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Dev blog: The Price of Change

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Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#261 - 2014-04-29 16:29:09 UTC
mkint wrote:
Now it's just move to where there's lots of stations. There are no other relevant variables.


i am constantly astounded by how bad people are at figuring these changes out

the much more significant variable is how many people are there

man, you can tell how broken industry has been for ages by how bad people are at figuring out change

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.
Querns
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#262 - 2014-04-29 16:29:16 UTC
Weaselior wrote:
Allowing the bonus to be scaled by amount of arrays in system, instead of ONLINE in system, is hilariously exploitable. I don't know if it will be worth it to exploit that by anchoring one million offline arrays, but I'd consider it.

Hah, yeah, I meant to only count online POS modules. I've edited the post to reflect this.

This post was crafted by the wormhole expert of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.
Vesan Terakol
Trollgrin Sadface
Dark Taboo
#263 - 2014-04-29 16:30:03 UTC
I see this as a great conflict driver - declare war to other known users of the same installations to interdict their supply chains and drive down the prices to build in the system :)
Medalyn Isis
Doomheim
#264 - 2014-04-29 16:31:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Medalyn Isis
gascanu wrote:
Quote:
Taxes: NPC-owned facilities will levy a 10% tax on top of everything else. This will be at least absent in player-owned facilities, and if we have time, we will allow players to set whatever arbitrary tax rate they like on their own facilities, the proceeds of which (the tax specifically, that is) will go directly into their own (or their corporation's in most cases) coffers.


what about NPC 0.0 stations? will they be "taxed" like in empire or like in 0.0 outposts?

all in all, 10% of the building price is waaaay too much. i think this and the reprocessing nerf will send some BIG shock waves all around the universe. maybe will be better to do this in small steps, and see how things work out...

p.s; i wish you guys all the luck with this implementation and i hope to be wrong, but remembering "the united inventory thing" i can't but brace myself and wait for the storm Cool

Yes I'd like to add this too. NPC 0.0 stations should have some advantage over LS and HS. As I don't think the multiplier is going to be able to reach the levels of high sec given the sparsity of stations in 0.0.

Again, I asked this before, is it possible to get the details of the multipliers which the various stations and also the overall multiplier for each system? Or will that be released in the coming weeks/months?
Abla Tive
#265 - 2014-04-29 16:32:01 UTC
I note with interest that CCP says they want industrial type people to spread out.
However, their use of the square root function in the pricing
calculation *dramatically* levels the field and contradicts their stated objective.

Two systems that have a factor of 100 difference in terms of usage get leveled to only a factor of 10 difference in pricing.

Furthermore, they will institute floors on activity (0.0001 -> which roots to 0.01) so that extreme cases are still leveled.

Then, they add back in a bunch of things like station facility adjustments to level it some more.

Finally, there is the future "work team" devblog which is supposed to encourage coming together and no doubt further "leveling".

Simply put: Don't believe CCP when they say they want people to spread out.

*dons tin foil beany*

This may be because a general spreading out would reduce opportunities for "emergent game play "
Eurynome Mangeiri
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#266 - 2014-04-29 16:36:52 UTC
Abla Tive wrote:
I note with interest that CCP says they want industrial type people to spread out.
However, their use of the square root function in the pricing
calculation *dramatically* levels the field and contradicts their stated objective.

Two systems that have a factor of 100 difference in terms of usage get leveled to only a factor of 10 difference in pricing.

Furthermore, they will institute floors on activity (0.0001 -> which roots to 0.01) so that extreme cases are still leveled.

Then, they add back in a bunch of things like station facility adjustments to level it some more.

Finally, there is the future "work team" devblog which is supposed to encourage coming together and no doubt further "leveling".

Simply put: Don't believe CCP when they say they want people to spread out.

*dons tin foil beany*

This may be because a general spreading out would reduce opportunities for "emergent game play "

this whole summer update as only one goal:

create inflation, and a big one

so the plex price increase, thus making more $$ in CCP pocket.

beware tho CCP, ppl unable to keep plexing will just leave
Medalyn Isis
Doomheim
#267 - 2014-04-29 16:37:44 UTC
CCP Nullarbor wrote:
Two step wrote:
If you want to use km value, you NEED to add an API endpoint to give people this value.


I'll talk to some people.

