Jita Park Speakers Corner

I'm not knowledgeable about supercaps but it is glaringly obvious that this will benefit only those currently in power, making it harder for smaller alliances to carve their way into null; which is the opposite of what they want to achieve.

I saw lots of interesting ideas about how to revamp nullsec, hope it will end well.
From what I understood, this revamp is currently planned for winter 2013 right ? (may change blablabla)

Rightfully so.

Mrs Merkel, is that you?

Vera Algaert is right that the CSM & CCP Greyscale are not considering the implications of Null Industry changes being asked for.

I completely disagree with the position stated by Elise that Null shipping raw materials to Jita & importing manufactured items is bad game design. In fact this is evidence of good game design as it shows there is a robust market structure with lots of specialization and trade. Trying to change it so that each region of space or alliance is essentially self-sufficient (an extreme not mentioned in the CSM minutes, though the changes suggested push in that direction) would result in an allocation of time and resources that would create less usable items than the current system.

I understand the desire to see more industry in Null sec, but trying to move current High sec industry to Null is certainly the wrong way to go about it for at least two reasons. First is the logistical hassle. Null is far more spread out and empire is the center of New Edan, meaning it will have a more liquid market. This means that surplus items produced in null would have to be shipped to high sec for sale anyway. Also that the danger of shipping is correlated to volume Hence, it makes sense to only ship the most expensive cargo, Null raw material & high sec production, rather than High sec materials & null sec production.

Even moving the distribution of minerals to favor Null sec more would not help this issue due to Comparative Advantage. Essentially even if it is more profitable in all cases to mine the minerals in Null, the low value, high volume would still be mined in Empire. This is because miners in Null would find it more profitable to mine the more profitable minerals and the risk averse miners in High would mine the less efficient, but still highest value minerals in High Sec, as they don't have the option to mine the more expensive minerals in High Sec. (The essential point is that it is always better for regions to trade, even if one region is better at producing every single thing.)

Things like making Null production lines more efficient would encourage more Null sec production. But probably only of a few items that have resources nearby. Though even this is not for sure as a local Null sec market for these resources would have to exist to enable producers to acquire them without going to Jita. (A tough problem with multiple equilibria.) Making Null invention better might be the best suggestion I read as it would enable Null to specialize in BPC production. Though odds are the BPCs would be shipped to Jita and the modules shipped back. At least this would increase the amount of Industry done in Null.

Overall the movement of goods to a central market with regions specializing is different parts of the production process should not be seen as a flaw but evidence that EVE has a well functioning market. Suggestions to turn this on its head would almost certainly alter the game in ways that would harm everyone though higher prices & more fragmentation in locations to purchase modules. (Meaning it would take a stop to multiple places & higher prices now to actually fully fit a ship.) But changes, like better invention in Null, & features, like PI, that encourage greater specialization & trade are beneficial to everyone and should be pursued.

Reduction of nullsec imports and an increase of nullsec industry needn't be the same thing. One of the few things in the proposal I agree with is addressing refine and operational costs of manufacturing slots to favor POS's and outpost as well as the expansion of slots to make using that advantage feasible.

I'm not really seeing the problem of mineral import in that case either, but rather than fight it I'd personally like direct mineral compression supported so the newly created nullsec lines can be fed in a way that preserves the cost advantages that null needs and deserves. If that really is such a bad Idea I'd be curious to know why.

My reading as well. Also, I am not sure I like all this management-heavy talk about how to design/develope the game. Little talk of the actual development process (coding/art) and far too much meta-talk (this mostly relates to the two latest dev-diaries about eve development in the future).

The problem is that nullsec, while holding only 20% of EVE's active players, has the majority of active PvPers and over 50% of the fights in EVE period. It would not be wrong to say that the majority of EVE's economic output is to feed and replace losses in nullsec wars. Yet despite this, the CSM minutes are loaded with complaints about how barren nullsec is, how there are no targets or goals for small alliances to achieve, how all this heavily disincentives casual PvP, that it makes it pointless to play in 0.0 outside of a 20k+ coalition.

How does that gel with the hard stats (Gevlin Goblin, btw) about nullsec's high PvP activty though?

A smart person might conclude it may have something to do with the fact that nearly every aspect of all these goods and crafts used in these nullsec wars was mined, refined, collected, manufactured and completed in highsec - removing the vast number of people involved in the crafting system to supply the tens of thousands of ships + modules to support a megacoalition's armada from the clutches of any roaming gang. That the way to breathe life into the 0.0 PvP scene would be to make alliances reliant on plucky industrialists within their own borders (taking the risk for a chance at SuperVeld, refining it at better rates then a NPC station, manufacturing it more efficiently, for a much higher profit margin then he would in highsec (balanced by the higher risk and opportunity cost of doing business in null). Disrupting this internal industry would easily be a goal most small groups could accomplish, and have real consequences for the alliance having their supply of weapons mucked about with. The biggest alliances consume the most goods, and in a null where entities have to use their space in order to supply their war machines, would present the most targets.

This being CSM 7, and not smart people, instead discussion went towards instituting rules like "dahhhrr if the renters dont undock, the roaming gang gets to impose a space tax on their rat bounties".

If null moved from highsec manufacturing/low end mineral dependancy, this does not mean the end of highsec trade however. Regional moongoo, T3 goods, officer.faction items and ships, null surplus, to name a few, would still require a neutral broker to trade in, so there would always be a need for highsec trade.

CCP have lost their courage to innovate with respect to Eve.

Boy someone didnt read. Your first paragraph: things we discussed or recommended. Your insult line: never got mentioned.

:derp:

But thanks for agreeing with us, good to know we're on the right path with our feedback.