Science & Industry

Lucas

You are still missing the point and just recycling the same tag lines as you did before which does not strengthen your failed argument. Please come back to this post when you can say something different, more substantial, and backed up with logic and fact, then maybe your opinion would be more valued and valid.

Thank you for trying to bow smoke and mislead those players who might not have had the chance to look into the new changes or god forbid the new players trying to get into industry. You are causing more problems by pushing this misinformation than the expansion actually...you seem to have taken the :Fox News" approach to pushing misinformation, just keep telling the same lies until people believe it. you can keep saying that moving around is beneficial for new and old players alike, but that doesnt make it true.

tl:dr - I think they need to kill off this pricing index thing.

A few days in now and I guess the main issue that I have is the price system index, or specifically that it changes so quickly. I have up to this point tried a little invention, some TE and ME research and a small amount of manufacturing.

I like the new interface it is clearer and less RSI inducing than the previous incarnation, although I can appreciate that people that run on lower resolutions would have an issue with the size of the interface. I love the fact that slots have been removed too.

As i say my issue, and the thing that is kinda tugging me to give up is the index pricing. As you are probably aware if you have give it a go. So the scenario is this.

I am in station, the same station I was in before Crius and I want to set off some manufacturing jobs, I know that manufacturing will be the big portion of my operation so i load everything up and make 3 or 4 round trips and move to a system with a low manufacturing index. So everything is in my hanger and its all good.

I notice I have some BPOs that need a little research some TE and some ME, I set up a TE job and nearly cry at the prices, but then it is recognised that the prices are screwed so there is a fix, ok, I check again and it seems a bit expensive. I check the index and my system is about the 6 best TE, I swallow the extra cost and set off the job. I've already moved all my stuff once, I dont want to do it again.

I check the ME, the ME index is terrible, I needed to move the BPOs 3 or 4 jumps to find a decent place to research ME, ok it is only 3 or 4 jumps, I drop it all in a quick ship and get there with no problems.

Luckily I dont need reverse engineering so that is something I can ignore.

I've not yet copied but the best index for copying is 7 jumps away

I do need to do some invention from BPCs that I had pre-crius, I get all the bits I need, but oh wait, I need to move 6 jumps because the index for Invention in my current station is crap.

Then to top it all off, when I need to do some manufacturing I check my systems index and it has risen, making it more expensive to build there... sigh, have to move again, another 4 round trips.

I am sure that this post will get its share of flames, fair enough, ill let you know I will not respond to those. but my feeling is ALL this moving around is too much. Having a cost index against every activity and having it update so often is making industry a real, annoying, boring, and tedious chore and if that is how it stays I can see me at best doing much less industry, at worse potentially giving it up.

If anything a POS would be more restrictive. The only advantage in a POS (from what I can tell) is less tax (although my corp still charges a tax for using pos, and a speedier manufacture time) the pricing indexes still affect POSes and it is crazy to rip down and set up a POS everytime, chasing the lowest cost option.

CCP have to be careful, people play games (including this one, as it is just a game) for enjoyment, it shouldnt feel like a chore or a second job so if anyother game comes along that perks the interest then... well people will just stop playing the game that is more like a job, and start playing the one that gives more enjoyment. Right now Industry, due to the different price index, for different activities changing so quickly is makig this side of the game as tedious as setting up PI on a planet.

v

The price indexing will settle down a bit in time. At the moment everyone is jumping around trying to get themselves settled, so the indices will be a bit all over the place, especially if you are in a hub region. It's certainly possible to find stable indices in high sec though, and the ease of that will increase over time.

I doubt very much they will strip this away though, since what you are saying you don't like - the moving about - is what they are aiming for. Most of the manufacture has been done right outside the hubs for a long time, by people who essentially log in, click chuck in whatever their eve IPH tells them then log back out. The idea of these changes is to turn industry into a real gameplay mechanic, so people have to think about what they do and actually play the industry game. Sure, some people aren't going to like that (like Industrious Mistress for example) and are just going to ragequit. I imagine CCP were well aware of that, but knew it still had to be changed regardless. At the end of the day, you can't please everybody.

