Tuesday 22 April 2014

Building Better Worlds - some thoughts.

This is a speculative post, based on insufficient information.  As such it should be short, but it isn't.

The shakeup.

Industry is getting a very big shakeup.
  1. Any industry feature must have an actual gameplay attached to it in order to exist
  2. Any industry feature must be balanced around our risk versus reward philosophy
  3. Any industry feature must be easily understandable and visible to our player base
We have already had a post about:
Industry slots are going to be removed, replaced with a sliding cost scale (between 0% and 14% of the base item cost) depending on how busy the station is.

There will be simplified rules; removing extra material and damage per job.

We have been offered a hint of upcoming changes "... we have not mentioned invention or reverse engineering. That is because we could not schedule them for summer and as such are pushed to be done next in line ..."

Some POS changes

  • Allow Starbases to be anchored (almost) anywhere in high-security space and without standing requirement.
  • To use a BP in a POS, the BP must be in that POS, just like any other material
  • Players will still be able to start their jobs remotely (via relevant skills).
  • Improved Mobile Laboratories and Assembly Arrays to compensate for such risk, numbers TBA.
  • Reduced copy time on all blueprints, Will now be less time consuming than manufacturing something out of it.

We will be getting posts about:

  • Industry UI
  • Research
  • Job cost scaling
  • Teams

Our experience and hopes with POS.


Historically, we ran highsec POS for primarily for research slots, but also manufacture on the side.  We are not doing that at the moment because most of our pilots are either wormhole based or in faction warfare.

However, one of our pilots used to make a lot of T2 items in our POS, due to the faster manufacturing time.  If I recall correctly, he was using the Component Assembly Array, to have his manufacturing done in 3/4 of the NPC station time.

This POS based manufacture was profitable for our manufacturer, even after the fuel costs were taken into account.


I expect that a lot of POS being put up for compression.  However the compression time will be instant, so this will leave highsec POS idle most of the time.

Also we have been told that Mobile Labs and Assembly Arrays will be improved to compensate for this risk.  We should be able to use BPC's more and BPO's less.

All the above mean that I see more POS based manufacturing.  This in turn means that visibly busy highsec POS may become the target for wardecs.  Ensure your POS has anchored defences that will be needed at some stage.  Put aside the ISK required for mercenary defence.

As a POS based wormhole corp, these changes may be a significant buff to our play style.

It is my prayer that CCP have started to touch sufficiently on POS code to allow this that some of the other things we need will also come.  I decline to get too hopeful.

Mining, and it's impact on manufacturing.


I see the majority of mining remaining in highsec; there is simply too much AFK mining that is currently done in highsec, with a volume that I don't see occurring in any other space. 

Compression seems to have been nerfed about 25%.  The costs involved in skilling up all those jump freighters to move the existsing demand let alone the new demand from manufacturing in null should, in the short term at least, limit the amount of manufacturing being moved to null.

CSM comments

The CSM are closer to the CCP decision makers than the rest of us.  That is their role. If you want different opinions on the CSM, you should be more involved.

Ripard Teg is of the opinion that we will be moving our manufacturers into null sec renter corps. "low-sec capital producers are particularly annoyed".

Ali Aris said  The new industry system looks great"

Trebour Daehdoow also approves.

Summary (or TLDR)

I expect that clever manufacturers will come up with alternatives. A lot will be in nullsec.  Others will be in POS.

Those manufacturers that are a little tired will leave manufacturing or possibly even Eve itself.  New manufacturers will take their place.

Pos fuel, and probably most manufactured goods will have a price spike, until miners and manufactures adjust to fill the gaps.

References

I have trawled my way through the 70+ pages forum comments so you don't have to.

Instant compression was from http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/reprocess-all-the-things/ search for "The stats for the Compression Array are below"

Improved POS slots was from http://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/building-better-worlds/, search for "Improve Mobile Laboratories and Assembly Arrays".

