EVE General Discussion

Nope, cos then I would never post.

I tend to favor another line of thinking: It's not that the New Eden Cluster, (Doesn't really qualify as a Galaxy either, so I find Cluster more appropriate), is too big, but that we don't have enough pilots to properly fill it, and if we did, there isn't enough reason to utilize a number of its systems, and if there was, space would be full.

I don't mind empty areas of space, but I think we have too many of them, in High, Low, and Null. I'm not sure why certain areas of Null are viewed as useless, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's that the resources there are not considered valuable enough to bother traveling and managing logistics for anymore. Obviously, they were once.

This is one reason why player Industry needs to be dealt with. A primary factor in players not utilizing resources away from NPC stations which provide quality refining services and storage is the inability for players to provide quality refining and other services of their own. Logistics is also part of the problem, as much for the extent it is required to use NPC services rather than player services, as for the distance and difficulty of managing it for that purpose.

Who wants to use a player station or POS when it decreases your profitability such a great deal, while also still requiring similar logistics to what is required to manage those services at an NPC station, and the addition of the costs of upkeep and maintenance?

It is far from competitive, when other players have much lower costs and requirements elsewhere, and it requires--sometimes--a huge initial investment, and long term upkeep. It provides little or no incentive to use it.

Player facilities and services should be no less effective than NPC services. A Lone Rorqual might suffer a penalty, as might a POS utilizing a sub-par refinery, or even a Large POS using the best available refinery, but a Player Station, (Starbase), should suffer no such penalty, while also not incurring NPC associated costs. They also shouldn't fail to take advantage of player skills in operation, which benefit the use of NPC services.

Assume Max Refining for an NPC is 95%, taking into account there fees. The Starbase, with upgraded facilities should get 98-100%, A POS should provide, (depending on facilities used), from 80-95%, and a Rorqual should kick in around 75-85% with all player skills applied and accounted for.

Rough numbers of course, and I can't recall the actual cap on NPC refining atm. The idea, is that the player services should come close to, equal, or exceed any NPC provided services depending on the level of investment required to provide those services. Using refining for an example, but this also includes copying, manufacturing, etc...

Not the only thing that needs to be changed as mining and resource harvesting itself suffers from some imbalance, but providing players with better tools would help significantly with Industry in places that have less access to NPC services, and besides, players should be able to manage most or all services themselves, provided they can provide the required infrastructure for it, and that's the key.

This also means more Manufacturing, Research, Copy, and Invention Slots on Star Bases. POS' suffering from limited capacity is one thing, (as they are currently), but a massive investment such as a Star Base provided limited services is a bit absurd.

Of course, I've never used one, and I am basing the presumption of a production and research line shortage, on posts I remember from ~2 years ago made by players who had access to and used those facilities.

tl;dr: fix industry and people will use more of what is available. I can't imagine all those systems nobody ever visits, (or almost nobody anyway), are completely lacking resources even if they are lacking complexes, anomalies, and the like.