EVE General Discussion

Hot damn, sometimes I can't tell I'm not on IGS.

The complaints are from people who want industry to be something they fight for and defend in low/null sec, and have it worth doing in those places enough to fight for it. It currently is not that way, as it is impossible to compete with hisec.

There's absolutely no reason why this shouldn't happen if CCP makes a few minor changes in nullsec in addition.

This argument is a bit flawed. Its a good one, I admit, but the premise is based on the idea that industry in eve is like industry in the real world. It is not. Why? One reason. Scarcity. There is no scarcity in eve. There are always belts to mine, there are always rats to kill, there are always complexes to run, there is no scarcity in eve, anyone who wants resources can go out and get them. In the real world, there are like 3 places on earth to get some of the materials needed in a lot of consumer electronics. Oil is not everywhere. You cannot go into your backyard and get an infinite amount of steel.

Because eve lacks scarcity, it means that the environment simply pumps an infinite amount of resources into the world, for anyone to have. Because of this, there is absolutely zero reason to ever need to try and acquire those resources in dangerous space. The implications of that are subtle but important: Currently, when people gank miners, its for fun, its for the killmail. Its not to deny them resources, because they have infinite resources. When there is infinite tritanium in highsec, no one will ever fight for tritanium. It simply is not important. Yes it shifts and flows around the market, but would there ever be outright shortages? Only when miners couldn't mine fast enough, and when that happens, people who don't normally mine just pick up the slack since the cost has gone up.

Resources should not be free. They should require an expenditure of effort, and in eve terms, that equates to risk. This is a game. There has to be risk. If there is no chance of losing, then what's the point?

In the end, its not about stability, its not about making a system that maximizes profit like in the real world, because the eve system needs conflict. Will it be harder for you? Yes. Will you be able to make as much isk as easily as before? No. But that is a good thing. It creates some scarcity. It means there are things to fight over. Reasons to hate your enemies. Eve is driven by this. If everyone just hugged and got along and was blued up completely, the game would die in a few months.

So why would doing things like increasing sales taxes "break the game completely"?

And how high, would you say, would these taxes have to go to "break the game completely", then?

I have my lil manufacturing arm, on my 2nd account and I'm enjoying it so far, I'll be moving out my production to lowsec with the changes, it won't impact me much, though logistically getting the products to the hubs should be a fair bit more exciting than it is now.

Obviously, it would be a degree that would break the game completely. So, let's go from there.

50% tax?

Well yeah...I can lose officer-fit Machs, Cyns and Drams all day, they're just pvp toys. But when you go screwing with my secure isk trickle in highsec, now you're hurting my means to get said toys.

Anything above 50% is completely untenable, to make an extreme case.

In a more realistic scenario...

Let's take the cost to manufacture in a station in hisec: 1000 ISK installation cost plus 333 ISK per hour usage cost. Depending on what I'm manufacturing, that is either a minor or a major tax -- for low profit-margin items, like ammo, the costs to manufacture in-station make that an unattractive option. Market transaction taxes have some of the same effect. Even if I have perfect skills, the cost to manufacture in an NPC station are often not worth it. Raising those costs would drive more manufacturers out of the trade entirely rather than driving them to lowsec or null, because the costs involved in going to lowsec or null stay very high compared to highsec. Many industrialists would likely just take up some other trade like missioning.

In general, I'd say that tax rates above 20% would probably cause more problems than they solve (in game as in real life). The problem with CCP's taxation move is that everyone understands it to be punitive -- it's simply meant as an ISK sink. In RL, taxes result in public services or other public benefits, but in New Eden, they are simply a net hit to your bottom line with no countervailing benefit (unless you pretend that they go to pay for CONCORD, the navies, station personnel, etc.; but the game doesn't really promote this).

If CCP taxes manufacturing in NPC stations, that means either that too much manufacturing is being done in NPC stations or that the manufacturing is too profitable. If that's the case, there are other ways besides taxation to provide better ISK sinks. Maybe make it easier to set up highsec manufacturing POS stations (reduce standing requirements, reduce fuel requirements, something like that). Or simply fiddle with the mineral requirements of certain blueprints to require a different mix of minerals. (That's the route I'd go, but it's a complicated task and would have a lot of ripple effects in the economy.)

I still want my Dildo Phobos back.