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Here's the main point where this line of reasoning breaks down. You're assuming that present-day demand will be maintained. An increase in the build requirements and cost of fuel blocks will cause demand to go down. Folks won't soldier on with their current POS inventory when prices go up; they'll scuttle POS instead.

There's no extinction-level scenario here.

I've never said there was an extinction-level scenario, except possibly for hisec-based ice miners (and if you think that I'm wrong on that then please show me some numbers that support your case).

On the other hand, don't pretend that there won't be effects from people scuttling their POSes felt throughout the rest of the economy. Here's a brief list, just off the top of my head, of things POSes do that affect the wider economy:

• Mining Moongoo
• Reacting Moongoo for Tech 2 production
• Moongoo alchemy for Tech 2 production
• Composite reactions for Tech 3 production
• Gas reactions for Booster production
• Research/Invention/Copy jobs in Empire space without NPC taxes/in low cost multiplier systems
• Manufacturing jobs in Empire space without NPC taxes/in low multiplier systems
• Compressing ore for transport
• Reprocessing ore in Empire space without NPC taxes/with higher yield than NPC stations

In all of those cases, the POS operators are running them for financial gain and will stop using them if they're no longer cost effective, meaning that supply drops for whatever they were providing and thus prices increase, or they'll keep running them and pass on their increased costs to their customers and thus prices increase. Here's what that will mean, again in list form:

• Reduced supply/higher production price for all Tech 2 ingredients - Tech 2 gets more expensive
• Reduced supply/higher production price for all Tech 3 ingredients - Tech 3 gets more expensive
• Reduced supply/higher production price for all Boosters - Boosters get more expensive
• All blueprint-related jobs in Empire get more expensive - everything involving blueprint research (including invention jobs for T2 BPCs and Reverse Engineering for T3 BPCs) gets more expensive, thus the items they build will get more expensive.
• Manufacturing in Empire space gets more expensive - everything that isn't already manufactured in NPC stations will get more expensive
• There'll be a lot less compressed ore produced in hisec for export to nullsec
• Refining in Empire space will yield less minerals - things made mostly from minerals (IE tech 1 ships/modules) will get more expensive

I'm not claiming that any of that is "extinction-level". These are all costs that New Eden as a whole can weather, some capsuleers better than others. But I'd like to refer you back to the end of my previous post; all of these consequences are going to follow on from a change whose purpose is meant to simply be "preserving demand for Strontium in the absence of RF'd POS consumption". I would like to know whether or not these Cluster-wide effects are actually intended consequences of that change or not.

This is an arbitrary change that will effect everyone but nullsec players negatively, this seems to me to be somewhat unbalanced. I do not believe that I should mine everything I use ( I don't, I use buy orders), or that there's any such thing as The Wrong People. However if nullsec needs a shot in the arm why should it come at the expense of every other area, and if some players do see the gradual diversion of more and more ISK to nullsec as a problem why is this any less valid than your opinion on certain hisec activities being worth 'too much'?

All players pay the same sub to play the game, all players should have the same ability to earn isk in whichever area they choose whether it be from increased effort in less dangerous space or by increased risk (and less time) in lower sec space.

Applying the current suggestion for stront in ice is basically a tax on all areas of space other than null, and feeding the ISK from that tax into nullsec alliances where ice mining is relatively safe behind the blue border systems that provide practically perfect intel if used correctly.

If I remember correctly one of the stated goals with structures was that everyone who wanted one could use one. Sure that will be the case if you have a citadel running no services but what's the point in that compared to the current POS's where a dedicated and organized group in any space can fuel their shared large space asset through effort alone (mining ops and such). Now they will not be able to in hisec, and likely unable to in losec, and extremely unlikely to in WH's.

This will put hisec small groups, and probably even medium groups off having a structure and that is completely against the stated goal of making the structures accessible (for a viable use that is).

If all areas of space had the same isk making potential, what would be the point of leaving highsec? The game should place greater rewards on those who choose to venture into riskier space, like nullsec. This sentiment is a thinly-veiled desire for highsec to be as good or better at making money than than other spaces.

If you feel that nullsec is too safe, you are free to go out there and make it less so by your actions.

Like I've stated earlier, WH dwellers now have shattered WH connections available through which to mine ice.

And, yes, I don't see the buttressing of nullsec's ability to make money to be a problem -- it's dead last in individual isk-making potential, and is getting nerfed in the capital rebalance significantly.

Also, way to misinterpret the meaning behind "everyone who wanted one could use one." That meant that you could deploy them in the individual scale, rather than needing corp roles. It didn't mean "users would be guaranteed the inviolate right to a perfect distribution of ice to mine in their home." Eve is a multiplayer game -- consider taking advantage of the multiplayer environment and participating in the market.

Hi CCP Ytterbium, I'm hoping you'll be willing to go into a bit more detail on the fuel block changes. I've already posted a google sheet with my own analysis (which I'll repost: here) but the highlights are these:

First off, this is going to completely gut the ability for hisec to produce fuelblocks - with perfect skills/implant and a POS array, each hisec anomaly only produces about 1,900 Stront. Even with a maxed out Keepstar citadel, that only goes up to 2,170. That's enough for a grand total of nearly 11 runs of fuel blocks, per anomaly. Present day production caps at 436 runs per anomaly, so that's a drop of over 97% production.

