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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Teams dead, now lets bring back Slots!
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Sam Spock
The Arnold Connection
#1 - 2014-12-17 19:10:22 UTC
[Ducking to avoid the monkey poo]

One of the biggest annoyances I saw as a new player when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in this game was the limitation on industry due to slots in stations. I could manufacture but could not find any invention slots unless I liked waiting 45 days or more. When Crius hit they all went away and us little guys jumped on it like a dog on a steak.

Problem is that the slot limitation mechanic acted as a break on the speed of T2 production and allowed those who made a living building things a comfortable (in some cases insane) margin. Those margins are now gone and pretty much you can't make much in the way of T2 modules without making a ton of them and that feeds into the whole downward spiral.

The System Cost Index was supposed to get people to spread out to make stuff and keep everyone from just making everything in Jita 4-4. On small items this cost is pretty much a non-factor. It does not do much to a job that will make you 3m isk if the cost to start the job is 50k more.

What I propose is something that limits how much can be made/invented/researched based off the same mechanic that fuels the cost index. The higher the index the less you can make by limiting how many jobs you can submit in the same system at the same time.

You would always be able to submit one of each type of job no matter how high the index is. This keeps it from going back to the good old days of 45 day waits. But if you are a heavy producer and your system is maxed out you will have to find somewhere else to build.

For example with max skills you can now have up to 11 jobs at one time. Each whole percentage point of the system cost index would remove one of those for that particular system. So at an SCI of 5.5 you could run 6 jobs. This would be on you personally, not globally so if you have multiple accounts you can spread things out.

Now before you all go completely postal on me I was thinking this would only apply to stations. POS's would not have any limitations on them. The argument could go that the stations are being over used and the equipment is getting worn out.

Ok guys, tear it apart.

Giving you Inconsistent grammar, speilling and Punct-uation since 1974!
Komi Toran
Perkone
Caldari State
#2 - 2014-12-17 19:19:56 UTC
You're missing that slots weren't the only thing that changed. With the change of the Production Efficiency skill, everything got a 15% time reduction and the high-skill barrier to entry for all industry was removed. Furthermore, it's not like it was all that hard to find available production slots in high-sec. Kakakela, just two jumps from Jita, had free slots about 80% of the time.

And then you have to contend with what you would be doing to Null-Sec industry, which CCP seems intent on buffing even further.

So, in short, I think your diagnosis of the current situation is incorrect, and your solution would just cause annoyance.
Sam Spock
The Arnold Connection
#3 - 2014-12-17 19:41:36 UTC
Komi Toran wrote:
You're missing that slots weren't the only thing that changed. With the change of the Production Efficiency skill, everything got a 15% time reduction and the high-skill barrier to entry for all industry was removed. Furthermore, it's not like it was all that hard to find available production slots in high-sec. Kakakela, just two jumps from Jita, had free slots about 80% of the time.

And then you have to contend with what you would be doing to Null-Sec industry, which CCP seems intent on buffing even further.

So, in short, I think your diagnosis of the current situation is incorrect, and your solution would just cause annoyance.


it's why I put "Ok guys, tear it apart." at the end.

The slots I was referring to were Invention ones. I could not find any in high sec. Perhaps I was just not looking in the right places.

Also I don't understand how this would do anything to null. I was under the impression that most industry in null took place in pos's. Is this not correct?

Giving you Inconsistent grammar, speilling and Punct-uation since 1974!
Discomanco
We pooped on your lawn
#4 - 2014-12-17 20:02:43 UTC
I was about to throw monkey poo at you when I read the title.
Then I read the post, and now I'm standing here with monkey poo in my hand, deciding whether I want to throw it at you or not.
Sam Spock
The Arnold Connection
#5 - 2014-12-17 20:40:26 UTC
Discomanco wrote:
I was about to throw monkey poo at you when I read the title.
Then I read the post, and now I'm standing here with monkey poo in my hand, deciding whether I want to throw it at you or not.


At least you are thinking about it. It is all I ask.

Giving you Inconsistent grammar, speilling and Punct-uation since 1974!
Antillie Sa'Kan
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#6 - 2014-12-17 21:18:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Antillie Sa'Kan
So removing artificial production bottlenecks and drastically lowering the bar for entry into manufacturing/invention has resulted in so much competition that margins are now razor thin? Sounds like economics working as intended to me. The key to making money in a low margin market is volume, lots and lots of volume. And that means training up those things that reduce production time.

Despite what CCP says, centralizing production isn't a bad thing. Raw materials still need to be brought to the factories and the finished goods still need to be shipped out, either in bulk for resale elsewhere or in ones and twos as people buy them for personal use. Both of these activities create opportunities for content.

Personally, I think the removal of slots is the best thing to happen to industry in a long time.
Bronson Hughes
The Knights of the Blessed Mother of Acceleration
#7 - 2014-12-17 21:53:27 UTC
Discomanco wrote:
I was about to throw monkey poo at you when I read the title.
Then I read the post, and now I'm standing here with monkey poo in my hand, deciding whether I want to throw it at you or not.

