Science & Industry

I started making this table for myself, but I might as well post it too. Concerning decryptors:

With one major assumption, current decryptor benefits can be boiled down to just 2 values: their effect on material requirements, and their effect on the ideal invention time per manufacturing time ratio. The major assumption is that T2 manufacturers seek to optimize their invention time to manufacturing time ratio, so as to not leave a bunch of slots chronically under-used.

Another assumption that just simplifies calculations is to take the ratio of ProductivityModifier/BaseProductionTime as 0.2. This is the case for 738 out of 766 inventable T2 blueprints, and is also the value Devs are using as a standard. ["while for negative TE we're subtracting 1 and multiplying by 20"]. Similarly, the waste factor is taken to be a constant 10.

And finally, for the sake of pretty numbers, the material requirement modifier is given as a simple multiplier. In practice, this effect can vary wildly from item to item due to rounding; a particular high-volume item I'm acquainted with has the exact same material requirements at -2 and -1 ME, which moves pressure off accelerants and onto symmetries.

That given, have a 9-line CSV.
Tiny Pastebin CSV

All the modifiers are with respect to the "base" -4 / -4 inventable BPC.
Volume is the estimated daily volume bought from sell orders, averaged over the last 30 days. It's there for reference, as is price.


A tad too drowsy to make any thought-out comments on the data. From a quick glance, I'm surprised that Optimized Augmentation is actually that good. If it had drop rates closer to that of Accelerants, it would be very useful.

On the 'Copy slots' vs 'Invention slots' vs 'Max Runs' bottlenecks.

- The copy slots issue may be going away with the availability of new POSes going online once the standings restrictions are mothballed.

- Invention slots are the bottleneck when all you get is 10 runs of a T2 module in an hour, where with a decryptor you might get +2 in some cases with negative ROI. This was particularly a click-fest considering a) you had to pick the invention slot (which has been fixed if I read right defaulting to the location of the bpc) b) you had to do it maaany times over to get profitable amounts even though results where done in about an hour.

ideas: Without over complicating the matter of course, or over simplifying it to the point where one strategy dominates all others.

- If invention has modifiers to decryption success, ME, PE and max runs, there are other parts in science that could use modifiers -- like for TIME? Time to Copy (TTC), Time to Material Research (TTMR), time to Reverse Engineer (TTRE), time to Invent (TTI)?

- Should 'Time to Complete' on the science side be scaled using existing T1 items ? (such as Databases and Khu'maak and Exotic Dancers)

- Should T2 BPO's become available in a new game mechanic? For those who just need to build 300 of something.

This is a proposal to get rid of "efficiency" stats entirely (ME, PE)
and use "waste" stats instead ("material waste", "time waste").
Because waste is what actually matters. Stop using a proxy.

Situation:
(both currently and after your planned changes)

The game shows "efficiency" stats (ME, PE).
The actual waste stats are not shown.
The scale is upside down: more levels = less waste.

Complication:

Some calculations are required to get from ME and PE to waste.
In the old system, an addition, a division and a multiplication were required.
In the new system, it is simpler, but you still have to calculate "waste % = 10% - ME * 1%".

Resolution:

Replace ME and PE efficiency stats (in units of levels) entirely by "material waste"
and "time waste" stats (conveniently displayed in units of % already).

New blueprints start at "waste level: 10%" (and the description directly says so).
Every level of research reduces that stat by 1%. Blueprints which have reached
0% waste (after 10 levels of research) are perfect. Description now reads:
"waste level: 0%". Simple, aint it? And the scale is straight: less % = less waste.

Internally, you can use 10 integer levels of course, only need to output a "%" on the screen.

You can use this opportunity to remove some "bad" complexity from the game.
You can still implement any changes as planned, but the end result would be easier
for new players to understand and less confusing (old ME vs new ME) for veterans.

Thoughts?

This touches on Tech 2 BPOs and invention so I am not sure which thread is appropriate. Instead of removing Tech 2 BPOs or doing something to enrage the player base of existing owners, give a very slight chance that invention provides a much better blueprint copy than usual that rivals a well researched BPO. This reduces the value of the tech 2 BPOs and lets others compete but doesn't completely destroy their value. It creates a middle ground. It also puts a carrot out there for industry players to look for. Using the new ME/PE system I am assuming that most of the BPCs produced by invention will be somewhere under ME/PE 5. This copy could be a higher quality of ME/PE (8/8 maybe?) with an unusual amount of runs.

Also, what about throwing extra decryptors into an invention job to increase chance of success, number of runs or speed of the run? This may not be technically feasible of course, just an idea.

Pretty sure the dev blog about the research changes addresses this. They are raising base material costs across the board by 11%, eliminating the concept of waste, and then ME subtracts from that by a percent up to 10%.

So yes it will really refer to efficiency not mere waste.

Right. That actually did come to mind when I was compressing decryptor PE and runs into a single effect. I dismissed it before actually thinking it through because in my specific field, datacore cost per successful run is fairly close to inconsequential. Now that I actually think of it though, there's also more to it than just that.

That certainly makes things uglier. Having only two main effects to balance, with multiple attributes influencing each effect, would make things nice and simple.

My biggest concern is the addition of the added costs to everything based on the 'value' of the end product....which will then increase in price due to the additional costs which will add more cost into the build/invent cost...which will then translate again into higher prices, which will translate into higher 'costs' ect ect.....

This endless 'feedback loop' if you will, cannot be a good idea in the long run. Has this possibility been thoroughly explored?

This seem like it will especially increase the cost of inventions because of the new cost of copies, plus adding the cost related to the final T2 products market value. (or are you strickly going to base this on material value and not market price?)

That was the reasoning for my original question, stuff like cap components can have whatever max runs, nothing will be affected other than time to make the BPC

Are there yet any thoughts on this?

I just want to go back to the research times. CCP Greyscale, I notice that you're using Shoogie's fallback rank of 600 for the titan he got based on the Hyasyoda lab instead of his original 480. Is your reasoning for this the same as Shoogie's? Because upon a re-read of the "building a better worlds" dev-blog, I noticed this:

If you are factoring in the Hyasyoda lab bonus, aren't you implicitly expecting those very expensive blueprints to be risked in just such a manner?

Also, I've read the discussion but may have missed it, but do BPOs going from 9 to 10 have to be researched continuously, or can we break that up into multiple sessions of week long jobs over the course of however many months or years it takes?