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Slush Pile: Mental Clutter

TL;DR: Industry is a whole new game. My guess for new ships. Some random thoughts on ganking's future, more change thoughts, and a general unfocused wad of text.

I think everyone's industry spreadsheets may have burst into flames with the release of the teams blog.

What are my thoughts on the latest round of changes? I've been asked a few times and detailing them out isn't working. Everything is a disorganized slurry inside my head as I attempt to understand through just the dev blogs and dev comments a completely new industrial future.

I've produced a disorganized slurry of a blog post in response which I've labeled slush. If I continue to have posts such as this I will continue the label such as the rambles. That's all the warning I have.


I guess that we will find out about the new ships today, at fanfest. However, I am terrible at guessing. I was wrong bout the dev blogs for instance. They kicked them all out in a big poof. I suspect that was the result of the bitching over the slow roll as well as the need to change some things (like pretend low sec exists). However, it did exactly what I expected. It left people overwhelmed and running in circles trying to organize their new future. It's been a more productive reaction than the first two dev blogs created. But, I'm tossing out how I think of industry now and trying to develop a new understanding for it.

It's going to take some time. The dev blogs are not the detailed, informational dumps that they used to be. They are pretty and show us great new features and general ideas of what is coming. But, that is not how the involved Eve player consumes information. The forum thread turns into a 20-80+ page battle to pull details out of CCP for us to actually examine the feature beyond "Boy that is neat!".

I made several jokes on the ship thread. I was bored at work. My favorite guess was pirate barges. What I more think would fit an industry theme is my real guess: mini-freighters. If there is any gap or hole in the ship line up it is for a mid sized hauler of around 200k-500k m3 of space. maybe a T3 hauler? With my guessing luck I'm probably just having random dreams.

So, the industry blogs. What do I think? I think that CCP is picking industry up and replacing it in one swoop. I think that change is going to be very painful and frustrating and that he economy is going to have to change. I think that they are trying to get people to both spread out from hub points and create true regional markets. I think that low sec is on shaky ground for productivity and many things will matter such as the actual affect the team has on your build. I also think that low sec is an after thought and we will have to sit down, pow-wow and present CCP with ideas about where we belong in the new world order.

It was the jump drive nerf that made me reach this point, not the industry dev blogs. There are numbers CCP has that we do not (or makes up for the tinfoil). I don't believe they are making them up when it comes to their decision making. You see, players are not honest about what they do and what they make with each other.

The jump drive nerf is not elegant. I am not surprised by it. Not because of the "keep null products in null' approach. I am not surprised because I fully expect power projection to be on the table and along with whatever happens a massive increase in cost would be part of it. I think that CCP Fozzy's own words about null sec flooding the high sec market speaks to some activity or stockpile when it comes to isotopes. The ice nerf said that high sec could only provide 80% of what was used. These new changes make me wonder what they see in the ice.

Is it fun? No. I make a lot of jumps and burn through a lot of fuel. Is it surprising? No. Is it only going to hurt small groups? Well, what is small? 7-2's capital fleet is smaller than Shadow cartels Capital fleet which is smaller than NC.s capital fleet... the lower you are on the size scale the harder any power projection nerf is going to feel. And being small is hard in Eve. Eve attempts to force you to grow in size. So yeah, it is another hit against us. It is one we can power through but it will suck.

So, let's talk about the mini-freighter I envision. I don't have a lot of details. It is just going to be something that is between a t1 hauler and a freighter without hte HP of an Orca. It may not have fitting slots. It will not be gankable by one ship and that is where I got into an argument with Vov.

Vov says that there is no reason for there to be something between T1 haulers and freighters when there are Orcas. I point out that there is a huge hole between them and the Orca is supposed to be an industrial command ship. Vov points out that T1 haulers can be tanked to not be ganked by one Tornado as well a the normal caution about having less stuff. My response was that the new industrial changes mean people are going to have to move stuff around more because CCP is making them do so. But, filling a freighter is harder than one might expect. Freighters, I might also add, were created during the origional structure of Sov with the intent to move supplies around Svv to construct massive space facilities and the huge amounts of minerals needed for that and Dreadnought construction. We use them for hauling but long has the request been for a mid point ship.

My point was to Vov that there is a gap that people need a ship for. Then I said a contentious thing. I said that maybe, gankers have ganked themselves into the position where CCP is going to respond by making ganking harder. The mining barges are getting another pass. If a mini-freighter comes in that is not gankable in a profitable way, I won't be surprised. CCP is asking people to move their stuff a lot more. It needs to be more convenient to do. I cannot express how soul grinding I find the warp changes to be and I like logistics.

And as for low sec... sigh. I want to get some builds done on the test server. The numbers blog left things kind of undefined. Industry is going to become more mobile and dynamic, maybe. Teams present an interesting future with potential. Faction Warfare is getting  a bonus for its system tiers but I think a tax relief bonus should also happen. I managed to ask the wrong question on the thread because I posted from bed after reading the dev blog when I woke up. That's a bad habit I need to get out of. Sleeping badposting is not a good habit to start and I've told myself that I need to post on the eve online forums a bit more.

