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A hefty chunk of that list comes down to people whining because of change, whining because they'll have to work with other people in a multiplayer game, whining because they might have PvP forced on them in lowsec, whining because they don't have a clue about markets and whining because they can't plan ahead. The whine about some of the blockade runners not being able to fit a gantry was extra whiney. Still, I'm sure the EU has a huge pile of surplus cheese somewhere and this could be a great way to get rid of it.

I hope the dev team are extremely judicious in ignoring that nonsense and concentrating on the very valid concerns that have been raised in the thread. As it stands, the changes are going to be good for non-whiners, but with some attention paid to the genuine shortcomings it could be excellent.

Will there be a new list that shows the appropriate counters?

Good point, but maybe you are incorrect.

It takes some time to anchor a gantry, and then more time to upgrade it to a customs office. How much hasn't been announced I don't think.

Nothing has been said about the defenses of a gantry, other than hit points. Does a gantry go into reinforcement mode like a CO? Is a gantry vulnerable while it's being upgraded? How long does it take to upgrade a gantry to a customs office? What happens if your gantry is being upgraded and then is put into reinforced mode? Does upgrading cease until RF mode ends?

I'm assuming that they are much like station 'eggs.' When it's in it's prebuilt, yet anchored form, it's VERY vulnerable to enemy fire, which is the reason people anchor and 'feed' the outpost eggs minutes before downtime, as when downtime ends, the build timer is done.

Awww, bless, my first ever "this". I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now. :)

CCP, any chance of getting corporate hangers added to the list of wants? I realise you're swamped with posts here and you're working to a deadline, so I'll just keep prodding you on this issue in the hope that it gets noticed. Some of us want to be able to do PI as a team (in lowsec, with customs offices open to neurals and defended by our small gangs).

I have a few questions I'd like answered:

1.) How is the location of a new POCO to be determined? Is the only tool available to use warping around and dropping bookmarks, or will ccp develop some deployment tool?

2.) Is the upgrade from a Gantry to a POCO instantaneous? Do we have to wait until a DT?

3.) In my experience, most of the people doing PI use CO's to export goods, and don't even bother wiring in the CC. By eliminating our CO's, your eliminating the ability of spaceports to move goods off the planet. I think allowing planetary launches from spaceports is important to maintaining the production of many of our planets, and think this deserves some examination.

I'm only on page 33 reading the thread, so apologies if I missed some newer relevant comments...

Disclaimer: I do PI, I've thought about doing it in low-sec on a small scale (I'm frequently there anyway) and I've been looking for planets for this. My main PI-Planets are Factory planets though, turning P2/P3 into P4 though, these are obviously in high-sec since I need a hub nearby to get the stuff.

My first reaction was "Yay, sounds great", which turned to "omg this is never gonna work" after reading a few pages here, and has since alternated between those two quite a few times. So I'm very much undecided on what I think about this.

First of all though, even if everyone acts like CCP expects (cooperating, allowing neutrals and stuff), I don't think many people are gonna go to low-sec to setup PI for the assumed lower taxes on exports. They currently go there for the higher yield the planets offer, which in turn gives a greater revenue over all (with similar income per produced item sold) with just a bit more overhead (hauling through low). After this change the incentive will be much less to do so, since they potentially have to invest about 80-100 mil (rough current market value including LP cost) or more (after expected price increase) to even use a planet. The yield is not THAT much higher to justify that currently, even after including taxes. The only thing that is currently already quite expensive to export are P4s, so against all odds it might be worth moving those to low-sec. Export will be 100k per unit in high-sec, which is already between 10-20% of their current market value.

