EVE General Discussion

Good thing that's not what I said. I said that the last one didn't matter, and that I don't think another doubling of frigate prices would. I did not extend my assertion to any n multiplier.

You still have yet to justify why you think a doubling would be neccessary, nor why you think the next doubling would be crippling (in the part I didn't quote, you described what activities would be affected, which is not a justification for claiming that those activities would be crippled).




Yes you have. Every time you say "AHHH You can't nerf HS," you are saying "Don't fix it." Unless you've come up with a new idea for how to allow Nullsec to be competitive with HS without nerfing HS since we showed the last one was woefully insufficient?



And you still haven't learned the difference between Economic and Normal profits.


Umm....

So... you're saying "Fix it" but "Fixing it is impossible." ....'kay

That at least gives me an idea where you want to start. That is not a modest change, its big.

Ok, so you disagree with my goal** of Nullsec industry being competitive* with HS industry. That's fine.

What's your goal for rebalancing Nullsec industry?


*If one firm cannot reach the same level of economic profits as another, that firm is not competitive with the other.

**Which actually may be a more modest one than CCP's:
http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=946
"Nullsec
Industry
Lucrative"

Since Lucrative usually implies greater than normal Economic profits.

Nope, not at all. The majority of isk destruction happens in null - if you offer full access to optimal industry there, you would make large coalitions largely self-sufficient and eliminate another conflict driver. I'm looking to increase this conflict driver by effectively forcing players to travel and secure routes through hostile territory. That's why I don't believe all the industry should be placed into null or wormhole space or whatever. It's also why I believe that stationary rewards are a bad idea - by moving them around, you make major players pursue them, bringing them in conflict with other entities in game.

Simply put, I believe null is far too stable for what it's ment to be, a chaotic "wild west" of EVE, where players are thrown into the whirlwind while rushing for gold that everyone wants to get their hands on. Meanwhile, high sec is supposed to be "the old world" - a place where you may find steady income, but where competition and high taxes may drive your business down.

To give you an example of what I'm thinking of - think of mining, a lucrative business of plowing through rocks, looking for valuables. The game was set up in such a way that null mining would be the most lucrative, while optimal refining would be available in high sec. Problem is, high sec mining is competitive with null sec one, giving players no incentive to move to null, as they now have both mining and refining in high. That's what should be solved.

That's also why I'm saying that giving high, low, null, WH their "specializations" would imo be a good idea - you could do it all at one place, but to optimize it, you'd need to use those "specializations", again driving conflict to secure the routes, defend the industry (basically, sov), drive out nomads seeking your resourcers and so on.

The current 'conflict driver' of supply-based primary economy is pathetically weak. Don't believe me? Here's a fun experiment: 50% of highsec's total output winds up in null, but you can find more afk autopiloting freighters on any given highsec gate at any given time then died in all of highsec for that day. How much would you say 50% of highsec's collective output is in a day? if it's 'more then 5 freighters', then I got news for you - the current system isn't a 'conflict driver'. Having nullsec produce where it consumes would invite far, far more conflict.

This intention of nullsec died in 2004, if not sooner. CCP has since moved on to wormholes.

I have no issue with increased taxes/fees on manufacturing slots. But I think if they're changed, those fees should maybe be relative to npc corp standing like the refine tax.

I do start having issues when people advocate removing abilities (like t2 production - as this is a goal I'm actively working toward) entirely out of high sec or making high sec npc manufacturing slots scarce. Folks are welcome to disagree, but I can't see how increasing competition for available slots is a good thing for new players or smaller corps. The casual gamer would be affected disproportionately. Would those folks really anchor a POS and adapt or just quit playing? Fuel blocks are expensive. Even fueling a small POS costs about 100 mill / month.

Not to mention that someone had better model these changes to see what having 10-30 day waits (like public research slots) on public manufacturing slots would do to high sec industry, the in-game economy, and subscriber numbers. I suspect the answer is nothing good.

Prices are guaranteed to rise on all items if production plummets. And industry would then center around whichever systems still had public slots. With competition for those slots increased exponentially, a player like me would have no choice but to use my research POS for manufacturing.

This would effectively tether my game to my POS location and that's not something I'd be eager to see transpire. The vast majority of my game occurs nowhere near my POS. I didn't achieve standings with 14 npc corps so I would have to stay in the system where I anchored my POS. The ability to be an industrial nomad has been hugely beneficial to my gameplay since I'm able to be effective virtually anywhere. And as player fluidity is conducive to pgc, its not even a great idea for the quality of pgc either. The hits don't even end there. Industrial arrays eat up so much cpu/pwg, I wouldn't even be able to keep my labs online. And there's no way everyone in the game will be able to grind 300 mill isk/ month to power a large pos just to operate labs AND industry simultaneously.

Geez Louise. I can appreciate that there is imbalance in the game. But I cannot accept that expanding null production capability while destroying my game in the process is what's going to fix EVE.

YK

Wouldn't this state of affairs be fantastic? New players might then be incentivized to pool together their resources to buy, maintain and defend a medium or large POS to do highsec research and industry, creating player-generated content that actually involves multiple (actively engaged) players instead of one dude "grinding" pos fuel costs every month so he can continue to play by himself, shielded from non-consensual pewing by CONCORD's skirt!

Hi-sec is supposed to be the starter area....

I think it's ridiculous to constrain hi-sec under that long outdated assumption, but it's just as ridiculous to constrain 0.0 with the equally outdated "wild west" concept.

no one is forced to manufacture anything, since there is a fully functioning market.

I can understand that it's difficult living in null without facilities close by but should it really be easy?

Simple way to put it? Needs to be cheaper to produce in null sec than it is to import goods from high sec and the best methods of production need to have some sort of danger involved. Even if it just means fixing POSs because that way, even if they are in high sec, its not even remotely close to safe if someone wants to stop them. A good method and reason to spread goods throughout null sec is also something that should be looked at. In otherwords, null sec needs to be king for serving null sec with the border reasons having a slight edge at best at serving high sec when competing against other high sec people due to the added dangers involved. That's what I think would be balanced. Not nullsec being balanced around exporting to high sec. You want more industrial targets, gotta give the industrial targets a reason to stay out there more long term anyways.