EVE General Discussion

hm... I think quite a few people posting here never actually held POCOs in high-sec.

I will give you some ideas on the income on HS POCOs, which I and my corp no longer owns any, but we have some old records that covers about 3 years of holding them.

Here is the income table link

This is POCO income records from patch day 1 of being able to put POCOs, and shows 13 POCOs my corp owned at one point or other. Most POCOs were put up on patch day 1, and we lost a bit more than half of these after 1~1.5 year has passed through war dec & us not being around to 'defend' them. We never bothered to fight to get them back again after we lost them, because we knew the numbers and we knew it wasn't worth it to fight to get them back again, and we never did any PI ourselves so we didnt' have incentives on that front either.

The rest of the POCOs we did not 'lose', which were maybe 3~4, NEVER got attacked until we sold them earlier this year.

These POCOs are from VERY quiet systems in HS, with local count usually less than 5 pre-alpha patch, and we had very low tax on them at 2%.

Basically, what you see is POCO income from very very back water systems in HS with extremely low tax rate and more than half of these got destroyed after a year/year and a half, yet we got in total about 3.3b accumulated tax income during 3 years we held them, without putting in any further effort since we placed them.

So in a nut shell, this is probably the absolute minimum POCO income you could expect from HS. There are 4 plenets here you see which definitely did not pay for itself (i.e. the total return through tax is lower than the cost of POCO structure), while some planets made over 300m+ (i.e. reasonable amount in return considering how passive they are).

It would be hard for you to make even less than the figures I've shown here, and if you hold any semi-decent POCOs in systems with avg. local count more than 5 and tax rate more than 2% you would be making hell of a lot more than the figures shown here.

We put down and held these POCOs as a 'community service', to make cheap tax available to the locals, and none of our corp members did any PI , so we did not benefit on that front either, yet we ended up making more than the cost of structures. And for the record, this was not even in the 4 major empire regions. It was from a very quiet system in what is already a very quiet region.

It's slow, but ROI is definitely there and it's totally passive. And as I said, more profitable POCOs got attacked and we weren't even around to defend, so the time we held them were probably only 12~18 months, in such a low population system with such low taxes.

So all the income shown here are based on holding POCOs 'uncontested' in systems probably 'not worth contesting', or systems that most corps would not even find worth visiting once.

Some of you are also over estimating 'difficulty' of taking over POCOs. We had a total fail op once where we stupidly tried to take over some POCOs in a low sec system, which we didn't know were associated with bigger entity, and in time it took this 'bigger entity' to organise a very simple hot drop on us to stop our op, we already re-inforced about 4 of their POCOs with very simple Oracles and Domi fleet. This was us (idiots and LS noobs) vs. an estalished LS entity with capability to hotdrop caps and BLOPs wherever they wanted. Yet we managed to re-enforce about 4 of their POCOs in time it took them to drop on us. If you do this vs. more casual HS corp, who may not even cover the whole TZ, I bet you can re-enforce a whole system of POCOs in a casual evening play session.

Also, if it was in HS, and the defenders cannot hot drop carriers & what not, it would take them much longer to formulate the response fleet & you would see them coming much easily by scouting the adjustment system gates & etc. which would make it trivial to warp out your oracle fleet in the first sign of defenders coming your way (you WILL see them easily because they cannot cyno into your system directly). Even in our total fail op in low sec all the oracles escaped, it's only the slow arse Domis who were too slow to react/afk to escape. Basically, HS POCO assault has almost zero risk if you scout the gates/adjacent systems.

With 10+ Oracles in fleet you can re-enforce a POCO extremely quickly. And as I've told you, our own POCOs we lost got taken out by another local corp composed of 3~5 pilots who we later saw running high sec missions and mining rocks. They were in no way regular pvp-ers or part of bigger groups. They just saw that our corp wasn't around much and took a chance to dec us and take our pocos in what were probably their usual missioning ships.

Sure, if you go up against bigger entity who keep monitoring all their structures and are willing (or even around) to defend their POCOs it could get more trickier to take them over. But POCOs are extremely easy to re-enforce with very cheap and insurable Attack Battle Cruisers, and they do pay for themselves even in really bad systems with stupidly low tax as shown here.

I can understand why some would like an 'option' to contest other POCOs through means other than using force, just because it is always nice to have multiple options. But from the POV of someone who actually owned them before, attacked them, and also lost them, re-enforcing a HS POCO is a really trivial task. Many HS corps are not big enough to cover all TZ anyway with PVP pilots. You can literally use your missioning Domi to take over POCOs belonging to such corps.

So well, tl;dr, yes - I can always appreciate 'an alternative option' facilitated by game design. It is nice. But POCOs are already very easy to ninja attack & re-enforce even for very casual players, and they provide totally passive income until anyone attack them, and generate profit even in extremely backwater systems as I've shown here.

Toobo, thanks for excellent, informed posts.

Your experience and analysis matches what I had understood to be the situation.

Imo, it further highlights that POCOs are a stupid implementation as they currently are.

