Market Discussions

Well the new BPCs for the so-called Customs Office Gantry has been released on SISI. One run copies in the FW LP store priced at 3000 LP + 10 million isk.

It looks like the BPC will consume about 40 mill worth of Advanced Commodities to construct the gantry itself. Then after anchoring and deployment, you need another 35 million worth of Advanced Commodities to upgrade the gantry into a fully functional Planetary Customs Office. Total cost of a Planetary Customs Office looks thus to be about 90 million ISK.

Now, given a) that players can only erect their customs offices in low, null and WH space and b) the relative ease of which a customs office can be destroyed (under 11 million hitpoints - easy meat for the sovgrinders or even moderately sized battleshipgangs), what effect will this change have on the PI market?

Surely, PI prices need a dramatic increase for PI operations in low/null/WHs to be profitable? Will PI be a "highsec only" activity after this? If not, how will this change affect markets?

Also, PI figures prominetly in CCPs plans for sov revamp - although I guess there will be new planetary installations (sov related) for Dust mercs to fight over.

I agree. Unless you can "guarantee" secure extraction, this is not something casual and/or soloplayers will do. So basically this change will be a nerf to lowsec (perhaps also NPC nullsec), and casual/solo PI. Question is, how much of the current PI market stems from there?

I think you guys fail to see that this is a beautiful opportunity for the pirate corps to claim soveriengty in lowsec with a little PCO that collects taxes on all the PI'ers that have enough courage to venture out there. (I imagine this change will be less profitable for wh'rs who already have a form of soverienty in their wh's, mainly the simple fact that no one does PI in a wh they don't control) But, for lowsec corps/alliances this is win win. It creates a structure in lowsec worth fighting over for control. A fleet-vs-fleet magnate away from stations, gates, and pos's. And makes isk on all the sneaky transports they fail to detect/catch! It's BRILLIANT, it's Beautiful, and you're still going to get the same good planet goo.

Yes, the "pirates" will be knocking these things down wherever they can, but don't be suprised when you see them putting them up and protecting their investments as well.

Probably 30-50% above Sep/Oct 2011 prices for all PI goods. With a short-term crazy high price spike as supply can't keep up with demand (especially if lo-sec PI harvesting becomes non-viable).

The real price won't be known until:

- CCP tells us what the hi-sec POCOs will charge for their tariffs as compared to today (they say "double", but that makes lo-sec POCOs non-viable for PI harvest planets economically).

- Whether lo-sec PI harvesting can still be done reliably and without a lot of drama / tears.

- The market settles down about 2-3 months after the release of the POCOs.

I ran some numbers on this.

If done right launch into space will be equivalent to roughly 10% tax on the customs office.

Which is why I believe that the changes will have a lot less of an impact than expected. People will either use the customs offices or if these are not available or prohibitively expensive, they will just launch into space.

Would be nice if launchpads got the option of launching into space though.

(NB - this is a HUGE boost for WH PI)

LOL no one likes me!
Tekota, you raise a legitimate concern about TZ-vulnerability, but I remember reading dev thoughts on the players owned planetary customs office, and consideration is being paid to TIME-ZONE vulnerability. (That will probably mean there is a reinforcement period that is somehow influenced by the owner corp potentially just by depositing some amount strontium in it. Almost no one worth their salt puts a full 24 hours worth in knowing that that option would best benefit the attacker’s peak time. I imagine most would be protected with a 9 to 12 hour time, which would benefit the defender. ASSUMING, the defender is actually absent from game and unable to defend during the first attack, in the first place.) Will this structure appeal to people who cannot defend it against a 30 or 50 man gang occasionally, probably not, or who believe they need to be protected from gangs by pos bubbles, and only end up self-destructing their assets rather than fight back… Most likely not—(But that won’t stop them TRYING to put them up, and hold them, because EVE is a place where undesirable realties unfold all the time.) BUT it might just likely be appealing to those who feel more confident holding an area with fleet power rather than pos-presence.
“Again, total hunch, but I was under the impression that *generally* once a corp had the manpower to field a fleet around the clock, and had the inclination to put down roots in an area with infrastructure then nullsec sov would be more attractive?”

This is a HUGE assumption that I know from experience is wrong. There are plenty of small alliances with near 24/hour alliances in EVE that stay out of nullsec because the ability to hold it is not simply about “24/7 manpower” and strategic capacity (financial and military assets) of a single alliance which would be found very lacking out in Sov.00. Sov-00, and even some regions of npc-00 isn’t just about one alliance, it’s about whole coalitions of alliances, and not all alliances find forming and maintaining that many connections very appealing—but they do find lowsec, and wh’s appealing because the competition over those areas are much less, they are relatively closer to the markets they trade with, and it’s a place where they can effectively be stand alone alliances (very little blue obligations if any) without the need of assimilating into multi-alliance-multi-regional huge coalitions in order to not get steam-rolled, so your systems can become renters space. Not every alliance wants to be in a multi-alliance coalition, and they put down roots where-ever they reasonably assume they can remain independent. It will require organization beyond a small-corp, but a small alliance (that may only be “renter” material in 00-sov space) seems tailor made to the setting up, and holding down of these PCO’s. Faction war-related alliances, and piracy-dedicated alliances (both spending the majority of their time in particular low-sec regions anyway) seem well suited to this new mechanic.

SO, I remain optimistic in my thinking because I think there are already some niche play-styles in EVE that this game-mechanic will find itself very compatible with. For 00-sov, this new change might just be a hassle—and largely ignored, up until the dust tie-in, where having mutually aligned dust alliances or corps actively control districts as planet-side pets might generate some-kind of passive-isk for their sovereignty holder, (or some other kind of bonuses) while having an unaligned occupation force on the ground might generate negative isk or production penalties. (I haven’t been in a nullsec alliance since PI came about, but I don’t think, currently, such alliances put much effort in PI in nullsec except for the creation of locally distributed pos fuels—as I imagine the isk/hour return is not worth the time, and attention away from rat-plexing friendly turf, and invading other people’s sov-space. They definitely won’t be too bothered about what’s going on in lowsec regions concerning PI, unless of course, someone plans the occasional event where they keep score and offer prizes. (Hulkigeddon PCO style.)

Some corps will happily put up a small/medium as an armored safespot for command ship alts or just general AFKing.

But once you are using POS for moon mining of any kind, it only makes sense to go to large towers. This involves more hauling than the typical pirate corp is willing to do.

Besides, a large tower is not an easy target for a small-medium corp, so if a big alliance shows up, kills your tower, and puts up their own large, you don't really have a way to take it back.

Happily, custom offices won't involve any hauling, and it will be easy to reinforce them with the average 10-15 man lowsec "blob". So if a big alliance comes knocking, you can always harass them hitting their COs until they give up

Yes, it was suggested a few times. And probably wouldn't be too overpowered (going much above 2500 m3 would make POCOs even less attractive in lo-sec).

Mostly in holding pattern - waiting to see what POCO v2 looks like.