Science & Industry

I like the idea of using scripts to adjust drop rates. Personally I dislike the sheer randomness of current salvaging, while it should be random to an extent, a player should be able to apply some 'strategy' to his salvage business beyond just ignoring the 'worthless' racial wrecks.

Consider introducing a 'modulated salvager' meta module to use the scripts that only drops in exploration sites. Maybe that should be where the scripts come from too. That should increase the value of those sites a bit.

Having some sites drop higher run BPC's could also incentivise them, as someone suggested.

I think that if an alchemy system were implemented then it should be balanced towards using huge numbers of the current junk parts to get the good stuff back. Use it to burn up the crap people have accumulated over the years and then rebalance it later on as the junk gets more scare.

I also like the idea of doing it through PI. More reasons to value planets!

1) Fix some of the imbalances on existing T2 rigs (such as the calibration points being too high compared to the T1 version), or rigs that just aren't worth using at all.

2) Adjust the drop rate for the current "junk" loot downward so that it is less prevalent. Do not increase the overall amount of salvage that drops.

Salvage needs to stay random and the different regions / rates need to keep variety in the drops. When a ship explodes, there should not be a way that a player affects what drops from the wreck. The issues currently is more of a supply/demand balance due to some stuff not dropping frequently enough in relation to other stuff.

I'm not a fan of alchemy, unless it pulls inputs from a different field (such as T1 modules or PI products) in combination with the salvaged materials.

I have to say that the move to push many things into the controlled manufacturing realm can be good, but it can also be negative.



I trade with Meta Gear regularly, which are based on the same essential principles, but a little more predictable (you get lasers from Blood Raiders and Amarrian ships, you get AC's from Minmatar and Angel Cartel, etc).


I like to think of it as a Fur Trade.


I buy on the market Meta equipment and then I ship it and sell it in another region. For example, Rens to me is a giant Fur Trade Hub. These hunters of mission rats go out and bring back the many furs of the animals that they kill and then skin. There tends to be some concentration in different regions of the materials, and so just like in the classic North American fur trade, the Fur Trade buys the Beaver skins for pennies and then ships them to Europe and sells them to the Aristocracy for a fortune.


The more you put in the hands of manufacturing the more you hurt the inter-regional traders to move materials between profit points. Healthy markets are based on surplus as much as on demand. I am not against this potential, but I am also making a point of it for the Meta manufacturing push I've heard CCP mention as of late.

Yes, I tend to make a pretty good cash flow off of this kind of trading, and I know other people do as well.


Also, I don't know how you can justify Salvage as being a mining activity. The randomness is valuable to the professions excitement and the professions allure. How can you tell me you will ALWAYS get armor plates from Amarr ships, and yet they are being consistently blown up in unpredictable ways? Hence salvage.

Using that as an example, let's say you get armor plates from Amarr and Blood Raiders - the irony of this, which you have to consider is... Most amarr ships get blown up in Minmatar space - so Minmatar and Amarr space will actually become the bigger part of Armor Plates' (in this example) supply. What should be taken into account is how are you really going to make it more reliable between the missions you get and the NPCs you kill? I think the loot tables should be fixed (whatever errors there are) - but making salvaging too predictable is making it more banal. Although mining is reliable, it's quite boring to many people. Salvaging, even for a PVPer has some excitement. I got a 40M ISK salvage item the other day from a T2 ship we blew up, so yay for me! and it was fun.


Lowest Common Denominator != EVE


Things need to be challenging and difficult. ISK and Skillpoints are NOT a challenge for EVE players, I'm sure you realize that - so it needs to be other things. Moving loot tables around to be more consistent with some NPCs can be positive - but PVE shouldn't feel or become a mining activity. We aren't hunting Beavers, in the end really. NPCs should not be treated like farmable animals in EVE specifically.

Good points in your post.

I think that salvaging would benefit from giving players a greater degree of control over things, but I agree that it should retain a random element.

If scripts were introduced then they should increase the chance of getting certain items, but not be a guarantee that you will get those items.

I think that all mini-professions need to give players greater opportunity to specialise and gain expertise. Simply having a choice of T1 or T2 module, a couple of implants maybe and just 1 skill to train presents a very simple experience. Find wreck, lock wreck, wait and see what appears. Take it all back home. Repeat. Where is the strategy?

From 0.0 perspective , should players be forced to import certain salvage parts from hi sec because local rats drops are limited ??

I think the scripted salvager idea is great. It fixes your market problem by leaving it up to supply and demand. Perhaps the T2 salvager should be the way to get T2 salvage from any wreck? Ie, if you train for and use it, you have a chance of getting t2 salvage but can't with a t1 version? Scripts still work the same - armorplate script increases chance for armor plates.

OK, then if I have skill to use X, allow me to carry just one crystal or script, and configure it in the field to perform bonus X - instead of needing to carry all those individual crystals and scripts. (Because scripts are not consumed and simply apply bonus x, they could be removed and replaced with rt-click UI to configure the module directly.)

Just gonna say that salvaging/arch/hacking already requires 3 skills; it shouldn't really require another dozen skills culminating in a 20m SP alt to fly a noctis.

Re: scripting, that works for regular salvaging but likely isn't going to do much for mag sites.

Has anyone mentioned how often mag sites actually have zero reward?

You go to all that trouble scanning down system's and when you finally find a mag site to do you find every single container in the site to contain nothing at all.

Adjust drops downward' this is soooo much a +1 it is almost a +2. The adjustments needs to bring the drop rate down to slightly under the current useage rate. This will slowly bring the stock piles of this 'thing' down. If the use of this component is changed, then it needs to be adjusted.

I like the idea of 'refine it down to its base materials then use BPCs to make rigs'. You of course have the initial madness as people hit the 'reprocess' button on their stack of 12,345,678 units of blah and dump it on the market, but after a while it will settle down.

Alchemy: Interesting, but the conversion rate from 'input' to 'output' needs to have a LARGE ratio behind it (inefficient), this will lessen the impact of the millions of units of worthless stuff being suddenly transmuted into useful stuff. By large, i would say a minimum of 7:1 to about 20:1. It will also keep down the stockpiles of the useless stuff which is always a good thing. Market would spasm, high value salvage would fall greatly but then adjust back up to under its initial value. Make it useful to control the excess stocks, but not enough to skew the market to much.

If you do go down this refine-manufacture route you may want to change the scrap metal parts from refining into minerals to whatever the reprocessed rigs become. Seems kind of a nice solution. Scrap sort of equals salvage in my book.

The idea of introducing scripts or crystals does not sit well with me. I personally HATE scripts as they are one more thing to buy and remember to add to my cargo hold. It makes sense, but i don't like it. Going out to salvage for a specific item is nice, but nullifies the racial drop concept (CCP you _are_ trying to make the racial differences stand out??).

In terms of quick things to do for the winter expansion:
1. adjust DOWN the drop rates of the 'crap' items to below current useage rates.
2. adjust the drop rate of T2 BPCs (already done, from an earlier post).
3. adjust copy times and invention times DOWN.
4. adjust T2 BPC successful runts UP.
5. adjust down some of the calibration points for rigs (we all know which ones).

Long term stuff:
1. salvage alchemy (not my choice) or salvage refining (my choice).
2. create T1 BPCs specifically for capital ships (this will be a good sink for some of the crap).
3. (there was something, but i forgot it. meh!).

Tedric.