

What I mean is that (with exceptions) you almost can't actually lose money on a BPO. You're likely to sell it for more than you paid and if you used it to build during the interim, you're getting pure profit.

I'm not gonna repeat how for the very majority of T2 items the T2 BPOs have little impact on sell prices.

If you make the invented item more efficient to produce, it will benefit all inventors, prices will fall and margins will remain similar to before the change.

Many items produce at a loss because people invent blindly, not doing the math, oversupplying the market, driving price down, selling below cost.