Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Excellent! Here are some ideas. Corbexx and I have talked a good bit about the below linked thread as well.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=333764&find=unread

My first thought on this was "Hacking!" So seconding/thirding/fourthing/whatever your linked proposal.

We have a tower removal mechanic... its called war deccing.

Your right. I was reading this:

And skimmed over this:

and still got the numbers wrong

Is a 2% reduction in the material requirements of a job worth a MFG in a POS?

A Small POS uses 10 fuel blocks an hour, which is about 150k isk. A large POS uses 4x as much.

To recover the POS fuel operating expenses of that small pos, your 2% reduction would need to cover that amount.

150k / 0.02 = 7.5m isk per hour.

Lets examine Null L. One production run consumers 1m isk in materials and takes 35 hrs to complete.

Our Ammo Assembly Array has a 25% reduction in the production time, so 35hrs is reduced. I'm going to assume the changes to invented BPC's have better product rates, and reduce this time all the way down to 20 hrs (instead of 26).
To balance our POS fuel costs, we need to run 7.5m isk per hour.
20 hrs * 7.5m / hr = 150m isk.
At 1m isk per run, we'd need to have 150m / 1 m per run, 150 jobs running concurrently to balance the operational cost of the POS. With 10 jobs / character, that's 15 fulltime producers to support a small POS, 30 fulltime producers to support a medium POS, and 60 fulltime producers to support a Large POS. This is unreasonable.

Lets examine a Light Neutron Blaster II.
It costs about 400k in materials to produce on blaster, and takes about 5.2 hours to produce.
Our assembly Array reduces this time by 25%, so it now takes 4 hrs to produce.
4 * 7.5m per hour gives us 30m. 30m / 0.4 per run = 75 runs. It would take 75 jobs running concurrently to balance the operational costs of the small pos. That's 7.5 characters for a small POS, or 30 fulltime producers to support a large POS. This is unreasonable.

Let's examine a Neutron Blaster Cannon II.
It costs 3.2 m in materials to produce one Blaster, and takes ~6 hrs to produce.
Our Assembly Array reduces this time by 25%, so it now takes 4.5 hrs to produce.
4.5 hrs * 7.5m per hour gives us 33+m. 33m / 3.2m per run gives us ~10 jobs running concurrently to balance the operational costs of the small POS. Or 1 Character for a small, 2 for a medium, 4 for a large. This seems very reasonable.

Let's examine a Caracal.
It costs 10m isk in build materials at perfect ME, and takes 2.7 hrs.
In the Assembly array, this will be reduced to 2 hrs.
2.5 hrs * 7.5m isk is 15m isk. The 2% Material savings easily compensate fuel costs, especially for larger ships.

I have two points of contention to bring up given these numbers:
1.) The benefits of using a POS are really uneven. In some cases, there is clearly an economic benefit to using a POS. However, in other cases your standard Indy corp is unlikely to recoup the operational costs of a POS. This is because the production times of modules are not related to the Material Costs in producing those modules. I hope the production times of modules are rebalanced to make Ammo and all classes of modules worthwhile to produce in a POS too.

2.) If you consider it like this: 720 production hours in a 30 day month. You need to churn through 720 hrs * 7.5 m / hr =5.4b isk in materials every month to support a small POS, or 21.6 b per month to support a large POS. Those assets are in space and at risk. You cannot cancel jobs in the middle of a run, so any self-supporting large POS is going to have on average 700m in unmitigated assets in use at a POS anytime they are wardecced (not including BPOs). While I love the motivation it gives to defend your POS, I feel the benefits of using a POS should be increased to balance these risks.

Clearly they are having to 'invent' some mechanism to get rid of them. Simple degradation is the most realistic and straightforward. How long do you think the ISS would last in orbit without regular shifts to avoid debris?

That's a very elegant way to approach this, and comes from a very different angle.

I currently use my POS for copy and invention, and currently distribute the POS fuel price to each line to calculate how much making a BPC costs. I don't currently manufacture in the POS due to inconveniences and ignorance. I was using a similar approach to determine the base cost for producing a module, and justifying utilizing a POS based on the cost savings it provides in terms of lower production time and lower material requirements. Thank you for pointing out that time reduction doesn't just alter the production costs of an item, but also directly increases revenues too. It appears that the revenue increases alone can exceed POS operational costs.


*edit*
In layman's terms, because I'm not a business man.
If, in a station, I could produce 50 modules per hour at 10k each, I assumed a POS must allow me to produce 65 modules per hour at a 10k production cost to cover the 150k in Fuel costs.
(i.e. 50 * 10k + 150k = 65 * 10k )

However, this neglects that I profit on those modules at 30k isk each. The increase to production rate improves the net profits I'm earning. So, at the 30k profit point, I need only produce 55 modules per hour to cover the 150k in Fuel costs.
(i.e. 50 * 30k + 150k = 55 * 30k )

Dear All,

I would like to remind everyone that are busy playing sand castles in this thread about the big picture here (including the Devs still willing to read this): POS game play sucks. It has always sucked. I cannot believe anyone believes this is a fun game mechanic...stop legitimizing it with 'fixes' and start with a process of scrapping the entire thing. Do this in the background, put a team on it...keep it top secret (of course) but for god's sake, start scrapping the system. The POS system is like the Kevin Bacon of interconnected problems with Eve's design: Almost all problems in Eve are, at most, 6 parts removed from a POS structure.

I understand industrialists like to play the cogs of how the game works; that is enjoyment, and I fully embrace and respect non PVP professions in this game. However, the tool set of POS mechanics is a real slap in the face to all players, especially industrialists, and has been since they were introduced.

Respectfully,

-K

As has been said repeatedly, POS code is on the roadmap. It's not being abandoned. There are just some requirements to get out the way first.

I dont think it was ever intended for players to use 20 POSes each, thats why its a CORP asset. If we ignore the hell that is currently corp roles it should be possible to have multiple POSes managed by several people, 1-2POS per manager in same system or 1 jump apart is not hard to maintain.