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[orange]

The Eve Odyssey thread began a discussion of industry, which I think is worth a thread in its own right.  I define industry to be those activities chiefly whose products are chiefly inputs into carious facilities to produce other stuff (research, manufacturing, mining, planetary interaction, etc)  Included in the discussion I think it is important to recongize the distribution of resources used in industry from ore to the facilities themselves.

I am going to start with some quotes from the Odyssey thread that led me to want to discuss this more.

Please shatter the moon mining mechanic, please shatter the moon mining mechanic...

People in nul need more money?

Hah?

Can't really speak for null, specifically, but it is my experience is that it is easier for ALLIANCES to make money in Null and low, harder for individuals within those alliances.

Correct.

This is because Alliance income in null (on the large scale) goes more or less directly to it's wallets through concentrated streams. This leads to the big money requiring a 'trickle-down' economic model to enrich it's playerbase. Real-world jokes about that phrase aside, it's not the best path for EVE.

Null-sec cash flow has to be made to work bottom-up, not top-down.

A lot of emphasis is placed on the lack of trickle-down effects that currently occurs in most moon operating organizations.  I think part of the fundamental challenge here is not the mechanical inability to trickle down the income in useful ways, but rather the ease of accessing market hubs.  In addition, the "obstacles" to null-sec industry encourage the movement of moon products to high-sec for manufacturing versus local production.

I think if an alliance choose to focus on developing their own bottom-up economy, they could do so.  However the fundamental challenge with a bottom-up economy is the willingness of the lower tier to participate in those industry activities.  If the activity is considered boring, they won't do it and if a "boring" activity can largely be done passively, only a few people will volunteer their game time to take care of those tasks (and thus reap the benefits).

I, for one, am interested to see where they go with this. Never really got into exploration, but having some more interesting things to poke around at would satisfy a few folks I know. And industry... Lets be honest, of all the Spreadsheets In Space, industry is the Spreadsheet-iest. If they find a way to make that more interesting, or at least clean it up, I will count that as a victory.

This kind of comes in at a personal level, trying to start a shipyard corp. Which has run into a couple of problems. First, industry is tedious, confusing, complex, and ultimately boring. With the end result that nobody wants to utilize it as a mechanic, or if they do they just run it solo or with pre-established friends. The second is that an industry corp needs people; miners and production masters, at least, if not haulers, administration, and even security. Couple that with problem one, and you're in one big loop going nowhere.

So yeah, changes to industry? Hell yes I'll stick around and see what they do.

I sympathize with you.  The bulk of my Google Docs account is given over to various spreadsheets to support Eve industry.

To the first order, I would appreciate CCP taking some time to consider whether industry is a solo or group activity.   If it is intended to be a group activity, I would appreciate tools that make the activity more straightforward from a group perspective.  It would be useful to have "projects" (like fleets) that could be setup using an in-game tool and then enable characters to take part, pooling resources, and contributing to higher tier products within a corporate framework.

Some initial thoughts - I will expound some more after things bounce around my skull a bit more.

[Ciarente]

To the first order, I would appreciate CCP taking some time to consider whether industry is a solo or group activity

Agreed. At the moment, like PI, it's a solo activity that can't be undertaken by a single character to any degree of usefulness (because of the upper limit on number of slots one character can manage at any given time) which makes it a group/corp activity that can't be usefully shared with the tools available in-game. While there are useful out of game options, I strongly believe that a player's ability to compete in Eve, whether through combat or industry, should not depend on how good they are at locating or building third-party tools, but how good they are at Eve.

One thing that needs to be changed is the way industry and science roles work. It needs to be possible to give people the ability to start industrial jobs but not cancel them; and to start jobs from a hangar they can view but can't take items from, both of which would allow industrial corps to open up their production to newer members without having to micromanage what materials are available when and without that potential infiltration alt having the roles to cancel a capital build.

Orange's suggestion of a 'project' tool is a good one (there's something similar in Eve HQ but someone still has to copypaste, delegate, and distribute). This would remove the current burden of a single project manager distributing lists of things that needed to be done.