Second, it doesn't exactly do good things to nullsec production either - the maximum fuel block runs per anomaly will drop from over 3000 to under 350 for truesec above -0.5 or under 800 for truesec below -0.5. That's a reduction of more than 88% for 0.0 to -0.5 or more than 78% for -0.5 and lower.

Third, it's going to gut the value of most types of ice, especially the only varieties available in hisec. The only way to increase ice production is to completely mine out anomalies, causing them to respawn after 4 hours. That means that all the production for isotopes, heavy water and liquid ozone is going to continue as it was before this change, just that 90% of it will be useless because there won't be enough Stront to turn it into fuel. Over-production will flood the market making prices for everything except Stront and Fuel Blocks themselves plummet. Hisec ice mining will drop from a max of 30-40 mil ISK/hr to maybe 3-4mil, and that's assuming that fuel blocks quadruple in value. I don't know what nullsec will cap out at, but they already find it hard to effectively utilize their ice because it pays less than alternatives like ore mining or ratting.

Fourth, the price of fuel blocks is going to rise dramatically - most fuel ingredients were produced in hisec, which will no longer be possible, and most of Null isn't interested in large-scale ice mining unless the price rises above ore mining or ratting. That will only happen if the value of ice products rises, which only happens if the price of fuel blocks rises. Which it will do, because until nullsec does go all-in on ice mining there's going to be a distinct lack of supply for fuel blocks. I'm honestly not even sure if 100% utilization of null ice would allow it to produce enough fuel to meet present day demand for moon mining/reaction/manufacturing POSes, let alone increased demand from Citadel construction/operation.

All of which brings me to this: The stated reasoning for this change is simply to preserve existing demand for Strontium in an era where it's no longer being consumed by reinforced POSes, not to turn it into Technetium 2.0 or completely re-shuffle the economics of ice production. Given that, are all of these follow-on effects of specifically going for 200 Stront/40 Fuel Blocks intended consequences?

Structure skills and the component changes are listed to be introduced for March. Disregard our previous reply, we will also have the fuel block changes in March to see how consumption evolves before Citadel release so we can quickly iterate on it should we need to.

Stuff

I had a look at your excel sheet and arguments, then built my own to double-check everything. I also discussed your points with the team and various designers to get a fresh perspective.

We first envisioned this change to increase Strontium consumption on the 5th fuel block type we were going to introduce for Citadels, since they were not going to require Strontium separately during their reinforcement time. However, we now removed the 5th fuel block type, which creates a cost repercussion on operating Starbases. While our data shows stockpiled fuel blocks and Strontium will be high enough to meet the demand for quite a while, you have strong arguments.

My math concludes that before the change, one high-sec ice site could roughly supply 15k fuel blocks which is 375 hours for the most fuel intensive service module, the Market at 40 blocks per hour (which also is the fuel for a Large Control Tower). Adding 200 units of Strontium will decrease that to 362 fuel blocks approximately, or 9 hours of Market consumption.

We do not want high-sec to be totally autonomous in that particular regard, but numbers don't lie and that is far too much extreme here. We planned to add more Strontium from the sites to compensate for this change, but we will most likely not have time to do so for March.

As such, we will reduce the required Strontium to 20 to manufacturing a batch of 40 fuel blocks for now. That means 3620 fuel blocks created from one high-sec ice site, or 90 hours for the Market service module, which is a much more comfortable number and still is a 4x fuel block reduction from the old number.

Be aware however that we will progressively increase demand on Strontium Clathrates as time passes and Starbases become less and less used to maintain its role within the economy. However that should make the change much less frustrating in the short term and allow everyone to adapt more easily while we monitor the change.


Hope that helps!

I had a look at your excel sheet and arguments, then built my own to double-check everything. I also discussed your points with the team and various designers to get a fresh perspective.

We first envisioned this change to increase Strontium consumption on the 5th fuel block type we were going to introduce for Citadels, since they were not going to require Strontium separately during their reinforcement time. However, we now removed the 5th fuel block type, which creates a cost repercussion on operating Starbases. While our data shows stockpiled fuel blocks and Strontium will be high enough to meet the demand for quite a while, you have strong arguments.

My math concludes that before the change, one high-sec ice site could roughly supply 15k fuel blocks which is 375 hours for the most fuel intensive service module, the Market at 40 blocks per hour (which also is the fuel for a Large Control Tower). Adding 200 units of Strontium will decrease that to 362 fuel blocks approximately, or 9 hours of Market consumption.

We do not want high-sec to be totally autonomous in that particular regard, but numbers don't lie and that is far too much extreme here. We planned to add more Strontium from the sites to compensate for this change, but we will most likely not have time to do so for March.

As such, we will reduce the required Strontium to 20 to manufacturing a batch of 40 fuel blocks for now. That means 3620 fuel blocks created from one high-sec ice site, or 90 hours for the Market service module, which is a much more comfortable number and still is a 4x fuel block reduction from the old number.

Be aware however that we will progressively increase demand on Strontium Clathrates as time passes and Starbases become less and less used to maintain its role within the economy. However that should make the change much less frustrating in the short term and allow everyone to adapt more easily while we monitor the change.


Hope that helps!