EVE General Discussion

Eve is played from numerous points of view, and one of them is the geopolitical view - who owns what and to what length will they go to keep it. The moon patch this winter - if you believe CCP's brief descriptions of it - seems to open up the game to some major changes, much of which will be geopolitical.

I have my own view of what those changes will look like - the short version is the map will look different - but what do you think the biggest consequence of the moon patch will be?

Not really. CCP caved on the nerf to supercap ratting, and they will cave on the changes to moon mining. Have to maintain those null sec cartel cash streams.

There will be changes made to the mechanics that will ensure that every bit of ISK remains in the hands of the moon owner.

When CCP starts talking about a redistribution of wealth and conflict drivers by creating dynamic security status (more activity drives up the status, less activity drives down the status), then we can see that CCP is serious about saving the game.

Nah they will nuke off passive moon goo income, which is great, you'll actually have to have people in mining ships to get your moon goo instead of just sitting in a safe bubble, personally i look forward to ninja mining fleets, hotdrop to get the fleet then bridge in the expedition frigates to ninja the moon goo, it will be glorious :P

Peace on middle east. I hope.

Well, I guess my point is that large null-sec groups will be able to handle their moons more easily than moon owners without access to large numbers of people.

Most large null-sec groups have large numbers of pet or member miners already in their space. Re-purposing those folks to mine moon materials seems like something they'll be able to handle relatively well. On the other hand, the groups that might own a dozen low-sec moons to fund their low-sec PvP group are going to have a harder time because they don't have a "mining division" to gather their moon goo.

If you already have a dedicated portion of your alliance who are miners... you'll probably be able to handle the change okay. If you don't... you won't.

Thanks for the replies, so far. I agree it is a question of manpower, and I don't think the big gorillas will easily re-purpose pilots who joined for fighting to endless mining runs. Maybe I'm wrong. I think the manpower issue will be key, and will really in the end make the difference between potential outcomes of the patch.

Please keep responding. I've had this convo with so many people who can't see beyond pew pew that the ideas here are great.

Wouldn't a dynamic security status make upgrading ihubs inherently worthless?
If you end up being so active your sec status goes up the spawns would get worse. You'd just have a couple of frigates like high sec

Unless the changed security status didn't alter loot or spawns at all.

I'm not sure you've got alliance economics worked out... The mega alliances hold lots of moons, sure. But this change is more along the lines of adding more anoms. Active effort resulting in front line income. Will the alliance be able to enforce any kind of tax on the goo the members mine? It doesn't look like it. And since the reactions will be done in the industry interface, the alliances can't even collect reprocessing taxes like they'd be able to with ores. I think it'll be nearly impossible for the groups to monetize moon goo on the alliance level, especially the bigger they get. If I ran a mega alliance with certain budgetary obligations, I imagine I'd have to increase corporate dues, and shift the tax collection responsibilities down the chain. Trying to enforce moon goo ops on the alliance level would be trying to swim upstream. Let miners mine whatever they want and go from there, the market will determine the most worthwhile activity. On a bigger scale, this will push the price of high end ores up towards the price of moon goo, and in general push up the prices of all mins. What happens to the price of the moon goo itself will depend on the hard production limits set by CCP.

That's more economic scale, but some of the assumptions inform what will likely happen on the geopolitical. The groups that rely on moon goo itself for their daily function will be choked out (the small groups that *need* the passive income to play) while those that are more diversified (the mega-alliances that don't really need to care) will become more entrenched. The smaller groups will collapse and unsub. The bigger groups will gobble up more space, EVE will become even more stagnant and less fun. This is a gift to the dev-buds at the expense of the health of the game itself. Another example that EVE's long term health is not part of CCP's business plan (I'm convinced they are deliberately trying to retire EVE as part of their 5 or 10 year business plan.)

I don't really have the actual numbers either. I've got a pretty good grasp of supply and demand though. A pretty good grasp of cost vs benefit. In terms of cost vs benefit, it could be thought of as the cost of moon mining being dramatically increased to the point that most groups will be priced out of it. The increased cost comes in the form of time. Any group that doesn't have the man hours available is priced out by default. Especially since unlike POS mining, they don't have the control of the output materials meaning they also have basically no chance to benefit either. There might be a couple tiny groups that manage to make it work for them by flying under the radar, but they won't produce in enough volume to matter, or likely to even be worth it. The only way I can picture this increasing participation for smaller groups through forms of enslavement and indentured servitude.

If you are a 500 pilot moon owning PVP corp/alliance with no industry/mining, then you already rely on someone with industry to buy your ships from unless you're jumping everything from hi-sec.

"The exact time of the detonation is controlled by the owners of the Refinery within limits. If the chunk is left unattended long enough it will disintegrate into the asteroid field on its own."

Since you control the exact time that the moon-chunk blows, you could sell the moon-chunk to a nearby industrial corp.

"... close enough for a pilot controlling the Refinery to be able to cover the friendly miners and/or attack uninvited guests."

Since the station is in firing range of the moon-goo field it would be worthwhile for a nearby industrial corp to actually purchase the mining rights from you even if they know you are pure PVP and they're the only miners around.

This is all assuming that the moon-rocks are in demand of course.