Some time ago there was a suggestion of changing the interface so when you checked the build requirements of a t2 BPO it would show you not only what you had and what you needed in terms of t2 components, but also what moon materials you would need to build missing components, allowing you to go shopping without having to calculate from the component BPOs individually what you would need for each one. This would go a long way towards making T2 less of a PITA and therefore more accessible. Additionally, it would be nice to have a shopping list functionality inside Eve so you could build a complete list from the different items you wanted to manufacture.

The biggest 'obstacle' to null sec industry seems to be at the moment that it's not unprofitable, but less profitable than other, easier activities undertaken with the same scarce resources i.e. moons to anchor POSes at. When you can buy t2 modules in Jita for just above and often less than they cost to build, why would you dedicate grid on your POS to running manufacturing arrays when you can harvest moon goo instead? Expanding POS anchoring opportunities beyond moons in all space is something I think CCP should look at, not least because the number of players has dramatically expanded beyond the numbers last time there was a significant expansion of space.

[Anslol]

I don't know about trickle down being a difficult thing to undertake. Like any business, you don't use all your profits to put back into the same business for capital gain. Reinvesting in your business is smart sure, a new office building here, a new program there, a new printer, it's all things needed to run a business. However, reinvesting in that business also involves investing in your HUMAN capital. The argument could be had that the ship reimbursement programs some Alliances have is a form of trickle down, but that's ONLY if you loose that ship in a CTA for the Alliance to protect the same money making assets that joe shmoe fleet member in Drake #2646 will never really get to see save for what they give him if he looses the ship. If he doesn't loose the ship, he gets zip.

Eve at this point is already spreadsheet oriented, so to me, developing a true trickle down policy could be doable. Alliances can already keep track of who is and is not involved in CTAs and who's just being a leech. With this in mind, the same idea behind the reimbursement program could also be used for a sort of wage. You get involved with a CTA to protect a moon mining POS? Great, here's 20-30 million. That wage could be adjusted for the type of ship that person is in in case he is asked to be part of a special fleet, if he has been with the Alliance for a while, if he's provided add-value to the Alliance, etc etc.

The opportunities are really already there for trickle down to work. Goons et al are just greedy bastards controlling pew crazy nutters who don't see they're being used to make someone else a lot of isk while they get squat. Sounds familiar eh :p

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

SRP's aren't quite like that.  We have one, but it isn't a reward.

It is a subsidy.  Having fun in EVE Online costs ISK, which is a tangible thing in game.  The SRP allows us to make sure that none of our members ever lacks for the ability to have fun with the rest of the corp because they cannot afford a ship.

[Ciarente]

I don't know about trickle down being a difficult thing to undertake.

I don't think that's quite what Orange means by bottom-up vs top-down. There's already a very easy ingame mechanism for sharing corporate wealth with members (dividends) and in fact in my corp, that's what happens. The difference between a bottom-up and top-down corp economy is less about what happens to the corp's wealth and more about how it's generated: does it come from the collective efforts of members, which industry takes due to the upper cap on what any one character can do, or does it come from activities carried out by by one or two members , like maintaining moon mining POSes?

[Desiderya]

I would also like to have a simple way of creating a market for a target audience, whether that is for the own corporation or alliance or another corporation/alliance.
Basically, I want to put up orders that only a predefined audience can see and fulfill. Contracts do not allow easy browsing or managing, nor do they allow a partial fulfillment.

This would make me insanely happy, because what irks me the most about anything industrial in EVE is that circumventing the public market is an extreme additional hassle for miniscule gains, making cooperation extremely difficult. I would like to have an easy way to buy minerals from miners I know and offer good prices for finished goods to friends and partners.

[BloodBird]

If the only thing they do, is utterly MURDER the 0.1 price war and add tags that let's me see who I am buying from, then accepting that order I just placed, I will be completely satisfied. Everything else beyond this will be a bonus, so long as this is fulfilled.

