Science & Industry

Yeah, I do not think planets need refill rates adjusted up. The universe is a big, big place and too little of it is fully utilized. If one planet is too heavily used, then people should just go elsewhere. Make a different product. Set up a new POCO. Not have CCP make it so everyone in a region is using the same plasma planet or whatever. Increasing refill rates will also make PI goods more common due to increased production, lowering prices, making POCOs less important, etc.

No need to increase refill rates.

Yes, the PI market is just not liquid enough at the moment. Working from CCP's market data from last year (and it's about time more recent data was released), the daily trade for most PI items in Jita is absurdly low.

Except for stuff used for POS fuel or T2 components, each P2 or P3 item moves 200-800m isk a day, while P4 do just 2-4b/day. For comparison, most complex reactions move around 10-12b isk a day.

Giving all those items a place in T2 production would make for a much healthier market and encourage more people to do PI.

Heres someone who didn't read the OP at all.

How does any of that have to do with Player Owned Customs Offices?

1. I think that the POCO system could be much more user friendly if there was a way to more easily set aside the PI tax revenue. Having it necessary for someone to go and tally up all PI tax entries in the corp wallet or even create a program for it is not really fun, nor in my opinion a worthwhile barrier to have.

As these new features are added, it will help if you iterate on some of the older features on which they rely. I'm sure that most of the space accountants would love to have more than Seven wallet divisions, or even better have separate revenue streams be directed into their own piles.

I presume that much of the original wallet features were created with the game in 2003 and was possibly as much as 32 bit chips could handle. But you know, were in 2011 now and it would be nice for Eve to kind of catch up. People can go out and buy software programs to do their taxes for them now. We can handle having a more powerful suite of tools at our disposal to manage our space empires.

3. Provided mid to small corps have the firepower and time to take down the interbus ones, yes.


2. I haven't noticed a big increase in pvp activities, but I live in a wormhole. My big thought on this is: If it was your intent to have conflict originate over Customs offices, I feel that has largely failed. I say this because to begin with the customs office as it stands is kind of antithetical to conflict. Customs offices right now are industrial facilities and small ones. Customs offices are never the vital installation owned by residents. (Maybe they will be once they are tied into Sov but not currently) If you own a null sec system Sovereignty is your most valuable asset. If you live in W-space your POS is your most valuable asset. If you live in Lowsec you are probably crazy or a pirate and also probably rely on high sec. If you live in high sec, well NPCs own everything there anyway. That I find to be your problem.

My suggestion is allow player corporations to gain license to operate customs offices in high sec. Think of it as CONCORD franchising out the customs offices if you will. The current tax rates remain the base rate. The 20%* tax that currently exists continues to be paid to CONCORD. Player corporations may charge additional fees beyond this 20% tax rate and keep the margin for themselves.

Because the current war system kind of sucks, I am going to propose a relatively simple system to encourage combat focused on these structures. In order to gain ownership, corps can either place a bid to concord on a customs office or blow it up and place one down the old fashioned way. A sample bidding system would be a mandatory 25 million isk minimum bid, minimum auction time of 48 hours after an opening bid on a customs office is received, and a 6 hour shotgun rule on bids finishing the auction. If a planet in high sec has no customs office at downtime, concord simply places a new one there under its ownership. (Queing the whole bidding process to start over again.) (I envision bids being public knowledge. No silent auctions)

Now in order to destroy a customs office, instead of the default war system, I propose these mechanics. A corp or alliance may file a right of claim petition with CONCORD over ability to destroy a customs office for 5 million isk, or over an entire system for 25 million isk. A corp may only have 10 planetary claims or 2 system claims active at once. (Basically nothing exceeding 50million isk in value, at which point a normal war dec will suffice for such larger ventures) These claims function for a weeks time regardless of if they now own the customs office in question.

This should be pretty similar to the war system except allow for a more focused approach allowing an actual industry to spring up around owning the customs offices. The claim would basically allow for unrestricted hostilities between the claimant and the current owner on the grid of the customs office only. People can adapt their fighting methodologies thusly.

