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And finally, because I ran out of characters:

• You don't seem to understand economics very well. People aren't talking about ideal scenarios in which you are able to loot all the goo scraped by a siphon (obviously this will often be impossible or even undesired). What people are talking about with regard to a given price increase is the portion of moon goo destroyed by the siphons as part of their normal operation. If half the bottleneck moons in EVE are being siphoned half of the time, and a fixed percentage of that material just evaporates rather than making it to market in the hands of the rightful owner or the thief, then supply has gone down. Period. Given the same demand, reduced supply means prices go up.

If you want a dirsuptive activity for small gangs, first you need there to be an activity going on to be disrupted, and secondly that activity needs to be disruptable. Just fixing that state of affairs in nullsec would be a great start: currently the only really disruptable activity is ratting and-- to an extent-- travel. I say "to an extent" because CCP's game mechanics make it very difficult to prevent even that, since plenty of ships are extremely difficult to prevent traveling through gates and JBs (covops and nullfied T3s are extremely hard to catch, with covert T3s being nigh-impossible to stop if fitted correctly).

The warp speed changes may even out the playing field somewhat with regard to how difficult it is to catch ratters, but I don't have super high hopes for it-- often the only viable way to nail ratters who don't want to be caught is through awoxing or at least by having a spy character in their alliance with which to watch their every move... there's very few non-underhanded ways to stop people from ratting aligned, for example.

Encouraging small-gang conflict in nullsec is a daunting task, largely because the raiding party is inherently at a large disadvantage compared to the residents when it comes to numbers. Because EVE is a game with serious consequences for death, people aren't tempted to jump into a skirmish over some small, low-value objective. This has two results: most of the time, the response to a roaming solo player or small gang consists of the handful of people in a given system docking up or hiding in POS while they wait for the marauders to pass through. This denies the roaming party any of the fights they're looking for, encouraging them to leave and seek fights elsewhere, and is the logical thing to do if you don't want to lose your ship.

The other thing that happens (if the roaming party stays for too long, and irritates too many people by interrupting their ratting) is that people will form a gang five to ten times the size of the roaming gang and will attempt to kill them or make them leave / log out. This scenario usually results in no fights as well, since the marauders don't want to lose their ships either and have no intentions of fighting ten battlecruisers, four recons, three logistics and a swarm of frigate-sized tacklers in their three Vagabonds. If the roamers are on a casual cruiser roam or are some Blink-sponsored elite PvPers they may hang around and suicide into a defense fleet for jollies, but this isn't typical.

Still, if one were to design some kind of small fixed objectives for small gangs to go after, they should be designed with a few things in mind:

• The objectives should not be high-stakes (since this would encourage a proportionate response from residents)-- something that caused a temporary, mild inconvenience to the residents of that specific system, or perhaps that system and it's adjacent systems-- would be ideal.


• The objectives and their status should be immediately identifiable. Objectives should be like a faction warfare plex, or a minor facility in PS2: everyone in system should be able to see the objective on their screens, as well as the status of that objective so that it's obvious when it's being contested. Currently, when trying to start small gang fights in nullsec you usually camp a gate, jump bridge, or station undock. This forces people to deal with your camp: rumor of your activities eventually trickles into the right channels and people will eventually respond (usually with more force than you can handle, but hey, at least there's a chance to shoot at stuff). Siphons are exactly the opposite of this: they're ideally carried and placed by non-combat ships (a blockade runner will be ideal), there are no indications of any kind when they've been placed, and there's little to no incentive to try and create a fight out of a placed siphon EVEN WHEN YOU'VE DISCOVERED IT. The whole mechanic is fundamentally asocial.

More to follow...

I spent the weekend pondering this change. Initially, I wasn't real keen on it, but it has grown one me. Reducing the waste factor will definately not be so destructive to the moon goo economy, so I think that will be a positive aspect. As far as the limit goes, I also wasn't a big fan, but I think it is more doable than I previously thought. Perhaps, making it more 10-20 might be a better spread.

I do have a couple suggestions, ones that probably most people won't like:

1. This is something that would be ideal to attach a mini-game to. Something to where the timing of the mini-game puts it at some risk to POS modules. Not sure if the Hacking skillset should be used, but it might be a nice PVP application of the skill. A change of that nature would a.) Limit this size of ship used for dropping of Siphons (and thus cargo space) and b.) appropriately increase the risk of putting a siphon on a POS.

