Missions & Complexes

Really guys, do you not understand what an ISK faucet is? Salvage and loot is NOT an isk faucet, yes YOU are gaining money, however it is coming from someone who already has the money. An isk faucet is isk created from no where. Bounties, ship insurance, blue tags from sleep loot..

Lp stuff is not an isk faucet as you use lp AND ISK to purchase it, hence it is an isk sink.

Losing a ship, this i can see where people get confused. You pay 100 mil for a ship, you then lose said ship, you gain insurance from that ship (insurance is an isk faucet). No where is isk removed from the game in that category.

Even simpler terms. isk faucet is when isk is created out of the blue, isk sink is when it's removed from the game. think about that, buying something isn't an isk sink it is simply re-arranging the isk's location.

No, I'm asking if any other mission runners has noticed an increase in their earnings at some point during the year, which is due to an external reason, so I can understand and maybe try to exploit it, e.g seraph castillon said mineral prices are higher, the price of modules hasn't changed so maybe I should think about levelling re-precessing.

New Eden is in an inflationary period now, which is why CCP has made some of the changes they have (nerfing Drone alloy drops, for example). Too many ISK faucets, not enough ISK sinks. FW has some mechanics problems that have led people to farm LP, which they turn into ISK via the LP stores. Also, not enough ships are getting blown up due to well-known problems with low security space. Until CCP somehow figures out how to improve the risk/reward formula in lowsec, it's going to remain a drag on the economy.

Loot drops in anoms and plexes also seems to be worse -- even high-meta drops are getting to be rare. I think this is CCP's way of turning down the ISK faucet and trying to put a damper on inflation.

I'd say that in terms of gameplay, 500M ISK now is probably worth what 200M ISK was a couple of years ago in terms of player time invested.

At base I think the problem is that there's not enough PVP combat to grind up ships, which really is the core of EVE's economy: ships have to get blowed up in large numbers to keep the economy humming. That hasn't been happing enough, but the ISK faucets just keep spouting -- the FW changes, the mining barge changes, and so on.

In RL, it's rather like the Keynesian "stimulus" here in the US that was passed back in 2009. The object was to inject a lot of money directly into the economy in hopes of stimulating both production *and* consumption. But the stimulus was all on the production/infrastructure side -- the consumers didn't respond to the stimulus, and the spare capital basically just went into storage in banks. There's plenty of supply of goods, just not much demand. (There are also long-term structural problems in the US economy with debt and social welfare spending that don't exist in EVE, so it's not a perfect analogy.)

In New Eden, it's easier to make money and buy good stuff, but at some point you've got enough -- you don't need to keep buying gear because you're not losing any of the stuff you already have. So the producers are trying to sell into a saturated market.

I'm sure that CCP is aware of the issue. Maybe nullsec has become too static, with the big alliances skirmishing at the borders but not really engaging in protracted fleet actions. Lowsec PVP combat (or lack thereof) has been a concern for a long time. FW was supposed to be a way to train players for PVP combat in lowsec, but due to problems with the mechanics it has turned into a huge ISK faucet but an insufficient ISK sink.

Raven, I respect you a lot, but you're wrong here. Dead wrong.

When we talk about ISk sinks and faucets, we're talking about the net effect certain events have on the total ISK supply in the economy, not the supply in the wallet of an individual player. ISK leaves the economy when it's given to non-player entities and enters the economy when it's granted by non-player entities. As such, LP stores are indeed ISK sinks: they require that a certain amount of ISK is permanently removed from the economy. In exchange, a player is granted an item -- which may have economic value, but is not part of the total supply of money in the game.

Your ship loss example breaks down on exactly the same grounds. Your 163 million for the ship/fit/rigs is ISK that goes from player A's wallet into (for simplicity's sake) player B's wallet. No ISK is created or destroyed (except through taxes and other arbitrarily imposed transaction costs).

Now, when you insure the ship, that is an ISK sink. You pay 23mil to a non-player entity. That ISK is no longer in the economy. That is a sink.

However, when the ship explodes, you get 73 million ISK. That injects 50mil into the economy net (73-23=50) and is therefore a net ISK faucet, not a sink at all. Of course if it doesn't blow up all you've done is sink 23mil, but that's not really the argument at hand.

