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Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Eve Goetterdaemmerung

Mon, 25 Aug 2009 06:37:00 +0000

I just had an idea how items without a metalevel could be handled: They simply get a "quality" that is also a bit random and production skill dependent. And depending on the quality of the inputs the chances increase of creating higher metalevel products.
Eve G.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Eve Goetterdaemmerung

Wed, 20 Aug 2009 21:26:00 +0000

Hi producers out there

Another way to add a bonus for experienced producers is to acctually remind the experience with a specific production.
If I already created ice cream 100.000.000 times, then I should get an efficiency bonus making the production faster and less wastefull.
To implement this store the sum of productions done by one char and give the player a way to see them. This could be done similar to LP just inside a special tab of the production window. If this would be too much info, then make the experience on a broader level (all variants or item category). This info should also be visible in the BPO (calculated into the "manufacturing time for you"...)

Also a faction bonus would be nice.
Why can a Caldari producer produce Gallente products with the same efficiency then any Gallente producer? Either the Caldari should get an unfamilarity malus (nagative bonus) or the Gallente should get a familarity bonus!
And the same for the station where you produce. If it is a gallente station it should give me some bonus for Gallente products since they are better fitted for that. This would automatically make Gallente products cheaper in Gallente region and by that maybe put away a bit of pressure from Jita...

Having metalevel productions is a nice idea. How about making this a bit random? When you try to produce 1000 items of metalevel 1 you finally end up with 900 M1 + 97 M2 + 3 M3 for example. The (random) amount of higher quality products could be skill (or experience) based.

Anyway, what about products that have no metalevel? Like intermediate products (components, capital components, etc). Producers in this area should have the same advantages then the other producers! Since there are no metalevels here it can only be the material or production efficency (so producing faster = more and/or cheaper = less waste).

Regards,
Eve G.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Dominique Vasilkovsky

Sun, 17 Aug 2009 22:58:00 +0000

I really like the idea of meta items. The way I see it is to have it all based on BPC research using either NPC drops/RP/LP aquired goods. To actually build the items you can add skill requirements, level 2 for meta 1 and level 5 for meta 4. Of coure if you are going for the idea of requiering a skill to build various meta 0 items then level 1 in the skill would be usable as well. As for building the meta item either require "worthless" salvage components and/or random NPC goods like T2 items.

Now with the availability of meta BPCs I would love to see the next step to let us invent meta T2. Sure it means each module in game will need another 4 variations However that shouldn't be too hard to balance really, just base it on the lovely feature called heat. A T2 meta item can either have more hitpoints, cause less damage or simply create less heat while overloaded.

Those introductions will all of a sudden give producers four times more items to build and develop, resulting in a more diversified market. Sure meta 4 and T2 meta 4 will probably be the most popular as always. Now how you will fit in T2 meta items in the database will be interesting since you sort of already used up 0-14 on a lot of the items...

Oh and pretty please give us T3

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Akita T

Sun, 17 Aug 2009 22:13:00 +0000

Edited by: Akita T on 17/08/2008 22:15:19
Answering to a couple of questions/concerns raised in the other thread...

Originally by: Caldari 5
Originally by: Akita T
LIMITATION : The shops will be "corporation only", and will have to be opened in a station where the corporation has an office in.

Does this mean Selling within the corporation, or that the corporation is the owner and thus can sell to all? If the later all good, if the prior it is too restrictive, and maybe should be open to at least Alliance. If it was the later, I would probably push for it at Alliance level where the Alliance can setup where ever there is a corporation from the Alliance, they can distribute profits back through the corporations via dividends or some such mechanic.

The latter, of course... corp-operated, anybody as a customer.
The "price according to standings" option should have been a dead giveaway.

Originally by: Kazuo Ishiguro
Before I consider this idea any further, why would I want the expense of running a shop (and corp office) rather than just using the market? I see no commercial advantage in it; only a minor administrative edge. Also, this would lead a reduction in the amount of broker fees taken from placing new orders, increasing inflation, unless there were rolling fees for shop maintenance. The standings idea is interesting, but I think a contract with the price affected by standings would be simpler.

To obtain a similar effect to that obtained in market hubs.
People don't go to a nearby non-hub system to buy ship and fitings because they don't know they can find all what they need there.
If you advertise your shop as "all you need for " (and keep it appropriately stocked), you could probably benefit from increased customer visits while also maintaining a larger profit margin.
Besides, from a potential customer's standpoint, isn't it so much nicer to shop in a "shopping catalog / shopping basket" manner ?

Also, the additional freedoms you get with a shop (transaction tax, sure... but no broker fees... so you can add/remove items and change prices as much as you like... also no order expiration date either) are quite desirable by themselves... however they come at the cost of fees for shop maintenance (presented several alternatives), so shops in "desirable" areas could actually end up paying more than they would have paid in broker fees if they only picked the most desirable items too.

Last but not least, this type of shoping is much more intuitive to new players, so all "rookies" are much more likely to prefer this style of shopping instead of using the market.

The market will remain what it is, a proper market (a brokerage market), but the main players there will be the traders and the manufacturers... with the customers prefering the ease-of-use of shops.
Some customers, of course, will be penny-pinchers, so they will still use the market.
But you will get a lot more customers and better margins for your sales if you have shops.
The downside is that you have to maintain your shop stocked properly, unless you want customers to start avoiding you because you lack the proper gear they want/need.

_

THE APPRENTICE || mineral balance || nanofix

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Akita T

Sun, 17 Aug 2009 22:02:00 +0000

At CCP Chronotis' suggestion, reposting this in here instead...

Original : Next step for the market : player shops, advertising, billboards, etc

____

The idea is damned simple : allow people to open SHOPS too, not just place market orders.

BASIC IDEA

A SHOP is a place where you go to buy stuff from a certain seller, WITHOUT needing to have the seller come online to contract it to you.
The shop will have a certain stock of goods (which can be replenished at any time with additional units, new items can be added or inventory taken off the shop's list), with the shop owner only having to set a price for each newly added item type (or change any existing price).
The seller can also set (if he so wishes) various discount rates, be it standings-based (sell cheaper to friendlies, for instance), item volume based (percentage discounts for buying over X units) or even final price based (percentage discount for purchasing over a certain ISK total).

LIMITATIONS

The shops will be "corporation only", and will have to be opened in a station where the corporation has an office in.
Keeping a shop open will have a certain base fee (be it a fixed amount, or X * office rent, or maybe separate "shop slot" pricing under similar rules to office rent pricing).

The number of shops a corporation can keep open will depend on the skills of the CEO (or maybe on the skills one of the directors, assigned as "CFO" would have... this is optional), with the appropriate corp management skill having prerequisites in both corporation management and trade (say, something like Megacorp Management 1 and Wholesale 4, for instance).
The NUMBER of individual items you can list in your shop would depend on another skill (or several skills) that will have somewhat similar prerequisites, but they would be listed under "Trade" instead of "Corp Management".

ADVERTISING

I was thinking something akin to the player corp recruitment ads.
On top of that, since CONCORD billboards seem to be heavily underused, why not add another minor ISK sink to the game too ?
That is, allow corps to rent billboard time with a text add (plus, optionally, own corp logo background, maybe even CEO/CFO picture, or picture of a "PR officer" character) advertising the shop.
Price of billboard time would be on a "per billboard" timeslot/rotation schedule similar in pricing scheme to the office rental cost too.