Yes this needs to be done if that variable will be used.
mkint
#268 - 2014-04-29 16:39:16 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:

Steijn wrote:
CCP Greyscale wrote:
Yes, someone with unlimited ISK to throw at a particular system has the ability to cause a huge mess with office slots. We want to take another look at the office slot system at some point, but at the same time the ability to burn huge amounts of cash on economic warfare is not entirely a negative thing.


that just sums up what a lot of people are thinking about these changes, they are mainly an Isk sink and if things become more expensive, thats good as far as you are concerned.

EDIT: just seen your reply to the other question I asked. It might not be part of the design process, but from an outsiders viewpoint, making isk sinks seems to be a primary process in these changes.


Ok, well let me try and alleviate that concern by again saying no design decision that I've been party to has been changed in any way by considerations involving ISK sinks. The reasoning for why we've gone down this road was laid out at the start of the blog, and that's the truth. It's of course up to you whether you choose to believe me or not :)


Hmm... in the frame of isk sinks... who does this punish most? Does this incentivize doing industry or doing PVE? It reduces isk pool growth, so it should make PVE more lucrative, right? At least initially, and especially since the average industrialist has low expectations up until they quit the game. I highly doubt it'll even come close to balance out the reprocessing nerf, so nerfs for everybody! Hooray!

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Home Starrunner
State War Academy
Caldari State
#269 - 2014-04-29 16:39:41 UTC
So to build a titan, you will first need to make a copy of the BPO.

Say the price for Titan is set at 80b

@ 2% of the finished product for copy costs, we are looking at 1.6b just to make a copy? Copying the component prints also equals around the same price, so we are looking at 1.6b in copy fees for the component prints.

This adds an instant 3.2b to the cost of a Titan.

That doesn't include the copy price on all of the components etc...

Maybe copy pricing should be greatly reduced to be more reasonable, even when needing to use max run copies for invention it makes things cost a lot more.

Seems a bit excessive to me.

Then you run into the issue where characters are limited to 11 slots, which means since we are moving to a bpc based manufacturing system, there's going to be a need for hundreds of alts just to keep up the pace of copying prints for production.

You are going to need to change the skill modifiers to allow for more slot use from characters, and also even new skill to increase the numbers more like we do with trading.
Dav Varan
State Protectorate
Caldari State
#270 - 2014-04-29 16:44:41 UTC

Copying: Max is 14% in Vuorrassi, 10th is 9%, 50th is 6%, and we drop below 5% at 95th.

TE: The same numbers are 13% in Nomaa, 9%, 6%, 90th.

ME: 10% in Abudban, 7%, 5%, 79th.

Invention: 12% in Nomaa, 9%, 7%, 119th.

Reverse Engineering: 35%(!) in Droselory, 17%, 6%, and there are sufficiently few systems doing reverse engineering when the snapshot was taken that the bottom one is still above 5% of output value.



From the DevBlog.
Some system names seem to be missing.

Also why are there varitions between Me/Te/Inv/Re I thought this were getting mashed together into research
Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#271 - 2014-04-29 16:45:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Weaselior
Home Starrunner wrote:
So to build a titan, you will first need to make a copy of the BPO.

Say the price for Titan is set at 80b

@ 2% of the finished product for copy costs, we are looking at 1.6b just to make a copy? Copying the component prints also equals around the same price, so we are looking at 1.6b in copy fees for the component prints.

2% is the "output price". You pay the same as if you were manufacturing a 1.6b ship (i.e. much less than 1.6b), based on the abaddon you're looking at like 50m or thereabouts

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.
Sturmwolke
#272 - 2014-04-29 16:45:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Sturmwolke
CCP Greyscale wrote:

We are totally open to suggestions for what to do with starbases as they relate to industry. In particular, if anyone who does starbase work can spend a few minutes outlining the *simplest* changes they think would be sufficient to keep starbases in a reasonable place for this release, we're very interested in hearing them. Yes, we know "throw it out and start over" would be great, but we're not getting that done between now and the summer release, no matter how much we'd like to.

POS fuel + Office Rental < Advantages Gained/Profit Made

In the current setting, the ME/PE and Copy slots scarcity makes it no brainer almost everywhere.
Production benefits is per case basis. It's usually a secondary factor as station manufacturing is more attractive in terms of cost & convenience for most items.