So what about that pod? Well, implants work a little bit differently. Unlike ships/mods/rigs, implants are either drops (in which case their existence is net neutral to the total ISK supply) or are purchased from LP stores (in which case they are sinks; see above on LP stores). So sure, pod loss ends up creating an ISK sink, though it doesn't count as one in and of itself.

tl;dr: You can't analyze ISK sinks and faucets on a per-player basis. These are macroeconomic concepts that create inflation (or rarely deflation) in the economy but are not applicable to the relative or absolute wealth of any one individual. So no ship loss is not a sink; in fact, insurance makes it a faucet because there is more ISK in the economy after it occurs than before it occurs.

OMG what a wall of text.

No, the total amount didn't go up. You just said, in your previous sentence, the guy has the isk you gave him. The amount of ISK stayed the same. When I get my mission ISK or my ratting ISK or my plexing ISK or my arbitrage profits on NPC items, that is ISK that wasn't in the game until it hit my wallet. THOSE are isk faucets.

This thread is full of moronic crap. Mission money is way, way, way down because the LP is basically worthless thanks to FW. The OP is a liar and troll and you morons fell for it.

while losing a ship sets you back some million ISK, the guy you bought your ship from still has the ISK you gave him, so the total amount of ISK in eve has gone up (therefore ISK faucet).

New Eden is in an inflationary period now, which is why CCP has made some of the changes they have (nerfing Drone alloy drops, for example). Too many ISK faucets, not enough ISK sinks. FW has some mechanics problems that have led people to farm LP, which they turn into ISK via the LP stores. Also, not enough ships are getting blown up due to well-known problems with low security space. Until CCP somehow figures out how to improve the risk/reward formula in lowsec, it's going to remain a drag on the economy.

Loot drops in anoms and plexes also seems to be worse -- even high-meta drops are getting to be rare. I think this is CCP's way of turning down the ISK faucet and trying to put a damper on inflation.

I'd say that in terms of gameplay, 500M ISK now is probably worth what 200M ISK was a couple of years ago in terms of player time invested.

At base I think the problem is that there's not enough PVP combat to grind up ships, which really is the core of EVE's economy: ships have to get blowed up in large numbers to keep the economy humming. That hasn't been happing enough, but the ISK faucets just keep spouting -- the FW changes, the mining barge changes, and so on.

In RL, it's rather like the Keynesian "stimulus" here in the US that was passed back in 2009. The object was to inject a lot of money directly into the economy in hopes of stimulating both production *and* consumption. But the stimulus was all on the production/infrastructure side -- the consumers didn't respond to the stimulus, and the spare capital basically just went into storage in banks. There's plenty of supply of goods, just not much demand. (There are also long-term structural problems in the US economy with debt and social welfare spending that don't exist in EVE, so it's not a perfect analogy.)

In New Eden, it's easier to make money and buy good stuff, but at some point you've got enough -- you don't need to keep buying gear because you're not losing any of the stuff you already have. So the producers are trying to sell into a saturated market.

I'm sure that CCP is aware of the issue. Maybe nullsec has become too static, with the big alliances skirmishing at the borders but not really engaging in protracted fleet actions. Lowsec PVP combat (or lack thereof) has been a concern for a long time. FW was supposed to be a way to train players for PVP combat in lowsec, but due to problems with the mechanics it has turned into a huge ISK faucet but an insufficient ISK sink.

You are interpreting isk loss for you as an isk sink. This is not the case. What matters is where the isk goes. If you replace a ship you lose the isk, but the isk has just gone to the guy who sold you the ship. When your ship died you got an insurance pay out which was more than the insurance premium you paid in so isk has come from nowhere, this is a faucet. When you trade LP for an item it is isk neutral unless it is one that requires isk, in this case it is an isk sink as the isk goes to npcs and vanishes. When you sell the goods you got from the fw lp you gain isk, but you got it from another player so it is isk neutral. Implants are just like losing a ship or mods, isk neutral as the guy you bought them off has the isk. Getting the implants from lp store is an isk sink however as is you updating your clone after being podded as the isk goes to npcs and vanishes.

isk sinks in game -> insurance that runs out, repair costs, skill books, job costs at npc stations, lp store deals requiring isk, sov bills, blue prints, a few remaining trade goods sold by npcs.

Isk faucets in game -> mission rewards (isk) , bounties, loot that is sold to npc buy orders (overseer effects, sleeper bits, concord tags)