What about non FW low sec? I'm rubbing my eye and sighing. The viability, as I currently understand things, are not there. Maybe teams will create some type of improvement but if not, something needs to be thought of. What that is right now? I don't know. But, I firmly believe that 'we' as the greater Eve community can come up with some reasonable and possible solutions to present if the nerf bat we see makes contact with the nerfness we expect it to. I understand many people are very angry. I'm frustrated-angry not bitter-angry. I'm going to work on turning it into productively angry and hopefully find some type of solution. I'll drag along as many people as I can get interested in it and see what happens.

Welcome to some of my mental slush pile. I've been receiving a tremendous amount of feedback about topics and I've engaged in many excellent conversations.

Warning: This post has been a product of random thoughts and musing.

Comments

  1. All I've wanted out of the industrial line, for years now, is a tech1 battleship hull sized industrial. That's it. I don't care if it can do all sorts of wowie wizbang things.

    As for lowsec, I dunno. I'm hoping exclusivity of certain types of teams to certain areas of space could possibly help things out at a later date. Because I don't think what CCP hopes will happen is what's going to happen.

    There are two conflicting ideas. Isk/Unit, and Isk/Hour. I think the game will solidify around the racial market hubs because while 14% tax per unit is bad, in time spent ferrying things all over the cluster 14% is nothing. There will be people out in the back of beyond going for the most money they can make per sale on each unit to maximize profits. I just don't think the price point they can sell at is going to be the norm. Instead the Jita Price will be the absolute max assumed tax rate.

    I can say this because there is already an invisible 10-20% tax rate no one sees or thinks about called station traders. We'll all pay 14% gladly for the convenience because we all already pay more than that without batting an eye.

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  2. I don't know about new ships, but they have the Transport ships (T2 industrials) as low-hanging fruit. Those things are nearly useless. I'd love it if they'd rework them to carry, say, 100000m^3 of stuff. Then they'd have a reason to be.

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    1. Deep space transports? Blockade runners are low sec bread and butter. We brought a while fleet of them on deployment.

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    2. Deep space transports, right.

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    3. Blockade Runners are just fine as they are. Sure, I wish they were tougher (more effective health), but that hasn't stop me from me from using them very extensively (almost exclusively) anyhow.

      Deep Space Transports on the other than probably could use some changes to make them more effective at their intended role. IMO they should probably be bigger (more cargo space) and also either faster or tougher.

      What I think is really missing in the hauling ship lineup though is a small, *fast T1 industrial that new players can get into quickly. Similar to a BR only without the covert cloak and unscannable cargo hold.

      Not everyone needs or wants to haul around hundreds of thousands of m3 at a glacial pace. Something small and fast that carries 4-5k m3 would IMO fill that role perfectly.

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    4. I'd have been lost without my occator in my pre JF days.

      Occator + mwd/cloak trick was my staple for years to move stuff in lowsec.

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  3. Oh they have their uses, Sometimes its nice to haul a few bill around in them and know that no one knows whats inside.

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  4. What about non FW low sec?

    Lowsec won't be used much for manufacturing, so I expect there should be some systems with favorable manufacturing costs. My guess is that in highsec, most systems will end up with manufacturing costs of about 3% of item value. But we know that the average is 2%; it is this value that will obtain in lowsec, or perhaps as low as 1%.

    Also, look around for systems with lots of stations with good bonuses. Systems in highsec with good manufacturing cost reductions (i.e. Nonni) will have that reduction competed away. But I do not think this will happen in lowsec. People might try to manufacture there for low cost, but unless they can get the goods out without too much fuss it is not going to be very attractive. The local pirate corp will have a big say in getting the goods out. So, my guess is that any Nonni-like system in lowsec will retain its cost advantage, for use by people blue to local pirates.

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  5. I can't imagine low sec has any opportunity to manufacture profitably after these changes. One of the idiot dev's said it gets no intrinsic bonuses over high sec other than the natural congestion taxes and that is horribly wrong (and that is coming from what appears to be the only champion of high sec).

    Low sec cap manufacturing cannot compete with the refine bonuses handed null sec. That is a given. And hiring teams to specialize in certain markets will also be a given. And I cannot imagine any decent scale low sec mfg group will want to broadcast what they are building, and more importantly, what system they are building in. So teams, at least the best ones, can't be used by low sec builders.

    This whole overhaul was geared to hugely buff null sec at the expense of everywhere else, and it is clearly going to exceed the wildest dreams of even the architects who handed the designs to the dev's.

    Null sec cartels will control any product or basket of products they wish to, low sec mfg is extinct, and high sec gets to fight over the scraps of low margin / large size products.

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    1. 2/5 on the Dinsdale Bingo.

      That said you're fuckin retarded. There's a lot of hyperbole in all your claims, none of which makes much bloody sense.

      The more people that decide to give up industry because they cannot adapt will simply mean better margins for me and will not be missed.

      The Mittani sends his regards.