So.. what do you say ?
Next step for the market : player shops, advertising, billboards ?

_

THE APPRENTICE || mineral balance || nanofix

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Letrange

Fri, 8 Aug 2009 15:45:00 +0000

A good bunch of suggestions, I'm really liking this thread.

A few things I'd like to add to the mix:

1) T1 components - at least for ships - would be an interesting addition, BUT these would INCREASE the barrier to entry into the T1 market place. You must realize that just like the capital ship market you get a much larger difference between a skilled+researched production and un-researched production. The real barrier is not in the skill production efficiency (which any serious manufacturer gets to 5 ASAP) but the research on the BPOs involved. Those of us with high sec research capacity would undoubtedly have a great advantage if such a system came to be put in place.

2) Meta items - There should be an increasing skill scale/specialization as you go up the manufacturing tree of the meta items. This means that to product meta 4 items you'd need level 4 or 5 of specific skills. Ideally there would be some cross skills with the T2 science skills. This would really help the progression from T1 to T2 research and manufacture. Sort of by the time you're able to manufacture meta 4 items you're just an encryption skill away from getting into T2 of the same item.

3) T1 loot. I think everyone is agreed that having this stop dropping from mission and belt rats is a good thing. Although I can understand your desire to have the other stuff ready to go when this goes through I really think that the sooner T1 loot goes away the better.

4) I would like to see an adjustment to the POS manufacturing modules. Now I see the adjustments I'm looking at here being more along the lines of risk vs reward and also I see them taking place within the context of sovereignty adjustments. The point here is that manufacturing at a POS is inherently riskier than manufacturing at a station. The POS can be shot, the station pretty much can't. So it should be more rewarding. What I'd like to see is the manufacturing costs go up at NPC stations. If this increase could be tied into the manufacturing time and thus allow PE to be more relevant, so much the better. The point here is that a POS manufacturing at full capacity should be slightly less costly than manufacturing at an NPC station. This would allow a well run manufacturing operation to be more efficient than simple station manufacture. The reason for this taking place during sovereignty adjustments is that I'm aware that CCP would like to de-couple POS count from the sovereignty mechanics. When they do this the demand for ice products should drop enormously. But if such a move was accompanied by an increase in use of POS's on industries side the ice market should be less volatile.

5) ooo contract idea came to me while I was typing this. Would it be possible to specify an auto delivery contract? This would be some sort of delivery contract where you'd include a buy contract in the contract specifications. Basically it would allow a entity A to create a buy contract with delivery at location x. Then entity B would manufacture the goods and create a delivery contract that would fill the buy contract upon deliver so that entity C could execute the delivery.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Molpadia Devaux

Sat, 26 Jul 2009 13:58:00 +0000

All in favor with replacing T1 drops with componets for manufacture. Mineral shortfalls would be made up fast as miners see the increase value of what they provide.

The addition of meta manufacturing seems the easiest to implement and probably the way to go ( at least short term ).

Producers can react to demand, but I for one am unfamiliar with how the NPC market works. How do the NPC corps make what thet sell? Determine the price for buy orders? Figure out exactly what they make?

The player market place should be the same as the NPC market. Every station should have it's own required items. Those without onsite manufacturing supply their need with buy orders, which the players fulfill. Those with manufacturing facilities produce 'appropriate' items, Military schools produce combat ships, weapons and ammo, Mining Corps make mining frigates, lasers and asteroid scanners.

No 90 day buy or sell orders. 2 or 3 days, if unfufilled they go back on market at new price, lower for items to sell, higher for items to buy. ( you could set limits to NPC corps as to a ceiling, such as not less than cost and not more than 15% above or below 5 day average regional market price ). You would limit items on hand, say the NPC corp makes Hurricanes, with 5 on hand, inventory must drop to 3 before any more are produced.

Every station would have a market watch, a report of what items are selling in the region ( constellation or solar system ), and wanting to get in on the market decide to add these items to available in their station, they place buy orders ( another area where even new players can particapte ).

Someone that wants to manufacture could find opportunities in such a system. A dynamic NPC corp system would provide opportunities for profit ( or loss ). If there is any dymanism in the current system, it certinaly does not show very well.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Astria Tiphareth

Thu, 24 Jul 2009 08:08:00 +0000

Originally by: Sharpclaw
2) Fewer minerals on the market will affect sellers and producers. Agreed. Minerals will become a lot more expensive and it will take miners a long time to ramp up and make up the difference. The amount of minerals that would 'disappear' if there were no T1 drops would be staggering. In fact this would be a double hit to mineral prices because not only would we loose the minerals from the reprocessed mods but we would also need huge amounts of minerals to build those same T1 mods to sell on the market, build into T2, etc.

3) It does hurt the miners. However the huge mineral loss from no more T1 loot would force tons of people into doing one of the single most boring activities in this game, shooting a rock with lasers. (The single most boring is shooting ice with lasers.) It's not like there aren't already macro programs out there that plenty of miners already use to make money while they are at work or sleeping, etc.

Whilst we're on the subject of naive statements, this is also wrong. As witnessed with the trit prices changes when shuttles were changed, miners can and will respond with considerable speed to mineral prices changes. You would not believe the number of people who have mining skills but only do so when the market favours them. It's about time that investment was rewarded properly.

I also object to your statement that you are immediately assuming that a majority of miners are macro users. This is just pure unsubstantiated biased speculation. You're also alleging that mining is boring, that this change forces people to go into mining, which is complete rubbish.

Mining can be quite dull, or interesting, depending on how you do it and where and with whom, and you need not mine at all, just buy your minerals from someone who enjoys being good at mining. This sets aside the various plans under discussion to make mining more interesting that CCP have already taken an interest in.
___
My views may not represent those of my corporation or alliance, which is why I never get invited to those diplomatic parties...

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Sir Substance

Sun, 20 Jul 2009 09:01:00 +0000

Originally by: Sharpclaw

1) And this is bad how? Some people manufacture with those minerals so it allows them to build cheaper. Others, like myself, reprocess and sell the minerals. More minerals on the market means prices go down and manufacturers can buy their materials cheaper. If mission runners don't know the value of their loot then the only ones they are hurting is themselves, not industry.

sorry, i saw this rather naive statement, and had to reply. with the increase of mineral on the market comes the devaluation of said minerals. the customer expectation is that the item is worth the mineral cost plus a small profit margin. however, this hurts manufacturers who mine their miners, as the return for their mining time drops in accordance with the mineral prices. once a domi was worth 65-70mil. you could, if you were good, mine the minerals to make one in a day and a half. now, you can get 55mil at best. the profit margin has remained the same between those two times, but the return on time has dropped.

Originally by: Ekrid
Edited by: Ekrid on 02/07/2008 14:33:35
because trying to fit medium beam lasers is like trying to shove a cow in your mailbox. doable, but it gets messy.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Ricdics

Sun, 20 Jul 2009 08:30:00 +0000

What if we go away from the skill based improvements and instead look at further modifications to to T1 & T2 BPO's. These wouldn't be modifiers or enhancements to research, however they would be usage based improvements..

