Assembly Hall

If dust succeeds, it might be wise to attempt to apply a similar business model to eve and attempt to ween the game off of subscriptions slowly and attempt to move to a free to play model. This would be a major change for the game would take a lot of work and certainly wouldn't happen over night.

So how would Aurum modules and hulls work with out turning into pay to win?

Aurum modules would be identical to tech II modules in every way, however: they would have much less intensive skill requirements. This would allow people to purchase and use tech II modules if they hadn't normally acquired the skill for it. It also gives those who attain normal tech II modules the normal way a slight advantage, as depending on the modules, they would use less capacitor, have greater range, or would hit harder because of the supporting skill. In the end regardless of skills an Aurum Module would never be able to attain greater performance then a tech II modules only equivalent.

Aurum hulls would be Identical to tech II ship hulls but would require much less skills to fly them, allowing people to pay to get into a hull with out some of the supporting skills, but would give people who trained to use the actual Tech II hull advantages from its supporting skills. You would have to do some tinkering with actual ship command skill bonus where, for example, a person who had Heavy assault cruisers skills trained wouldn't be able to squeeze more performance out of an aurum hull then a normal Hac, for instance:

Aurum version of Sacrilege: Amar cruiser skill effects both amar cruiser skill and heavy cruiser skill bonus.
Once again an Aurum hull would never be able to out perform a tech II hull it would only attain equivalent performance.

The other difference would be the hulls and the modules if they had a model in game like guns, would also have different artwork, to allow people to get these ships or modules simply for variety or customization sake, or even for bling factor. Like all other Aurum products they could also be sold on the market.

With the changing of how people train for ships, and how skills like Recons, Heavy assault skills, etc become racial, another advantage of this is it will also give players the opportunity to quickly get access to another races tech II hull if there willing to pay extra in isk or in aurum for it.

I think the best way to do the acquisition of these hulls/modules is the aurum purchases a blue print copy with a certain number of runs and that it would take basic minerals from the market to produce these vessels/modules. People get the most bang for there buck then. These aurum BPC would have fixed mineral build values and would be unaffected by manufacturing skills, every one builds them at the same rate for the same mineral cost. You dont just purchase one hull or one module with your money you would get a set. This mineral cost may sound like a **** idea considering that people just spent cash on this product but if a good value was arrived at I think it would be a reasonable cost in addition to the creation of the aurum hull/module.

By making these ships and modules equal to and not greater then tech II modules and hulls I think it avoids the "Gold ammo, gold hull" problems of Fearless fame.

If this is still idiotic and game breaking please say so. And more importantly please explain why.

Two things:

- as pointed out above... making EVE free to play will usher in a golden age of alts. Watch single players control mining fleets of 10 Hulks and 2 Orcas... or create fleets of Drakes that are all fit the same exact way, shoot at the exact same time, all at the same target.
Best part is that this is ALREADY legal... the only limitation is how much money you are willing to spend on how many accounts.

- why would people spend real money on ships and weapons that are "no better" than T2 stuff when they can simply wait for the passive skill que to do its thing? I certainly wouldn't. Especially if I'm not paying anything to keep an account open in the first place.
Maybe some more impatient people will get these "gold" ships and mods... but I doubt they are enough impatient people that will get CCP ~5 million USD a month ($15 USD * ~350,000 subscriptions)... and I doubt they will hang around for long either when they find out that their "pimp" ship (that they paid real money for) can be easily killed by 15 people in random T1 crap.

I think I'd much rather just see the ability to 'custom skin' a ship with an Aurum bought skin. I want my Roden shipyards skinned megathron pretty badly.

I would also pay for the ability to have rainbow lasers.

Have to agree with everyone above me apart from the OP.


Free to play model is a game killer. It would totally balls up Eve beyond belief.