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    2. Really Dinsdale, CCP announces that the fuel requirements for jumping are increasing by 50% in order to 1) help high sec ice miners from the effects of the expected downsizing of POS by high sec industrialists and 2) increase the import price from null to high sec to help protect high sec industry, and you're complaining? Especially since that is going to increase Sugar's transport costs, which she'll have to pass along to the low sec residents she serves? You know that gives another advantage to the high sec industrialists who see low sec as a captive market that belongs to them, right? The same people who don't like what Sugar is doing with the Cougar Store and would really like CCP to help them out since she's beating them at their own game.

      Sorry, but after reading the blogs and the discussions with a lot of people here at Fanfest, including those from EVE University, I'm not having a lot of sympathy for your point of view. It looks like you are just getting greedy.

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    3. @ Noizy...so the cost round trip of a jump freighter goes up 50%, to what was it, 75 million ISK, according to the pandemic legion dev?
      And if you have a hold worth 10 billion of product, which is dead easy with DC II's and Nano II's, what is that? 0.75% of total value?

      Or perhaps the null sec cartels just jumps at once 10 Viators with a blackops cyno, to mitigate the risk.

      Bottom line the the isotope hike is a drop in the bucket compared to the huge advantages being gifted to null. And as for high sec trying to protect its null sec market, it will be some enterprising null sec industrialist whole will be service the low sec market soon, not high sec...

      Oh, and last thing. I don't even have any skin in the game, other than realizing my LP from missions and incursions just took a massive hit. I shut down all my industrial accounts over 2 years ago when soundwave started his campaign to kill high sec industry when he wiped out the RP grind. I make products with my LP purchased BPC's, which makes me very very small time. But I am faced now with 40 minute jobs that will be costing me on the order of 50-100 million ISK now, and no, I won't be able to pass that all along to the customer.

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  6. Industrialists depend on their spreadsheets and other tools similar to Eve Isk Per Hour. http://sourceforge.net/projects/eveiph/

    The new teams is going to make it quite difficult for the small or casual industrialist to determine if and how much of a profit they are actually earning. Certainly the calculations can be done. The questions is who will take the time to do them? Eve is turning into a second job that is absolutely no longer fun for the casual player, at least from my perspective.

    It was once quite easy to plug in the numbers and ask simple questions that yielded rewarding answers.

    1. Is it worth my time to buy minerals from Jita and factor in delivery costs, or should I buy from Amarr?
    2. Can I still make a profit if I buy minerals locally and save some time?
    3. Let's look at unrefined minerals at Jita. Any available? Can I make some money there by hauling and refining them? At the end of the day, is my time investment netting a profit or am I better off just buying refined minerals in bulk.
    4. I've got an extra 5 minutes of my lunch remaining. Let's ask Eve Isk Per Hour to look at Jita prices for minerals and all of the BPOs I own, then ask it to calculate what I can build that will net me $150 mil based on the best current buy price in Jita. Great, found a few things. That's the project I'll start when I get off work...in between feeding the dogs and waiting for dinner.

    With all the new changes, we have too many variables to consider before understand IF we will make a profit at all. Just no fun anymore for someone like me with a family, and other commitments.

    I can imagine that those who are less encumbered such as college kids, unmarried, high school age, or those with a job affording more free time might relish the additional challenges. There is still something inside me that wonders if someone producing in high sec or low sec might still ask themselves why they are working so hard to eek out a profit when those in null have so many advantages = less stress and greater opportunity.

    I hope there is a silver lining to the cloud of this "expansion" for those that are heavily invested in EVE's future. I once was, but no longer. There has to be something better.

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    1. I think many of us are hoping for silver linings in many ways. They are creating a more dynamic system. How it will function inside of our economy is the next question. They have promised to keep an eye out and adjust and tweak. I want to believe that promise but the track record so far is worrisome.

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  7. I'm frustrated. We still don't have the full information about POS we need. Is ther any point in keeping a large POS after this or will a medium do just fine? Is there a point in keeping a POS at all? We don't know!

    I think that the system wide installation cost could lead to all sorts of wonkyness - I blogged about how it could perhaps be used to scam/extort industrialists. I don't have enough information to know if it's actually possible, but it makes me wary. I'm not sure how well thought out this is.

    And yes, I also think the DST could fill that cargo niche. It *really* needs a lot of love that ship.

    @Moxnix: have you tried the new "small and fast" industrials since the rebalance? The sigil and others are fast and have decent tank (20-30 K ehp if you do it right).

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    1. Having read your idea I don't see it working. you would have to either greatly increase the overall proportion of build hours in a system (far far beyond what one character can install) over the short term, (because your added days are smoothed out by the previous 28 days) or be prepared to still spike it massively for weeks to make an appreciable dent. An organized group might have a shot at doing it, but the sheer cost incurred trying the scam makes me think that it will never work for profit... you wont be able to afford the materials etc to keep it up. nor could I see many having the will to keep all your industry slots filled 24/7 (assuming a large enough number of slots/toons to make a difference)


      That being said... I see a new burn jita style opportunity for goons

      Teg

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  8. I liken the gap between Haulers and Orca/Freighter to the gap between Cruisers and Command Ships/Capitals. You don't necessarily /need/ BCs and BS - but they do come in handy in certain situations. Just like EVE doesn't /need/ Mordu's Legion faction ships.

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