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Sorry in advance for not reading all 80 pages of this post.

What is the proposed skill level of Anchoring required to drop a Customs Office?

Yet again it appear that you have not listened to a single ******* thing that has been said here, nor do you intend to.

History lesson; this is exactly how PI was rolled out in the first place. And that was so ******* terrible (even by CCP standards) that you had to spend another iteration fixing it to the point where it was no longer terrible, just mearly rubbish.

edit: Can't wait for your blog describing the "...wonderful, exciting, great...." changes your going to make. I swear you'll be able to hear me scream all the way in ******* Iceland.

I see that 'The hanger on space ports is gone'


However I see that in the picture just above that quote in your dev blog the space port still have 10k storage. To confirm were you just talking about the interface? Will space ports still beable to store 10k m3?


Also station manager is too important a role. I think there should be a different/new role for customs offices as some corps won't want to give out station manager roles for this.

Finally the reinforement timer is too short. Should be 2 days at least for structure that will cost about 100 mil, or you should have the option to build a stronger CO with a longer timer. It will be far too easy to grief destroy these things atm.

*facepalm

I think it would be amazing if you could tax a percentage of materials instead of taxing using isk.

Ex. Tax rate = 10%
Enriched Uranium exported = 100 units
Tax = 10 units of EU

Just a thought.

CCP's concept of these is a lot more suited to lowsec (and, incidentally, highsec) than to sov 0.0. They want you to get income from strangers using your planet. But in sov 0.0 there are no strangers, only alliance grunts, renters and hostiles. In empire you have many different corps and alliances living in close proximity, using the same resources, but not necessarily being aware of each other.

Allowing more then one POCO per planet:

- No more need to interact with other players in order to claim the planet. This goes against the stated goal of encouraging conflict.

- Spreads the revenue per POCO out even more, which makes the economic situation even worse.

If you want the planet's revenue, then you have to place and defend your own POCO (just like any moon's resources). Or you have to cooperate with other players. Or smuggle stuff out using the command center launches (with the higher tariffs and limited launch capability).

Choice? You ever do PI before? It's not a choice, it's a necessity. Unless you're running some scrawny-assed mini-network you'll be having to chase the resources around the planet. This will require you to move your network around. I don't know of anyone that puts anything resembling effort into their PI that hasn't had this issue.

This is why the whole "remove all customs offices" will be brutally painful to most PI people, especially in places like wormholes where large scale PI happens and the logistics of moving things in and out can be a real pain.

Given that I run a few dozen PI planets, yes, I do in fact know what I'm talking about.

If you're moving your buildings around to chase the hot-spot of the day because you're trying to min/max your yields, then that is the choice that you made. You're on a planet that simply cannot support the level of extraction that you're trying to do and you need to adjust your expectations downward. Not all planets and not all resources have high refill rates, which means that over time you will settle in at some lower number then what you were initially getting. Not all w-space systems are going to be self-supporting when it comes to POS fuels or whatever you're trying to extract.

Take the 20% less yield per day and stop rebuilding your colony all the time - or spend the hour before placing your colonies to ensure that you've picked the right planet for the job. Or move to a slower extraction cycle such as every other day or every 3rd day.

Or you need to petition CCP to increase the regeneration rate of the planets (which is something that I think needs to happen anyway, in order for planets to support enough PI harvest colonies to pay for the POCO).

How will this affect PI? Let's go down the list. First I'll go over the different impacts based on security of the system, then I'll go over how it relates to PI as a whole.

Highsec PI: It already has a very low yield for extractors, which in turn makes the return on your time very low. Increased export tax will further reduce these already low margins, to the point of being a pure waste of time, rather than just mostly a waste of time.

Lowsec PI: Some of these planets have the same poor resources as highsec. Others are a little better. On the ones that are poor, nobody uses them. People go to highsec or find a better planet. On the ones that are better, a command center is not a feasible option for getting goods off the planet. Moving colonies or not, a command center doesn't have the space to support any meaningful deployment of goods. With the limits of expedited transfers, it effectively restricts the amount that can be launched to that timer. There are ways around this with lowsec planets, by routing the final product directly to the command center for instance, but this would require being in system far more often to launch, since you can't launch without being in space and in system.

Nulsec PI: This shares the same problem that the better planets of lowsec have. Resources are easier to get, so the overall output is going to be even higher. Command center launches and expedited transfers will simply not keep up. Only the launchpad has the space to store products between launches, unless you're launching several times a day, and the only way to get things from a launchpad into space is through the customs office. This will leave people with two options. First, they can launch from the command center several times a day. Second, they can put up a defenseless structure (ohboy, -more- reinforcement timers, just what people want).

Wormhole PI: Like nulsec, but worse. People living in WH space already have the logistical nightmare of being isolated. This will make it harder to get and manufacture a player owned customs office. Resources are so common on WH planets that even launchpads have trouble keeping up without multiple launches a day, or multiple launchpads. With the only option of using a command center, though, it becomes literally impossible. A single command center is all the planet will ever have, and it simply cannot keep up with the production capabilities of a WH planet.

PI as a whole: PI was implemented as something everyone could do. It allowed anyone, with just a little investment of SP, to put down a command center and poke away at it. Everyone can do PI right now. If this new POCO goes through, it will severely restrict who can do PI. Only those with the logistical backing of a large alliance will be able to place and defend POCOs, effectively removing all solo- and small-scale-PI from nulsec and WH space. Structures do not drive conflict. People do. Removing people from nul and WH is a great way to kill any conflict in EVE.

The rest of EVE: Making PI restrictive, in any way shape or form, will only serve to further increase the costs of running a POS, regardless of where you run it. In highsec, this means less invention. In WH, fewer corps able to maintain a presence, thus forcing them out of WH space. In nulsec, fewer active towers, less things being done with them, fewer supplies of moon goo (further increased T2 prices), fewer caps being made (decreased prices of basic minerals, such as tritanium), and all in all a massive blow to the EVE economy. Structures don't drive the economy. Structures don't drive conflict. People, who find the game entertaining, who want to spend time shooting each other, who want to make lots of isk selling their mining yield, who want to attack the Uni-Blob(tm)... People are the drivers of EVE.

Don't shut out the people, CCP. Listen to everyone, like you said you would. Don't blindly push forward an idea that isn't going to work. We, the players of EVE, are here, watching, and willing to help. Let us help make EVE better, for everyone.

~Ceru

PS; If you really want to get greedy, there's a great way to keep people playing the game, and paying for it. Make EVE better. Listen to the people who pay you. The happier we are, the more you make.