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New dev blog: Starbase happy fun time

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mkint
#841 - 2011-11-08 16:42:38 UTC
Quote:
We'll keep an eye on the ice use situation and make further changes there if needed


Why would you release something that's fundamentally broken to begin with?

ever time CCP says: "we'll keep an eye on it and make adjustments as necessary"
they really mean: "we know this is broken before launch and we're going to do f*ck all about it."

In a game that prides itself on the robustness of the economy, you'd think the devs would actually ask their PHD economist about stuff they're intending to break. Smells like some dev's alliance has got some insider trading going on. Hmm... I wonder which alliance that could be. Which alliance has benefits from every Grayscale change more than ANY other alliance... Hmm....

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Tas Nok
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#842 - 2011-11-08 16:48:19 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Hi again.

Changes:

  • We're going to kick the build time down to 5 minutes and see where that gets us to.
  • We're going to allow component assembly arrays to build fuel blocks too because why not.
  • We're going to kick the granularity up by a factor of ten and re-implement ~15%/~25% fuel use bonuses for faction towers (and remove the faction-tower-specific bay size increases at the same time).
  • CORRECTION: offline timers are not changed, that's still instantaneous; sorry for any confusion, I'm going to get the blog updated in a bit.


WRT the faction tower fuel use, we were hoping that what we were being told by various large-scale fuel operators that maintaining the high refuel interval was the main benefit for most people, as all other things being equal a 1/2/4 scheme is easier to work with than a 10/20/40 one. Obviously we didn't talk to enough small-scale users for whom the use bonus is a bigger deal; this feedback thread has established that this is still a big deal, so we're dropping to our first fallback position and doing 10/20/40 instead.

Things we're not considering:

  • Upping cycle times. It breaks reactors etc, and it makes the system harder for players to wrangle. We'd like to move away from designs that require you to memorize data tables to use them properly.
  • Making the handover (or anything else to do with this change) more complex/more automated. If for example we determined that we couldn't do this without some form of upgrade script, we'd have cut the feature, because it increases the workload and the risk of this change by a factor of two or three, and at that level we can't justify committing to it. This goes for putting fuel into towers, it goes for running two fuel types at once (which would require major code changes) and so on.


Other things:

  • You'll be able to reprocess fuel blocks in the normal way, getting back all the materials etc.
  • Currently they're configured to be researchable, with fairly short durations. I'm seeing some questions about this here - is there a strong reason why these need to be unresearchable? I don't have an industry designer on hand right now or I'd ask them :)
  • We'll keep an eye on the ice use situation and make further changes there if needed
  • WRT the changes to robotics use, assuming large towers are the primary use case then going the other way would kick global consumption up by a factor of 3-4, which would make them a gigantic production bottleneck. Reducing the demand on small/medium towers a little is believed to be a better option than significantly driving up the running costs of all non-small towers everywhere.
  • The handover isn't doing anything magic - it'll use old fuel before the switchover and new fuel afterwards. We're saying "half-and-half" because we're recommending you all put a mix of old and new fuel in your towers while the switch is happening, so it has old fuel available before the switch downtime and new fuel available after the downtime.
  • WRT talking to players earlier, we have to strike a very careful balance between getting feedback early and not getting people's hopes up. Ideally we'd get input from everyone as soon as we start design work, but our experience has been that bringing very vague designs to the community, and/or pitching designs that subsequently get cut due to being infeasible, creates more disruption than holding back until we're sure something is actually going to work. We do of course talk to subject-matter specialists (ie, people who play that area of the game regularly) within CCP, and the CSM, in the early stages of the design.


quoting Greyscale for the Nth time cause of all the trolls too lazy to read...

This seems to address most of the major concerns TY, TYVM.

Still open questions:

Different colored blocks <<--- really more important than you think (amarr-gold, caldari-blue, gal-green, min-red) not hard to imagine if you try :)

once the change over happens, is TQ really going to be stable sending out zillions of notifications as soon as DT ends cause I can just see hundreds if not thousands of towers whining without the new fuel, and those notifications will go to every corp member with POS roles...
Nocturrne Primitive
Evil Young Flesh
#843 - 2011-11-08 16:51:33 UTC
CCP, you are not listening.... We want a response to this question.

How does adding extra steps to the POS fueling process make our lives easier?

...No, it doesn't.

Repeat this in your mind over and over until you get it.



Meditril
Hoplite Brigade
Ushra'Khan
#844 - 2011-11-08 16:57:29 UTC
Nice! This is really a good reason to try out running an own POS again.
Neo Agricola
Gallente Federation
#845 - 2011-11-08 16:57:39 UTC
Tas Nok wrote:

quoting Greyscale for the Nth time cause of all the trolls too lazy to read...

Thank you very much!