For example we currently have the following:

(PE) Production Efficiency - Speed at production from a bpo
(ME) Mineral Efficiency - Waste reduction on a bpo

Add another to the grouping

(BQ) Blueprint Quality - Mineral reduction based on amount of usage on the bpo. One could basically suggest that BQ works similar to ME in that it's benefits are reduced as it passes it's bell curve (BQ5). Each level increases efficiency on the bpo. BQ can only be improved through production of the blueprint.

The benefits don't even need to be huge, however it provides a tradable option on your bpo sales, plus provides a dedicated producer with that tiny edge over the competition

(ie BQ1 might provide a 2% waste reduction, whilst BQ6 might only provide a 5% waste reduction)

Obviously we still come to our only difficulty which is recycling. How to stop people recycling these items for profit or make it not worthwhile to do so? If we can figure out a good way to stop this, then it changes the potential with a lot of these suggestions.

1) Force reprocessing down to a 90% max (would annoy a lot of people)
2) Have BQ items unreprocessable. (means probably a big pile of extra DB load)
3)Have BQ items show as damaged by ie 1%. (this means they cannot be traded on the market which kinda pointless)
4) ???

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Caractacus Potts

Fri, 18 Jul 2009 14:16:00 +0000

While I have no idea how, in the end, CCP intends to introduce something like meta-manufacturing, I'm pretty sure that it would be the final death-blow to vanilla tech 1 meta 0 items unless those tech 1 meta 0 items were used as components in the manufacture of the higher meta-level items, just like faction gear.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Ishikari

Mon, 14 Jul 2009 15:57:00 +0000

I like the idea of the POS giving some positive benefit to producers, and in a way I like the idea of a rig (or something similar to a rig) being able to be added during manufacturing in order to add the rig's benefits as part of the final ship. (they are jury rigged parts of junk, you would think eventually people would figure out how to build those abilities in).

Here is a thought. 1 rig can be added to the manufacturing process in order for the final ship to have that ability as part of the ship, however it requires a specialised manufacturing process that can only be done in a new type of pos structure. The rig is used up as part of the manufacturing process. This would give a bit mroe value to rigs and salvage, and with the increased demand hopefully offset the loss of income from t1 modules being cut down / removed should that happen.

With only 1 rig being able to be added, the balance can be the calibration points are lower on the final ship since 1 rig is "built in".

This has the benefits of letting people who want to get in and build vanilla items in npc stations do that, however also giving posses a use for those who want to take industry a little further. It will also raise the barrier to entry to "advanced" industry as well as giving posses a good role if / when the soverenty role of posses changes.
---
Ishikari Industries
Researchers of Ship, Ammo and Rig BPO's
Visit our Shop Today!

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Carniflex

Mon, 14 Jul 2009 07:17:00 +0000

Originally by: Caractacus Potts

/agree to more tags

How about instead of crappy tech 0 meta 0 gear, we just get broken modules from wrecks instead? Things like "damaged 250mm railgun" that aren't usable by players, but can refine into similar minerals as the module from which it was based? Mineral supply/mineral income from missions remains the same and the occasional usable T1 gear and high meta-level gear could still drop, keeping things interesting.

Good idea? Bad idea?

The main problem is not the T1 loot that drops, but the minerals from refining all that crap. Current T1 meta 0 stuff is used to make T2 stuff (or faction in LP store) as it's actually used only in those cases where higher meta levels of loot are almost non exsistant.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Caractacus Potts

Fri, 11 Jul 2009 22:37:00 +0000

Originally by: Sopha Serpentia
request 2

I don't like this idea too much. I wouldn't like to see the removal of loot drops completely, perhaps replace vinilla tech 1 items with a bunch of meta 0 tech level 0 named items that arn't manifacturable and are considerably worse to one degree or another.

That way tech 1 items sold by players are actually desirable as the only place to get them would be from buy orders, just like tech 2, this still leaves cheapskate players the choice of going out and "making do" with whatever the find on belt rats.

Actually I think the Dev in charge of industry mentioned this idea on a live dev blog, anyway I think crappy meta 0 items in loot tables would be a good thing.

Also you hit upon and issue with tags. YES more tags please ccp.

/agree to more tags

How about instead of crappy tech 0 meta 0 gear, we just get broken modules from wrecks instead? Things like "damaged 250mm railgun" that aren't usable by players, but can refine into similar minerals as the module from which it was based? Mineral supply/mineral income from missions remains the same and the occasional usable T1 gear and high meta-level gear could still drop, keeping things interesting.

Good idea? Bad idea?

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Sopha Serpentia

Fri, 11 Jul 2009 11:54:00 +0000

request 1

I love this idea, diversifing and expanding the industry side of the game is only a good thing imho.

request 2

I don't like this idea too much. I wouldn't like to see the removal of loot drops completely, perhaps replace vinilla tech 1 items with a bunch of meta 0 tech level 0 named items that arn't manifacturable and are considerably worse to one degree or another.

That way tech 1 items sold by players are actually desirable as the only place to get them would be from buy orders, just like tech 2, this still leaves cheapskate players the choice of going out and "making do" with whatever the find on belt rats.

Actually I think the Dev in charge of industry mentioned this idea on a live dev blog, anyway I think crappy meta 0 items in loot tables would be a good thing.

Also you hit upon and issue with tags. YES more tags please ccp.

request 3

Another good idea, can only help the market as far as I can see and give player more ownership over thier products.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Mika Meroko

Fri, 11 Jul 2009 10:59:00 +0000

Edited by: Mika Meroko on 11/07/2008 11:05:09
the way I see it, the easiest way to go is with meta manufacturing and "customized" modules (which ironicly, will already be made in the database....)

IE:

make new entries in DB for the T1 medium laser (small):

for:

-Master grade Medium Laser: (small FIXED bonus on everything....)
-Overcharged Medium Laser: (small FIXED bonus on dmg... and FIXED penalty on cap use....)
-...

you see where I am going with this...

yeah... in a sense is creating MORE metas... but I can see it not being overkill on the database than truely "custom" modules...

PS: SWG's crafting system (pre-NGE) was nice...

but I feel sorry for the dev who have to balance it in eve....

and the dev that need the maintains the database....

Originally by: CCP Atropos
I pod people because there's money to be made in selling tears.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Clansworth

Fri, 11 Jul 2009 10:53:00 +0000

META-Manufacturing:

I like it. To keep the missioners happy, perhaps instead of the rats dropping Named modules, they instead drop a similar run proportion of Named item BPC's, along with specialized (factionized?) meta-build components. After stabalization, supply of named modules would still be affected by loot-tables, but the added production steps would stabalize the market and provide more oppurtunities for smaller scale operations. These meta-bpc's would use the base meta-0 item, and a collection of the meta-components, to produce a meta-x item. This would allow small timers to still make the meta-0's, while more dedicated people could buy those meta-0's, and make the 'modified' versions.

POS Manufacturing:

Currently, POS manufacturing does offer advantages over station, but mostly in production time. The trade-off is the royal PITA it is to sit in the POS and operate it. The solution I see would be to be able to designate a structure (a specic array, or hanger) as the 'parts bin'. This would allow you to choose this as the input location, vice having to move input materials to the specifi array. This could also lend well to using supply chain management to start jobs remotely in your POS arrays. This would eliminate a lot of the PITA factor of POS manufacturing, and bring their productivity advantages to the forefront.