Violence is the only direct means of competition, and due to them requiring no maintenance/upkeep of any sort, they invariably eventually become profitable either through passive income or when sold.

I still suggest they should require somekind of active, periodic upkeep, or they default to Interbus ownership.

The issue with POCOs as they are now implemented is that a corp can "own" a planet in hi-sec, and deny anyone else the use of it by disallowing any exports AT ALL from the POCO. How is this helpful to gameplay? If you are not in a position to start a war and take the POCO (or purchase it from the owners), you have ZERO options, as even the launchpad requires standing with the POCO-owning corp.
Imagine if you will, a corp taking every POCO in a system, and denying it to everyone but their alliance, IN HI-SEC. This is completely feasible. So, unless you turn to endless wars, you have no way to do PI.
For those that play "skill queue online", this removes one of the major ways to keep their hand in, and make a little cash while they are offline.
I know that if this trend continues, I will be rethinking my subscription, because while I have little time to mission or do PvP, I could always keep my hand in by doing a little PI, and make a few ISK, and then when I have some hours, go out and mine, or mission, or join a roam. Now even that is being destroyed. So why keep paying, when in effect, even hi-sec becomes another lo-sec?
It does seem to be true that the trolls always win in the end, and destroy civilization.

Uh, the launchpad is the only planetary structure that interacts with the POCO. It's the Command Center that can bypass the POCO. Nothing prevents CC launches, pointless waste of money that they are.

You absolutely have options:

-You can go to war and destroy the structure.
-You can hire mercs.
-You can try to join their corp.
-You can try to negotiate for access.
-You can use CC launches.
-You can **** off to a different planet.

Claiming you have zero options is objectively dishonest. Not liking your options is not the same thing as not having options.






Okay, I'm imagining it. What now? Is not being able to do efficient PI in a particular HI-SEC system supposed to offend one's sensibilities?

What do you imagine to be the significance of HI-SEC? The only thing that really means is that CONCORD will kill you for illegal aggression. It doesn't mean you can't take and hold resources. It doesn't mean you cannot conduct economic warfare. It does not mean you can't exert control over an area.

If anything, HI-SEC needs more of this. One of the more common complaints about wars is that they're often just an exercise in killmail farming, with no real objective to war over. In part, that's because there are very few sources of organic conflict drivers in hi-sec. There are no scarce resources, valuable ratting space, valuable moons, and so on. There's just, "You have some stuff, and I think it would be fun to break your stuff because reasons." Sure, maybe you get some loot out of it, but it doesn't have the same purpose behind it as, say, claiming a strategically valuable resource.



Sure you do. See above.



What trend would that be? Can... can you show us a chart of the trend?

I think we have established and tabled that POCO spam would be a bad thing.
-Yes it provides competition on rates, but since everyone could setup their own POCO, there is infact no competition.
-Yes more POCOs could involve more violent conflict to destroy them, but since anyone can set them up, it becomes an exercise in futility where it simply would not be worth the time/effort to destroy them.
-Numerous POCOs on a planet is hardly much of an incentive for a non-POCO owning PI characters to warp to them all to find out rates. Invariably there will be 1 or more POCOs with 0-1% tax, and the competition flatlines there.

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However, there remains the proposition of somekind of active upkeep/maintenance of the single POCO per planet.
Especially so that unattended POCOs default back to Interbus, rather than constantly passively sending isk to a potentially inactive corp in perpetuity.

-Its just wrong, in EVE, that a POCO requires no maintenance/upkeep, as weighed against passive income in perpetuity.
-The PI operators on any given planet, have to run maintenance/upkeep. Its irrational that the POCO owner does not have to do any.
-The defaulting to Interbus will encourage POCO ownership turnover/changes, as "use em or lose em".
-Although it is possible to reasonably ascertain whether a POCO is run by a corp that is active or actively interested in its defense, its complicated, uncertain, and largely dissuades POCO aggression.
-Default to Interbus makes POCO destruction much more streamlined, as well as opening up a market for communicating disowned POCOs to interested parties.

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Im not saying that POCO upkeep/maintenance should be expensive, or even require bringing materials to the POCO for its maintenance, especially as this would disrupt tax rate homeostasis and the PI market.

1) I propose that inorder to maintain ownership of a POCO, as against it defaulting to Interbus:
-It must be physically visited and accessed by a member of the owning Corp.
-Each visit/access by a member of the owning corp extends the POCO ownership contract by 30 days from the moment of that interaction.

2) I furthermore, tentatively, suggest that the funds accumulated by the POCO are only delivered to the corp wallet, when/if it is visited/accessed by a member of the owning corp.

3) Even more tentatively, I propose the accumulated profit stored in a player owned POCO, which has not been offloaded by a visiting/accessing owning corp member to the corp wallet, is distributed among the characters involved in the POCOs destruction.
If the POCO in question has defaulted to Interbus, due to lack of interaction/lapse of contract, the accumulated isk is lost, as appropriated by Interbus and NPC planetary authorities.

