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I think this comment unfortunately summarizes the main problem with feature redesign in EVE. Too many of the devs don't actually play *all* parts of the game, yet still feel qualified to comment on whether proposed changes are good or bad. I'm rather skeptical about how these changes will affect the overall game dynamics - I suspect that insufficient thought has gone into the domino effects that are likely to occur.

I'm particularly looking forward to hearing more about the "Teams" feature. If it turns out to be as it sounds, then I think we'll be seeing a lot of unsubs this summer. A very large percentage of those 50,000 characters who do manufacturing every day are playing casual and solo.

I'm having a minor suspicion about teams. How they're actually in game resources to make stuff.

Mostly because of the icon at the top of the circle.
http://cdn1.eveonline.com/www/newssystem/media/65974/1/Industry_Window_VisualTarget2.png

I would also like to hear how you are going to fix T1 module manufacturing, which has been moribund for years.

You don't still expect new players to jump right into T2 module manufacturing or ship building, do you?

Exactly. Yes, I do want those BPOs in space. This is EVE. There should be risk. I am staggered that such an old player thinks the current situation is in any way acceptable.

T2 profits will crash with a better interface. Prices might not, depending on the slot fees, but profits will.

So in the DevBlog it's stated:

This creates some bottleneck gameplay, encouraging players to move around, use Starbases or just wait. We aren’t very satisfied with that, especially when we couple it with the ridiculously low NPC prices for installing jobs (that haven’t been changed since 2003).

Okay, we all see the bottleneck problem and most who've played the last couple of years realize that EVE has inflation issues, but this solution kills two entire sub-industries: BPO research for fee and BPC copying for fee. Wouldn't job cost scaling have done a better job of draining isk from the system without destroying established industrial ventures.

Slot removal does have another interesting consequence for Starbases; at the moment, most of the Starbases in high-security space use Mobile Laboratories to compensate for the lack of Material Efficiency Research slots in Empire space.

Remove the ability for players to use stations to safely store their blueprints without putting them at risk in Starbase structures. Players will still be able to start their jobs remotely (via the use of Supply Chain Management and Scientific Networking skills), but will now have to move their blueprints directly into the starbase structures that require it, like other materials.

Improve Mobile Laboratories and Assembly Arrays to compensate for such risk – we’ll give you final numbers as soon as we have them.

This is a major nerf to every industrialist that invested in mobile labs. Lets face it, typical modules BPOs have a low enough cost that who cares if it get popped in a wardec. But the BPOs that really benefit from mobile labs: capital components, capital ships or even battleships, I just don't see anyone placing these in a mobile lab for research. But then neither do you. As you said, "(we) do not expect very expensive blueprints (Battleship and above) to be risked in such a manner..." Seems like some very poor reasoning was put into this argument. Is this the secret POS plan, nerf them to irrelevance so no one will care when you delete them in Winter 2015?

In turn, this allows us to change ...

Allow Starbases to be anchored anywhere in high-security space and without standing requirements (minus some protected solar systems, like Jita or new player starting systems of course).

This is the death of several non-industry mini-professions:

mission runners who grind standings

alliance/corp creation services

corp standings boosters

high-sec POS removal services (they might have a slight uptick at first, but I seriously doubt it will last)

Additionally, this kills a major high point in many people's EVE career, the day you got you corp's standings high enough to plant your own POS without assistance -- the day you could say 'this moon is mine!' After this is implemented a day one noob will be able to plant a POS with Industrial Ship-1 and Anchoring-1. Not that they'll have a need for it as a POS won't be needed for indy after this goes live.

"So player corporations will now have the choice between the safety of NPC stations or the efficiency of Starbases to operate. The core goal is to motivate player entities to actually defend their Starbases if attacked or be reactive enough to take the blueprints out before they go into reinforced mode."

I don't get it, you basically contradict yourself CCP. You want to create conflict over inexpensive blueprints? I just don't see how you'll be able to force industrialists to defend inexpensive blueprints, we're analytical cost analysis types. Anyone with half a brain working in indy will just write off the expense and charge it to the customers, assuming they get caught with BPOs in a POS to begin with. And again, as you said, "(we) do not expect very expensive blueprints (Battleship and above) to be risked in such a manner..."

So where's the conflict driver, bash a POS for 24+ hours to get some useless labs and a few million in low value modules BPOs or BPCs. Sorry I'm not seeing it.

Indeed.

Don't want to make an invention profit? Compete with T2 BPO owners in weak markets for unused items that would yield little income even if T2 BPOs did not exist.

Want to make an invention profit? Work in strong markets where there is plenty of demand to go around and the price is set by inventors.

Want the advantages that T2 BPO owners have? Save up and buy one.

Don't want existing T2 BPO owners to have any advantages at all? Don't be so unreasonable.

Um... you mean that this point wasn't actually already on your list?

Hmm... supports the widely-held suspicion that the devs don't play in high-sec and don't spend time reading the non-PVP forums. This issue has been around for years and is always being brought up again and again.

As much as I'd like to support this change, I find it hard to understand how the dev team got this from the drawing board to implementation without any major hurdles. There are a number of inherent problems with this particular point (I am a huge supporter of the rest of the dev blog, including the reprocessing changes/swap to compressed ore etc).

First and foremost: The vast majority of major industrial operations are 1-3 man alt-corps. This change ENFORCES that because now you cannot lock down BPO's which can be worth ridiculous piles of isk with any level of security from corp thieves etc. And please don't start replying with "Use pos roles, setup your pos correctly etc". It takes almost no effort to get pos roles from a highsec corp and in many null/low you just have to be willing to help fuel them.

Secondly: You're adding yet another boring job to an already boring profession. Now we have to drag our bpo's from our station cans (audit cans now! more lag!) to the pos just to run a job and them drag them back again later when we pickup the produce.

Third: For major capital/supercapital operations you just changed the game (simplified it really). Now none of us will build at component arrays (effectively making them useless/worthless because nobody else uses them), we'll just spam out all the component at whatever station we work in... I see minmatar stations have unlimited manufacturing slots now... and we own them so we can set the prices. All we have to do is cart components from station to the CSAA (for a super) and start the job with a bpc?

Titan prints going up. Super prints staying the same because nobody builds supers from BPO's anyway. I hope Titan copy times come down to something reasonable (lol 4 months).


A simple alternative would've been to have the game consider the bpo to be "at the pos" when it's in use in production/research, so if the lab/array is destroyed it has a chance of dropping there or is otherwise destroyed. But remains "locked" in the station for safety at all other times. Probably easier to code too.

How much is it going to cost to make 10 copies in a station with over used lab services?