With the multiplicative formula you're proposing, it's difficult to see where the POS will make an impact. Current 0.5-0.75 multipliers to manufacturing and research time (except in very specific cases), imo don't really offset the cost* enough to make running a POS attractive. There's an automatic dampening built into the formula, in the form of sqrt job hours and team costs (?) that have the potential to cancel out or reduce the bonus. Final math will depend I guess. Pretty much, this makes the entire concept of the starbase modifier redundant and unnecessary.

*This assumes inclusion of the intagibles like effort and asset/working capital risks.

Keep the current status quo and :
- Eliminate the 10% tax modifier, it starts to perk up a little for volume producers as long as office rentals dont shoot up into the stratosphere.
- Remove office rental or heavily discount or cap the amount when a POS is present insystem. This is major incentive to keep a POS in the busy lanes. Won't affect rural star systems that much however.

P.S Increasing POS structure manufacturing multiplier isn't a good idea. You'll end up with universal overcapacity if it becomes a trend FoTM for industry, increasing the items built/destroyed ratio.
Thead Enco
Domheimed
#273 - 2014-04-29 16:46:00 UTC
Eurynome Mangeiri wrote:
Abla Tive wrote:
I note with interest that CCP says they want industrial type people to spread out.
However, their use of the square root function in the pricing
calculation *dramatically* levels the field and contradicts their stated objective.

Two systems that have a factor of 100 difference in terms of usage get leveled to only a factor of 10 difference in pricing.

Furthermore, they will institute floors on activity (0.0001 -> which roots to 0.01) so that extreme cases are still leveled.

Then, they add back in a bunch of things like station facility adjustments to level it some more.

Finally, there is the future "work team" devblog which is supposed to encourage coming together and no doubt further "leveling".

Simply put: Don't believe CCP when they say they want people to spread out.

*dons tin foil beany*

This may be because a general spreading out would reduce opportunities for "emergent game play "

this whole summer update as only one goal:

create inflation, and a big one

so the plex price increase, thus making more $$ in CCP pocket.

beware tho CCP, ppl unable to keep plexing will just leave



Then maybe they should stop being welfare queens
mkint
#274 - 2014-04-29 16:51:39 UTC  |  Edited by: mkint
Home Starrunner wrote:
So to build a titan, you will first need to make a copy of the BPO.

Say the price for Titan is set at 80b

@ 2% of the finished product for copy costs, we are looking at 1.6b just to make a copy? Copying the component prints also equals around the same price, so we are looking at 1.6b in copy fees for the component prints.

This adds an instant 3.2b to the cost of a Titan.

That doesn't include the copy price on all of the components etc...

Maybe copy pricing should be greatly reduced to be more reasonable, even when needing to use max run copies for invention it makes things cost a lot more.

Seems a bit excessive to me.

Then you run into the issue where characters are limited to 11 slots, which means since we are moving to a bpc based manufacturing system, there's going to be a need for hundreds of alts just to keep up the pace of copying prints for production.

You are going to need to change the skill modifiers to allow for more slot use from characters, and also even new skill to increase the numbers more like we do with trading.


I understand it's based on BPO price for research jobs. So that means a titan BPC value would be worth 1.45 bill (seed price for erebus BPO acording to eve-central is 72.5 bill). Max copy cost in the game would end up at 14% with the snapshot's numbers, which is 203 mil, and 1%-5% sounds more likely unless you hate yourself (more like 14-75 mil.) Granted, that's just for the copy of the one BP.

Maxim 6. If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
Anders Madeveda
Usque Ad Mortem
#275 - 2014-04-29 16:51:54 UTC
Annah Gerber wrote:
Weaselior wrote:
Annah Gerber wrote:

The problems with the PoS'es is that you aren't just looking to add tax to it, we are already running our own "mini spacestation" which has costs tied in to it to begin with, it's already 1b+ a month to fuel a large PoS,

i was just skimming through your post thinking "boy that's a lot of crazy" when this popped out at me

a large pos fuel cost is nowhere near 1b a month you clearly have no idea what you're talking about



To run a large Caldari PoS is 240 mil a week to run it, buying the fuel from Jita.

This is why I always dread using numbers while posting because people are just going to get hung up on that and ignore the rest of the post, so maybe it's not 1b a month, it's 960 mil a month.


You should buy POS fuel from me, I bet I could get that price down to 200M a week and save you a bunch!
Lena Lazair
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#276 - 2014-04-29 16:57:35 UTC
Rivr Luzade wrote:
So, basically if I produce in a 1 station system in High sec, I am screwed?

