EVE Information Portal

and you want space communism instead?

It's a space game where you pay the iron price. If you want what the rich folk have go take it from them!

After reading most of the posts here, I'm not convinced that the produced_item_baseprice is a sensible measure to calculate productioncosts which are already subject to variation because of both people and station landscape.

Can't the baseprice be replaced by NPC corp/faction standings? (tied to a fixed baseprice?)
- Hisec: high corp / faction standings required to bring baseprice down
- FW lowsec: same as hisec (cant let spies run wild in your warzone ;))
- lowsec: lowered standing requirement (throw them a bone) compared to hisec
- NPC nullsec baseprice based on pirate standings. (hmm, maybe rather corp than faction)
- nullsec baseprice based on alliance standings. (eg. blues produce for less compared to neutrals or reds)

This standing mechanic is currently thrown out with the bathwater and I feel that just picking up your stuff and move 3 systems to get a better price makes the game more bland in general.

[EDIT: TLDR -> Scale costs based on jobs in an array rather than counting arrays. You can get people to use more arrays more easily and naturally that way without upsetting the status quo too much or putting too much of a burden on your servers.]

Having multiple assembly arrays or laboratories in one POS only makes sense in a world of slots. It rests on the idea that players shouldn't be able to set up one POS and run an infinite number of character jobs out of it. There is an assumption here that it should not be the same logistical feat to have one or twenty people doing industry out of a starbase. The system-wide congestion numbers won't capture this limitation because it takes a much larger number of character jobs to meaningfully impact costs than one player or group will likely be able to bring to bear. The current system is cool because it says one or a small group of players can optimally live in one starbase and, if they get too big, they have to get another starbase. But usually you need multiple characters to get a lot of use out of a starbase; it's a great mechanic. In other words, starbases aren't a fixed cost; they're a step-variable cost because of slots and fuel. The stap-variable cost nature of starbase production is also cool because you have to make decisions about how to budget CPU among defense and production.

Introducing minor bonuses to having multiple arrays in one starbase won't allow industry players in highsec--whether a small corporation or a single player with a few characters--to have this happy compromise of step-variable costs. Essentially, if the bonuses are too minor (or you don't implement them) they'll be able to run an infinite amount of characters out of one starbase. A five person alt corp will need the same number of arrays as a fifty person corporation. I can only see this as moving the ball toward groups that can run a larger and larger volume through starbases. If the bonuses just add a multiplier to the congestion costs (as with outpost upgrades), players running a large enough number of jobs will just lump as many arrays of a particular kind in one starbase as possible, do the same for the next one, etc. (So you'd have to have one POS for all labs, another for all assembly arrays for one product, etc.) No matter what you do, you're fundamentally changing the step-variable nature of starbase costs into fixed (if repeating) costs. Either you can get the volume to justify the expenditure or not.

I don't know if that is necessarily a bad thing, but I do wonder whether this would be an unintended consequence of this change. I think the status quo of step-variable costs favoring only having a small number of industrial characters in each starbase is something that should only be upset if you have a good reason. If you don't, I would consider reintroducing slots in starbases through a back door (until you have a better solution later). Essentially, for every job beyond a certain number at an array, there should be a cost increase that eventually requires you to use another array. In other words, you need a congestion tax for /each array/ that counts the jobs /going right now, at that array/. If you get the formula just right, you can keep the step-variable nature of starbase costs in the production chain and give room for bonusing unique arrays (their congestion costs ramp up less quickly).

This proposal may also have computation benefits. The bonus from having multiple arrays comes from costs internal to each array individually; presumably you can rather easily count the number of jobs already installed at an array /right now/. You don't have to count the arrays at the starbase, average them over time, etc. Further, I think this proposal may be the least earth-shattering change that you can do before a real, thought-out POS revamp comes later.

Okay, here's where i'm most confused...

So, you start by saying that all NPC stations in empire have multipliers that range between 0.95-0.98. Then you say that Nonni has a 0.48.

How does 0.48 fall between 0.95 and 0.98 ????

And having said that, if all the station multipliers range between .95-.98, how exactly is .75 "mid range system"???

Do i really need to go back to college and get an accounting degree to understand this stuff?

Also, i did not see any info on exactly what types of stations give the better 'bonuses' to reducing the cost, is there any way players can find this info?

I'm also confused on the point where it was said that the more eligible stations in a system will grant a discount to the costs, but isn't that then offset by the number of jobs that will be in that system b/c there are alot of stations that off the 'slots' so to speak? (yes i know, slots are dead)

And to "how to simplify POS's for this change"......a centralized hanger where we won't have to constantly be moving stuff between arrays depending on what we want to do with it. Remember, you want us to switch to using LOTS and LOTS of copies instead of BPO's...this becomes a huge nightmare in the current POS Array setup.

