Science & Industry

Good evening, forum dwellers! I looked through a few of the different sections of the forums and dev blogs, but I didn't quite find what I was looking for. Essentially, I've been gone for about two years, and while some things never change, many things apparently do! Some of this questions may be very obvious to those of you who have lived through it, and some may be easily answered by linking me to more information (which I would greatly appreciate!), but at the moment I'm still trying to get up to speed.

The big one first, obviously: Citadels! Or these "Structures", it appears that there are many flavors of them. I don't have much experience with Outposts, but these to me appear to be a type of station replacement with services and minor bonuses dependent on the variant of Structure, with more possible bonuses available via what are essentially rigs for the Structures. Is that about right? Is there an easy way to see which types of Structures have which bonuses, based on which "rigs" they have installed? I know you can see the base structures bonuses via market/etc, but I'm struggling to get all the numbers in one place to do a proper comparison. Any information or resources you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

What fees are associated with using someone else's structure? I know they're not letting me use it out of the kindness of their heart, so I'm assuming they can set some tax rate or fee for use of services. Is that about right? Where can I check what these values are for a given structure? Is there any danger of getting locked out of a Structure and my assets made irretrievable?

Also, it appears some POS structures have some modest (2%) material efficiency bonuses that I don't recall them having before. In light of the fact that jobs don't have slots/lines/queues/whatever anymore, and both POS and Citadel setups can offer at least modest bonuses, is there any real reason to manufacture or research anything in NPC stations anymore? The only advantage I can see at a glance is that your jobs in stations can't be interrupted or cancelled by wars (which isn't anything to scoff at, but is nothing from a pure efficiency standpoint).

And finally, a bit of an oddball question that I don't think I can test at the moment. I used to be a small-time T2 producer, rigs and modules, that sort of thing. As best I can tell Invention is more or less the same as it was before: BPC and datacore goes in, T2 BPC comes out, runs on T2 dependent on type of item, decrypter, and runs on the T1 BPC (max runs on T1 required for max runs on T2). Apparently, while I was out, the max runs for some sorts of items changed: it looks like I have a handful of T1 BPC with 300 runs while the new max is 40 runs. Am I correct in assuming that these will be considered as 40-run BPCs for the purposes of Invention?

I'm out of questions for the moment, but thank you for reading! Please feel free to point me at the relevant resources that I'm certain I overlooked, or even just give your thoughts on how things have changed.

An interesting change, thank you! Did Copy times change as well? I was looking at how long some of them were and was wondering how on earth I was going to keep enough BPCs in stock to keep the invention lines running. Since they only take 1 run per attempt now, it's a whole lot easier!

I don't think there is a single aspect of industry that hasn't been revamped or at least tweaked in the past 2 years. From belt and ore composition, ice anomalies, refining, outpost bonuses, invention, mining barges, mining boosting..... and finally these citadels and EC which I don't believe made shake anyone of us within our own bones since they're more of an isk sink rather than a real life changer for the industrialist. Unless you mean with life changer something that makes it worse in every aspect, then they are that.

It all started with Crius, or was it Odissey? Here's a bunch of devblogs. In the last one there is the link to all the other relevant ones right at the top. You're supposed to read them all.

Crius patch notes

EVE Industry

Invention

More stuff

Thank you all, the links to those particular dev blogs was very helpful!

I think I know all that I need to know for now, but I'm not one to turn down good advice and information either if you've something else to contribute.

As I see it, we have 3 basic choices for indy stuff - NPC station, POS or citadel. Each choice has advantages & disadvantages.

NPC stations are "safe" but will cost you more & your production times will generally be slower.

POS will require you to have a corp owning the POS & that will make you vulnerable to war decs. If you are simply doing BPO copying/research you can get away with a small tower & simply take it down if war dec'd.

From an indy perspective an Engineering Complex (EC) would be your best bet with citadels. They are much more expensive to build & run compared to a POS & will require some degree of specialisation using rigs. Many people have already put these up & generally they allow public access. Fees to use these facilities are generally quite reasonable (you have to shop around), so all you need to do is find one that suits your needs at the right price, rent an office (you will need a corp to do that) & go for it. Asset safety is a plus. Citadel bonuses improve if you have it placed in lo-sec & even better in null-sec, with risks increasing accordingly.

Your actual question is far too general to be answered quickly. I suggest that you read up a bit more (Eve Uni is a good start) & try & be a bit more specific.

Thanks. Wasn't after detailed advice, just a brief overview of how POS & citadels work, or link to same. Haven't really found one in the same way I have for other game concepts. But you've given me some of it, and which last night's research found a bit more of it.

Summary of my current knowledge & things I still need to resarch are:

NPC station: minimal hassle, guaranteed 10% tax. Seems ok place to start, can focus on working out which are better things to build, high volume low margin stuff won't be feasible due to tax.

POS: Viable to have my own, might need to take it down and lose in-progress jobs if I get wardecced, get 24hrs notice to get that done. Setup cost ? running cost ? Other benefits ? If things go badly wrong, everything in POS is lost. Will be phased out in next couple of years, citadels are the replacement.

My Astrahus: Also viable to have my own, maybe. But no practical way to defend it if wardecced? Setup cost is 1.1 bill for hull, plus ? for equipment. Running cost ? Other benefits (other players renting, tax on other jobs?). If things go badly wrong, all assets stored somewhere I can rescue them?

Someone else's Astrahus/Fortizar: Less tax, rate set by owners. Some rental cost, rate fixed or owner-set? Can I be banned from docking/have rental end? With how much notice? Can owner change the modules and get rid of the one letting me do research/invention/manufacture?

Once I get better idea, looks like biggest issue is monthly running costs vs monthly savings on tax, manufacturing time, etc. So the non-NPC options maybe not viable until skills are high enough to be running a lot of jobs, constantly. Or have extra people in small corp to spread cost.

Thank you!

(And I'm amazed you could follow that post, there was more than a little vodka involved)

Yup. When slots went away, remote research also went away. Now you have to have the blueprint in the same location as the job. Obviously if it's a BPO that means there's more at risk, which was the intention.

One other change is that the two remote industry skills (Supply chain management and Scientific Networking) now work across region boundaries. Only the number of jumps count. You can sit in Jita managing jobs in a facility two jump from Amarr with level 3 in the skill.