And production in general for a ton of items is going to be unprofitable for a very long time. Wonderful. I sure hope you have plans to keep EVE up for the next couple of years until things have finally normalized at a profitable level again. Roll


Agreed, and curious how this will play out. I also produce in a one-station hisec system with no research labs for several jumps in any direction. I know these changes will be forcing me to move and I've seen a lot of out-of-the-way hisec systems whose only activity is driven by similar solo/small vertical indy corps looking for a nice place to call home. If I'm moving then I bet a lot of those folks are moving too, and the quiet backwaters of hisec are about to get a whole lot quieter.
LHA Tarawa
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#277 - 2014-04-29 16:59:19 UTC
I have to agree with others. If there was ever a release that needed to be delayed, this is IT!


Open issues:
Calculating multiple facilities in a system.

If were really switching to BPC manufacturing to protect BPO from corp theft, then improved way to market BPCs (contracts suck!)

Max copies changes? Up max runs to keep copy jobs from becoming the new click-fest? What effects will that have on
invention?

Copy times. (was geometric, not linear. Will it still be? How will that effect changes to max runs/invention?)

Cost to make a 100 run copy 100x more expensive than installing a research job on the same BPO?

Potential for T2 BPO increased/decreased production from changes to copy time.

Corp able to put a tax on its POS facilities?

NPC standings effecting install fees at NPC stations?

Partial research tracking to smooth upgrade (don't have to jump my ME 10 to perfect) and so that I don't have to put a BPO into a year's constant research (put it in for a month, take it out and make a bunch of copies, put it back in for another month, repeat 12 times to get it to that perfect.)

Change POS structure capacity to reflect that now I only need 1 component assembly array to work on all my super-cap parts at the same time, instead of needing half a dozen.

POS power and CPU changes now that 1 facility can do the work of many?

Abandoned high sec tower removal?

I am VERY, VERY concerned about the ME bonus to amarr/minmatar outposts. A BPO that would take me years to research to perfect, can be produced in null outpost for 1/10,000th the research time because they only need to be at ME 5 for perfect?



So, so, so many open issues... and a month left to release?


DELAY! Or heck, CANCEL! Just roll it all into December release!

Then give us:
Unified storage at POS. (kick off jobs in assembly arrays with mins in a giant corp hanger array)
Cancel job without losing all minerals used for the job.
Cancel jobs a corp role separate from install. Offline/unanchor a role separate from anchor/online
Allow execution of jobs against a hanger division that you can see, but not take from (mock lockdown, without vote)


And, of course:

Remove ALL M1-M4 rat drops, replace with salvage. (Loot no longer competing with mining or manufacturing)

Allow invention of all M1-M5 BPOs. (100s of millions to 100s of billions to invent M5 BPOs, use the multiplier being used fro research.)

Require salvage for M1-M4 production to create demand other than rigs. (ensure mission runners are getting some value for loot).

For M1-M5, require an item of one-lower M level to manufacture M1-M5, plus additional materials (salvage M1-M4, PI and moon mats for M5). Ensure increasing price for increasing meta level.

Module re-balance to ensure M5 always better than M4.




And finally: Make it so you have to press a button every 10-15 minutes to keep high slot modules active (no more AFK boosting or cloaky camping).


Now THAT would be an awesome release. Much, much better than the half-baked thing it looks like we're getting in a month or so.
Aluka 7th
#278 - 2014-04-29 16:59:23 UTC
When can we expect summer expansion?
sci0gon
Kaira Innovations
#279 - 2014-04-29 17:00:14 UTC
CCP Greyscale wrote:
If you're prepared to spend huge amounts of money holding the 28-day price high so you can save money on other jobs, and that actually ends up turning a profit, and you're prepared to take on the massive organization overhead of co-ordinating that... then unless it actually breaks the economy, go nuts.


what about those of us who do month long builds each time but don't stack them? will we be entitled to discounts too if were seen by the system to be doing that constantly?
CCP Greyscale
C C P
C C P Alliance
#280 - 2014-04-29 17:11:18 UTC
STARBASE STRUCTURES QUESTIONS: Ytterbium has just posted updated stats here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4527743#post4527743

Note that the ME boost is being cut down to 2%, we decided 5% was probably too strong.

Gilbaron wrote:
Quote:
What can't currently be built in arrays that you'd like to be buildable?


