Science & Industry

Fuel prices have gone up because of the increase in taxes and the stockpiling for fuel blocks. They are up anywhere from 15 to 30%, which more than compensates the tax increase, so PI is as profitable as ever. Why, then, do you say small corps are locked out?

Yes, towers have become a bit more expensive to run. But all of mine are still making a profit, buying fuel from the market.

By the way, it has to be one or the other. Either you are complaining about PI not being profitable, or fuel prices going up.


Why are you unable to compete? People in large alliances are also paying taxes, to the alliance. Personally, my small, independent corporation, working together with a couple other small, independent corporations, is having a blast fighting over lowsec POCOs. For us, it has provided an entirely new aspect to lowsec gameplay.

1. Is there anything related to the Customs Office feature or PI taxes that you think is broken or terrible?
- Raise the Taxes on Interbus and ad a fuel requirement for POCO's
- Make Re-Inforcement cycle Strongtium bases. No re-fueling, no new Re-Inforcement timer.
- Let people ad guns, for an additional fuel requirements.
- Interbus Office not used by any player for 30 days should selfdestruct. No need to have them around.

2. Do you think the amount of PvP engagements has changed in EVE as a result of this feature?
No. Because the POCO owner can run them remotely.

3. Do you think the feature has created new opportunities for small to mid-sized corporations?
Yes. many do PI as an extra income.

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

5. Do you have any awesome story related to a Player Owned Customs Office?
No.


Please ad destroyed/Reinforces POCOS to system wind where we also can see ships destroyd last 24 hours. This would ad attention and creaty more game dynamics.

Indeed. In the lowsec systems that I use (for other purposes) all POCOs are still Interbus. This is a downer for me as I could do some small time PI on the side but not at 17% tax rate (so I do it at my highsec "home" system under CONCORD 10% tax). Not doing enough PI to care about replacing the POCOs myself (too much effort and too much ISK required) or to travel to other systems where I otherwise have no productive business going on.

But hey, if someone else did replace them and allow usage at a competitive tax rate, I'd probably shift my PI stuff over to those lowsec systems that I constantly visit anyway for other purposes. "Competitive rate" in this case would be 10% or below. I might even pay 11-12% if I get some kind of "spacehonour word" from the POCO owner that the rate is going to stay put and the POCO is being defended so I don't end up with bunch of PI structures on a planet with no POCO (or with a POCO set at ripoff tax rate). I would have no problem paying all that export tax to the owner of the POCO. FREE ISK PRINTER! Look! Here!

I say there is plenty of market available for "POCO landlords" in lowsec. The biggest hurdle is probably to find some way to set it all up and advertise it to potential PI "bears" without attracting the attention of a Bigger Fish that might drop some caps to blow up the POCOs for "teh lulz".

I guess at this point the only practical way is to just set up some POCOs, do some own PI (at 0% rate for yourself, naturally) and set up a competitive tax rate for others and see if the "PI bear honeypot" brings people to the planets with your POCOs. It also helps if you don't try to shoot their haulers...

Perhaps EVE needs some kind of "search for POCOs by tax rate" style in-game way to browse and search planetary infrastructure in the region / in the universe. A way to set up infrastructure for others to use without making forum posts or other "noise" that might attract evil people. Naturally this is something someone could do by setting up a web service or something where people can post their "available for public" lowsec POCOs with tax rates etc.

This was CCP fail - they didn't realize that their initial plans would mean practical tax that was something like 1% - not worth setting up POCOs. So they at the last minute revised the taxable value of PI goods (while still doubling the taxes) and that caused bit of a double-whammy. It was unavoidable and needed - without it nobody would build POCOs as the benefit over the "17% interbus tax" would be in reality less than 2%.



Nope. PI is still profitable even with the taxes. Do the math. In EVE you cannot avoid doing the math. Google Docs spreadsheets for the win.

1. I think over all it works pretty well. PI is still profitable in high sec but now much more appealing in low/null

2. I have not seen much PVP as a result of the POCO's. definitely more fleet ops to clear the way for alliances to put up there own POCO's but the only POCO's I have seen fall were pirate targets in active low sec area's. Why put one there in the first place.

3.not really. even with high taxes it takes forever for a POCO to repay the costs to put it up. definitely more of a benefit to large corps/alliances that are not burdened by the costs.

4. No. PI is a requirement as it is the only real source now for needed components for manufacturing. low/null POCO's definitely have an advantage over high sec PI which is as it should be. But PI demand is still controlled by manufacturing and POS fuel demands.

5. NO but I do believe they were a big step in the right direction.


On a side note it does seem we need something more to increase the appeal of putting up a POCO. the profits alone do not seem to be enough as it takes so long to repay the investment that you will possibly lose your POCO before you even break even.
Reducing the costs would not work as they would be even less worth defending. increasing the tax does not work as it would hurt the game economy to much.
I thought it would be cool to be able to upgrade the POCO's. Have an upgraded POCO give bonuses to command center power grid ,CPU, and link capacity, even storage silo capacity. This would make them far more valuable and worth defending (to protect upgrades) increasing related PVP and POCO value without drastically increasing cost or taxes.

Posted this elsewhere, but its probably more relevant here :

We are a small corp and have so far put up 8 POCO's in 0.4 systems the oldest being around 4 weeks old, the newest 2 weeks.

The TOTAL income from all POCO's over that period of time has been 75m isk for an investment of close to 1 billion isk taking into account the time to take down the Interbus co's, ammo, replacing 2 destroyed co's and getting ganked while killing the Interbus co's.

All in all, its a pretty terrible return on investment.

Two suggestions :

- Some method of judging your income before you take down a CO.
- Some method of attracting players to your planet.


And to the poster above, our 3 man corp takes down CO's in around an 90 mins with 3 x T3 battlecruisers with t2 blasters.

Are you speaking from experience or theorycrafting? Because everywhere I've looked, it was the pirates putting up the POCOs and defending them. The last POCO I anchored has already been reinforced twice, giving us 2b worth of kills from attackers. It's the best bait ship 100 mil can buy.

There's a risk your scenario will become true. But the only thing it takes to avoid it is a better ROI on POCOs. If they paid for themselves in a month, instead of three, more people would risk deploying and trying to defend them.

PS. You may want to check the link in my sig if sec status mechanics annoy you.

It is true that Tech 2 guns and carriers have better DPS than Tech 1 noob thingys. You do know that you can fix this with the skill queue and some time, right?

If POCOs were any more fragile than they are now, they would be constantly shot at for fun by bored pirates. Structures have to have enough HP to make them unfeasible to take down with just 1-2 pilots.

Yeah, the Interbus COs need to have their HP drastically reduced or just be outright removed by CCP. I mention them as my "something broken" much earlier in this thread. They were a solution for a problem which no longer exists (ensuring continued PI supply and market stability when POCOs were first introduced).

Even one jump from goonswarm's capital, there are still dozens of Interbus COs remaining unshot because of the sheer effort needed to POCO-ize a constellation.

Hmm, I do agree that it may be that Interbus thingies could be more fragile while player deployed POCOs could take bit more beating?