So why not call the micro, MICRO jump drive a, uh. A Nano Jump Drive? It sounds neat, personally. (Even though a micro * micro would make it pico, but bear with me)
What does everyone think the freighter-cide will do to prices in Empire, and whatnot? I have close to no experience with markets and freighters, so I want to hear some tasty discourse.
If the amount of people complaining (rightly or wrongly, it doesn't matter for this speculative piece) also get rid of their freighters in favour of DST/Orca hauling, the volume of general supply will be gated pretty hard. The value of freighters and JF will drop as people flood the market with them and capital rigs will normalise (the non-combat related ones that is) as the freighter pilots remaining suck down the extra cost for durability/cargo size.
Import/Export of raw materials will actually see a beneficial difference, as the Orca/Rorqual/DSTs become major shippers of Compressed Ore, the new means of relocating hard assets and an industrial base. Moving ships will become harder, especially in bulk, promoting centralised industry (which is harmful to labour cost, cutting profit margins). This in turn will benefit distributed industry (remote areas etc), which will operate at far better margins in return for the risk of logistics.
Null is a question I am usually leery of answering as a combination of intelligent ruthlessness at the higher levels and a monkey's with typewriters effect in middle management usually gets a patch day optimal meta sorted out. Leverage of renters (locally produced goods by chance) and industrialisation of the core land owners (strategic, subsidised industry to supplement SRP and speculative future SRP'd doctrines) are two possible strategies. The nerf to JF makes the transport of finished or partially constructed goods sub optimal in terms of fuel (at least until the markets balance out as they always do). However, compressed ore low-ends from hi-sec, supplemented by a greater ABC income from low sec ABCs and local null mining may further stimulate the incentive to import materiel, and build/use assets locally. This is the shakiest part of my speculation, however, as it is equally likely that large entities will leverage their insane income-base and just brute force the fuel markets if they have to - tolerating the JF changes simply because the competition cannot.
Simply put -
Hi-sec: Logistics is even more dangerous than before (fewer freighters on the space lanes, higher margins incentivise moving large volume quickly across space)
Low-Sec: General buff. Freighters die here anyway, Rorquals and Orcas can still operate (within reason). Compresed ore arrays and local ABC's, not to mention the mordus and cloned soldier elements make this space highly dangerous (difficult to police) but finally, rewarding enough to be brought up at a director's meeting without looking like a jack ass (it is still a bitter pill, however).
Null: Buff/Indifferent/Nerf depends on who you are. Large, rich, strategy focused groups with rental space and the ability to canonise industry-leading 'policies' in their rental agreements (and police them) will benefit greatly - they will just normalise their base cash flow to whatever their logistics + SRP + operating costs demand; squeezing renters if they must (renters are getting a very good deal right now, considering the other buffs coming to outposts; using ALL that a rental agreement allows will make you incredibly rich very fast even with casual play). Alliances without these assets or without tat kind of umbrella to fall under (or build themselves) are going to hurt in the short term, but I am confident that markets will normalise based on the lower use of JF as a mass goods transport.
My opinion? This is a heavy handed approach to balancing freighters and JF, which largely nerfs the JF while making the freighter riskier to fly, but able to be optimised. Mixed feelings in general, but I and my corp have had a good run of luck with recent patches so we'll be taking this on the chin and adapting.
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Topic: Dev Posts: [Kronos] Deep Space Transports, Blockade Runners and MMJDs (Read 4493 times)