New Prospector Class

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Manfred Rickenbocker

Thu, 10 Jul 2009 19:04:00 +0000

Edited by: Manfred Rickenbocker on 10/07/2008 19:06:07

Originally by: Jethro Amar

Rigging could rejuvenate production if it was more popular. For many ships rigs are useless, as they double the price of the ship but don't give double survivability. For T1 hulls it's sometimes 30M hull (fully insurable, so basically free for pvp), 20M fit and 30M rigs. Not practical at all. I'd rather like some 'low-grade' cheap rigs to put into cheap hulls or make rigs hullsize-based.

There was a thread a while back on this to request the introduction of sized rigs. Basically, the idea was that since rigs are only possess a feasible cost/benefit ratio on T2 cruisers and battleships that there should be a way to produce smaller rigs, using fewer components, for smaller ships. My take on the idea was Battleship = 1, Cruiser = .5, Frigate = .25 the cost, while calibration would be inversely proportional: Battleship = 10s, Cruiser = 100s, Frigate = 1000s. Smaller rigs would require more calibration, preventing their fitting for cheap on larger ships.

For unique manufacturing, rigging is definitely the way to go: You can produce or buy the standard T1 item, then run it though a simple manufacturing cycle or "plug in" the additional script to make it a specific meta. The only caveat with this is that to offer additional uniqueness to the market, would it be best to separate named loot drops and player made meta items, or should it be the same? Introducing manufacture of current meta items wouldn't add any real differentiation to the mix.
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Peace through superior firepower: a guiding principle for uncertain times.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Isobel Mitar

Thu, 10 Jul 2009 18:18:00 +0000

Some comments to the ideas by CCP Chronotis earlier. In general, nice stuff. Great that you're thinking about this side of the game.

Meta manufacturing:

Being able to construct named variants with additional materials and skills sounds like a nice addition to the T1 production tree; I like this idea.

If this gets implemented, it is likely to increase the availability and lower the price of certain high-demand named items, particularly ones that are better than T2 variants (such as 1600mm RT plates or Hypnos multispectral ECM), require long long training times to use T2 (such as Arbalest cruise launchers) or with critical fitting requirement differences.

It would also affect the people currently making their isk from trading named items.

Changing loot drops:

This would certainly affect the demand for T1 items, but also the available mineral supply to build them. I believe for most players older than first few months majority of the loot (except for choice items) currently gets recycled either by themselves or by the loot buyer - if the mission runner even bothers to gather the loot in the first place.

Introducing barriers of entry:

Reducing build times by additional skills will affect most the market of products where factory time is the profit bottleneck - where traded volumes are largest and build times longest (and incidentally, also needed capital smallest, making it most likely entry point for new producers): Namely, ammo. Is this intentional?

Bit beside the subject, but: I personally do not advocate hard barriers of entry to a field. I believe one of the strengths of Eve as a game is that a new player with low-SP character can often with short training time start to add real value when working together with higher-SP characters in many different fields. (tackling in pvp, looting and salvaging in pve, hauling, market orders in trade and so on)

Shopfronts:

How would this be implemented? Alternate system to market and contracts? Modification of contracts system? Additional filters to already-existing market UI?

"The go to guys for all your product needs" is already happening in Eve to some extent with IG/OOG applications and tools; I know of several ordering systems in addition to the one my corporation runs.

As a side note: I do not believe shopfronts will affect the trade hub situation. Difficulty of logistics is what makes customers (and producers) go to market hubs - who wants to fly around gathering their purchases bit by bit? Tweaking the UI goods are sold with won't make moving goods any less a bottleneck and timesink.

Some ideas:

Being able to fiter market by option "within x jumps from a certain place" (not necessarily the place you currently are in) would be nice when trying to buy a set of items.

Eve could use more tools to help players (producers and customers) to build delivery services for goods, and making shipping a more competitive way of earning your isk. The current mechanism (hauling contracts) isn't working very well, partly because of UI issues.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Carniflex

Wed, 9 Jul 2009 10:37:00 +0000

Some of the good modification ideas were presented in that old invention overhaul thread also, before the invention ended up as it is today. I don't have link to that thread either at hand, but I think it was stiky in this section for a while so not that hard to find.

One of those I quite liked was 'points' based system, where every item has certain amount of 'construction points' and manufacturer would be able to arrange them as he pleases (within some reasonable limits) and ofcource there would be dimishing returns (ie. you have some sliders, that start at 'zero' and can be moved +/- X ticks to either way and every tick away from zero will yield/consume one more point than last one). Actual mechaniks of how those points are implemented (be it then just slider you can drag around or some specific materials you apply to move those sliders in positive or negative directions) is not that important, I just liked the relative simplicity of that proposal while still allowing reasonable amount of freedom.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Lo Lightshard

Wed, 9 Jul 2009 05:37:00 +0000

Edited by: Lo Lightshard on 09/07/2008 05:41:26
I support the elimination/reduction of T1 loot drops, although it would effectively destroy the reprocessing businesses it would promote mining which I think needs a bump.

I'm not sure I like meta item manufacturing; you've got to give the mission runners something and, as a manufacturer, do I really need the complexity introduced by four additional grades of item between T1 and T2?

Skills at the higher level, in my opinion, don't work so well if they are "increase efficiency by x% per level" as this effectively makes the distinction between specialists and everyone else just x% -- the hump being level V so the assumption is most will train to IV. What works better is the on/off system seen in T2 ship construction: I can't build HICs because they require cruiser construction V which I'm reluctant to train ATM -- in the ship profitability list these are high up (yes, I know they also have no T2 BPO but it would be good to have a look at T2 ship profitability and the ship construction level required to produce them).

An idea to indirectly differentiate product would be some kind of "repeat buyer" system that allows a producer to set up tiered discounts dependent on the number of ships bought per player/corp/alliance. I love the idea of billboard adverts if there was product differentiation.

On logistics, one barrier to sales I have is that I can't fly all the ships I can manufacture so I either need to haul them or sell them where they are built. Higher end ships are quite big and some kind of ship compression or "pre-packaged" state would be good so we can more safely move a BS through lowsec or 0.0 in a blockade runner (you can already put a Hulk in a blockade runner) or pack a few more in a freighter.

Also loved the idea of mutually exclusive ME/PE/Run increase implants for invention.

Edit: and please, please, please streamline the interface.
[IMA6E REMOVED]

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Carniflex

Tue, 8 Jul 2009 21:08:00 +0000

A long while ago there was idea bounced around about different 'quality' materials, where material quality 'modulates' end product parameters. It's hard to implement ofcource as it would be stepping on the database toes (meaning either more items in there or in worst case big pile of singletons).

It would fit in well with some ideas bounced around for mining reform (removal of static belts and different quality minerals in exploration belts) and depending on it's implementation would allow some limited number of possible configurations and/or making sure that FOTM solutions will be expencive.

As far as 'hammering' one attribute (like speed) goes in this modification scheme it would ofc need some new stacking penalty. Easiest solution in my opinion would be to make those gadgets (quality minerals, modulators, something else that makes those modifications) count as stacking flags. For example if you pimp your speed at every level available then if they all would share the same flag (on hull, module(s), rigs, etc) then they would get some extra stacking dumped on them to keep the end parameter within acceptable limits.