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CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#846 - 2011-11-08 17:08:10 UTC
Changes that I've just checked in for testing:


  • Build time now 5 minutes
  • Can build blocks in component assembly arrays
  • Removed capacity bonus from faction towers
  • Upped batch size to 40 and dropped volume to 5m3
  • Increased fuel use in normal towers to 40/20/10
  • Increased fuel use in tier 1 towers to 36/18/9 and tier 2 towers to 32/16/8
  • Sov bonus should kick in for all towers, it will be rounding up though so keep that in mind with your calcs
Zaepho
Goosewarms
Tactical Hunters and Gatherers
#847 - 2011-11-08 17:11:19 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Changes that I've just checked in for testing:

Any hope on the block coloring request or have I missed it in the intervening 40 odd pages?
Neo Agricola
Gallente Federation
#848 - 2011-11-08 17:13:25 UTC
Zaepho wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Changes that I've just checked in for testing:

Any hope on the block coloring request or have I missed it in the intervening 40 odd pages?

Nope, that is one thing they didnt say anything about...

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mkint
#849 - 2011-11-08 17:14:22 UTC
Nocturrne Primitive wrote:
CCP, you are not listening.... We want a response to this question.

How does adding extra steps to the POS fueling process make our lives easier?

...No, it doesn't.

Repeat this in your mind over and over until you get it.




The goal of this change is to buff Grayscale friends, and nerf everyone else. Grayscale is bad for EVE.

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Via Shivon
#850 - 2011-11-08 17:17:08 UTC
HW price will fall to the bottom again where it was, will maybe raise a bit when ppl need it to start making blocks.
The LO price will raise allot more because most POS dont need LO at the moment, cyno neds it, jumpbridges need it, ice will leave high sec or goons will focus more on ganking ice miners.
Robotics will fall a bit but PI i guess will still go op because of the POCO changes.

so isk on the wallet is waste of profit atm...there are so much good investments we can so...i dont even know wich one first :D
Fuujin
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#851 - 2011-11-08 17:17:58 UTC
Zaepho wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Changes that I've just checked in for testing:

Any hope on the block coloring request or have I missed it in the intervening 40 odd pages?


That's changing an art asset, not a balance thing per se, so I'd imagine that it's been kicked over to the art dept and GS will mention it if/when the haughty artistes deign to respond.
Zaepho
Goosewarms
Tactical Hunters and Gatherers
#852 - 2011-11-08 17:22:19 UTC
Fuujin wrote:
Zaepho wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Changes that I've just checked in for testing:

Any hope on the block coloring request or have I missed it in the intervening 40 odd pages?


That's changing an art asset, not a balance thing per se, so I'd imagine that it's been kicked over to the art dept and GS will mention it if/when the haughty artistes deign to respond.



Completely understood. However, Master Greyscale (yes I'm pandering) is acting as the voice for this change so I suspect he's got some knowledge on if it is even being considered.
Scrapyard Bob
EVE University
Ivy League
#853 - 2011-11-08 17:24:01 UTC
Fuujin wrote:
Ripard Teg wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

Changes:
  • We're going to kick the granularity up by a factor of ten and re-implement ~15%/~25% fuel use bonuses for faction towers (and remove the faction-tower-specific bay size increases at the same time).
    • Excellent. Very happy to hear it!

    CCP Greyscale wrote:

  • Currently they're configured to be researchable, with fairly short durations. I'm seeing some questions about this here - is there a strong reason why these need to be unresearchable? I don't have an industry designer on hand right now or I'd ask them :)
    • Make them non-researchable, like Nanite Repair Paste. Any corp worth its salt is going to need 5-10 of these BPOs (and really big corps might need more) and researching all of them is going to be a freakin' PITA. Make them time researchable, but not quantity researchable.


    I imagine CCP will have a decent several week leadtime before they flip the fuel switch. If the BPOs have 5% waste as mentioned you'll have plenty of time to optimize your BPs for production and get blocks ready for the big event. As for the act of researching them...well, you DO have a tower, right?


    In fact, a number was quoted earlier that basically says:

    - BPOs released on launch day
    - Fuel change-over to occur a few weeks or a month later

    So you'll have about 30 days to buy a BPO, get it researched (or buy a BPC) and to start production of fuel pellets. Which is plenty of time.

    (BPOs that require research are good for the game. BPOs that don't require research reduce demand for lab slots, which is ultimately bad for POS owners.)
    Smoking Blunts
    ZC Omega
    #854 - 2011-11-08 17:29:25 UTC  |  Edited by: Smoking Blunts
    CCP Greyscale wrote:
    Changes that I've just checked in for testing:


    • Build time now 5 minutes
    • Can build blocks in component assembly arrays
    • Removed capacity bonus from faction towers
    • Upped batch size to 40 and dropped volume to 5m3
    • Increased fuel use in normal towers to 40/20/10
    • Increased fuel use in tier 1 towers to 36/18/9 and tier 2 towers to 32/16/8
    • Sov bonus should kick in for all towers, it will be rounding up though so keep that in mind with your calcs



    all good, now please adjust the LO/HW amounts from 150 to 130. they will still be more than now, but are actually closer to the actual amounts used.

    tier 2 faction tower at max cpu/grid is 113LO/HW per hour. new plan at 150 after discount is 120. not a great increase on the initial look. but when you consider that you will never use full cpu and grid at the same time its a massive increase.

    standard lab set up same pos currently is 113HW 68LO. so 181 total, now its gonna be 240 a 33% increase
    if it was 130 after discounts 104, total 208 that woudl still be a 20% increase but would be more inline with actual useage levels of cpu/grid

    edit, looked at reaction pos's on none faction and its more than a 33% increase on those currently and woudl still be around 25% increase if the amounts were dropped to 130 from the 150 currently planned

    OMG when can i get a pic here
    Vincent Athena
    Photosynth
    #855 - 2011-11-08 17:31:20 UTC
    Nocturrne Primitive wrote:
    CCP, you are not listening.... We want a response to this question.

