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Dev blog: Researching, the Future

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CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#161 - 2014-04-28 17:55:37 UTC
ElectronHerd Askulf wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:


On the assumption that demand is somewhat elastic based on product cost, I'm not immediately aware of any T2 item where the balance between invention and BPO output is close enough that this will actually matter in practice. If you've got specific examples, please let me know and I'll look at the numbers :)


As Weaselior pointed out, it's really not that elastic. There are a number of t2 ships that are generally not sufficiently profitable to make sense inventing - Mastadon, Claymore, Claw are easy examples in the minmy line.

There are others that are sometimes profitable that I'd be concerned about the extra volume coming into the market - Broadsword, Huginn, Munnin for example. These are sometimes inventable for competitive profits, but it's rare enough and passes quickly enough that if I'm not ready to invent, I'll miss my window and wind up with a print waiting for another 6 months.



Right, Mastadon, Claymore, Claw etc are BPO-dominated, so in practice all this means is more throughput and (presumably) cheaper prices.

Huginn and Muninn are in the area of concern, where we might end up warping the market a little.

Broadsword's not a concern because it was released in Trinity (winter 2007) and to the best of my knowledge we stopped putting new ship BPOs into the lottery in Revelations 1 (winter 2006). If that market's uncompetitive, it's because of your fellow inventors, not BPO owners :)

Weaselior wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

Yeah, this is true, due to the way the math concertinas up and down.

It's actually not a rounding issue, it will always be worse unless it is rounded to the same (and I don't think that will happen except in cases where the amounts are tiny). But does this mean that we should assume that ME1 will be converted to ME6% (so it's the same or better as before) rather than ME5%?


Sorry yeah, "concertina" is a very imprecise term :) I mean the whole "up 11, down 10" aspect of percentages. I'll have another think about the translation in this light tomorrow.
Seith Kali
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#162 - 2014-04-28 17:55:50 UTC
Myxx wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

"Have to" why? ME 6 translates to ~8.6%, which we're rounding up to 9% in the new system. What else has changed that suddenly makes researching further necessary?

I think I hear DUST calling for your help.

Being serious now, tl;dr:

Old system made sense in that the scale was a curve in regards to how much further research was worth.

New system is flat and each level is worth pretty much the same before it (in effect). You are actually simply adding waste to things that were pretty much done being researched.

Ie, .1% waste under current becomes 1%. Its annoying and more than a little ****** on your end.

All I'm really saying is that I think you had another really bad idea and should've left well enough alone.



What is wrong with waste if everybody has waste?

Apprentice Goonswarm Economic Warfare Consultant - Drowning in entitlement and privilege. 
Zakarumit CZ
Zakarum Industries
Forgers United
#163 - 2014-04-28 17:56:17 UTC
Bad Bobby wrote:
Seith Kali wrote:
The real way to handle these isn't to get rid rather reduce their impact. If one t2 bpo can produce 1000 of a particular module a week, but 100,000 are traded a week, it affects for 1% of the volume and you can largely forget about it. The issue is if a bpo can produce 10, 20 or even 50% of the volume of an item and there are literally hundreds of examples where this is the case. Capping TE on T2 BPO's would be a good start, but wouldn't even begin to get to the point where it is worth inventing a lot of things.

It would be far better to improve all the unpopular T2 products, so that people actually use them all in reasonable volume. That way there would be sufficient space for the T2 BPO owners and a reasonable number of inventors in every market.

This seems to be the approach that has been taken by the balance team, so if we give them some time the "problem" will get solved.

This will not stop people hating on eachother out of ignorance, prejudice and envy. But those issues are somewhat out of scope.


Exactly.
CCP should search for items where T2 BPOs dominate market and rebalance the items, so people actually use them. No need to touch prints at all.
Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#164 - 2014-04-28 17:57:16 UTC
Myxx wrote:

Ie, .1% waste under current becomes 1%. Its annoying and more than a little ****** on your end.

0.1% waste becomes 0% waste, not 1%

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.
Seith Kali
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#165 - 2014-04-28 17:58:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Seith Kali
Zakarumit CZ wrote:
Bad Bobby wrote:
Seith Kali wrote:
The real way to handle these isn't to get rid rather reduce their impact. If one t2 bpo can produce 1000 of a particular module a week, but 100,000 are traded a week, it affects for 1% of the volume and you can largely forget about it. The issue is if a bpo can produce 10, 20 or even 50% of the volume of an item and there are literally hundreds of examples where this is the case. Capping TE on T2 BPO's would be a good start, but wouldn't even begin to get to the point where it is worth inventing a lot of things.