What I think is required in any case is the following:

• access for anyone, independent of standing, but:
• tax rates based on standings
• Alliance standings have to be usable, corps in an alliance rarely bother to maintain a second set of standings
• a good interface for managing the customs offices, preferably with the ability to set some settings for all at once (stop the clickfest!)
• courier contracts from/to POCOs
• Bigger launch cans for circumventing the POCO as a reasonably viable alternative to huge taxes

Note that the last item acts as an incentive to A) allow anyone to use the POCO (if the situation doesn't change that it can be disallowed based on standing) and B) have reasonable taxes. This should still be limited enough so that

There are also three things which I haven't seen mentioned (until page 33 at least), which baffles me somewhat:
Insecure Investment: There are several risk factors involved which have been mentioned many times, like losing one's own Customs Office, the fact that it costs way too much given the expected income (return of investment and the like) and so on. But it will also give an additional insecurity when planning/investing in a new planet. It's quite a bit of work at the moment to find a worthwhile planet, after this you'll have the "needs to have customs office" as a constraint for a small-scale PI player, and in addition to that: "needs to have nice tax rate". Let's assume you find a planet that's worth using, and it even has a customs office with a nice tax rate (let's say 5%). Nothing is stopping the player from basically tax-baiting you, as soon as someone settles on the planet and builds a network, he cranks the tax up to let's say 20% in the hope he won't abandon/decommission the colony after the work he has already gone through to find it. It will probably no longer be even as profitable as a highsec planet. The tax can also rise more at any time. This fear might stop quite a few player from trying their hand at PI in low!
Remote Export/Import: The most restrictive thing about PI at the moment is that it basically requires you to be in the system(s) your doing PI in at least once a day. This negates any possibility of longer excursions to WHs/0.0 or other just as distant places. This is much worse for factory planets of course, but the location dependence could be reduced a bit by introducing a skill similar to market skills allowing for remote operation of the customs office. This would also be the perfect basis for allowing courier contracts from POCOs. At the very least allow me to VIEW the contents without being in the system! I can view every hangar in all of new eden via assets, but I can't see what I have in the Customs Office one system over? Seriously???
Ninja PI without access to POCO (mentioned maybe once or twice): This will be restricted to anything which doesn't require input. Quite a few production chains can't be on a single planet or need an incredibly specific planet to work well (including some P2, most P3 and all P4). No access to the POCO means no import at all. I think I saw a (player-manufactured) launch can specific for planetary import mentioned somewhere. This sounds like a nice idea, it's cost shouldn't be too high (couple of thousand ISK maybe? just a guess) and allow a certain sized import per can (5k m³?). The can should be BIGGER on the outside compared to the inside to accommodate the 'landing equipment' needed (as opposed to current containers) to avoid them being used for anything other than launching stuff to a planet.

60 seconds to anchor, 20 seconds to bring online.



They are invulnerable during anchoring but not onlining. 10,000,000 shield HP for the gantry and no RF timer.

This mechanic, however, creates additional risk for the people that own the office. Defend the office or lose all of you PI in the corp hanger. Also, the PI products need to eventually get taken off, so a hauler will still be needed. The only difference is that the PI stuff in there is now corp property instead of private property. However, another problem occurs with corp roles and access to said hanger.

That's a good point but doesn't it favor larger corps, alliances and those with multiple pilots/accounts? For null sec systems that are more protected, this just makes it easier for large alliances to pool PI and haul it off with an Orca. It also lets several pilots run max efficiency PI on one planet and easily pool for manufacture on another. If you let the PI be moved to the corporate hangar remotely, you'd make it even easier to manage.

I can't see a low-sec PI scenario where an Orca is pulling up to the customs office.

I think the logistics of PI is one of the key challenges in place and any change to reduce those logistics should be seriously considered for all the impact it will have.

True. I think the point I was trying to make was that it would not be beneficial to the game to make corporate hanger on the POCO. I can see how it would greatly help those in a WH, where almost everything made from PI is going to the POS, but otherwise, not a good idea.

And I would start cracking up and laughing my hysterical crazy ganker laugh if I saw an orca on a Customs office in low-sec. FREE ORCA KILL MAIL!!!!

ps. sry about the baby threadnaught