Balancing would be harder to do for sure whatever way it would be implemented, but if it's possible to estimate maximum possible effect when putting every possible modification towards something it's still not totally unreasonable to chek against extreme configurations and assume that anything inbetween would be balanced enough to not break the game.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Jethro Amar

Tue, 8 Jul 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Any 'tweaks' are very risky to put into the game. Because of multiplicative nature of attributes it would be possible to tweak 1 of ships attribute several times.
Example:
5% tweaked on ship base speed
5% tweaked on mwd speed boost
5% tweaked on nanofiber
5% tweaked on overdrive
These little tweaks give 21% total to speed. And there's nothing to stack-penalize this easily.
Obviously it's not just speed. Think of summarized bonus if you change (even so slightly) ship's weapon bonus, weapon itself, ammunition and damage mods.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Zanquis

Mon, 7 Jul 2009 21:23:00 +0000

New Idea: Product Tweeking

This is basically advanced manufacturing which is very skill intensive and specialized. The basic idea of this would be that you can modify up to 3 attributes on any product you manufacture in an attempt to create a customized item which is better then the base item in any one or more of the 3 areas you can effect. However in order to tweek the product you need to have the ability to construct the T2 versions of that product, and have the skills required to tweek each area of improvement. Each area of improvement will have its own set of one or more skills which effect the chance and magnitude of the improvement of that attribute. In order to produce the item you must have the appropriate BPC (tech 1 or 2) and identify which attributes you wish to tweek, and how much you wish to tweek it, and what quantity you wish to attempt to tweek.

To begin you have a 20% base ABSOLUTE failure rate when building a tweeked item, and that chance can be reduced through skills. There is also a Tweeked failure rate which is the ratio of successful tweeks to failed tweeks you produce if the job is successfully produced. Each failed tweek will result in an untweeked item being produced, while the successful tweeks will result in a unique set of items which bear your name and have the attributes tweeked. The Tweeked

Absolute Failure rate: Base 10% modified by skills and number of runs attempted. This is the chance the entire production run will fail and produce nothing. This is checked only once and increases by 2% for each additional run. Therefore if you attempted to produce 10 unique MWD's your absolute failure rate is 10+(10*2)= 30% before your skills are taken into account.

Tweek Focus: When you tweek multiple attributes you have the ability to increase the chance you have to score your maximum possible increase for this attribute based on your current skills at tweeking that attribute. So if your current skills at tweeking MWD velocity bonus would allow you to give a 10%-30% bonus to MWD speed, adding more focus to this attribute will increase the chances you will score near the 30% bonus at the sacrifice of all other tweeked attributes. You have the OPTION to choose one focus when your tweeking multiple attributes, and it will double the chance of scoring in the top 30% of your potential but will decrease it by half for the other two attributes.

Tweek Success Rate: This is base 10% and is modified by skills, focus strength of each attribute tweek, and the number of attributes tweeked. This success rate will effect the total number of successful runs in tweeked manufacturing run. So if you attempted to build 10 tweeked MWD's and your success rate is 20% then you will end up with 8 regular product and 2 uniquely tweeked products. In the event the number of tweeked or regular items produced from the run is less then a whole, the odd run will use these Tweek Failure Rate as a chance to produce a tweeked item. Your total success rate is divided by the number of attributes tweeked, so the more attributes you tweek the smaller the chance you have to succeed.

When a unique product is created in this way it will assume the name of the person who created it as a prefix to the natural name of that product type. For example if your name was Extractor Bill and you had created a unique 10MN Microwarpdrive then it would be called "Extractor Bills' 10MN Microwarpdrive" and appear on the CONSIGNMENT market as listed in my last post. If successful you likely have some normal 10MN Microwarpdrives which where not successfully tweeked and you will need to sell normally. This process is time consuming and will drasticly increase the time it takes to manufacture products in a scale similar to copying blueprints. It might take a month to create 5 tweeked Caracal's for example.

This would give acvanced crafters opportunity to have a competitive advantage, and add variety to the market.
********************************************
CEO of CSS Ltd.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Zanquis

Mon, 7 Jul 2009 21:12:00 +0000

NEW Idea: Consignment Market

This would be a new market for unique items which are produced by industry, and faction loot. Looking similar to the standard market in layout, its main changes are how it categorizes items, and displays information about them.

The left window would be used to choose what kind of item you are searching for similar to the main market. However it will filter down to general item types at most. For example say your looking to sell a "Zippy's 10MN Micro Warp Drive" which is a unique item you created. This item is classified as a Microwarp drive so if you where looking to find a unique MWD on the market and others like it you would from the left menu select "Ship Equipment -> Propultion -> Microwarpdrives -> 10MN" and this would call up a list of all unique 10MN microwarpdrives in the region. The information displayed will be displayed in a chart which has multiple columns. The first column is name of item, second is price, third is quantity, fourth is location, and the last 3 column's are the values of the top 3 attributes important to that item category. For example on a microwarpdrive the top 3 can be Activation cost, Speed Bonus, and thrust. If the customer would like to learn more about this product, they can click show info and see the full information window on the product.

The consignment market would allow for sell orders only since products are few and unique, and you can sell these products any place with a market.
********************************************
CEO of CSS Ltd.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Zanquis

Mon, 7 Jul 2009 20:22:00 +0000

I totally understand what your saying and I fully agree, I am happy you have taken the time to think this through using knowledge of economics and marketing in order to make the ideas sound.

I myself am a professional in the field of marketing and understand economics well. For this reason I have gained interest and have a business selling trade materials in eve using an industrial alt.

I need to comment on a few things though in order to hopefully refine these ideas further!

On Removing T1 loot from loot drops:

I support your reasoning behind this but I think that just removing this would be a bad idea and have a negative impact on the economic inputs (customer income mainly) and fun factor of the game (less fun if there is no variety). Therefore I propose a change to the loot system...

*T1 loot drops should be replaced by "Damaged" versions of the T1 product they normally would have dropped. This Damaged loot is more common, would be lighter, and serve the same purpose to people who collect it as the T1 loot did before. Effectivly, the T1 loot would be replaced with "Sell Loot" which makes input from ratting on the economy easier to control for CCP and opens up the T1 base item market as a new economic opportunity.
*Damaged Items can then be reprocessed for minerals or used in "Reverse engineering" to create a "schematic"
*Reprocessing damaged items will yield minerals as before, however only common materials such as Tritainium and Pyerite will be yielded. This creates an economic price cap on the two base minerals of EVERY ship but leaves all other minerals typically mined by serious miners entirely out of the equation and will not effect their prices.

On Product improvements through skills:

This is a very valid idea but I must object to the idea of reducing costs because while this works in real life, in eve where most people have little business experience it will simply lower prices without increasing profitability. I know very few eve business people who actually track their costs when building a product to ensure they are making a decent profit, fewer who then link that to time spent. Fewer still check to make sure that the product they want to produce will sell for more profit then the sum of all its parts if sold individually. I have time and time again seen people produce ships and sell it at market value when they could have made more money just filling buy orders for the minerals that went into producing that ship.