Thoughts?



4. I think with rising PI product prices comes rising awareness of their origin. PI is still most entirely avoidable for all but the largest groups of players.


*or whatever % it is

(Sorry if there is a double post. Internet is futzy today)

Good afternoon.
I am a fairly new player and the CEO of a small company. Not exactly the best at S&I, however I thought I would chip in my two isk. We were recently involved in a struggle for control over a particular systems POCOs. In the end we ended up on the losing side, however I can say that during that week I had some of the highest and lowest moments of my trip through EVE.
It was a wild ride, I probably learned more about low sec politics in that week than in the preceding three months. At times I got fairly stressed but in the end I had more fun sitting docked with thirteen chat windows open then I ever had in WoW progression raiding. Hell, I even got my first two kills.
I think in the end it was a great idea, and with a little tweaking will work out just fine. All the corps and alliances involved in our conflict were mid to small sized. Keep it coming and give us some more space toys to set up and tear down. Its things like this that made me want to play this game and I have been very pleased with your work since the new xpac.
Thank you and hope you had a good holidays.
S.L.

1. Is there anything related to the Customs Office feature or PI taxes that you think is broken or terrible?

For me the main issue is that not only was the tax increased, but the cost basis for the tax was massively increased. The way it is now it really increases the cost of operating my factory planets. Fortunately the market price for what I make has gone way up, so Im still making excellent profit. For now.

2. Do you think the amount of PvP engagements has changed in EVE as a result of this feature?

Ive heard it has, but have had little personal involvement.

3. Do you think the feature has created new opportunities for small to mid-sized corporations?

We set some up, but last I heard the income was pathetic, and the payback will be years.

4. Do you think PI has become more or less relevant in EVE?

For me, more relevant as I'm making more money.

5. Do you have any awesome story related to a Player Owned Customs Office?

Not awesome, but: We cleared out all the COs from a low sec system and set our own. Used several carriers, battleships, and a Nyx. The local pirates noticed the Nyx, but did nothing. A few days later they knocked 3 POCOs into reinforced. We got our plans together and went in. The pirates were shooting some of the POCOs to get our attention. We brought in several BS's, several carriers and a smattering of other ships. They all hid or logged, except for one Drake that they sacrificed to us. A few triage cycles later all the POCOs were repped up. We have had no issues since.

2. Since it's trivial to get up to 5 Sec, it would remove much of the tax incentive to go to a POCO from a IBCO. Also Interbus != CONCORD

3. If you mean fuel, no structure in EVE that can not be picked up and carted away uses fuel. In essence, the cost (since it's non-recoverable, it's a cost rather than an asset [like a POS is]) to run the POCO is the cost to set one up amortized over how long you can keep it alive.

4. Yeah, Why no PI drops from POCOs? That seems silly to me as well.

1. Is there anything related to the Customs Office feature or PI taxes that you think is broken or terrible?

Nah, refinement is always nice, but nothing is terribad

2. Do you think the amount of PvP engagements has changed in EVE as a result of this feature?

Yes This is exactly what LowSec needs, have Kill mails to prove it (yay for silly dreads).

3. Do you think the feature has created new opportunities for small to mid-sized corporations?
Most certainly, profits are nothing to write home about, but this brings more fights

4. Do you think PI has become more or less relevant in EVE?
Dunno, POCOs didn't really change anything in that regard.

5. Do you have any awesome story related to a Player Owned Customs Office?
Fights are good, to reinforce someone's POCO, then make friends and end up recruiting them is awesome!

First off, I'd like to point out that there was more than one aspect to the game play modification that created the POCO's - which was the one that turned the Hi Sec ones over to Concord and drastically increased the taxes on imports and exports.

So - if you only want to hear about Low/Null Sec POCO's and don't give a damn about the impact of the taxes on Hi Sec PI (where I suspect most of the people doing PI are) - then the OP should have been written such and #1 shouldn't just refer to "PI Taxes" but to "POCO Taxes".