Yes we'll now be able to work jobs remotely, but that doesn't much matter if we have to babysit the tower to constantly move BPC's/items back and forth depending on what we want to do with them.

So you took away everything from the benefits of owning a POS, and took away nothing from the drawbacks.

You even admit this, that you don't know what to do with POSes at this point.

So then, in an attempt to marginalize the situation, you slap a needless 10% tax on high sec station production in hopes that those people who do own a POS, will be jumping for joy that they don't have to pay one. And if they do decide to set one, it will go into their corporation's coffers. This is a major slap in the face to all EVE players.

You don't know what to do with POSes at this point in time, when the expansion is just about set to release? I'll tell you what you have to do with highsec POSes at this point. You have to make them immune from wardecs in highsec. You have basically given out all the benefits of having a POS to everyone and their alt in highsec, so you have to take away the drawback. You have basically turned highsec POSes into player owned housing. It serves no purpose in highsec and I really feel sad for all those people who invested so much time to keep their 8 lab slots running only to be trolled like this. Now, they get nothing out of it, and they have to pay 500m in fuel costs every month to keep it running, when you have basically given away a POS to everyone, but with the safety of a station.

I think they deserve their POS to be immune to wardecs as long as they keep it fueled. Otherwise, it's not fair to those people and it's really bad for the game (highsec station production as a whole) to stick a 10% tax of the value of the item, on top of everything else, because you have just introduced exponentially scaling inflation into the game mechanics. It's clearly a knee jerk reaction in response to not knowing what to do with POSes at this point that they have been basically been given out for free.

So what do you get for having a POS? How about some security and being able to safely run your own BPOs and copies, which now every other player in highsec gets for free - in station - except those players who do own a POS, and pay a 500m bill for it. I don't even know why I'm typing this, it's clear to me we have an in progress EVE NGE on our hands if this situation is not dealt with.

No, you do not need an accounting degree. But you do need to know 4th grade multiplication and reading comprehension. The .98-.95 is a factor that represents the ability of any one station to do its job. When you have multiple stations in system, those factors multiply together to give a lower multiplier, resulting in lower install costs compared to systems with less facilities of that nature.

Now, if that system has a high fraction of global work, then that will offset the savings. But it is possible that you could find a system with lots of factories and little work being done, resulting in a lower install cost per job.

Lore-wise, this represents the workers in that area being more desperate for work and thus willing to work for less.

As far as which stations are best at certain task, we'll just have to wait and see. But I'm sure it will figure in racial station type, owning corp mission, and available facilities. No matter what, I'm sure that the factor will be available via the SDE.

Several points to add:
For everyone worried about a forever increasing prices because of forever increasing costs, you're out of your mind. While we may have an infinite loop of prices, the loop uses fractional values that will converge to a new price point. Endless series often converge, especially when dealing with fractions.

There will be a MAJOR bump in module prices across the board.

My build costs for:
Heavy Neutron Blaster II's will bump from 1.3m to 1.6m isk.
150mm Light Autocannon II's will bump from 500k to 650k isk.
Light Missile Luancher II's will bump from 700k to 1m isk.

For modules, the largest price increases will come from having the "extra materials" suddenly subject to ME levels. The BPC costs and build costs will also play a bump, but from the numbers I've noticed it won't be exuberant. I firmly believe our economy can handle this, and those who prepare will be much better off.

That was the most confusing dev blog I've ever read....and I read it twice. Wasn't all this supposed to make things easier to do industry? This seems way overly complicated for most people. Sure some of us will figure it out but you really should find a way to make this simpler to figure out your costs of a job. I'm also not big on "base prices" for anything.

I have a feeling I really won't understand these changes fully until I can test them. How long will this be live on the test server? How open to suggestions will you be then?

With all the changes going ever which way I think I will have to get my industry alt training industry skills again to play around with these changes.


Important question.

Will there be enough sinks added with this change to be able to lower how much it costs to lose pods?

I ideally would prefer a system where you have to pay a onetime fee for an upgraded model of clone but then only pay a flat fee of say 100,000 isk or something trivial or linearly scaling when you lose your pod.

When the last change was made to lower costs of clones it was stated that further reductions could be made in the future when more sinks where present. I hope this is that time.

Cause industry is nice but being less risk averse in PvP is awesome.

T3 producers seem to be subject to bigger build costs than the other kinds according to the example at the end of the blog. It looks like 40 RE slots used a few times a day can generate crazy costs like that 35% ;).

Now there is one question I got.. is the RE installation cost going to be based on the relic price, since we don't know the bpc type until the job is done and delivered? Afaik, relics are considered as BPOs with 1 run in game. Also, it seems to be rather easy to avoid costs by being a bit nomadic and moving your T3 setup from a system to another every month or, since less people do T3 production. Perhaps it needs to be merged with invention.