It would be far better to improve all the unpopular T2 products, so that people actually use them all in reasonable volume. That way there would be sufficient space for the T2 BPO owners and a reasonable number of inventors in every market.

This seems to be the approach that has been taken by the balance team, so if we give them some time the "problem" will get solved.

This will not stop people hating on eachother out of ignorance, prejudice and envy. But those issues are somewhat out of scope.


Exactly.
CCP should search for items where T2 BPOs dominate market and rebalance the items, so people actually use them. No need to touch prints at all.



That is ridiculous. The same number of ships will continue to need the same number of modules, moving around which ones will only happen at the expense of others.

How many T2 BPOs do you have exactly?

Apprentice Goonswarm Economic Warfare Consultant - Drowning in entitlement and privilege. 
CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#166 - 2014-04-28 18:01:16 UTC
Myxx wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

"Have to" why? ME 6 translates to ~8.6%, which we're rounding up to 9% in the new system. What else has changed that suddenly makes researching further necessary?

I think I hear DUST calling for your help.

Being serious now, tl;dr:

Old system made sense in that the scale was a curve in regards to how much further research was worth.

New system is flat and each level is worth pretty much the same before it (in effect). You are actually simply adding waste to things that were pretty much done being researched.

Ie, .1% waste under current becomes 1%. Its annoying and more than a little ****** on your end.

All I'm really saying is that I think you had another really bad idea and should've left well enough alone.


Still don't follow. Both the old and new systems have a research time:research benefit curve, it's just that the old one stepped on time while the new one steps on benefit.

We're not adding waste to anything, as far as I can see, beyond the slight up/down discrepancy Weaselior pointed out. I don't understand what you mean about .1% waste becoming 1%.

Weaselior wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:

In 1), this is only true if the market size is absolutely fixed, which seems implausible.

I disagree, but you can have your economist test it: with the nerf to tech and the subsequent rise of the r64s, we saw a period of change in how valuable ships were, and I expect that the current settled price is different from the pre-tech settled price (and that prices are now stable and can be compared to previous stable prices). I suspect that you'll see that as price changed, use changed very little (if at all) for t2 items, and that almost all change in the rate of use of t2 items can be explained by subscriber growth and rebalances that affect those items/ships (even if only indirectly, like the cynabal being buffed affects sales of vagabonds even when the vagabond itself is not touched).

The thing is, fixing this is pretty easy: any t2 bpo holder has science V, just tweak their copy times so that a science V copy time is exactly equal to its current build time. The math is pretty simple, the rationale is pretty simple, and it avoids buffing or nerfing T2 bpos which are a sore subject (even though the amount of soreness over them in many cases far exceeds the actual trouble they're causing).


I'll try and look into this tomorrow. And yeah, the "fix" is easy, we're just trying to decide if it needs fixing, or if we can keep the consistency of the proposed numbers in place.
Yuki Kasumi
Some names are just stupid
#167 - 2014-04-28 18:01:42 UTC
I'm trying to determine comparable levels of research before and after patch and came up with the following, is this correct?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AdDnVTuqXiEqcZF7nb0JXt_dXRYE6lMaJ6Fcnp1qLQU/edit#gid=0
ElectronHerd Askulf
Aridia Logistical Misdirection
#168 - 2014-04-28 18:03:18 UTC
Soldarius wrote:
What I'm getting from the whole T2 BPO copy issue is that with a copy time 6.25% faster compared to that of its production time, people are worried that T2 BPOs will suddenly become better than invention for making T2 stuff. But after looking at the actual numbers (thx to Querns), I think these fears are totally unfounded.


Personally, I think there are a few large, low-volume items (i.e. unpopular ships) where the 6.25% _might_ make a difference (barring the issue with scarcity of items required for copies).

Modules, guns, drones, I don't think it'll make much of a difference. Prices might move a bit, but invention profit margins are good enough to absorb it.

The sky isn't falling, but now I'll never get rid of these goddamn claw prints.
ergherhdfgh
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#169 - 2014-04-28 18:04:26 UTC
So you say it won't cost any more to produce from "Perfect" BPOs but somehow we add in 11% more build mats and then take them out again with the new ME. What happened to the old "waste" from unresearched BPOs? I find this confusing could you explain it better?