I am in much the same boat. What the OP proposed would make it harder for many characters to produce in high volume in the same system without necessarily imposing such harsh bottlenecks as the old slot system had. I would suggest adding a minimum number of jobs (maybe 2-3) that can always be submitted per character regardless of system cost index (assuming they have sufficient skills of course) in order to not hamper low-volume producers or rookies giving industry a try.

While I'm not sold on the notion of needing to spread industry out, it is CCP's vision for industry, and I think the OP's suggestion would help accomplish it.

+1

Relatively Notorious By Association

My Many Misadventures

I predicted FAUXs
Komi Toran
Perkone
Caldari State
#8 - 2014-12-17 21:53:32 UTC
Sam Spock wrote:
Also I don't understand how this would do anything to null. I was under the impression that most industry in null took place in pos's. Is this not correct?

Not correct for the following reason:

Amarr Factory Bonuses
Material Consumption: -5%
Job Duration: -43%

And if you're talking about invention, you have a bit more of a point. However, this is also affected by the removal of copying as a bottleneck. You no longer need to take the time to make max-run copies. Additionally, your change is short-circuited by the removal of standings requirements for high-sec POSes. It's easy to put up a tower for invention if need be, and is probably a smart thing to do for any serious inventor still in high-sec due to the 50% invention time reduction.
Tavaz
Veldspar Industries
#9 - 2014-12-17 23:41:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Tavaz
Available slots were not the limiting factor in T2 production, job time was. The drop in T2 margins was caused by a significant decrease in production time, almost across the board. For example, prior to the changes, 50000 rounds of large ammo would take one slot for 14 days. Now, that same product can be finished in less than a day. Assuming the same number of job hours, the quantity of product increased while demand was unaffected by the industry changes, causing material prices to rise and product value to sink.
Sam Spock
The Arnold Connection
#10 - 2014-12-18 00:07:52 UTC
Bronson Hughes wrote:
Discomanco wrote:
I was about to throw monkey poo at you when I read the title.
Then I read the post, and now I'm standing here with monkey poo in my hand, deciding whether I want to throw it at you or not.

I am in much the same boat. What the OP proposed would make it harder for many characters to produce in high volume in the same system without necessarily imposing such harsh bottlenecks as the old slot system had. I would suggest adding a minimum number of jobs (maybe 2-3) that can always be submitted per character regardless of system cost index (assuming they have sufficient skills of course) in order to not hamper low-volume producers or rookies giving industry a try.

While I'm not sold on the notion of needing to spread industry out, it is CCP's vision for industry, and I think the OP's suggestion would help accomplish it.

+1


yeah, spreading industry out is part of what I am going for here. People still build a lot in Jita simply so they don't have to haul stuff. If it is a faction item they don't care about the rather small cost of the index but they would care if the could not build 11 Gila's on site.

I figured at it's worst Jita's cost index would never get to 10 so 2 would end up being the minimum anyway.

Giving you Inconsistent grammar, speilling and Punct-uation since 1974!
Sam Spock
The Arnold Connection
#11 - 2014-12-18 00:09:58 UTC
Antillie Sa'Kan wrote:
So removing artificial production bottlenecks and drastically lowering the bar for entry into manufacturing/invention has resulted in so much competition that margins are now razor thin? Sounds like economics working as intended to me. The key to making money in a low margin market is volume, lots and lots of volume. And that means training up those things that reduce production time.

Despite what CCP says, centralizing production isn't a bad thing. Raw materials still need to be brought to the factories and the finished goods still need to be shipped out, either in bulk for resale elsewhere or in ones and twos as people buy them for personal use. Both of these activities create opportunities for content.

Personally, I think the removal of slots is the best thing to happen to industry in a long time.


removing slots was awesome. With nothing in it's place to slow things up a bit you get a free-for-all. Not sure if that was their intention.

Giving you Inconsistent grammar, speilling and Punct-uation since 1974!
Fifth Blade
Jump Drive Appreciation Society
#12 - 2014-12-18 02:01:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Fifth Blade
While the implementation of teams was bad they did counter some of the flaws in the rest of the changes if taken in isolation eg:
- No relevant penalty for building small items - even with an index of 9.8,
- No reason to progress to higher tech production anymore - greater investment for lower profit

The removal of any barrier to entry (skills and slots) - killed almost all profit for t2/t3 without the use of teams (especially for large producers, T2 specifically loses twice, on component and hull teams).

Now with the removal of teams they are now unravelling the remaining industry changes in the expansion. I have no idea how CCP plan to fix this without expending the time they claim not to have.

We shall see, I suppose.

Edit: At a minimum the skill requirement for producing higher tech level ships should have remained. It makes sense for both practical (rate limiting) and lore (higher technology requires greater knowledge) reasons.