Missions & Complexes

I've noticed a few times now that when we run the Uroborus site in low sec, we sometimes only get a payout of 5million because we are under the required minimum fleet limit.

In one case we actually had over the 30 mentioned in the Journal description but still didn't get a payout. So it seems we generally need to load the grid with alts in order to get proper payout. So what I'm wondering is:

1) What is the actual lower limit for Uroborus and-
2) Why does a lower limit exist at all?

Don't get me wrong, Uroborus has served us with some awesome fights when fleets have jumped us in there. It's great practice for Guardians and if we didn't do it a lot of human hours would go to waste, since all the incursion corps don't get payouts otherwise. It's not as if 90mil per person is a huge payout anyway and everyone knows the money is in the LP grind on the smaller sites (who rely on groups like us finishing this one).

Out of principle though, it seems absurd that a lower limit exists at all. A smaller gang is already penalised by virtue of getting the same payout ber person. So, if there was no lower limit, twenty guys would generate 1.8bil for doing it and seventy guys doing the same job would generate 6.3bil. That would be enough already - when in fact the situation now is that the twenty guys get 100mil instead of the 1.8bil.

So if you were the Concord accountant, and you wanted the Sansha infestation cleared, you could:

pay 70 guys 6.3billion to do it
pay 20 guys 100million to do it

Perhaps Concord is staffed with Greek bankers

It's certainly bizarre. Then there's the issue of what the lower limit actually is. The journal page says '30-50' and below it is a graph that appears to show something with an upper limit in the 70s but does not have axes labelled at useful points. We've tried it with 31, and there was only a 5mil payout.

Strange stuff.

Thanks for the quick reply. At a glance you seem to provide a lot of sensibly minded and helpful answers on the forums. Respect for that.

I understand that Concord may wish to make sure that capsuleers gather in sufficient numbers to not get themselves killed. Although if we maintain the same RP stance, then surely the fact that we (and I assume others too) have done it many times with a small group should have alerted them to the fact that it's no suicide mission. We even have two Revenant BPCs from it.

I think that if CCP want a lower limit, it should be emergent from the gameplay - i.e. add more bursts, faster bomber respawn timer, etc. to try and force more numbers to be required. Having an arbitrary value from a graph seems rather alien to the sandbox principles of Eve: I can understand the upper limit but not the lower one.

And yes, CCP probably have forgotten to match the graph with the text description.

I can definitely see the logic in removing the bottom limit from the mothership sites regardless of the sec status, but keeping them for all other sites due to their nature (respawning).
Let the lower limit be determined by the fleet's skill, experience and the difficulty of the site.

Previously CCP attempted (in relation with the buff to 80 people) to introduce more rats into the site and especially RR ships. They also combined it with the ability for the mothership to warp out mid-site only to return at a later point and let the capsuleers combat the Sansha subcaps. However this led to a bug at the first encounter of the site which had the mothership become invulnerable. The feature was then rolled back, but ironically this led to the highsec incursion farming that capsuleers managed to establish in the hours and days after said bug.

In any way the reward should not be able to stack with less pilots though. It'll lead to conditions in highsec where people simply aren't invited to the fleet because they wouldn't want to share the reward with more pilots. CCP's intention at the time of buffing upper limit seems to be to allow more pilots to join in on the killing frenzy.

Currently in highsec the fleets are maxed out to 80 pilots not due to lack of pilot skill or efficient ships, but simply to distribute the reward to as many pilots as possible. No need to be greedy . However the sites are run with 0 losses and at such a pace and ease that certain HQ and Assault sites would be a bigger pain in the ass than the mothership site as well.
But that's how it is. At first your knowledge is limited and causalities and pilot mistakes might be large, but as time goes you adapt and improve.... and the site is finished in the blink of an eye.

Indeed, what's wrong with a little bit of drama. Eve thrives on drama and on story arcs being created by players. And indeed what is wrong about a style of gameplay that prefers quality over quantitiy. In the end having more pilots in fleet allows you to finish the site quicker and thereby safer (each bomber spawn IS a risk, even though you can prepare for it ofc). If you fear a small group takes the site you can still contest it (which happens in smaller sites anyway) or try to ninjaloot it if you don't like the fleet that is running the site.

Don't think its worth traveling into lowsec for just one site. Only option would be to offer that to people already farming the sites since they have genuine interest in having the mom killed anyway (at some point at least). We could probably just offer it to blues and friends but then again, that's just the circumvention of a mechanic we consider faulty.