Arrays ;) and other pos stuff

T2 ships are also in a bad place, mainly because of the increased material cost.


Hahahah, that's wonderfully ironic. I'll see if we can do something about starbases building starbases. T2 arrays are having their material cost boost removed (see here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4527743#post4527743)

Doogan Algaert wrote:


Can you please address the material efficiency skill removal, as just this seems to mean an increase in build costs of 25% for level 5 skill which i haven't seen discussed as of yet.

As it stands now your single digit increase in ship costs seems very far fetched,
i calculate 1.11% minimum increase from blueprint, 5 to 15% increase in costs of research, manufacture, invention and copy prices, and a reduction of resources from reprocessing and refining changes, all added to 25% increased material cost from ME skill?


We're removing the extra 25% waste that that skill removes as well as removing (changing) the skill, the two things cancel out :)

ElectronHerd Askulf wrote:
General comments:
Conceptually, I like the addition of simulated labor cost to a game that I think of as an economy simulation using PvP combat as a demand driver. It's interesting to read one dev blog describing a simplification of the ME mechanic followed by another introducing a rather complex mechanic.

Specific to the pricing scheme, your data on reverse engineering points out one flaw: uncommon activities are already lumpy enough in distribution to result in high costs overall. On the simulation side, sure, that activity doesn't have many available workers so they are free to charge a lot, but on the gameplay side it's rather worrying. Did you consider using more of a sigmoid function (where the multiplier approaches 0 asymptotically on the low and and some 'cap' asymptotically on the high end)? That would prevent things going wacky on either end and make the increases gradual at the extremes.

The multiple run discount not stacking across prints run consecutively is annoying (or worse) in the case of t2 production.

Really like to see a list of the station modifiers, or at least a better idea of what they're based on - is it going to be racial, by station type (refinery, factory, plantation...) or what?

Finally, I also want to add my voice to the chorus asking for full numbers around activities in POSes. This is pretty critical for us to understand what the total impacts are going to be.


Yup, we simplify complexity that doesn't produce interesting gameplay in order to be able to justify adding complexity that we think does produce interesting gameplay. One of the big overarching goals with a lot of the industry work we're doing is to make the critical numbers more dynamic, so there's more ongoing decision making.

The lumpiness of uncommon activities is assumed to be primarily because there's no reason to spread out currently; the hope is that this will self-correct very quickly, and not require us to use more complex math.

Yeah, the multi-run interacts with T2 BPOs in a non-optimal way, if we make adjustments to that area of the design we'll try and figure out an improvement to this at the same time.

Modifiers are based on station activity, so yes, refinery, plantation etc are the primary drivers.

gascanu wrote:
Quote:
Taxes: NPC-owned facilities will levy a 10% tax on top of everything else. This will be at least absent in player-owned facilities, and if we have time, we will allow players to set whatever arbitrary tax rate they like on their own facilities, the proceeds of which (the tax specifically, that is) will go directly into their own (or their corporation's in most cases) coffers.


what about NPC 0.0 stations? will they be "taxed" like in empire or like in 0.0 outposts?

all in all, 10% of the building price is waaaay too much. i think this and the reprocessing nerf will send some BIG shock waves all around the universe. maybe will be better to do this in small steps, and see how things work out...

p.s; i wish you guys all the luck with this implementation and i hope to be wrong, but remembering "the united inventory thing" i can't but brace myself and wait for the storm Cool


NPC 0.0 are probably taxed like hisec, for the time being, as it preserves the balance status quo. NPC nullsec needs some love, but we don't want to make major changes without having time to think them over properly.

Querns wrote:
[quote=CCP Greyscale]Counting facilities at a starbase is somewhat computationally expensive right now, as we don't keep track of which structures are associated with each control tower in the DB. The "obvious solution" (ie what you've described, and what's in the original design) requires us to do some legwork to track that properly, which as I alluded to earlier is not particularly conceptually complex but requires a reasonable amount of work that we may or may not have time to do.

This sounds familiar; the data exposed by the API makes it difficult (but not impossible) to determine what POS modules are associated with which control tower.

Keeping this in mind, how about this: Scale costs based on the total number of ONLINE manufacturing/research POS modules (whichever is appropriate for the type of RAM activity you're doing) owned by your corporation (alliance?) in the system, regardless of what control tower they are at. This is not a perfect approximation, but it gets pretty close, and it should be a lot cheaper to calculate, if I'm understanding the way Eve...