I can't effectively describe how extremely annoying it is to ask for one thing and get another because that one item was 0.1 ISK cheaper, or find out I'm buying stuff directly from a goon or some other undesirable.

I can't even buy the items that are 0.1 isk more expensive just to spite the cheap bastards.

[Saede Riordan]

I think the problems runs something like this:

1. Industry in nullsec is shit, to the point where it is impossible for an alliance living in nullsec to come anywhere near supporting itself in its own space. The bad refineries, limited factory slots, and lack of benefits to nullsec over highsec means most alliances don't do industry in their own space, they do it in highsec.

2. Because of this, you cut the low level industrial activities out of the alliance level, leaving nothing for alliance members to do but roam around, and do PVE to earn an income. PVE generates ISK, but not wealth, thus creating inflation.

The solution to this, I see, is threefold:

1. Totally redo nullsec industry and soverignty so that it is a descriptive, instead of prescriptive system, making sure there is enough content in the form of industry and work for every member of an alliance to contribute. Living in a system for an alliance should require a lot of people working together, completing tasks to get resources and wealth. Wormhole space already does this very effectively, albeit in a limited fashion.

2. (Preparing for incoming shitstorm) To accompany the buff to nullsec industry, and stop spiralling inequalities, mission income, and ratting income, need a nerf. Lvl 4s should get pulled from highsec, and rats in 0.0 should be tweaked so they are part of an actual resource generation system, instead of just 'shoot ship, get ISK'

3. (The other part of the incoming shitstorm) Highsec industry needs a nerf. Factory slots should be a lot harder to come by, and refineries should be less efficient in highsec then in other areas.

[Iwan Terpalen]

With the current situation, it just seems to me it's next to impossible to set up an industrial operation that both covers the equipment needs of your average group of kill-happy pilots, and utilizes only local resources. So you're going to be jumping back and forth to a trade hub anyway. I suspect that nerfing hi-sec industry will just result in increased costs across the board, pushed down to the consumer; even if that leads to a migration of industrial activity to nullsec, it's not 100% clear to me why it should be there to begin with.

[Cmdr Baxter]

2. (Preparing for incoming shitstorm) To accompany the buff to nullsec industry, and stop spiralling inequalities, mission income, and ratting income, need a nerf. Lvl 4s should get pulled from highsec, and rats in 0.0 should be tweaked so they are part of an actual resource generation system, instead of just 'shoot ship, get ISK'

CCP is never going to pull L4s from highsec. It'd tick off too many people in the carebear community at large, would be seen as an attempt to force players to go into nullsec, and would probably lead to another wave of unsubscriptions similar to that of the 'burn Jita' protests a couple years ago. I can agree with reducing payouts. But outright yanking them? No.

[Lyn Farel]

You know what generates money with L4s ? Not the rewards, but the loyalty store.

You may end up with drastically different results than you expected in nerfing them.

[Morwen Lagann]

You know what generates money with L4s ? Not the rewards, but the loyalty store.

You may end up with drastically different results than you expected in nerfing them.

This.

L4s in and of themselves make absolutely fuck-all for ISK if you don't take and loot missions against the Big 4. Dogtags are required for the majority of the decent products in the LP stores.

A nerf to payouts and direct rewards will not solve the issue, and will just piss people off. Tweaking the LP store is the proper solution there, but even that's going to get messy regardless of what they do.

[Ciarente]

I think the problems runs something like this:

1. Industry in nullsec is shit, to the point where it is impossible for an alliance living in nullsec to come anywhere near supporting itself in its own space. The bad refineries, limited factory slots, and lack of benefits to nullsec over highsec means most alliances don't do industry in their own space, they do it in highsec.

I'll buy that refineries should be improved, however, as far as I know assembly arrays and their ilk can still be hung on towers in null. Given that most significant high sec industry relies on manufacturing at towers because queues for production lines are already long and POS arrays manufacture more quickly  I'm not sure how null is disadvantaged here, except of course that null-dwellers would have to decide between moon goo extraction and manufacturing for any given tower.

