Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So we're fine with NPCs magically exchanging fuel between Amarr and some god forsaken null sec system, why can't those same NPCs exchange modules, ammo, and ships?

Bringing goods to market is as much a part of the market as selling them. You can't have a grocery store without the trucks to bring the groceries to the store.

Is it more reasonable for an NPC to magically teleport Helium from Amarr to VFK and Nitrogen from VFK back to Amarr? That's what your "exchange" system amounts to, and it's a lot worse than the current jump freighter actually jumping their ship back and forth.

Is this NPC going to transplant your war stocks and fuel and all the things you need to a foreign deployment zone like a jumpfreighter can and does? Is the NPC going to resupply you so you don't have to worry about attrition in a conflict zone like a jumpfreighter does? Or a jumpbridge network or a Titan bridge.

So basically you are talk about cutting off null regions economically from the rest of the game but keeping the existing racial/geographic variances that exist in items.

So let's take something like Mercury, which basically doesn't exist in the west. If I'm now in the west my main/only way of obtaining this is "bartering" with NPC's. The price is based on a global average price. Well the only spot that Mercury is being sold/traded is in the East. What's to stop a group in the East from now driving up the price they are selling Mercury to each other, to the point it becomes 2 x Technetium/Caesium so they can now go and barter for double the tech/cae?

I guess they wouldn't bother because there would be no point in producing more than they need locally, because selling to the wider world would be prohibitively expensive/difficult

Except that empire and lowsec doesn't get trade NPC's so they will still need use it and buy it on the market.

So, we have NPCs providing un-interdictable isotope trade between all the stations of Eve. Wonderful. That's totally not worse than what we currently have. Hell, at least Jump Freighters actually die once in a blue moon.

Unless your NPCs go gate to gate in freighters, or cyno to cyno in jump freighters (where players can gank/interdict them), then the proposed system is MUCH worse than the current one.

You know, I never thought I'd have to explain why magical isotope teleporting NPCs are a bad idea, but there you have it.

Removed some off topic posts.

Sure they will if it means people will continue to play the game.

People are leaving the game right now because it is stagnant. CCP has to address the fact that the Dominion Sov experience has run its course. Its done, the people in NS do not want to fight over it anymore, mostly because there is no reason to, and it is relatively impractical. Couple big fights, some ooh and ahh, then several weeks of grinding a region.

If CCP seriously wants to address the issues with NS they will need to essentially limit the capacity of current NS entities from what they are today. This means massive changes to how sov works, and the ease of which one can move throughout New Eden. In order to provide a foothold for the next generation of Sov (lets call it 3rd Gen since round 1 was back in the old POS days) new entities must be able to establish a foothold with similar equality in accessibility. (Otherwise you just end up back where you are today).

Now once you start reducing the ease of transport in EVE, which absolutely must happen to facilitate accessibility for newer entities to emerge, CCP will need to counter balance that with mechanics that still allow NS groups to maintain their relative rate of consumption. If you make the game to tedious for people to acquire basic necessities then you already begin alienating them from day 1.

People will not tolerate jumping 30 jumps back and forth in order to acquire minerals, materials or even products. People will just say **** it, and quit because it would be absolute bullshit, and nor is the current method of moving stuff an effective format because it again leaves the current paradigm in NS as is and limits accessibility for new players. So if CCP wishes to retain people, and CCP wishes to grow the game over another decade, then they absolutely would have to consider a variable method of getting Items from point A to point B, because ultimately this game comes down to Create, Consume, Destroy. If those metrics can not be met or maintained, then this game ultimately falls apart until the only guys playing are mining bots who wonder why no one will buy their trit anymore.

Is NPC Transport feasible. Yes. Does it have a valid position within potential future game mechanics. Yes. Is it the only solution. No.

It's better than NPCs. At least the jump freighter is going back and forth, and for things like fuel it's going back and forth a lot (and each time risking the wrath of CODE or miniluv).

However you've mostly got the cause and effect backwards. People import because 0.0 is terrible for industry. Crius is changing this and it's possible that in the future industry in 0.0 will be effective enough you can start tampering down the effectiveness of the logistical links to empire. But you can't kill the links, then fix local industry: you'll just wind up with a dead 0.0. Once there's a contingent of nullsec industrialists campaigining to kill jump freighters to get rid of those pesky importers the situation might be at a point where it's discussable.

However you still have to get around the problem that T2 REQUIRES the ability to shuffle great amounts of fuel out to 0.0, and then raws back, as moon minerals are regional. You can't sever those links without breaking the whole process for everyone. And those links, as unimmersive as you think they are, provide infinitely more gameplay than npc stations that trade you hafnium for technetium.

And this is a good idea.