An overview of dev answers to common questions  https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=337246 

Individual CCP responses - some of which will be duplicates of above.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474431#post4474431
  • Allowing people to lock blueprints down in Starbases with current vote / lock mechanics would not be a good idea, so it won't be possible for now.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474637#post4474637
  • On even more abandoned (or place holding) POS "Yeah, that's a good point, we'll note that one down."
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474654#post4474654
  • On reducing the copy time for T2 BPO's. "That's the current plan, yes." 
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474563#post4474563
  • The idea is that there is a more dynamic spread of players invested in Industry which should lead to a more interesting and dynamic landscape.
  • Question: Can the same thing be done to trading in general with regard to sales taxes and broker fees?
    Answer : Sales tax and broker fees are a completely separate system, not something within scope of these changes though certainly an interesting idea.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474674#post4474674
  • Yes the new blueprint browser will show you all blueprints in stations or assembly arrays etc.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474681#post4474681
  • You will be able to see all your blueprints in assembly arrays etc and remotely start jobs from containers, so that should cover your use case.
  • There is also a nice search / filter interface, you will get some time on SiSi to give us feedback on how this works before we go live too.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474708#post4474708

  • The cost scaling will affect all build/research locations, including conquerable stations and outposts. All slot limitations are being removed everywhere in EVE, and locations that formerly had slot bonuses will receive other bonuses instead. More info on that will be in future blogs.
  • (Conquerable?) Station owners will be able to set part of the cost of running jobs (in the form of taxes), but other parts of the cost will be out of the owner's control. Costs will not ever be able to be set to zero. Again, more info on this will be available in the upcoming blogs.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474760#post4474760
  • The taxes go to the corp that owns the station, the scaling costs (more info will be coming in a future blog) are sunk out of the game.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474768#post4474768
  • Question: The industry outpost upgrades to null sec outposts (particularly, the Amarr ones) primarily focus on the increase of industry slots. With the removal of slot limitation, will you be altering the bonuses involved with these outpost upgrades?
    Answer: Yes
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474802#post4474802
  • We're not removing the ability to lock down blueprints in your station. You can still lock down as before and build, research and copy using the infinite slots in the station. (Foo note : i.e. not POS)
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474862#post4474862
  • You will be able to anchor towers in any system in hi sec, except systems that are restricted, like rookie systems and trade hubs like Jita. This is the same restricted list as the one that applies to POCOs for instance.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4474875#post4474875
  • ... The UI is going to reduce the number of clicks required to both install and preview/adjust a job to almost none. Our goal was driven by the idea that we want both batch and single blueprint job installation to be painless but fun. I don't want to spoil the next few blogs so I will leave it at that.
  • As to the cost scaling based on activity in a system, I will simply say that you should notice the impact on cost of working in a busy system, but the (future) blog should go into all the detail you need.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4475105#post4475105
  • Question: How big will the RAMs be given they are 100x more required per bpc
    Answer:  We'll have a look at volumes and keep you posted if we do any change.
  • Regarding existing RAM / RDB, yes, they'll be multiplied by 100.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4475163#post4475163
  • You will be able to get a quote from a station you are not at, with a blueprint you don't even own.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4475199#post4475199
  • We talk a lot about good and bad complexity within the team. A fair portion of the industry changes are pretty clear examples of removing bad complexity, while still keeping the interesting problems for players to solve.
  • Some of the changes are also centered around cleaning up years of legacy code, freeing us up to better iterate on the feature and do more sexy looking UI 
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4475330#post4475330

  • You will also get a list of locations you can install the job in the region with a way to compare their relative pricing.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4476028#post4476028
  • POS still need to be anchored at moons.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4476036#post4476036

  • You will be able to install (POS?) invention jobs remotely.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4478892#post4478892
  • Question regarding BPO's based jobs in progress when the release goes live.
    Answer: The issue regarding how to migrate blueprints using starbase when the expansion hits has been noted. We'll update this thread when we have more information about this.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4479060#post4479060
  • All extra materials are turned into regular materials, that will indeed be now affected by skills and waste. Except for Tech I ships and items, as such:
    • You should never see a Paladin require 2 Apocalypses to build
    • You should never see a Large shield Extender II require 0.75 Large Shield Extender I to build

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4479068#post4479068
  • Starbases will have reduced tax cost next to NPC station, and mobile labs / assembly array will have more efficient ME / PE lines.

All Dev, GM and CSM comments on this post can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=search&topic=Building+better+Worlds&devbadge=1&gmbadge=1&csmbadge=1

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