EVE General Discussion

Right there with you =)

Here's one step I would like CCP to take to rectify the situation: convert all refineries and reprocessing plants into activity lines, just like manufacturing lines. These activity lines will have stats such as "volume per hour" and "refining efficiency". These stats would be altered for different stations: Mining corporations' mineral repository stations might have 30% efficient refineries with millions of cubic metres per hour throughput (i.e.: geared to miners with standings and skills and implants). Assembly plant and logistics stations might have 50% efficient refineries with tens of thousands of cubic metres per hour capacity.

Step two would be to adjust all POS refineries to work the same way (and of course remove the pointless 75% cap on efficiency). Thus you might have a refinery structure at the POS which hosts four activity lines, each of which is a 30% efficient refinery/reprocessor with a million cubic metres per hour throughput, but that structure takes most of the CPU and PG of a large tower. A smaller structure might have 1 similar line, or four 50% efficient lines capable of handling a thousand cubic metres per hour. I suspect a lot of the code behind POSes is tied to a "tick" of about an hour (the same way a space combat grid has a minimum resolution of 1 second). This doesn't need to be changed: a one hour turnaround time for POS refineries is fine, as long as they can be made 100% efficient using skills and implants, and I can refine dense veldspar at the same time as regular veldspar, or reprocess a whole grab bag of modules in the one run.

Step three would be to reevaluate the need for dozens of stations in system (why are there so many stations in Kusomonmon?).

Step four would be having NPC rates for activity lines dynamically adjusted based on utilisation. As utilisation exceeds 80%, increase the price of the lines by about 1% a day for new jobs. As utilisation drops below 50%, reduce the price by about 1% a day. Perhaps the percentages and timeframes would change, perhaps an entirely different model would be required: the essential outcome is that NPC rates rise in order to push industry out to player owned facilities.

Step five would be adjusting the number of NPC activity lines downwards, removing refineries or assembly lines from administrative stations (make offices in those stations cheaper, perhaps), and allowing specialisation such that stations with R&D agents will have research labs (but no other activity lines), stations listed as "Assembly plants" will have assembly lines (and perhaps a low volume reprocessing plant).

The NPC facilities should be available in order to allow for a "reboot from scratch" scenario, i.e.: a large number of users leave the game, industry falls into chaos, new players or players new to industry pick up the reins with NPC-provided activity lines, moving to their own POSes when NPC lines become too expensive. The idea being that industry should be player-run all the way from resource gathering through to final sale. NPC facilities should only be a disaster recovery plan for CCP, not a staple for industrialists.

PS: in this writing, the difference between "refinery" and "reprocessing plant" is semantic, not technical. A refinery is simply an activity line that can process large volumes of material at a low efficiency (boosted by the character's refining, scrap metal processing and specialist ore processing skills, and implants), while a reprocessing plant can handle small volumes at a higher efficiency. In the case of a POS structure, higher volume capacity means more PG, higher efficiency means more CPU.

See this post here is an explicit reason why you aren't taken seriously. You also got the bolded part wrong, there was no cogent argument.

Notorious Fellon wrote:
"What makes [POS manufacturing] so painful?"

La Nariz wrote:
"It is a long list but to start, the UI, the maintenance of the POS, and the logistics involved."

Tippia wrote:
"In a POS, you have to take all those modules to the station (hopefully in the same system); rclick→recycle there, because if you do it in the POS it'll be ready by the time the dinosaurs have re-evolved from canaries; cart all those minerals in fiftyeleven freighter runs (have you tried manoeuvring a freighter inside a tightly packed POS, btw?) to the POS; at the POS, you must know where everything goes because you have different arrays for different products and each of them have limited storage capacity; and if you want to manufacture something else, you have to go to the POS and rearrange materials between arrays (and hope to god they're close enough or you'll have to break out the freighter again)"










Is this the point where I write again that the issues with POS manufacturing listed in this topic by other posters: maintaining/fueling multiple POS's, navigating in a freighter, multiple trips between a refining station and a POS, and maneuvering a freighter inside anchored POS modules aren't sec-specific activities? Those activities must suck everywhere. Or do I just throw my hands in the air and give up? lol I realize there are differences with risk but the similarities in why POS manufacturing isn't enjoyable (as stated in this topic) seem pretty universal for everyone.

What the hell?

Right. As an industrialist competing for ever-decreasing profit margins, raising the cost of using station manufacturing slots and decreasing station refining yield has been proposed in conjuction with better refining/manufacturing at high-sec POS's. Skills trained to start manufacturing jobs remotely and standings with npc corps would be irrelevant.

Any industrialist with common sense and basic math skills will recognize there is no choice if this is done.

YK

Ok lets try to spell this out for you

Profit margins are decreasing because it is too cheap to just decide to build something, so a lot of people are and always have built without working out the profit or the ever popular "Minerals are free"

Again the refining yield will still be 100% you just need an implant and higher skills this is your trade off so you don't have to risk any thing.

As to Hi-sec POSs yes they would have slightly cheaper manufacturing as they are out laying capital and taking risks to earn their isk.

As to "Skills trained to start manufacturing jobs remotely and standings with npc corps would be irrelevant."
Why?

You are gaining the reward of reduced risk by using an NPC facility while POS users are gaining the reward of isk for taking risks.

It very much seems to me that you are so risk adverse that you will argue forever, over your right to make risk free isk, killing off the ability for anyone who wants more out of industry and at the same time putting your self above all of the other regions of EvE.

So let me make this one real easy for you....Those who risk more should get more...No one works on an off shore oil rig for $50 a month. Nor should someone who builds their own manufacturing plant earn less than someone who uses someone elses almost for free.

Or to put in the terms any industrialist can understand. You are arguing that the yield of a procurer should equal the yield of a hulk as the hulk should not benefit just because it is more expensive and needs more SP to fly.

Or alternatively that you should not profit with higher rep through refining as even though you put in a greater amount of work the people who haven't are at a disadvantage.

Now you have come to the largest part of the issue, now things can always get better in this game and POSs being easier to use would be great, removing refine from stations no I would not like that just the lowering of the refine rates. As to the production well just made a little better would be helpful

But all these things use a lot of dev resources, resources we will likely never see. That is why I prefer things that will give the maximum benefit with a few resources as possible.

What's a portal in WoW? You seem to have experience with that game, I don't. Last time I have seen that thing, was when it was worth playing. That is the first months it existed.

Yes I do, having played most of the popular MMOs for years all the way back to text MUDS in the 80's.

So that concerns me more as you are obviously unfamiliar with other MMOs, specifically the worlds most famous and the one with the highest subscriber level.

The NPC outposts have the best "bonuses" then? So er, I guess players shouldn't be building their own infrastructure....

Oh right, HIGHSEC is the place to be, the NPCs have the infrastructure all ready for you !