Currently BPOs have a 10% wastage factor on most items. If you add 11% on top of that and then remove 10% I fail to see how that is not going to get about 10% more expensive to build.

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handige harrie
Vereenigde Handels Compagnie
#170 - 2014-04-28 18:09:31 UTC
I don't get why CCP solves te whole T2 BPO issue by either reintroducing a system in which people get it, or remove them form the system. Now is the best chance to do something.

The blueprints with the Low Max run BPC stuff are mostly in the Ammo category; Scripts and ammo itself. The hardest hit by far is indeed the Nanite Repair Paste blueprint, with a max bpc production time of 5 Minutes * 5 runs per BPC, making production from BPCs (which is what CCP wants) impossible. It also has no Tech 2 counterpart, so increasing the max runs on bpc's on both Scripts (don't have any invention coupled on them either) and the Repair Paste BPO shouldn't lead to issues.

Baddest poster ever
Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#171 - 2014-04-28 18:09:44 UTC
ergherhdfgh wrote:
So you say it won't cost any more to produce from "Perfect" BPOs but somehow we add in 11% more build mats and then take them out again with the new ME. What happened to the old "waste" from unresearched BPOs? I find this confusing could you explain it better?

Currently BPOs have a 10% wastage factor on most items. If you add 11% on top of that and then remove 10% I fail to see how that is not going to get about 10% more expensive to build.

1.11(repeating)*.9=1

so you wind up back at the "old base cost" (currently the zero-waste cost)

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.
Aryth
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#172 - 2014-04-28 18:10:31 UTC
ElectronHerd Askulf wrote:
Soldarius wrote:
What I'm getting from the whole T2 BPO copy issue is that with a copy time 6.25% faster compared to that of its production time, people are worried that T2 BPOs will suddenly become better than invention for making T2 stuff. But after looking at the actual numbers (thx to Querns), I think these fears are totally unfounded.


Personally, I think there are a few large, low-volume items (i.e. unpopular ships) where the 6.25% _might_ make a difference (barring the issue with scarcity of items required for copies).

Modules, guns, drones, I don't think it'll make much of a difference. Prices might move a bit, but invention profit margins are good enough to absorb it.

The sky isn't falling, but now I'll never get rid of these goddamn claw prints.


We agree on that. We don't feel there are that many items it makes a huge difference but they do exist. More importantly its a buff to all T2 BPOs out there which should be done with caution and open eyes. I am not advocating for a nerf or a buff but a wash.

I like having "rares" (aka UO) but we probably shouldn't buff their output either.

Leader of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal.

Creator of Burn Jita

Vile Rat: You're the greatest sociopath that has ever played eve.
Emizeko Chai
Freight Club
#173 - 2014-04-28 18:11:17 UTC  |  Edited by: Emizeko Chai
Morrighaan wrote:
Just to be quick about it - industrialists who put their effort (time/isk/security/whatever) into researching BPOs to higher levels should definitely get something in return. The simple fact that if two people researched a BPO one for a year (e.g. ME60) another for 2 months (e.g. ME10) should end up with the same BPO post patch feels ridiculously 'unfair'.


If ME60 is higher than perfect, then it was over-researched -- it was a waste of time to research it that far.

In that case, you already wasted your time -- nothing can change that. All this patch will do is remove the (absolutely meaningless) number that indicated you had wasted your time.
Wil Jackson
Materials Acquistion and Trading Service
#174 - 2014-04-28 18:12:26 UTC
Will there be more offices in stations? Stations with research capability will clearly be in high demand. Corporations will need to either put their BPOs in a POS or pay hundreds of millions per month in office fees to keep their BPOs in a station.

Wil
Kadl
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#175 - 2014-04-28 18:13:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Kadl
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Kadl wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
I'll check on recons and command ships. My understanding of the T2 market is that individual items tend to be either completely BPO-dominated or largely invention dominated. In principle I totally recognize that increased supply of cheaper goods can have an impact, but in practice there are (as I understand it) very few cases where this *actually* matters.


Doesn't it actually matter in all cases? In all cases, T2 BPO holders will increase their production rates by 6.25%.

