Market Discussions

As Bob said, you now simply have to monitor taxes alot more than you used to. In the past taxes where pretty much ignored as they hardly ever took a bite out of profitability, and if they did, you just moved onto soemthing more profitable. Now with it being such a large amount and a significant amount of the final products cost, you are forced to pay attention to it.

No more weekend warrior PI crap, you now need to run spread sheets or programs to figure out how much your making or loosing doing a certain thing, which is really what you should of been doing anyways as it's more efficient to use a program rather than working out numbers yourself on a pad of paper (I know..I tried and gave up).

I'm curious, where do most of the current PI goods come from? Wouldn't the new tax just push floor prices up proportionally and level in a way that leaves highsec profits effectively the same? Or is there enough from low/null alone to make it unprofitable in the long term for some items?

I am just curious about one thing. Won't the Interbus offices all be gone in a week anyway, since anyone can blow them up just for kicks?

The problem is not so much the prices on the market as the increase in overhead for doing other operations.

Example: POS profits for non-low/null sec are pretty thin, but represent almost half of the T2 mods sold on the market, according to some estimates. Small corps use PI to reduce overhead by producing their own fuel and either stockpiling or selling any surplus.

That surplus now, though, actually reduces short term profits due to the increased price of exports, assuming that the product does not sell immediately, and creates difficulties in acquiring materials, as too much of the corps money quickly becomes tied up in merchandise which is slow to move.

The net result is that T2 prices rise across the board as players give up due to low perceived returns and T2 becomes a rich man's game again, just like in the bad old days of the BPO lottery. This reduction in T2 production would pretty much be the death blow to the moon goo market, causing major alliances to loose money as their primary export goes into freefall.

And it will squeeze out new players, and the simple reason is that most of them will set up a single P1 planet, and see their first PI op costs more to export than their ship does, at little profit. I ran a one day load of oxygen and it cost more then most destroyers to export. I'm sure if i wait a while it will sell at a (small) profit, once sales taxes get done with it we're looking at maybe 50%, but that's assuming that the market remains stable (which is a joke in PI) and that I'm patient enough not to sell to buy orders (something I remember NOT being as a newb) at which point you may actually very well BE taking a loss.

I think people are underestimating just how much these will get blown up.

I've flown with several fleets from a number of different corps and I've run a couple of fleets in low sec. Let me explain how I think FCs will see these things. (More experienced FCs very welcome to chime in!)

A major problem with FCing is people getting bored. It's a constant struggle between finding a suitable target and spending too long flying about not shooting anything. POCOs are a great paliative to boredom. I can park my fleet at a red or grey POCO while waiting for my scouts to report. The twitchy kids in my fleet have something to shoot while the dozy ones get to go afk or alt tab. They will make a very useful stopping place while we're looking for a proper fight.

There's really no reason to park everyone up at a safe spot rather than parking people at a poco. Who knows maybe the locals will come to contest our casual vandalism which grants us the fight my scouts aren't managing to find. And if we reinforce it we've got a very likely fight in 24 hours time.

The only reason a FC would not be blowing up a POCO is when he wants to move the fleet to a better location or actually has a target enemy fleet or ship to engage. And this is entirely apart from any strategic or economic reasons - my members are simply happier if they're doing something rather than doing nothing.

"Growing your own" fuel when you don't live in a wormhole is dumb and anyone doing it deserves to lose money. PI is a revenue stream separate from T2 manufacturing. You make the item that gives you the most profit and sell it on the market. You then buy fuel with that isk, and end up with more fuel than you would have if you made your own. It's basic opportunity cost economics.



Fuel costs will be "baked in" to T2 component prices because most of the people running reactors in low/nullsec aren't ********. What do you suppose will happen if moon goo reactions become losing propositions? The guys running the tower won't sell their components. Supply will be constricted, and prices will rise. Once prices rise above breakeven again, you'll see supplies open up again.

T2 mods and ships will get marginally more expensive, because the cost will be passed on to the consumer. In exchange, PI now becomes a viable income stream for low/nullsec players, granting more incentive to leave highsec, bringing risk/reward more in line across the galaxy, making PI more worthwhile for all players, and driving conflict for good planet systems.

The net result is that T2 prices rise across the board as players give up due to low perceived returns and T2 becomes a rich man's game again, just like in the bad old days of the BPO lottery. This reduction in T2 production would pretty much be the death blow to the moon goo market, causing major alliances to loose money as their primary export goes into freefall.

The BPO lottery was a one time event that benefited veteran players, ensuring that new players would never be on a level playing field. This system is equal across the board because everyone that is willing to put up with the risk of entering low/nullsec has the same opportunity to exploit the new PI system.



If supply drops, prices will rise. As prices rise, PI becomes more profitable, giving more incentive to produce again. Do you REALLY think there are a ton of players out there that have the millions in startup capital to establish a PI presence (to purchase a hauler, skill books, and command center, then place extractors, factories, and launch pads) but that can't afford a few thousand isk of export costs? Please. Players are better at basic math than you give them credit for, and the ones that aren't will lose money. I won't be shedding much of a tear on behalf of the idiots.

Frankly, shooting structures is not all that fun. Yea, it may beat spending your time at a safe, but not by much. In fact, if your pilots start to think you spend too much time in each system because you are shooting structures, they may stop joining your fleets.


No reason except for the GCC you get. Depending on the type of fleet you are doing (logis or no logis, BS or BC), that GCC can go from minor nuisance to major annoyance.

Also, depending on the time it comes out and how far you are from your home, you may or may not be interested in coming back to finish it off. But that's fine, fights is part of the purpose of this feature. If the POCO owners are a PVP corp, they'll probably be happy to show up and get a fight away from sentries or stations. If they aren't, everyone warping through the system through the RF timer will see it and know there's a chance of a fight at so-and-so time.

And if nobody shows up to shoot or rep it, the POCO will regenerate to 25% shields and reset the timer within two hours a bit.

I've just updated it to use the new tax rates.

I think you're forgetting that the POCOs (as opposed to Interbus COs) have reinforcement timers. Who wants to alarm clock to shoot down a custom's office~?

(nobody)

Well, Jita price was 131M for the gantry when I was there earlier. So if you can buy the BPCs + materials and make them for 100M each, you stand to make a profit.