Science & Industry

Just for your consideration....

I am not an industrial, but marketeer, logistics person, and EVE economist. When you analyse supply chains from a logistics standpoint, you look at it from a "time to market" standpoint with a relation to the price of a product. (Taking a plane, makes stuff expensive, with an ocean steamer, its cheap to move stuff).

In the discussion in this and last threat, I miss this perspective when talking about production times that are created when changes hit TQ. For market prices - cq, margins - are not made on the perfect equilibrium of EVE statistics, but the absence of a decent equilibrium. When speculating on the market, you make a bet on a future equilibrium and you eventually hedge the risk by setting up buy orders. That way you can step out of the market, the moment your bet falls trough.

Within EVE I have the feeling that the "time to market" is not monitored or known by most industrialists (have not seen in blogs and the like, just for titans its known). The discussion about play time and availability of facilitating circumstances (stations, materials, etc) and result of that industrial task will be determent by market waves that happen for the products on the line (and in EVE, it even counts for sub-parts of the products in production, all the way to minerals) . When changing the industry system by messing with math behind the industry way of live in EVE. I think a consideration about the "time to market" influence of the changes would be good too.

If the "time to market" will be extended or shortened on certain products, that will have very heavy results in bets and hedges placed on the market. This type market PVP is not pursued by a lot of players, but as we have seen by OTECH, it is happening,

The bigger industrialists in here could I think give a good point of view on how changes proposed here would work out in this part of the PVP arena.

Aright, FINALLY followed up on this :) It pretty much aligns with the assumptions I've been making: ships are generally bottlenecked on research, other stuff mainly on build (although I didn't know about rigs being so all over the place :P)

Thanks for the data, I'll be referring back to it regularly :)

[quote=Sabriz Adoudel]Firstly, these proposed changes will drastically change the decryptor market. By closing the gap in production cost between 'good' ME results and 'bad' ME results, throughput (invention probability x modified max runs) will become the only important statistic on most decryptors. Currently, the difference between build price on a no decryptor invented BPC and a Process decryptor BPC is 25%; after these changes it will be 3-6% depending upon how you do it. Factor in invention chance, and the Process decryptor will only just be worth using on Marauders after this change, whereas presently it is used on HACs and anything larger.

Personal interest statement on this feedback: given that I am sitting on hundreds, maybe thousands of Symmetry decryptors (and low double figures of the much more expensive and soon to be nearly worthless Process decryptors), I can live with this :). Doesn't mean I think it's a good change, but it will definitely make me billions.


Secondly, there are four things that can be limiting with the present tech 2 production system - player tolerance for clicks, copy slot time, invention slot time and production time. The second and third overlap as they Examples of each:

- Warrior II is limited by click tolerance
- Most battleship modules are limited by copy slot time; in addition, for most inventors that do not have access to a POS, this becomes limiting for many more things.
- Rigs and ships are limited by invention slot time
- Ammo is limited by production time
- In addition, all sorts of production may be limited by available capital (for example, I cannot run nine Marauder builds at once).

I would recommend you continue this system. The less knowledgeable inventor will continue mass inventing one or two items they are familiar with and will just accept that they always have (for example) too many production lines; the more knowledgeable will game...

Good point.

A longer TTM equals a longer production cycle (not necessary a longer build time). When people specialize in a product, and that product has a long TTM, then the person in question has to take a risk, invest, and can profit. The way of EVE.

About the exploiting of imbalances; The shorter the time to market, the less risk that industrial takes. This can be seen in making tech I production for example. Betting in market with a such a low standard deviation is low risk.

The question remains however, would CCP have to consider which products should have a risk from the ISK perspective. Titans have this risk due to the last building stage being vulnerable. Some products have very special items needed in the build-cycle. Maybe its good to think about the broader implications if products in the EVE catalog were managed with the TTM in mind. Then the balance of risk from TTM would be looked upon with market 'exploit imbalance' times* in mind.

* cq, the risks and rewards, with your terms ... was mentioning 'speculation times'

Honestly, this kind of gameplay is the only reason I have any interest in Eve whatsoever. I can't speak for anyone else obviously but having a market complex enough to manipulate and exploit is one of the main things that makes Eve special.

Those of us inclined to play this way are naturally fairly silent about it, but there are a few of us and we really, really appreciate all the cool systems that allow us to part the less savvy of their hard earned. Good complexity :bravo:

Here's a wild suggestion.

• You want to standardize and simplify things by setting base 1-run copy time equal to 0.8 * base 1-run manufacturing time across the board. This ruins invention for many things.
• You want to raise the max copy runs of blueprints across the board, to go along with the new philosophy of "manufacture off BPCs, not BPOs". This ruins invention for many things.
• You don't want to ruin invention, and don't seem to care awfully much about stepping on T2 BPOs' toes.

Change the invention runs formula from the current, complicated

to

and simultaneously change the max runs per blueprint copy of all T2 BPOs to 10 / 1.

• This lets you play with T1 copy time almost as much as you want without stepping on invention's toes.
• This lets you raise the max copy runs of T1 blueprints however much you want without affecting invention as well.
• This simplifies invention's learning curve from "max-run copy these items, but only 1-run copy these other ones" to "copy everything just the same".
• This means T2 BPOs have to have their copy jobs babysat regularly if their owners want to safely manufacture at a POS, as opposed to in a station. Coincidentally, I own no T2 BPOs.

Manufacturers exist to plug these imbalances, its not something that gameplay mechanics can effectively influence.

In practice these imbalances in supply and demand will lead to the non-casual manufacturers retaining bigger stockpiles/deeper pipelines.

Sure, that's a good initial change. Implement that, then later you can look into whether it's a bit too much or a bit too little. But it's a good starting principle.

As pointed out to me in the F&I starbase tweaks thread, my calculations were missing a key component.
I ONLY used the improvements to production costs to justify the POS operational costs. However, the increased production rates also result in increased revenue. The increase to revenue alone is often enough to cover POS operational costs.

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

It's a very different outlook from how I've historically approached manufacturing. I generally calculate the base cost to produce an item based on its components. This calculation included a rate per POS line to include the POS Operational cost within the item's base cost. Then I'd use Jita prices to determine profit per item and profit per hour. I'm not sure how, or if, I should include how improved production rates alter revenue rates in the worksheets.

now that's gonna shake up a lot of things i like that thinking