Now - as to trying to get people to go down to Low Sec by taxing them into doing it - that can have some effect but for the most part - the taxes will not get people who are Hi Sec Care Bears down into Low Sec - they will simply cease whatever activity you're penalizing if the penalties become to onerous. To really encourage people to go down to Low Sec - you'd need to raise taxes on EVERYTHING in Hi Sec. As long as they can just change occupations - that's mostly what they're going to do. Of course - a number are going to quit the game before they go down to Low Sec ... so that's something else you'll have to deal with if you do tax everything in Hi Sec at a higher rate.

Now on to the questions as they effect Hi Sec PI, much of which has already been said - but is being repeated here for emphasis.



1. Is there anything related to the Customs Office feature or PI taxes that you think is broken or terrible?

a) The remarks made by others concerning the storage situation are to the point. In the past - a work around to the near usless nature of the storage silos - was to use the CO for the over flow. Now - you're not only getting taxed to send it up there - you're getting taxed to send it back - and then - getting taxed again to finally export your finished product. Thus - as mentioned - the drastically increased taxes on import/export through the CO have had a negative effect on this work around and high lighted the flaw in the design of the Storage Silos. Most people don't use them. While they cost about a third of the price of another Launch Pad - initial set up costs are not the biggest problem - Power Grid is. Given that the initial surge at the begining of an extraction cycle can over flow the small capacity of a Storage Silo - it has no real use. For newer players - the extra cost of using Launch Pads as Storage Silos - is not only counter intuitive - but much more expensive.

b) Whether the taxes are terrible or not - depends on how much money you've already got. For most people who have spent some time already playing the game - the increased taxes are a real irritant - but not crippling. However - for newer players just getting into PI - they raise the bar on what is needed to get started. As is - with skill costs and infrastructure there is a real cost to setting up a colony - and if you are setting up multiple colonies that ... multiplies those costs.

c) There are different PI strategies that depend on what it is you want to do and what's available to you to do it with. The creation of Factory Planets - where materials are exported from one planet to be imported to another - is heavily effected by the increase in taxes - especially for individuals or small corporations that don't have a lot of money to get their PI efforts started.

d) As mentioned - the fact that you cannot use a corporate Wallet to pay these taxes - means that you've got to manually move money from the individuals corporate wallet to their personal wallet - which is a pain in the ass. Before - since the taxes were then trivial - it wasn't as big a problem since you didn't have to do it as much. Now it is. Given all the other pain in the ass stuff associated with this - it would be nice if this was fixed. Currently, PI is done by individuals - not corporations. There is for example no corporate access to the CO or the Launch Pad.

e) As to trying to get around paying taxes through manual launches from the Control Center ... I've not seen that as very workable using expedited transfers due to the low storage capacity of the CC and the lag between transfers but I've not tried routing to the CC ... *shrug* ...


2. Do you think the amount of PvP engagements has changed in EVE as a result of this feature?

Don't know.

1. Is there anything related to the Customs Office feature or PI taxes that you think is broken or terrible?

If the stated goal was to punish PvE types or provide LOL's for griffers, it’s been achieved. PI taxes really don’t matter at all, you could raise them over 1,000% or even 1,000,000%, they just get amortized into the final production costs and passed on to the end consumer, hello ISK sink.

2. Do you think the amount of PvP engagements has changed in EVE as a result of this feature?

Not really, no one cares, griffers blow up Interbus CO and POCOs alike; but it is nice to see the one sided care for PvP types being posted in a PvE forum.

3. Do you think the feature has created new opportunities for small to mid-sized corporations?

Thanks for the LOL's, oh sorry, was that meant to be a question or a sarcastic joke?

4. Do you think PI has become more or less relevant in EVE?

Its part of a production chain for many items, PI will always be in stasis per the importance or demand of the final item(s).

5. Do you have any awesome story related to a Player Owned Customs Office?

Yeah, one time at Band Camp…..