Science & Industry

I think there's a lot of people who do. Unfortunately, none of them work at CCP...

Same here, its not even worth the time any longer

I like my billions keep out the average player

I totally agree that the the PI interface needs to be completely redone before anything else. However, there is a lot of grumbling that easier PI would drive down the profitability. I believe that this is also true. The point that I've been trying to make is that poor game mechanics should not be the driving factor in the value of PI products. By adding an entire career path of skills and structures to master, we can make PI scalable for the players who truly wish to take that path. The players who only run PI casually will need to put a little more investment into their "passive income", but will be rewarded with less clicking in order to do it.

Something else I just noticed: When you "STOP PROGRAM" on an ECU, it forgets which material program it was running. It's very annoying to go back into the ECU and have no idea what was going on. Sometimes it's easy to remember, but sometimes not so much. This is an easy fix that could be taken care of in the next patch. If only someone from CCP was paying attention...

A lot of great ideas, thanks for creating the thread.

Aside from expanded/improved PI gameplay I would not mind seeing PI incorporated into the notification system. "Options" (meaning I can turn it on/off) for being notified when ECU stop extracting and Custom Office events like owner & tax changes or its under siege would be useful from the planets I operate on.

WTB the CO window not closing randomly when Transfer is clicked, the bloody 'Still processing, please wait less than a second' popup heading for an early bath and a (more) resizable CO window.

Cash waiting.

This. I don't see any way CCP is going to make it easier to make passive income.

If CCP did improve PI quality of life, it likely means the price would drop to the point it's not worth doing.

from my viewpoint and experience with base management games i feel PI is a bit lacking in terms of base building. i mean, we use a third party structure for it (POCOs) to access our exports and we get the view of a whole planet just for adding a bunch of structures that are never seen or dont seem to have any kind of coverance regarding the planet.

i thing the main fantasy of being a "Planetary Manager" cannot be made unless there's a tie between sovereignty mechanics and planetary mechanics. i mean, planet management would have more sense in a game like this if planets were actually taken in account for territorial purposes.

for example, instead of instancing planetart colonies for players, we could have a complete mechanic of shown the planet as a 2D map for players which the territorial borders put by each colony on it, there could be a complete RTS minigame there that would define things like player to player trade or warfare, not only just putting a command center and start linking some industrial structures, instead building a fully working colony on the planet, which is managed by a player and by extension a corporation and then an alliance.

planets on NPC space wouldnt be contestable but would be for public use by players, of course, POCOs would still exist with the consequently pvp control around them and taxing, POCOs would pass from being glorified containers to a complete fleshed out structure that allows for more planetary related stuff like setting commodity trade on the planet, resource interchange between players and permits for raiding or taking over other player colonies.

now, regarding to colony to colony combat, this would also be supported by being able to make planetary bombardments from space using the old planetart bombardment ammo that was related to DUST514, the ammo could be used each cycle to bombard the target colony's structures or transport links in order to sever the connections or completely destroy the structures in order to leave open space for taking.

how this extends onto solar system sov? well, for example, in FW each planet would count for the system control, pilots could help to bombard the other faction's planetary infrastructure in order to put their own until they have a 100% control of the planets in a system, not counting non aligned industrialists that would be safe of invading for all purposes, however, they would have to pay a permit in order to mantain protection from the faction owning the system.

in Nullsec the thing is the same, instead of being based around the TCU there could be systems where several factions would be claiming colonies for them. it could be a 3v3 or a free for all wreckage for planetary control, which would ensure isk expenditures on structure defense, repairs, and mantainance, eventually with enough man power a faction would be able to take control of all the planets in a system which would then mean sovereignty over that system (of course counting the existing structures in space for this).

as for Wormhole space, im not really sure how it would workout, specially because Anoiki arent meant to be territories controlled by player's i think, they seem more of a wild expanse. however, since there are already alliances living in wormhole space, i think it makes sense that they can hold sovereignty over a wormhole by sake of planetary control over the system, they may not have sov structures but the resources to keep complete control over all the planets in their systems.

and of course there could be audacious people making raids to steal stuff from them.

its not like im suggesting planetary landing and base building. it would certainly be more complicated than the hacking/minesweeping game that they added for exploration.

some of the old structures would be present, you still need a launchpad to send your commodities to the POCO. however, i was thinking on extra modules and mechanics in order to make the colony building more organic:

1. the command center is the basic and most important structure on a colony, if your command center gets destroyed your colony is lost basically.

2. command centers serve as the basic energy and computation nexus in a colony, however, there are new ways to expand the powergrid, energy plants are a new structure that extends the avaliable powergrid for structures at a cost of CPU on the command center, depending on the planet there could be different energy sources.

3. a datacenter is the contrary of the energy plant, its an structure that increases the CPU grid of the colony at the cost of powergrid, i dont know the aplications but it could serve as "mini command centers" that could be used to extend the connections of a colony.

4. most resources would be avaliable on the same place for players, i mean, instead of having to manage extractor heads and links you could have one or two extraction stations for each resource you need, the location would mean you have less or more of a certain resource when building there. people would be fighting for the best spots, and all resources would deplete overtime to a minimum amount that would replenish after a time. the idea is to capitalize on the missing space by allowing several resources to be located on the same territory. you know, like in a real base management game.

5. habitational complexes are a new structure that adds a new resource to colonies, Workforce, while the world of eve has several automated systems there's still a need for manpower so having colonists on the complex could give a bonus to extraction or manufacturing speed. along with offense and defense power for the colony.

6. defensive upgrades are a new type of component that can be added to planetary structures, players can invest isk into adding armor layering to structures in order to defend them from EM and Thermal weaponry, shield generators create a protection field around structures that protect them from Kinetic and Explosive weapons. you can install both on a structure but each upgrade has a powergrid or CPU cost (dont know how that works, bust still, its for gameplay purposes).

7. offensive structures are things like barracks, which are used to train military, bunkers which you know, house military for local defense. turrets for detection and larger defense, AI defense complexes deploy planetary drones that help for offense, defense or support operations.

8. the trade port is a new planetary structure that allows players to set trading orders on their colonies and on POCOs, players in space can buy or sell commodities to and from planets and bring/take the commodities from the custom office's storage. trade ports also manage trading routes, a new type of link that can be done between players for interchanging resources after setting a trading agreement at the POCO.

9. raids are a type of offensive permit given to players that is paid at the POCO with consent from the owning faction, a raid consists on a military intervention over time on a target colony in order to steal some resources and manufactured commodities from the targeted structures.

10. evictions are an offensive permit given to players at the POCO, they are more expensive but allow a player to attack another colony, extended evictions allow a player to destroy other colonies for freeing space or for potential future expansion of their own colonial territory.

i dont know what else is missing for this new system