The idea of having progressive skills to allow industry to specialize is however a very strong idea which needs to be implemented in order to bring the economics of eve to a new level. I would suggest creating a consignment system in order to facilitate this, more about that to come in the following post

New Idea: Reverse engineering

This new skill path allows you to take "Damaged" loot such as "Damaged Angel Heavy Missile Launcher" and use your related scientific skills in that technology type in order to have a chance at creating a "Schematic" which can then be used by the Invention process to have a chance at producing a T1 faction BPC. Reverse engineering is similar to refining minerals as you select a stack of damaged items and select "Reverse engineering". Each damaged item type will have a required quantity for reverse engineering for each schematic created (since they are damaged you need a bunch of them to reverse engineer so that each part of the item can be reverse engineered, they can't all be damaged in the same place!).

Once you have the Schematic you can attempt to invent a T1 faction variant using a T1 BPC, a schematic instead of Datacores, and a T1 base item as inputs. If successful you will have a limited run T1 Faction BPC which can then be used to produce the faction item you where lucky enough to invent.

CONTINUED NEXT POST...
********************************************
CEO of CSS Ltd.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Letrange

Mon, 7 Jul 2009 02:51:00 +0000

The POS manufacturing being slightly more inconvenient doesn't bother me actually, so long as it's more isk efficient than high sec slots. The convenience and lack of risk of station slots should be penalized by being less isk efficient than riskier methods of manufacture.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Goti Evans

Sun, 6 Jul 2009 12:17:00 +0000

Ok how does this Sound?

We allow the Construction of meta Items there are 2 or more skills that effect this though.

1 a skill that alters the effficancy of building a meta item of this type (the meta items use materials found from drops)

2 A skill that lets you build one adtional meta level up per level (small issue in that there are only 3 levels curently above meta 1)

3 posibly another skill that counter acts the addtional time delay incured when building a higher quality item.

introduction of some T2 Meta Levels (or perhaps just open the way for Faction level?) T2 meta's would use common moon material reactions wich should help (marginaly) with the mud issue.

I would love to see ships that can be customised as indicated - it would be well worth getting over the technical issues but perhaps introducing some meta ships would be an adquate holder.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Carniflex

Sun, 6 Jul 2009 11:39:00 +0000

While idea of giving POS manufacturing some additonal role in proposed scheme is interesting it's also worth remembering that this is highly inconvinient, as one needs the materials at tower location. If it would be possible to use POS factories similar way to in station ones (ie, all materials in some relatively safe hangar, not over 10 different arrays in space) I would think that POS manufacturing would also be more popular.

There was a while ago in market discussions relatively interesting discussion about removing all 'loot drops' from NPC's and replacing them with meta item BPC's and/or specific 'manufacturing modulators' that can be used in production to make those meta items. Propably something like there is in the proposal in more refined form. In my opinion that thread had few more elegant solutions in it than this current proposal. Unfortunately I seem to be unable to find the relevant link at this moment to point at that thread.

If POS production is given significant role it would also make sense to allow usage of POS facilities from personal hangars of pilots. If not cross-corp (altho that would for sure allow some interesting ecenomiks) then at least in corp, as if you have several intependet producers it might get somewhat messy, if they have to share some hangars kepping track what belongs to who. Afterall, not all corps are communist, but there is relatively many with more 'personal wealth makes wealthy corporation' kind of attitude.

If possible then avoiding randomness in production part of the process would be also good, as every part with propablities increases entry barrier into that section, bcos of the need to produce in high enough volumes to 'average out' streaks of possible bad luck. It is enough to keep the randomness part within blueprints / materials section (like in invention, where it is random if you get the print, but production part is certain after you already have the print). Some system similar to current decryptors would be good compromise in my opinion, where you can add some 'gadget' to affect some stat on the item in question that would allow limited number of possible permutations thus still allowing some balancing (altho it would be more complex to do) on the modules.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Letrange

Sun, 6 Jul 2009 07:11:00 +0000

gah, late in finding this but:

Meta Items: YAY!!!!
Removal of T1 Loot: YAY!!!!
/me swoons

Now onto the other stuff:

I think part of the issues we're all meandering out way towards is the fact that there is very little on the manufacturing side that involves a lot of overhead to setup. One thing I would like to see is an increase in usage of POS's for manufacturing. A few thoughts:

1) you guys seem to be inching away from the current POS=Control thing for system sovereignty. This will have the predictable effects on the economy if ever the mechanism changes and one of the big isk sinks for alliances goes away.
2) we need some form of manufacturing scale savings (currently doing 1 run or doing 100 runs works out to be about identical in costs).
3) we're looking for some barriers to entry without totally screwing over the newbies.

This got me thinking:

We need some way to make POS based manufacturing attractive when compared to station manufacturing. Since the T1 manufacturing modules do work it would be a question of making them more attractive than the manufacturing slots in empire (probably by messing with the station manufacturing costs - it's supposed to represent labor for crying out loud, it should be expensive). This would cause a lot of investment of the isk supply in infrastructure which would also be vulnerable to attack. The reward: more efficient (cost wise - not mineral usage wise) manufacturing but riskier: the infrastructure is vulnerable. The advantage of this is that it keeps the POS isk sink in the game (the potential sovereignty changes look like they could remove it). It also puts POS management firmly in the hands of people prepared to handle it - industrialists. It would also complicate item pricing but hey, we're industrialists, we live for complications.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Naate

Sun, 6 Jul 2009 04:15:00 +0000

Edited by: Naate on 06/07/2008 04:26:11
If we can get the powerful shop/market interface as mentioned earlier in the thread which is capable of searching for a particular item type and then finding all its variants as well, then I would like to see a stat mutator system in play.

That is, if I make say, a 1mn Afterburner, and it has (for simplicities sake) just the stats of it's speed boost and its grid requirement to fit, and lets say these base values are 120% speed and 20 grid to fit.

Those values should be able to mutate within a set range, with lesser skilled characters having a weighting towards the lower end. Vice versa, highly skilled characters having a weighting towards the higher end.

Lets say that the 120% base speed has an allowed variance of +/- 15%, meaning it has an effective result range of 105% to 135%.

Lets say that the grid has an allowed variance of +/- 2 grid, meaning it has an effective result range of 18 to 22.

Now lets say we have a classically trained industrialist (that is, just to PE5), they have an adjusted base (or simply a weighting towards this base) of 110% speed (as opposed to 120%) with a +/- of 5%, giving them only a range of 105%-115%.

An up to date character, trained in full with the advanced skills (along the lines of Ricdic's request) may have an adjusted base of 130%, with a +/- of 10%, giving a potential result range of 120%-140%.

Repeat with grid, and all the other stats that items actually have.

This allows CCP to carefully monitor the allowed variances in stats forgoing most balance issues, and allows producers who invest in the time and money to learn the required skills to produce premium products and a price to match.

We already have the capability of comparing products along these lines (item compare view), and if it was built into the new market UI allowing us to select the stats we care about, and then rank by these stats (just like the market can currently rank by price, jump distance, etc) it would not be difficult to browse based on our tastes.