So no more eternal ownership with no interaction. No more automatic and immediate profit without interaction.
POCO profits and the PI market are unaffected. Mechanic of POCO destruction/replacement/sale remains as it was.
POCO destruction is encouraged by the latent, unknown potential accumulated isk profits in the player owned POCO as distributed among attackers after its destruction. Unattended POCOs default to NPC Interbus as aggressable without complications.

All you have to do, is physically visit and access your corps POCO, with a corp member, once every 30 days.
This will extend the POCO license by 30 days, as opposed to defaulting to Interbus, and deliver the POCOs accumulated profits to the corp wallet.

I think this is a fair, reasonable, equitable solution that follows the underlying ethos of EVE.

Are you deliberately trying to wind me up?

I expected there would be something like this in response, but the whiny entitlement in this is beyond the pale.

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1) " It creates excess work in what is suppose to be fun. For example, requiring interaction..."

This makes my head explode. You cant be serious. Im not even going to dignify this with a rebuttal.

2) "Having personally transferes 60+ POCOs, doing it once sucked. Doing it twice due to eat mechanics sucked more. Doing it once a month would turn something that was ok into a horrible chore that would burn anyone out. It isn't worth the trouble"

---A) The PI operators that pay tax to you for use of the POCO must physically visit the site many many times a month to pick up produce inorder to sell it/manufacture it for isk later on.
---B) To cover 60 planets, a PI operator needs 10 alts, extensive SP training, substantial isk investment in PI facilities on each planet, in addition to the above.
---C) You, however require ZERO SP, ZERO visits on site, and only 1 character, to cover 60 planets,whilst earning automatic and immediate profit from doing nothing..
---D) In my proposal, you dont need a hauler to transfer the POCOs accumulated isk to corp wallet and refresh the license for 30 days. You can do it in your pod, a shuttle or whatever ship you wish.
---E) As is already the case, a corp director or CEO is required to be on site to transfer ownership. As such, it is not unreasonable to require a corp member to visit the site once a month in order to refresh the POCO license against losing it to Interbus, and to add the POCOs accumulated isk profits to the corp wallet.

3) Wtf is this whining about having to visit a POCO once a month? Its your own problem if you have 60 (SIXTY) POCOs.
If you cant be bothered to visit 60, then have less POCOs, or delegate visting them to renew the license and cash out the stored isk to a corp member. Otherwise someone else will visit them once you lose them due to it defaulting to Interbus. Use em, or lose em.

4) Traders have to pay broker/tax costs (and invest SP to mitigate them) inorder to earn automated, immediate income on their buy and sell orders. Players destroying other players or NPCs receive bounty automatically, as a result of pro-actively destroying the bountied targets (in addition to SP investment inorder to achieve that, and isk investment in their ship+module). Station/citadel owning entities earn directly from player use of their facilities, but there is no restriction on number of citadels as there is with POCOs, and ownership of NS has incurred costs.

5) You, however, dont need to do ANYTHING except own the POCO, for control of the sole allowed expedient taxable transfer point for PI per planet, and immediate/automatic transfer of that revenue.

Im not gonna lie, Im genuinely enraged by your position.
Ive seen some really bad entitled whining here on this board, but this one easily takes the cake on that.

Your suggestion is valid, but very complicated.

Mine is far simpler.

All I am suggesting, is that inorder to continue ownership of the POCO, one/any corp member must visit it once every 30 days.

The incentive to do so is not just to renew the contract of ownership, but also to transfer the accumulated isk profits to the corp wallet.

The current nature of POCOs as passive income requiring no interaction by its owner, in perpetuity, is misaligned and anathema to EVE.

Ignore PI in HS and set up a small solo operation in a C1 WH. I was in a C1/LS on my own for a while basically just doing gas mining, booster/T3 production, and PI. Everyone hates to take down structures in C1's, given ship limitations so if you don't annoy anyone, it's safer than low or null, and you have access to the best PI in the game. At least twice/week (being conservative) you will have an exit to HS, even without a HS static.

The argumentative flaws/fallacies in that post are exemplary for what they are, but also self-defeating.

None of them require a response/rebuttal from me. They are flaws/fallacies, dignifying them is not required.

The argumentative equivalent of your post, is you and I discussing these issues on a rooftop, when you suddenly jump over the ledge, yelling nonsense as you fall, and smash all your own teeth and bones out on impact.

Nothing I can say in those seconds you have left before impact, in response to what you are yelling as you fall, changes the fact of your choice of argumentative suicide by fallacy (represented here by jumping off over the ledge) will result in you dying on impact.

Nothing I say can stop you, once you are falling, from hitting the ground, to your own detriment.

You chose to suicide your position, rather than argue it.
Im not going to argue with a dead man.

and yet you have no defined any clear reason for your suggested changes other than you personally don't like the current system. Coming from someone with links to CODE, arguing for a change because you don't like a mechanic as the only reason puts you on a very slippery slope.