So explain it. All I'm seeing from you is "waah prices are up", which we all know. They are up for everyone and that won't suddenly make industry unprofitable. You don;t know what you are talking about because you've refused to actually try, you've just had a knee-jerk reaction and been whining from minute one.

Now if you Read Vartan's post his issue is that he has to move around a lot. Well first off that's probably because he's in a hub region with a lot of activity, so the price will fluctuate more. And secondly CCPs goal was to make people move around a lot, since industry up until now hasn't been gameplay, so get over it. With the old industry they may as well have replaced it with NPCs, since there was no thought process to industry. Now there is a thought process and people like you are complaining because you don't want to have to think. I have precisely zero sympathy for anyone who actively refuses to try.

And LOL, MY non factual statements? You mean that industry is profitable? You might want to take a quick look at market economics and you will understand that it's impossible for industry to not be profitable. You were whining from the moment the changes hit, which tells me you are whining without having any knowledge of the system, and yet you want to harp on about my "facts" being unproven. I'm gonna call it, you are clearly just a troll. I bet you don't even run industry at all.

Yeah I think most people with more than a few industrialists will settle into single systems and work with the fees. You can make a good saving producing in bulk now, especially with the material level working over a batch rather than single items, and as always, the bigger you are the smaller the individual margins you tend to chase. Solo guys will move around chasing low fees and large margins.

Are you in the same region as the hub? The whole regions of hubs will be all over the place as people are exploding out from the hubs they've been living in but still want visibility of the market. Moving outside of the hub regions you'll find stable prices already. I tend to keep my traders in hubs, but keep my industry guys in the region next door.

Reasonable suggestions. If they did make it constellation based they'd have to work it so that bigger constellations handle more industry than smaller ones, otherwise the same situation would occur now but with a whole range of systems being nuked by larger industrialists. Would certainly help to keep the prices more stable though.

I kinda like that stations don;t have everything available though, especially if you find a system with no slots for a given activity. Having a POS in that system give you that ability but it's not flooded with activity from the stations. Once (if) they release the POS changes so that multiples of the same structure will add more of a saving it will create a unique opportunity to run a specialist POS in those systems for maximum savings.

Yeah there's certainly a bit of working out and testing the water you'll need to do to find your feet. T2 production has the new advantage of being closer to the BPOs with not having the whole waste factor anymore. Speculation on T2 productions has been a major revenue booster the last few days.

For the prices by the way, if you look at the link in this post, Steve Ronuken has set up a part of his site to look at the prices in various places. It's very handy at finding a good place to settle (I'd avoid the lowest of the lows, as people will undoubtedly flock to those).

The changes in the Crius release will require a significant number of people to quit industry, or at least let their manufacturing lines idle more often than previously.

It is basic economics. What happens when demand stays constant, but supply goes up? Margins become thinner.

There were two major changes which will potentially increase supply. Easiest to understand is the change of the Material Efficiency skill to Advanced Industry. The Material Efficiency skill was too good before. Because it was so important, everyone who wanted to do industry was required to train it to level 5. Therefore, almost everyone with an interest in industry today was gifted Advanced Industry level 5. That basically means that everyone gets 15% faster production for everything. But nothing in Crius changed the demand side of the equation. Therefore, the same market demand can be fulfilled by 15% FEWER characters now than it could have before.

The second major change to increase supply was the removal of slots. Previously, a great deal of production was slot-limited. The next job was queued up before the previous job could complete. Time waiting in queue was wasted time. With the removal of slots, there is no need for this wait any longer. I cannot begin to quantify how much the removal of slots will improve industry throughput, but it is significant.

So the market can be fulfilled by fewer industry characters now than before. If more people try to produce than are needed to satisfy the market, then profits will decrease.