2. I would like a faster cycle time, and higher pull rate. But in exchange for that, there has to be more interaction with the Siphon to keep it going. I am agreeing with some who have posted that this shouldn't be a "passive" activity. It should require some maintenance of some sort, either a fuel bay for a quick 6-8 hours run or a mini-game that requires you to recalibrate the siphon, something of that nature.

Pretty sure most people will hate my thoughts on that, but I think it would improve the "game" aspect of it as well as make it an actual tool.. not a "fire and forget" structure module.

Indeed it does, as I have pointed out myself. You'll noticed I haven't mentioned goo that you actually manage to get out of your siphons... that's pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Half the moons, half the time.

Okay, that means that on that particular flavor of moo goo your maximum effect is a 5% reduction in supply... not 20% as has been thrown around.

Still good for you, but hardly earth shaking. Especially when you consider the effort invested to achieve that result on a long term basis.

Frankly, you'll be hard pressed to even achieve this but I don't discount your being able to pull it off.

You're still trying to argue that killing a lone blockade runner is somehow resembling small gang PvP.

You're still avoiding the elephant in the room which is forcing POS monitors to log in to the game every hour 24/7 to check for the damn things. That is, log in, see clear overview, log out. Repeat every hour, every day, every week. Regardless of whether there's someone actually trying to siphon you or not. Don't even try calling that "gameplay".

You also, although completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, seem to be unaware of the Marketing skill.

Sadly, CCP has handed your group even more riches.
I really don't know if they devised this siphon business in collaboration with you, or to stop you.
Doesn't really matter, goons get richer with this system.

Moon goo prices go higher, which means all T2 items get pricer, meaning more of the Eve economy is funneled through the hands of those that control the bulk of the moon goo, specifically the null sec cartels. You guys might have less product to sell, but your overall income won't be affected. That actually helps you, as it means less trips hauling product to market.

And secondly, on a somewhat on an indirect view, if you goons manage to wipe out a larger percentage of non-cartel controlled moon goo than the percentage of cartel controlled moon goo is destroyed, you win even further, as your remaining product represents a larger share of the overall pool.

I can't imagine CCP was so dumb to NOT recognize that the cartels have the critical mass of pilots able to mitigate the majority of the damage done to their production, while smaller entities, simply do not.

A group of 20,000 can more easily watch 2000 moons, than a group of 100 can watch 10, especially across multiple time zones.

Once again, CCP pushes the game further down the path of null sec cartels online.

CCP, wake up. Call it what is is. Goons have won Eve.
Now acknowledge that, then blow the whole thing up.
Build game mechanics that actually limit their strengths, namely the blob, and out of game tools.

For that day yes, and then it stops working until you come and empty it. This is the part people tend to forget about.

You MUST return and empty it every day or so otherwise, on that one tower the most damage you can hope to do is 20% (as the owner will grab the rest back if he finds it first). That's one tower, 20% loss for 1 or 2 days output.

That's it until you trot yourself back out there and empty it.

I know exactly how difficult it is to move a Blockade Runner through hostile null. I do it on a regular basis.

I also know how easy it is to catch one.

Also, if you're covert cynoing POS fuel around you really aren't likely to be in a position to pick up materials from a siphon you have deployed in hostile space very often.

So basically what you are saying is that you leave your moo goo systems undefended at all times.

Good to know.

When you start finding siphons on a regular basis in those systems you might consider changing that policy. Most everyone else is going to. We both know all you need is a scout, no need for everyone in system to sit on the bubble.

I didn't say it was POS fuel, friend.

Except that there's nothing to be gained for the individual(s) forced to live in the space. The siphon watch can be easily done with an alt, and real members will be much better off living in good space. This is not an incentive for an individual to move to the system with a POS. This is only a punishment for corps that don't keep one character, whether active or not, in the system.

Do you want an example of an incentive to live in all of your alliance's space? Tie the IHUB upgrade anomalies/complexes to an entire constellation or even a region (obviously constrained by your sovereignty). That way, instead of in the system, a completed anomaly respawns in a random system within the constellation. Systems which are not populated will accumulate many anomalies (and high-quality anomalies, regardless of their individual truesec) over time, giving an incentive for people to go there and rat. Since individual systems will eventually run out of sites, ratters have to move from one system to another. This gives an opportunity for an enemy fleet to catch them on gates, which in turn incentivizes home defense fleet to chase them out.

This is providing an incentive. The siphon, as it currently stands, is just a slap across the face if you dare to play the game "wrong".