EVE General Discussion

So? We're not talking about incursions here, but PI. So the point remains relevant…
No, he addressed that quite specifically…

It seems you're creating a problem where there doesn't really have to be one.

Do me a favour Tippia and **** off.

I'm not getting into a pointless merry-go-round quote fest with you like you do with everyone else.

I didn't "create" any problem.

I'm stating first-hand my experiences after YEARS of doing it

The comparison was to debunk the "too much isk in PI" argument.

And you ain't making 2.2b a month in lowsec unless you got 5 chars or more. As for WH - yes, that is an option and yes I've done it. I also made much more doing it in nullsec but now it's just more coinage to the barons leaving no motivation to even bother.

Regardless, I didn't do it solely for the money - I also did it for the kicks. Poking around systems in a cloaky scaring the life out of ratters, passing on "scaps on standby" intel and having a laugh while doing enough to fuel my POS's was my motivation.

So.. howcome I'm still making 500M+ a month with my PI, and only need to check my planets every 4 days or so, and haul once a week?

Oh.. and ofcourse, ever consider making a deal with those 'monopolies'?
I saw a certain big alliance setting up some POCO's somewhere, and though I had no interest in setting up PI in that system, I chatted with em and asked howmuch tax they would charge me if I set up on 'their' planets.

They were quite willing to cut me a profitable deal that while I'd still be paying them taxes ( and thus giving them free money :) ),
I would still be making a good profit on my PI.

... hot topic.. I come back and it's 3 pages long already.. aaanyway.

Running incurions has nothing to do with PI, and i doubt you can make 500M with incurions in the time it takes me to do my PI.
I spend about an hour a week doing PI on a single toon, and I scrape out 500M a month with that.
So that's about 4 hours, adding in the finding of a fleet, getting ready, doing sites, and finding replacements for the people that have other things to do, does your incursion running make that much in 4 hours? I don't think so.

The rest of my time a month, I spend doing other things which make money, and this is on a single toon PI only.

My point was, that just because someone else owns the POCO, doesn't mean you can't make use of 'their' planet. Simply chat with them, and make a deal. Especially in low sec where system control isn't as easy as say, sov space, and people come and go all the time, it's good business practice anyway.
If you have the capital to set up a POCO, and the force to make sure someone doesn't go and blow it up, shutting people out of a low sec planet is madness. There are just too many planets around to shut out everyone, they can always just go to another system/planet/region. It makes MUCH more sense for them to allow access and give you a reasonable tax rate.
This way, they will have people coming to 'their' planet and doing PI, and all the work those people put in making stuff on the planet gets taxed. Taxes that are paid to said alliance.
Aka free money, from each and every person that comes to your planet. Hell, I'll sign for that.

I've run the figures on howmuch it costs to set up a POCO and the RoI and such, and it definitely favors allowing other people to use it in low sec. Especially a nice busy system. Even a moderately sized alliance can make tons of money doing it, with the cost of getting your POCO blown up regularly added in, you'd still be ahead in the game.

This is more an observation and a query regarding PI.

TL;DR : Lowsec is even deader than before due to POCO's. One less reason to bother with it.

The elaboration:-

As a player who has done lowsec PI for a long long time, the motivation to setup ninja POS's and float around lowsec gathering resources was both fun and interesting and on many occasions quite challenging (if not downright scarey). It made a modest profit and was almost a full-time Eve occupation in itself.

It required regular logins and made me invest in RL money to run my 5 accounts. There's simply not enough profit in PI to plex it all. And now, there's even less to be had due to POCO monopolies starting to rear their ugly heads.

So today I unanchored my last tower out of lowsec and closed up all my PI. The massive time, RL money and isk investment training 5 perfect PI chars with blockade runner skills is now wasted. The cost to do PI for personal towers and a small amount of manufacturing is on the verge of pointless.

Of course, the usual banter about go kill POCO's and install your own etc. will be bandied around and sure, I can join some alliance and do just that but that just reinforces my point about monopolisation of the game. I know what the "do this" solution is but I also know the reality - as do most players who do/did PI in lowsec.

IMO, it's a case of yet another nail-in-the-coffin for lowsec players who WANT lowsec, are prepared to RISK it in lowsec but have absolutely no incentive to be there unless they start a whole new alliance and spend 5 years building it into yet another monopoly.

I am seriously at a "wtf do I do now" moment after almost 4 years of trying it all.

Has anyone else struck the same sense of "where the **** is this game going" frustration?

... hot topic.. I come back and it's 3 pages long already.. aaanyway.