This is not to say I'm against the idea of meta-manufacturing or ways to more directly impact the outcome of our products, but I think that stat mutation should be at least given some consideration. :)
---
Take care,
-Naithin (Naate),.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Daelin Blackleaf

Sat, 5 Jul 2009 04:17:00 +0000

I knew I sounded too easy.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by El'essar Viocragh

Sat, 5 Jul 2009 01:44:00 +0000

Originally by: Daelin Blackleaf
This is going to sound remarkably simple, but couldn't you just mark all products with the efficiency level they were produced at, then you cannot get out what was not put in while allowing for a greater variance in manufacturing efficiency.

To store per-item attributes like damage or the skill level at which it was produced, it has to be, as CCP calls it, singleton. Meaning unpackaged, non-stackable. Every such item has its own database entry with all its attributes, while a stack of 5000 tritanium is just one item entry with a quantity and item type.

So to make your idea come true, it would either require a complete overhaul of the database layout or the removal of everything refineable from the market to contracts only.

And now I'm off preparing for the wrath of righteous fury from PrismX in case I got that database thingy wrong....
--
[17:47] its dead, jim

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Daelin Blackleaf

Fri, 4 Jul 2009 15:15:00 +0000

On refining:

This is going to sound remarkably simple, but couldn't you just mark all products with the efficiency level they were produced at, then you cannot get out what was not put in while allowing for a greater variance in manufacturing efficiency.

Nice to see some of the ideas that are being considered, meta-manufacturing sounds like it has a lot of potential (esp. t2 meta) and it's good to see the distant hopes and dreams such as custom ship construction.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by El'essar Viocragh

Fri, 4 Jul 2009 14:29:00 +0000

We simply all want to have our own secret coke formula :)

The idea with the character id is tricky, but interesting.

But as long as there is a reliable way to produce small quantities supported by the market (instead of flooding it to even the odds -> invention) this would be a very interesting addition.
--
[17:47] its dead, jim

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by CCP Chronotis

Fri, 4 Jul 2009 14:05:00 +0000

Very good discussion so far, it is particularly interesting to see generally positive feedback on meta manufacturing as a method of allowing a greater product range and pseudo customization through choice of adding optional components to the job to change the end product into something better at an opportunity cost of mass volume production of standard products against luxury ones.

We certainly feel the focus should be jointly on commodity market anonymous sales and equal if not more important emphasis on allowing corporations to advertise their brand and services and offering a form of customer loyalty in the way NAGA corporation did for example.

Allowing you to promote pricing schemes, discounts, limited time offers and so on and also have a good way in which you can build for demand from your customers orders like a true shop. If we can find a good way to do this from overhauling and adding to contracts to a brand new service, we are certainly looking seriously at this and was something discussed at the CSM.

Nukleanis, interbus options are possible and being explored, but a delivery service is something that may more better handled in the hands of the service providers as part of their package perhaps.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Nukleanis

Wed, 2 Jul 2009 14:40:00 +0000

Edited by: Nukleanis on 02/07/2008 14:42:18
EDIT: I suck :)

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Hugh Ruka

Wed, 2 Jul 2009 13:08:00 +0000

Originally by: Nukleanis
Why not use the existing research facilities to produce meta blueprints? So you could research not only material efficiency or time efficiency, but also meta level.

The research could require skills / components or both, and if implemented could use a system similar to training skills. So say meta level one would take only a couple of days to research, meta two a week, etc...

this is what I was trying to get to :-)
--- SIG ---
CSM: your support is needed !

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Hugh Ruka

Wed, 2 Jul 2009 13:06:00 +0000

I think the ideas are quite sound, but not all of them.

F.E. the t1 loot from missions runners is used as a mineral income. If they are selling it too cheap, just buy and melt it and you are getting minerals below market prices. So I do not see that as a problem.

Meta level manufacturing could work like invention for T1. F.E. you are able to produce a higher meta level item and specialisation skills increase your success rate. The difference will be that you won't produce and intermediate item (like the t2 BPC) but already the finished item.

Chronotis: You can still implement a component ship system. F.e take a Raven:

1. basse hull component with slots fixed, however there are meta level modifiers for shield HP, armor HP, hull HP, resists, capacitor etc.
2. engine component - raven engines that can have meta level modifiers for speed
3. sensor component - lock range, resolution, sensor strength

etc. I hope you get the picture. The complete Raven can only be assembled from Raven components where the key factors are fixed in each component and some are variable through invention like process. This way you can keep balance in check while providing a variety of options for manufacturers to specialise in. Even the t2 manufacturing skills can be reused

Of course you could still build the old non-meta raven without hassle through the already existing t1 BP.

It would reprocess to the plain t1 raven materials.
--- SIG ---
CSM: your support is needed !

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Yon Krum

Wed, 2 Jul 2009 11:58:00 +0000

Originally by: Wannabehero

If I understand what Yon Krum is getting at correctly he is onto a sweet idea. Some sort of real research and discovery for the players, where you have to actually experiment with putting different meta-invention parts together until you randomly achieve a successful meta-BPC, and having variations in the formula for different accounts so players must keep their own databases.

You've accurately deciphered the idea. The point would in fact to end up with a system of invention--specific to each account and skills, and therefore not the linear process of reverse-engineering that "Invention" currently is.

It would need to permit small, but still meaningful changes using a sufficiently broad spectrum of "meta loot" to avoid having one specific item or another become prohibitively expensive. "Meta" mods to modules with few statistics would probably be harder than, say something like a ship, which has a huge list of characteristics.

In any event, account (or character, even) specific recipe BPCs would have to hinge on some value that is calculated and handled solely server-side, since the last time a game tried this (Asheron's Call, fyi) the formula was *****ed in weeks and a tool made to work around it for players.

Sad, really, for something with great potential.

In any event, anything that actually enables some uniqueness to "product" would be a quantum-leap forward.

--Krum

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Nukleanis

Wed, 2 Jul 2009 11:07:00 +0000

Why not use the existing research facilities to produce meta blueprints? So you could research not only material efficiency or time efficiency, but also meta level.

The research could require skills / components or both, and if implemented could use a system similar to training skills. So say meta level one would take only a couple of days to research, meta two a week, etc...

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Wannabehero

Tue, 1 Jul 2009 16:44:00 +0000

Originally by: Yon Krum
*snip*

Ideally, you could link invention to this by the creation of BPCs for a particularly modified product. Best would be for the specific combinations that result in a given meta-product be randomized somewhat by user account. Why? Because otherwise you end up with no discovery in-game after about 3 days (everything goes on the web).

*snip*

If I understand what Yon Krum is getting at correctly he is onto a sweet idea. Some sort of real research and discovery for the players, where you have to actually experiment with putting different meta-invention parts together until you randomly achieve a successful meta-BPC, and having variations in the formula for different accounts so players must keep their own databases.

Possible there could be some basic formula that each meta-item would follow, where to get a specific meta level 4 item you will always need a number of parts A and B and one of (C or D) but the actual numbers of these parts would vary for each player account.

Maybe you could spend RP with research agents to have them assist you in inventing meta-BPC's. Spending RP with the agent could possibly allow them to narrow down the range, or identity, of one of these components for you. The level of the research agent might be able to link into the level of meta they are able to help you research. The field of the research agent might also have to share one of the fields associated with the item being meta-invented, or maybe just receive a bonus if it is a shared field.