I actually know one corp that could supply a medium size null-alliance with t2 and t1 completely with two towers and five manufacturers.  Now, it might very well make sense to extract moon goo and sell it rather than go through the hassle of production and incur the opportunity cost of having fewer moons pulling goo, but that's a choice.  And yes, if you opt for the low-maintenance, high-profit option, you can't pursue the other. I'm not sure how that's 'broken', though.

[orange]

Could we seperate the L4 discussion from the industry discussion?

1. Industry in nullsec is shit, to the point where it is impossible for an alliance living in nullsec to come anywhere near supporting itself in its own space. The bad refineries, limited factory slots, and lack of benefits to nullsec over highsec means most alliances don't do industry in their own space, they do it in highsec.

With the current situation, it just seems to me it's next to impossible to set up an industrial operation that both covers the equipment needs of your average group of kill-happy pilots, and utilizes only local resources. So you're going to be jumping back and forth to a trade hub anyway. I suspect that nerfing hi-sec industry will just result in increased costs across the board, pushed down to the consumer; even if that leads to a migration of industrial activity to nullsec, it's not 100% clear to me why it should be there to begin with.

I disagree with the assertion that it is impossible to do so. One of the "poorest" null-sec regions (Providence) has most of the materials needed to create any T2 module or ship (Alchemy allows for a lot).  Deklein (and the north in general) suffers from a Mercury shortage*, but has everything else needed.

Bad refineries and limited factory slots are in my opinion a redherring.  While it is expensive, a high-end Minmatar Outpost provides solid refining (50% base).  Limited factory slots can be overcome through a combination of Starbase Factories and the increased speed of the Amarr Outpost (70%).  In addition, a smart outpost operator can make the costs of using their facilities low compared to high-sec or regional competitors (Providence).   This takes a little bit of effort and then making sure your target users know it is better than High-Sec.

Mineral compression, via items like the 425mm Railgun I, destroys null-sec mining, causing a less than 1% rise in the costs of importing minerals (via someone like Black Frog).   If mineral compression was not efficient, then humble Scordite becomes more valuable than the ABCs and the only better ore is Mercoxit.  The straight import of a finished good (like a battleship) using a similar service adds 5-10% easy.

I think the greatest hurdle to null-sec (& low-sec) industry is risk.   A null-sec mining operation is vulnerable to attack and is reliant on player-security for backup.

I think that the fact that mining is a fairly boring activity and watching people mine is even more boring, contributes more to the lack of local bottom-up economics than a lack of resources to pursue it.

I do not think any set of solutions yet offered actually addresses this fundamental problem with creating mostly self-sufficient null-sec fiefdoms.

*A rebalancing of moons or creating alchemy that enables substitution of materials could help mitigate this issue.

1. Totally redo nullsec industry and soverignty so that it is a descriptive, instead of prescriptive system, making sure there is enough content in the form of industry and work for every member of an alliance to contribute. Living in a system for an alliance should require a lot of people working together, completing tasks to get resources and wealth. Wormhole space already does this very effectively, albeit in a limited fashion.

To me this bundles up a lot of desires into one.  I think there is a need to divorce a revamp of the industry processes from the distrubtion of resources and the ease with which those resources are moved.  Players in wormhole space have to be largely self-sufficient because their connection to high-sec markets is less secure and more fluid than null-sec.

I think there is room for fundamental improvements to industry, potentially including a total revamp.  The immediate thought to me is to include Tier 2,3, & 4 PI products (especially those not used for POS fuels) in ships, modules, drones, and rigs.  I like the components that exist in T2 and think that concept can form a basis for redesigning the whole system (Ore/Goo/T0 PI>Minerals/Material/T1 PI>Components/T2/3/4 PI>Ships/Mods/Rigs/Starbases/etc).

I think the profession of mining needs to be looked at as it is the most passive of the active activities.  Introducing vulnerable passive asteroid miners could be an option (anchorable w/ always attackable drones).  This might also be part of a wider starbase redesign (which I now have bouncing around my skull).  I think null-sec industry's greatest hurdle is sourcing of minerals.