Of course, I am not saying there will be no profits. However, it will take more effort to realize that profit. More time thinking about what to build. More time examining facilities. More time hauling. Profit per unit may even be higher, but profit per time spent actually thinking about and doing industry will be lower. This will cause a number of people to quit manufacturing. A new equilibrium will be established with fewer players in the market.

We agree on that.

I am still in shock that CCP actually went through with these changes which are guaranteed to make people quit manufacturing and shut down alt accounts.

I understand some of the concerns such as some peoples issues with the tower changes and the increased job times but invention overall is still looking OK for me so.

I do the business model also. I have a pretty snazzy spreadsheet up on my other monitor right now. I've been making T2 ammo for some time now and have been making the same kind for awhile since its stable and the return is good. Its not crazy amounts of money.. like close to 200 mil a batch, but its more then enough to fund me and continually add to my wallet with limited work on the side.

Here is the thing. I always buy and sell in the same hub. I also manufacture, copy, and invent in the same stations regardless.. all in station.. aka the least cost effective way. The way a lot of people here say they do not want to do.

With the market the way it is right this moment I am showing a 30.35% profit margin while being stuck in one location and not using teams at all. That is without figuring in the cost of data-cores from failed invention jobs, but I never figure that in before hand since its a small number and to random to predict accurately. the increased invention time threw me for a loop but its nothing working up a stock will not remedy.

Thats a respectable profit margin. Ide like it to be higher but its in the range you want it to be. Its difficult to get higher then that but when you start dipping below 30% you want to rethink the market a little. You never seem to get much over 40% though. So I am not seeing an issue on my side thus far.

I am predicting a spike in prices however and am holding off putting product up for sale for now. Im hoping to build the stock I need to buffer the copy/invention times before the spike hits, then sell at a higher price when it does spike for a short time.. if it does.

I understand some peoples concerns. Some people are kind of stuck in the high end capitol ship side... sort of like I am stuck in munitions. But If you understand the math and market and take the time to do it all you should adjust and be OK in the long run.

We'll just have to wait and see if the market settles like it should.. wich I hope and think it will.

For what it's worth, one of my corpmates noticed yesterday that the manufacturing index *is* starting to settle down. He's been watching it daily for us since Crius and said that things do seem like they're starting to fall into place. He said the research index is still ridiculous though.

Prior to Crius, like many other industrial corps, we ran a high-sec research POS. It just made sense to do that, since, you know, slots. Now we're actually converting that POS into a manufacturing POS and we *think* we'll save enough on install costs that it'll be worth it to keep the POS running.

Our POS is located in an out of the way system about four jumps away from a major trade hub. It's not the best system, sure, but it's certainly far from the worst. It's close enough to the hub and the highway that we can load up our freighter periodically and move stuff to market without having to spend a ton of time doing it.

Ironically, while we're moving manufacturing into a POS, we're seriously looking at moving research back into a station. We did drop a POS in a system way the heck out in the middle of nowhere (that has some science facilities in it), just to have a fallback if we still needed a research POS - but based on the amount of research that we expect to be doing now that we don't need a billion copies of everything, it seems like it will just be cheaper to use that station than to pay for the fuel for the POS.

Pricewise, we are certainly paying more to manufacture things than we were pre-Crius, but we knew that was going to be coming. Since a lot of the tools we used pre-Crius haven't been updated yet, we've gone back to old school and we've spent the last week or so rebuilding our main COGS spreadsheet to account for the system index and give us our production cost on any item we make. In general, we'll end up passing the cost increase along to the consumer like everyone else, so our net profits will stay roughly the same once the market adjusts. We have a general rule that we don't make anything we can't sell for at least a 50% profit margin over its production cost, and our COGS spreadsheet (and eventually IPH, once it's caught up) will still help us follow that rule.

I think a lot of the manufacturers who are getting hurt by Crius are people who: a) weren't really paying attention to the cost of things they make and were operating on much smaller profit margins per item, or b) weren't really being thoughtful about *how* they make things in order to optimize their production costs.