Wormholes

Ugh. Paragraphs friend... paragraphs.

Almost all the activities you listed, save two, pay more than living in a C1.

The reason ISK per Hour is such an important metric is because WH's are really not a playstyle of convenience. Upkeep cost of living out of a POS runs 400 mil a month in fuel per tower. So if you can't make your 400 mil a month off of the playtime you are able to invest, you won't stick around long.

It's the whole reason why corbexxx created the thread is to get an accurate measure of what the average player, or small group of players (the usual residents of C1-C4's) can reasonably expect to make from each class of WH.

First you have to know what the quality of life is like between wormholes and adjust that relative to the costs of maintaining a lifestyle outside of known space. Then you can start comparing it to safer and more lucrative activities in Hisec and come to the inevitable conclusion that everyone that lives out here in W-space is a few drones short of an Ishtar.

So, you haven't been in WH's since hyperion(or most likely, ever), for almost a week we don't have gas, mining or combat sites. Our statics are that bad that we have to close them multiple times till we see at least 4 combat anomalies.

Edit: we have a lot more risk in living here then in any other part of New Eden, and still we can't get as much income as null (ratting, as they have infinite site spawn), low (missions), high (missions/incursions). If you want a tshirt go to some store and buy it, it's EVE, not a cloth shop.

Well, they should know the chances for each possible loot drop, as well as the EHP of the sleeper drones.
That way your only variable would be applied dps. (Which you could guesstimate for each ship)

It's a bit weird that CCP lets corbexx do tons of work to collect data that they should already have available.

yeah lets not go there. But the info is still of use even if just for comparison.

Site values are basically constant, with ribbons the only meaningful variable. Average ribbon drops should be known to CCP at the click of a button because after all it's THEIR ALGORITHM. If for whatever weird reason they are unable to read their own code, then the community should be able to provide long-term averages. In fact, I'm sure this data already exists. I myself logged all c3 anoms I ran for a while to calculate long-term ribbon yields. I stopped logging after 200 sites or so because the average didn't move any more. I might still have the spreadsheet somewhere...

Regarding a possible rebalancing or redesign of wspace pve... obviously there needs to be a way to make site income scale with class, but in a way that ensures that higher-class systems support bigger player groups instead of just making multiboxing soloists or small groups richer faster.

I think one way to achieve that could be to change sleeper spawns so that they have much lower ehp but much higher remote repair. Currently, sleeper rr exists but is not a significant factor in most sites. The result is that any player fleet that can tank the sleepers' damage output is able to complete the site.

Now it is a fact that the more characters you bring into a site, the less efficient you become. Wasted salvos, imperfect damage distribution and coordination will always make a bigger fleet less efficient than a smaller fleet on a per-character basis. That means that one ship dealing 1000 dps will need less than 200% of the time to complete a site than two ships dealing 1000 dps each. The result is that cooperating with other people for pve is always a disadvantage if you could instead do the site alone. (Not to mention the inevitable loss of efficiency due to form-up time etc.)

But if for example the sleepers in a c4 site would regenerate 3000 dps indefinitely, then the typical solo-pimpmobile player simply couldn't do these sites anymore. Of course he could just bring more alts, but for almost all people this would not be worth it and in any case it would at least expose them to much higher risk. Instead, these sites would really encourage players to team up to reach that threshold of dps that enables them to complete the site at all. Because the sleepers have low ehp, they would die quickly once their regen rate is matched by the players' dps, making it worthwile to fleet up in the first place.

People would still have the choice to bring fewer but more pimped-out ships or numerous inexpensive ships. What about players bringing dreadnoughts? Sleepers could react by calling in strong reinforcements that ramp up their hitpoint regeneration dramatically but drop only modest additional loot.

Btw this shouldn't apply to lower class which of course should still be accessible to solo players, even very inexperenced ones who cannot do a lot of damage. The newbie in his 200 dps Drake should still be able to do the c1 anom, albeit of course he will need more time for it than the experienced player in a better ship.

Sorry but I can´t follow your reflections. Why should solo players be able to do low class sites? Why should solo players be able to do any sites in J-Space?
There are enough possibilities for solo exploration in K-Space. J-Space should be the next step and enforce group exploration.
For what reason should site income scale with wh class, except dreads are a little bit more expensive than the average T3 cruiser. But how much real cap to cap fights are in high class systems? The majority of cap kills I have seen in high class are also just pve caps escalating any site, and they were all killed by subcap fleets.
What I mean is, why do you need capitals high class, if you don´t want to do pvp with them?

I'll bite, but probably ...

Of course people should be allowed to do solo exploration in wormholes, do you think that wormholes are somehow instantly populated with fully formed corps with no experience?

And even in the largest corporation there are times when there are single or low numbers of players, is the answer to spin in the pos hoping someone would come on so you can play?

The lack of meaningful solo play of value, is one of the greatest issues facing wormhole space currently.

Wormhole Space is NOT Null lite.

In reply to point B lots of capitals fight, carriers are extremely useful. And not just sleeper running ones. But much less likely since Hyperion. Not many are that Stupid. That reason to use them disappeared.

I may very well get shouted down for this.

But I feel that wormhole space, as a rule, should be more profitable then highsec incursions.

I agree that it is not simple. But proposing a broad set of mechanical changes about how the risk actually works is less likely to be acted upon than just changing the loot tables. So that's why I went in that direction.

I also entirely agree about connectivity being the key risk. I'm not sure that C4 and C2 are more risky because of that, though, since you can still shut them off just as effectively as a single static hole.

If you really want to link risk and reward you need to reward people for running sites with open connections. Maybe in the loot drop or perhaps spawn rate.

That´s a good point and I´ll think about it. But where is the problem to start getting experience as a daytripping exploration group?
I know much corps who first tested wormholes in groups before they decided to settle in it.