Warfare & Tactics

Should be easy enough to do .. merely an intentional recreation of the good ol' timer bug we all loved so much

The tags are a thing I have been chewingg the cud on for a while now.

Given that highsec level 4's are apparently such a broken way of getting fat and rich on LP's (lols, 30K for a Novice in FW guys in 10 mins vs 400 for a level 2 in 8 minutes? Please.), clearly the supply of tags is limited only by the faction penalties for accepting missions vs the faction rats. Mission runners may decline faction missions so as to preserve their ability to fly unmolested around highsec. But i really doubt this is a problem. There are plenty of guys who don't travel more than 3 jumps from their mission hub and do their Jita trading on an alt.

There is a large supply of tags - but, guess what - the supply of certain tags is rare, others are plentiful. The majority of the cost of, for example, a RF 10MN Afterburner 5 run BPC is Imperial Navy Major tags - you get 2-3 per faction mission. No, let me clarify. You get 2-3 per level 4 faction mission - and 6 or so per level 3 faction mission. The drop rate for these important tags in level 3's is greater than level 4's, but since more people do L4's, the supply of said tags is lower.

Did the Navy Major tags drop from FW plexes? Not in any appreciable volume. There was hardly a giant fountain of tags coming from the warzone because 99% of pre-retribution plexing was done by gunless 10MN AB Incursus alts who woulddn't farm the tags. If I did blat the rats, and loot the field, I would often DIAF with the tags in hold. Which tallied up, at most, to 5M ISK. Which implies the supply from FW was of trash value tags, not importang Major I's or Sergeant I's.

The importance of these tags is determined by the importance of the faction module in question. RF tracking enhancers, being the only faction TE, are hella expensive because of mission Machs and turret T3's and Incursions. They like AB's require cruiser and BC tags.Hence demand, hence tag demand, etc. Cruiser sized faction gear, also, sells more expensively than BS gear because of T3 cruisers, hence the demand for faction tags in the mid-rank.

However, take for example, some of the faction items like, eg, RF small smartbombs. The tag requirements are insane. Even if you did, perversely, grind level 2's all day long, you would take nearly a year to assemble the hundreds of tags required. No one wants frigate sized smartbombs. And some of the LP costs, when divided out for Level 2's, are absurd, for the size and potency and utility of the module on offfer.

There is also a sink to tags, which can be redeemed directly for cash at certain NPC stations. Which is bad for 2 reasons. One, it is an ISK faucet, spawning nett new ISK into the game. Two, it depletes the market of tags. Boohoo, you say? Assuming CCP even attempted constructing the tag drop rate and missions and mission frequency and balanced them out to allow people to collect enough LP's and enough tags to convert and use their LP stores, having a mechanism that takes tags out of circulation outside of the LP store basically stuffs the calculations up.

Finally, some LP stores offer better deals than others. Some, like the Khanid Navy LP store, offer very attractive faction items (eg; KN dissy's, webs, smartbombs) with blindinly stupid tag requirements, given you almost never actually get the taggs required.

The solution?
Keep faction ships in highsec mission hubs. Zarnak could be accused, here, of trying to make FW more lucrative, via ring-fencing faction ships to FW stores. Thiss may work, but there's hardly a lack of LP's available to print SFI's and ONI's. Just look at the price of SFIs recently - the limiting factor here is stabber hulls. 45K LP for an SFI, versus 120K in some hisec stores (plus boatloads of tags, too). Hardly much competiton! it takes FW guys no time to save 600K LP's for a faction BS, but a guy running level 4's...600K is about 100 missions.

Reduce tag requirements for all small items to reasonable levels. Like, 20 tags per item.

Reduce LP requirements ffor small faction items. 79K LP for a 5 run small smartbomb BPC? You're joking, right? Plus literally 1200 tags in one case for a 1MN MWD. I would like to see, for example, an RF 1MN MWD priced to cost around 3-5M ISK via about 3,000-5,000LP and tags. This would require about 10-15 level 2's, and tags. This would take 1 hour of efficient churning, LP wise. Hardly going to get rich doing this!

Look at balancing the tag supply for Ammatar and Khanid. These items are mid-potency, but basically never produced, because their tag and LP costs are high, stupid, and why would you grind the same missions and spend the same time, to get a lesser item? This is why Derelik and Khanid are so sparsely populated! Well, aside from Palas, where people go to grind for Caldari missiles in Khanid space....

True, but I stand my my assertion that the vast majority of plexes ran for a long time were not harvested for tags. Doubtless there's less coming from FW now - but there isn't much movement in tag prices. Although, to be fair, the odd caldari tags I get on the side from Smash the Slavers are rocketing in price now. Perhaps due to changes in the Gal/Cal warzone, perhaps due to market manipulation. It's a pretty thin market in hek, easily pushed around.

I don't see any great changge in market volumes (admitting I don't go to jita now, so who knows). So there isn't dumping going on.

And as for the FW mission ships - which neutral alt in a 100MN Tengu who is blatting objectives faster than you can say boo, do you know, who sticks around to DPS down all the rats in a FW mission versus warping off and churning another 40 of them every night, ad nauseum? I honestly believe you would be hard pressed to find a single person harvesting tags this way. (also, another gripe, for another thread)

There is a vastly reduced supply of tags from FW. I just don't see FW as being the largest supply - conventional level 4's in hisec where people salvage is the greatest source. But even there, the mismatch between mission drops and tag:LP dynamics restricts the consumption. Believe me, it is much more efficient to hump conventional missions and loot tags than it is to put yourself at risk in a plex blatting rats. You also make far more ISK sticking to level 4s than trying to top up with FW tags and always have - people in FW are just converting for implants, ammo and ship BPCs - none of which require tags.

Currently exchanging tags for 260M profit for 48K LP's in krusual tribe's LP store, or 60M profit for 16K LP store in Republic Fleet, for example. But that is only on ceertain items. I also get left with thousands upon thousands of useless tags, like midshipman IIs, which lie about the place.

In fact, if I could somehow ONLY get missions vs faction rats, I'd be down for that.

You can.

I was laughing as I googled webster's dictionary...