We can cover the spectrum of all possible changes.
1) There are many inventors in the market. T2 BPO owners will increase their market share by 6.25% x current market share, because they can produce more. That will reduce the number of inventors in that market.
2) There are no inventors in the market. T2 BPO owners use their increased production to forestall the day when inventing becomes useful (when demand increases above the T2 BPO production capacity).
3) There are currently only a few inventors because the demand is barely above T2 BPO production capacity. This is your "actually" matters case, where invention no longer becomes profitable at the current time. Similarly to case 2 we can expect invention to happen again in the future when demand increases.

In all of those cases the increased production matters. The immediate effects are different but that should not stop us from considering all of them.


In 1), this is only true if the market size is absolutely fixed, which seems implausible.

In 2), it doesn't matter any time soon at least because most of those markets are not going to significantly expand any time soon

In 3, yes this is the problem case, but I'm not aware of any markets (except possibly recons and command ships) where this is true.

So yes, it always "matters" for a given value of "matters", but my concern is "when does it matter enough in practice that we actually need to change something", and the answer seems to be "very rarely".

(To be clear, we're still considering not adjusting T2 BPOs and/or adjusting them less, but the above reasoning still largely holds IMO :))


It is good that you are expressing your reasoning on these points. Certain aspects matter to you more or less then they matter to me or others here, so your explanation will help people at the very least see those values.

I am not sure you are explaining yourself on situation one, where there are many inventors, sufficiently. I am happy to grant you a market size which changes based on prices. The amount of change possible is based on the profits from T2 invention. Obviously in this case T2 BPO holders will maximize their production thus increasing it by 6.25%. That added production is added to the market, reducing prices. The reduced prices may lead to some T2 inventors to leave, or everyone could stay. So some inventors leave, some stay, prices are reduced. If the prices stay the same then we can estimate that inventors will lose market share of 6.25% x T2 BPO owners current market share. A simple summary is that T2 inventors will be effected with smaller profits, lost sales, or a combination of the two.

My preference is for not improving T2 BPO production rates. I realize that you may choose something different, but I encourage you to embrace an age of increasing invention at the cost of the old wealthy powers.

Edit: I see that you are taking another look at the T2 BPOs and situation one. Thank you.
Vaju Enki
Secular Wisdom
#176 - 2014-04-28 18:15:42 UTC
Wil Jackson wrote:
Will there be more offices in stations? Stations with research capability will clearly be in high demand. Corporations will need to either put their BPOs in a POS or pay hundreds of millions per month in office fees to keep their BPOs in a station.

Wil


And? What's the problem with that?

The Tears Must Flow
DaOpa
Static Corp
#177 - 2014-04-28 18:17:24 UTC

Remove all T2 BPO's from the game, this is legacy stuff that causes problems for all these new industrial changes.



if you dont remove, then add a way for people to create T2 BPO's during the invention process.


One or the other ... take your pick!

Big smile

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Soldarius
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#178 - 2014-04-28 18:19:29 UTC
Leaving out the changes to the Production Efficiency skill is so mean. But if I have to guess, I would say it will be repurposed to the new "Teams" concept.

http://youtu.be/YVkUvmDQ3HY
Sturmwolke
#179 - 2014-04-28 18:19:59 UTC
MailDeadDrop wrote:
CCP Nullarbor wrote:

Ah no it doesn't, but the stations that do have copy facilities will no longer be capped. Yes you may need to do some flying around.


The demand for copy facilities is going to increase, and that is intended. But if you don't look at increasing the number of copy facilities, the demand for offices in stations which have copy facilities is *also* going to increase. And you haven't said you're going to remove office slots, like you're removing copy slots. So I don't have confidence that this aspect has been noticed and examined by CCP. Please look at it.

+1 The office rental mechanics need to be re-examined.
Assuming the link above is still somewhat valid, you're looking at no more that 24 corp offices per station. So theoretically, for a 22 stations system like Nonni, the theoretical max it can support is 22 x 24 = 528 corps.
However, not every station can be used for research (infact, only 5 stations is available for research). Since there is no cap to office rental, the situation may quickly escalate to several hundred millions/month once you open the flood gates.

This constitutes a further hidden cost on top of the proposed "service" charge for S&I.
How confident is CCP that this wont get out of hand?
Seith Kali
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#180 - 2014-04-28 18:21:14 UTC
T2 BPO's can stay, why not? They just shouldn't be able to have a monopoly on any particular market. The tricky way is to nerf their output until they hold value but invention utterly overshadows them in all cases. The easy way is to at least not buff them.

Apprentice Goonswarm Economic Warfare Consultant - Drowning in entitlement and privilege.