    How does adding extra steps to the POS fueling process make our lives easier?

    ...No, it doesn't.

    Repeat this in your mind over and over until you get it.






    Who is this "we"? You got mice in your pocket?

    For me it adds one step and removes several others, so its easier.

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    Arra Lith
    Infinite Point
    Pandemic Horde
    #856 - 2011-11-08 17:34:17 UTC
    CCP Greyscale wrote:
    Changes that I've just checked in for testing:


    • Build time now 5 minutes
    • Can build blocks in component assembly arrays
    • Removed capacity bonus from faction towers
    • Upped batch size to 40 and dropped volume to 5m3
    • Increased fuel use in normal towers to 40/20/10
    • Increased fuel use in tier 1 towers to 36/18/9 and tier 2 towers to 32/16/8
    • Sov bonus should kick in for all towers, it will be rounding up though so keep that in mind with your calcs



    Why you want to nerf faction towers so badly ?
    Biggest cost of fuel component is ice:

    NOW:
    Standard uses 450 = 100%,
    tier one is 383 = 85%,
    tier two is 338 = 75%

    AFTER CHANGE:
    Standard uses 40 blocks = 100%
    tier one - 36 = 90%
    tier two - 32 = 80%

    So why is this nerf here needed ??? Percents used should stay same, so it should be 40 / 34 / 30
    Sovereignity should futher reduce it by 25% to 30 / 26 / 23


    Applying 100 as base for large tower (most commonly used poses) would be much better to calculate than 40 as base. Its easier to calculate needed amount multiplying hours by 100 than by ie 40. It will just need to add two zeros after required amount of hours.
    Neo Agricola
    Gallente Federation
    #857 - 2011-11-08 17:36:00 UTC
    Vincent Athena wrote:
    Nocturrne Primitive wrote:
    CCP, you are not listening.... We want a response to this question.

    How does adding extra steps to the POS fueling process make our lives easier?

    ...No, it doesn't.

    Repeat this in your mind over and over until you get it.






    Who is this "we"? You got mice in your pocket?

    For me it adds one step and removes several others, so its easier.


    QFT.

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    Jenn Makanen
    Doomheim
    #858 - 2011-11-08 17:36:36 UTC
    player PE 5, bpo ME 0:
    waste will be:
    0 coolant
    0 enriched uranium
    20 racial isotope
    0 Mechanical parts
    1 Oxygen
    0 robotics
    7 Heavy Water
    7 Liquid Ozone.

    a 'perfect' ME will be when the waste is lower than 0.0025% (eliminating all Isotope wate), or ME 10 ( I think. my maths may well be off).
    Darkdood
    Estrale Frontiers
    #859 - 2011-11-08 17:37:35 UTC
    CCP Greyscale wrote:
    Changes that I've just checked in for testing:


    • Build time now 5 minutes
    • Can build blocks in component assembly arrays
    • Removed capacity bonus from faction towers
    • Upped batch size to 40 and dropped volume to 5m3
    • Increased fuel use in normal towers to 40/20/10
    • Increased fuel use in tier 1 towers to 36/18/9 and tier 2 towers to 32/16/8
    • Sov bonus should kick in for all towers, it will be rounding up though so keep that in mind with your calcs



    We lose 5% of the discount on faction towers but this is acceptable.

    You should just label the sov discount properly and not bother telling people it will round up. Just change it to 20% and be done with it.

    It's not perfect but close enough.

    GJ.

    I guess I panicked for nothing.
    Vincent Athena
    Photosynth
    #860 - 2011-11-08 17:58:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Vincent Athena
    I think having the faction towers at 10% and 20% savings is fine. Faction towers right now do not reduce the need for many fuel types, like robotics. With the new system they will reduce the need for all types, so a smaller percentage is a good balance.

    There still seem to be 2 concerns for me and seen in some posts. One is the overall increase in heavy water and liquid ozone use. If you mine basic ice, you get for every 12 units of isotopes, 2 units of HW and one of LO. But the blocks require for every 12 units of isotopes 4.5 units of HW and 4.5 of LO, a basic mis-match to the ore. For the high sec dweller who mines their own ice, this is an issue; they will have a WH and LO shortage unless they mine far more. Then they will have an isotope excess.

    Fixes:

    Change the fuel block build requirements.

    Add the other ices to all ice belts (even high sec), things like Dark Glitter and Glare Crust, and let the miners, the market and the sandbox figure it out. (Edit: Or add Dark Glitter and Glare Crust Grav sites to areas that normally do not have such ore).

    The other issue seems to be the block color. I can take or leave this one, but different colors would be cool.

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