Missions & Complexes

My issue is the "High-Tech Arms" etc. loot - it's apparently been said that they're not useless but I'm willing to wager that by the time they become (if ever) useful, every explorer and their mother will have a huge stockpile.

I'm glad you're thinking constructively about solutions for data sites, but I'm rather concerned that some of your suggestions are short-sighted.



Couldn't agree more. Make these things useful on some sort of non-trivial scale and you'd automatically increase data site value.



I'm very concerned about this suggestion. I'm not sure anyone in this thread runs an industrial operation large enough to appreciate just how very, very many datacores are consumed by invention. Any reduction in supply here, let alone cutting off THE primary source, would have very serious effects on the market. T2 modules and ships, already questionably better than meta 4 in many cases, would skyrocket in price. The inflationary ramifications on the entire economy are actually hard to overstate.

To put this in perspective, when I'm active I run one account full of industry. Two of the three characters can invent T2 items; all three can build them and their components. That single account run optimally can consume multiple billions of ISK in datacores per month -- and that's at current prices. And let's be clear here: this is a small operation. Very small. Drop in the bucket. If the supply of datacores was reduced by 50%, price would have to at least double which in turn could on average double the price of every single T2 item in the game. That's a huge shock to the economy.

Now, you could of course increase the drop rates of datacores while dropping them from FW in the hopes that whole thing would wash out to even prices but more profits for exploration. I'm not as opposed to that idea. It's not without risk, of course, but it might at least work without hitting the entire T2 economy in the nards.



I don't see this as much of a solution. There would have to be far more blueprints in circulation to make this worthwhile. As is, the crappy modules aren't helping anything but even the good modules don't lead to high component prices.



Decryptors aren't worth as much in invention; that much is true. I'd like to see that change but it is indeed a deep hole to go down.



I'm not sure how these act as a solution to the problem at hand but I can't really disagree with either.

Zhilia Mann thanks for your feedback.

To address your main concern - I understand that there is a huge amount of datacores used in T2 invention - I do a bit of it myself, and I'm constantly buying huge supplies of Datacores and moving them to a station to run invention jobs. Even though I benefit from this, I do think that Datacores are too abundant and cheap currently.

The recent invention rebalance smoothed out the usages of specific ones, such as Mechanical Engineering, which used to be the easy LP to ISK dump from FW.

CCP could look at the number of datacores coming from various sources - Faction Warfare, Research Agents, and Data Sites. That would ensure that tweaking the faucet for these, the remaining sources would still be able to supply the demand. Increasing the drop rate of Datacores in Data sites, and increasing the LP cost for them from Faction Warfare would make it easier to balance, while not letting the supply constrict enough to drive the price up sharply.

I do think that "Gun Mining" is something that is to be discouraged - we've seen changes like removing the Drone Alloys, and the module reprocessing nerfs happen to reduce the profitability of this. Along the same lines, having the majority of Datacores sourced from missions and plexing via the Faction Warfare LP store is a bit counterintuitive. I'd like to see more of the research and manufacturing chains tied to industry and exploration activities.

That said, CCP already seems to have some plans around alternate sources for Datacores - check out this Fanfest presentation on Research Structures:

https://youtu.be/Hen92QFrDUo?t=1064

I don't like the idea of the structure itself generating Datacores passively. The Research Agents are already so irrelevant I don't know why they would replace them with another passive source. Hopefully they just have a solid plan with how they want to tie in the new structures for industry and invention.

I don't really agree with that

a) you can't cherrypick your hacking at data the same way as with relics

b) that there isn't anything valuable at datasites.


a) Databanks are usually worth much more than com towers. But if databanks are crap or have nothing in them, then one of the com towers will have some interesting stuff in it.


b) I found some faction POS stuff at datasites, in some occasion even in high sec data site. That could easily earn you > 50MM ISK for that site if you use that BPC.


What I agree is that it takes much more time to find something useful at data site. But when it happens, its usually something nice and shiny which sells well. Relics are much more consistent but they dont surprise much in positive way with exception to those cans that have like 90MM stuff in them :D

If you think relics are consistent then explain how i got a 2 bil worth faction tower bpc? They are consistent-ish and even so ..data sites still don't compare. I run them in whs and every relic site nets me avarage 20 mil at the very least while you admited yourself you SOMETIMES find datas with 50 mil value in them.

Just today for example i've done 5-6 relic sites and walked away with 150 mil and it did not took me an hour.

Personaly evertime i see a data site i just curse my monitor.


While i have no ideea myself how to improve the situation other then some good solutions written so far, i would very much like to see some improvement.