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[Proposal] K-space exploration fixes
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Tarunik Raqalth'Qui
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#1 - 2012-01-19 21:32:07 UTC
As it stands right now: Radars and DED rated non-Drone complexes, and to a lesser extent Ladars (most K-space explorers skip 'em because gas harvesting is considered a PITA by them, but it's no big deal for W-space types popping out into K-space) are profitable. Mags, Gravs, and Rogue Drone or non-DED-rated complexes are pretty much worthless, though, but for different reasons:


  • Magnetometric sites drop junk salvage most of the time. (Even some of the T2 salvage parts they drop aren't worth that much ISK.) If one wanted to increase T2 salvage inflows, this would be the place to do it at, although an overall rig rebalance would do more to help the situation.
  • Gravimetric sites are worthless because the money's either in bulk low-ends or in small quantities of high-ends (ABCM). Ores between those two extremes aren't very good. Perhaps heavily defended grav sites containing small amounts of high-ish ends such as Bistot and Crokite might be a good idea? (Arkonor and Mercoxit could be added for low/0.0 versions, along with more stuff to fight through of course.)
  • Rogue Drone complexes don't drop anything useful. Drone loot nerfed itself into the ground a long time ago, and the overseer-type loot you get from them is not worth much either. Fixing this would require either a) a serious rework of 'Augmented' and 'Integrated' drones, b) the introduction of module drops into Rogue Drone combat complexes (such as faction drone-related modules), or c) just removing the complexes altogether.
  • I frankly have no idea why non-related complexes exist, they usually involve Rogue Drones it seems and are complete rubbish anyway, except maybe for a faction spawn?
  • On a related note, why is K-space gas 10m3/unit? It isn't worth nearly as much as C540...


Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#2 - 2012-01-19 23:30:15 UTC
The presence of high-ends (or even mid-ends, if you're truly fanatical about balance) in hisec is a bad idea.

You might think "but it will be more profitable for me right now" and that might be right. But then consider that there are thousands of other players who play the same way you do. If high ends become available in hisec, they will be exploited mercilessly and the value of those ores will drop.

The low value of Gravimetric sites is due to the number of people flooding the market with zero-effort ores. They mine while watching TV, doing housework, or even playing other games. The way to "fix" the severely depressed minerals market is not to add more minerals to hisec: that will only make the problem worse. To get more value from the ore you mine, the ore you mine must be worth mining, which means that there's less of it to mine. Ideally it would also require more effort than simply warping to a belt and starting the lasers, returning attention to the game once in a blue moon to move stuff from the Hulk to the Orca.

As for Mag sites, there has been some discussion about "salvage alchemy" where by some process, players can convert vast quantities of T1 salvage to T2 salvage. If such a thing happens, I can see the opportunity to introduce more T1 salvage into the game. Until there is some mechanism in place to consume vast quantities of T1 salvage, adding more salvage through exploration would be a bad idea.

Other opportunities would include switching rogue drones from dropping "drone poo" to dropping & salvaging special components which are used to produce drone-related implants, rigs and modules. I prefer this idea to straight out bounties.

I agree with your comments about gas though :)

Lower volume would lead to easier extraction which would lead to cheaper booster production. There aren't enough drug pushers in hisec. We need more.

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Tarunik Raqalth'Qui
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#3 - 2012-01-25 20:34:41 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
The presence of high-ends (or even mid-ends, if you're truly fanatical about balance) in hisec is a bad idea.

You might think "but it will be more profitable for me right now" and that might be right. But then consider that there are thousands of other players who play the same way you do. If high ends become available in hisec, they will be exploited mercilessly and the value of those ores will drop.

The low value of Gravimetric sites is due to the number of people flooding the market with zero-effort ores. They mine while watching TV, doing housework, or even playing other games. The way to "fix" the severely depressed minerals market is not to add more minerals to hisec: that will only make the problem worse. To get more value from the ore you mine, the ore you mine must be worth mining, which means that there's less of it to mine. Ideally it would also require more effort than simply warping to a belt and starting the lasers, returning attention to the game once in a blue moon to move stuff from the Hulk to the Orca.

Actually, I'll agree with you on this one here. What's funny is that there is a ton of W-space ore (and I mean a TON of it) that goes unmined due to ore/mineral-hauling :effort:
Quote:

As for Mag sites, there has been some discussion about "salvage alchemy" where by some process, players can convert vast quantities of T1 salvage to T2 salvage. If such a thing happens, I can see the opportunity to introduce more T1 salvage into the game. Until there is some mechanism in place to consume vast quantities of T1 salvage, adding more salvage through exploration would be a bad idea.

I agree that just making mags drop MOAR SALVAGE PARTS would be a bad move, and wouldn't even fix the underlying problem. What I'd do is make it so that mag cans drop T2 salvage more often and T1 salvage less often.

Quote:

Other opportunities would include switching rogue drones from dropping "drone poo" to dropping & salvaging special components which are used to produce drone-related implants, rigs and modules. I prefer this idea to straight out bounties.

YES! Using Rogue Drone components instead of "drone poo" as Rogue Drone loot would make the stuff meaningful; heck, we could even have some parts that just go into straight-up T2 drone production. It'd make the Dronelands more interesting and less of a drag on the mineral market, too.

Quote:

I agree with your comments about gas though :)

Lower volume would lead to easier extraction which would lead to cheaper booster production. There aren't enough drug pushers in hisec. We need more.

Yep. You can extract C28 more easily than any HS gas, and it's probably worth more/unit too! Making HS gas 2m3/unit and LS/0.0 gas 5m3/unit would make far more sense than 10m3/unit and ??? (probably > 10m3/unit).
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#4 - 2012-01-26 00:45:01 UTC
I come across a grav site called "large Omber deposit" in space where Omber is everywhere and think: Whats the point? At least make Grav sites have ore that does not occur in that same system in the public belts.

Also the occasional SMALL ABCM roid would not be unbalancing and add a little spice and variation.

Also add high end ice roid grav sites.

For Mag sites: they already drop skillbooks. Increase that, and add many more types to the loot table. Make it so no one skillbook type drops more often than players buy it from the NPCs. That way the market never crashes.

And I like the "salvage rebuilding" idea, making a singe intact item by rebuilding it from parts taken from many damaged items.

Gas sites: Rework boosters so players will actually want to use them, even for just casual stuff; doing a mission faster or mining faster. That was supposed to be part of Incarna iteration, but has been put on hold.

But the real k-space exploration fix that's needed: For the k-space explorer wormholes are the vermin of the sky. Years ago the Observer probe would tell you what is and is not in a system, but no position information at all. Bring something like that back. Scanning out wormhole after wormhole is just tedious.

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