Player Features and Ideas Discussion

My proposal is relatively simple. Make it so that the ME/PE number on the BPC's you use for invention affectes the invented T2 BPC ME/PE number, in addition to the modifier from the optional decryptors of course.

On the T2 BPO's/BPC's there already exists a stat telling us how long would it take to increase the ME/PE numbers of such original prints by one tick. To keep it simple take the T1 BPC ME/PE number, find out how long would it take to reach such numbers and then see at what ME/PE would the T2 print end up with if put through such time of ME/PE research. If you like you can round down.

Example (with arbitary numbers). A T1 BPO, taking 1 day per ME tick has a T2 BPC/BPO variant where 10 days are needed for 1 tick on ME. If you use now a T1 BPC with ME from 0 to 9 for invention you end up in the same situation as currently (ME -4), When you use print with ME 10 for invention you end up with a BPC which would have ME one higher (i.e., ME - 3), etc. Using ME 40 print would yield you ME 0 T2 BPC, ME 100 T1 BPC would yield ME 6 T2 BPC , etc.

This would increase the value of well researched prints for the invention purposes while would still keep the decryptor usage sensible in most scenarios where it is sensible currently. As secondary effect it would lower the gap between T2 BPO's and invention giving less people reason to complain about it. T2 BPO's would retain bulk of their advantage as they still do not need the invention related costs (datacores, BPC's, decryptors and meta items where sensible, etc).

Well reasoned fixes in F&I ... EVE IS DYING!!!

(+1, I like)

just the improvement to the invention will do wonders, T2 BPOs were a mistake from the beginning it is best to just let them slowly die out.

I like the idea that my ME 250 megathron will invent ME +21 kronos bpc.

but cant you see who that would become a prohibitively high barrier to entry on some of these ships?
Hell i could start using the Symbiotic decryptors (ten runs at +19 ME? woot) and still make much more profit per ship then a -4 manufacturer ? yeah, that would make it a bit hard for a new manufacturer to get into buisness making profits pretty much any t2 ship until they got the ME over 100. which on most things take a long long time, (meanwhile ive got ten other bpo's cooking for ME jsut to get higher and higer t2 bpc ME to keep you out)

yeah , this wouldnt help .

It was this way from the beginning. Then it was changed to how it is now. Do you think CCP will backtrack their changes?

I have to disagree. You would have the current.entry requirements, but you would also have to research BPOs for invented BPCs for months, if not years, to compete with the current researched BPOs available to the old guard.

I have just started out into T2 production. I'm making ok profit on some modules and some ammo. If I wanted to get into ships I would need to research the BPOs before copying them. If I wanted to make a vargur for instance, I would probably need to spend a year or two before I could match the make costs of people with BPOs that are already heavily researched.

I do agree though that this idea has potential. Perhaps a cap of ME0 PE0 could work. It would allow wider margins for those who have researched BPOs, but it would not force out newer inventors, merely make them put a bit more work in.

Then again, that same vargur has a healthy margin on it already, with the right decryptor.

In my opinion this change would not form an impenetrable barrier for people who are entering into invention business. Keep in mind that people who are just starting with invention are highly unlikely to do so with T2 battleships, jump freighters or other such relatively "end game" invention targets. They just do not have the resources needed to put on the table to make such high end invention viable without risking getting ruined by a streak of bad invention luck.

Should a "starting character" have sufficient resources to start his invention career with T2 battleships then considering the size of an investment I would say that finding a source for well researched battleship prints is really a non-issue. Hell I would even argue, that at that magnitude of investment its not unreasonable to expect the "starting character" to be able to buy pretty well researched BPO from the aftermarket.

They are more likely to start with some modules or perhaps even with ammo, where viable. The ME / PE number go a lot faster on these and they copy quite fast. In advanced lab you push out about 20 x 300 run prints in 1,5 days. If it is desirable you can produce immense amount of 1 run prints at exceptionally good ME/PE levels giving up one run in the end product.

Then you should take into account that increasing ME / PE numbers have dimishing effects. Going from 0 to 1 cuts your material cost by approx 5%, from 1 to 2 by approx 2.5 % and at somewhere around ME 5 the material cost difference between the guy with ME 5 print and ME 20 print is something I would call neglible. It's still there ofc but not large enough to make the invention and production not worthwhile as a result of material cost difference.

As an added positive I would argue that this change could, in theory, make it viable to invent in few niches which are currently dominated by the T2 BPO's. At least for a little while until the prices creep downward to meet the new equilibrium at exactly the invention cost or again a tiny bit below that (if price drop in these items / ships will not increase demand enough to max out the T2 BPO's production ability). There is currently several not so popular items/ships where inventing these items is equivalent of just throwing away money.

As far as claim that "it was that way at first" goes which was mentioned earlier in the thread. The first impression most people got in early planning stages was that the ME/PE would indeed affect the invention in some way at launch, however, at launch it was very clear that for some reason invention was released heavily pre-nerfed. In early planning stages it seemed also that CCP would be turning all T2 BPO's into max run BPC's.

Just as with most industrial things (or even some not so industrial things) once CCP gets something out of the door they are rather reluctant to go visit it afterwards, even if it would need some revisiting. Take, for example, Black Ops which now after several years got a small tweak or many years which mothership spent as overpriced paperweight before it was turned into current pwnmobile.

But with that approach there would be no point of using researched BPC for invention or am I missing something ? Or are you suggesting that the decryptor would take, lets say 15% of the existing ME value on print and apply it to the invented print ? For example, using ME 100 print for invention would net ME 15 T2 print ?

I must point out also that my original proposal would also leave T2 BPO's valuable as as you pointed out they do not have invention related costs, which are not only decryptors but also the BPC itself and the datacores.