In any case, anything to enrich the industry side of EVE is welcome.
--

Don't harsh my mellow

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Yon Krum

Tue, 1 Jul 2009 11:55:00 +0000

First, I'd like to echo the OP in this regard. Consider this general agreement on most points.

As a personal aside on industry, I have to wonder why it is that, despite having an expensive business education, myself, the business side of EVE is the least appealing? I think this is because the whole thing is teflon-coated: you cannot get any traction to enable the usual tools--like the "5Ps"--work for you. It is PURE logistics, which is only fun for a short while, until you start counting your time spent.

On to suggestions:

Meta-construction is probably the most-interesting idea I've seen put forward, or thought of myself, for EVE, ever. It's so obvious that I'm sure virtually every player has come up with it. The balance challenge is huge, yes, but at the same time your developers have to balance a design when they're coming up with it. I assume they do something like "calculate a value of advantages and disadvantages vs baseline" to come up with a total ship stats score... or, you use darts.

You could solve a heck of alot of problems by enabling the building of meta-items (T1+1, +2, etc.), constructed via the assembly of "parts" dropped from wrecks in liew of usual loot. Said Parts (capital P) would assemble much like rigs do into ship components that would then be built into a base blueprint (a Kestral, say, or T1 rocket launcher) to modify base attributes in some controlled fashion. You would result in, with the right components, a Kestral with slightly reduced mass, or the coveted "Arbelest Rocket Launcher".

Parts would recycle into minerals in line with what would normally drop from a ship, thus avoiding breaking the current market too badly.

Ideally, you could link invention to this by the creation of BPCs for a particularly modified product. Best would be for the specific combinations that result in a given meta-product be randomized somewhat by user account. Why? Because otherwise you end up with no discovery in-game after about 3 days (everything goes on the web).

There's alot that could be done with such a system, to create customized products to exactly suit the needs of buyers and add plenty of interesting "fiddle bits" to industry.

--Krum

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Kazuo Ishiguro

Mon, 30 Jun 2009 18:28:00 +0000

I'd say go with meta manufacturing, possibly adding more variants at each meta level. It'd be a good start while allowing time for planning greater things.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Cailais

Mon, 30 Jun 2009 17:44:00 +0000

Excellent post OP.

I think the "personalistion" of product is key here. Whilst that might not be possible at the modular level - I certainly think its feasible at the ship level.

Allow manufacturers to create modules through a "graded" BPO - A BPO + basic mineral requirements produces a bog standard, or even sub standard T1 Module. Using better minerals (and possibly other items) creates the meta or named modules. The rarer and more expensive to core ingredients the more expensive and time consuming the item production becomes (diminishing returns) and requires higher skills specific to that module group.

Now allow players to fit those modules onto a ship and 'stamp' that ship with their brand name. e.g "The VITOC MkVIII Arbitrator". The producer can add their own product description and the module load out can be referenced by the purchaser (incl skill requirements). This kind of facility I would suggest wouldnt be 'market based' but by through established retail outlets (perhaps as part of ambulation). So a retailer would need to advertise their latest product via bill boards, station adds etc, and the product bought on site. Such retail sites would operate much like Corp Offices with high rental costs in busy systems (average of player population / time).

Now at the 'pre-stamping' phase with suitable skills the producer can effect the ships attributes (grid, cpu etc) allowing slight variations to the vanilla model. The ship cant fly 'pre-stamped' and once it is the modules are 'locked down': just like rigs but it does allow for a 'better' ship to be produced within boundaries.

So now you have more unique ships - advertisable as such:

"The VITOC Mk VII Arbitrator is customised for optimal performance. Fitted with a state of the art YF-8 MWD and 1600mm steel plate II it also sports no less than THREE Medium diminishing Nosferatu (full specifications provided below). Only available as a limited run bespoke vessel from VITOC Shipyards in Fensi. 17.5m ISK. (Drones not included)".

The ability to modify a specific attribute could lead to 'master craftsmen' emerging - perhaps even selling their services - rather like the sword smiths of the samurai era?

Just some thoughts.

C.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Caractacus Potts

Mon, 30 Jun 2009 15:02:00 +0000

Loving this thread. Hating it being on page 4 in the forum. So up to the top it goes!

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Feng Schui

Sat, 28 Jun 2009 02:34:00 +0000

I think a step in the right direction, which could be done with a little added code, is in the Ambulation expansion.

Currently planned, so far as I can tell with the little information that has been disclosed, is that the players, corporations, and alliances will be able to rent a room in the station, and set up shop, whether its a bar, hangout, club, whatever.

Anyways, why not also have a store-front that the players could purchase, and sell their goods in there. That way, we have the "store front" everyone is looking for.

Of course, you can just go through the market and purchase directly from the market as well, but eh.. this is a start.

On a side note, is adverts for products. All I see, day in and day out, are the same jpg's on the concord billboards. Why not have an ability to submit a jpg (within dimension and size constraints) through the eve-online website, link it to the API, and each week the "Ad" runs, it costs XXX isk? (It could also be used in ambulation on the TV's within the station).

Of course, there would be station, solar system, constellation, and regional Adverts, all with their different pricing plans.

That'd be pretty cool.

Project:Gank

Pilgrim Guide

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by SeptimusCurtius Tacitus

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 21:25:00 +0000

I wondered about producer being able to build meta-level items - why not keep it simple and just have the better combination (read longer to train) the better the meta-item they could produce.
Deviana I like your idea but fear it may be to complicated though it could lead to some interesting 'unique' (and expensive) ships if Wayward Hero has his way and you could only modify BPC's.
My own thought would be slighlty more radical but hopefully simpler.
At the moment all regular 'named' meta items (excluded faction/pirate/officer) are just simple slightly better versions of the previous from T1 until you reach a T1 equivalent of T2 (without the special bonuses).
If EvE is a sandbox why not make the meta item a choice of tactical preference rather than wallet - one type better range (for snipers), one with better tracking, one with better grid/cpu use, one with more damage.
If what you could manufacture is related to skills then you could train skills to produce different metas for your choice of market.
Personally I would like this kind of a meta idea applied to ships as well - one meta with better firepower (one more high?), one with better tanking (one more low/med for armour/shield plus making armour/shield thicker minus gun/missile) and a middle one with better recharges, more grid/CPU, maybe more mids if armour tanker, lows if shield tanker (wildcard setup)
Your ability to build depends on skill - better levels with armour type skills can make 'tanking' metas...

While I really like the idea of 'component freedom' personally I believe right now it would be a nightmare of lag/huge database - thought when the technology matures to a point that the data base could handle it then it should be implemented ASAP. For now generic 'metas' are our best option (read simplest, most realistic with limited resources).

I agree refining from 'built' items whats to be looked at (should not be anywhere near as effient to try and salvage materials from a 'used' machine)
Not sure about stopping T1 drops from missions, maybe just make them rarer or added salvagable minerals/parts instead that can them be sold to make new equiptment (hopefully without denting a mission runners income to much). I doubt an increase in minerals/unknown new materials by salvaging them from wreck would dent a miner’s pocket to much as it is already happening. It may accutally be a solution to the high price of tritanium by increase supply making miner seek rarer ores again (would love to see havestable belts go to being easy to find exploration sites rather than fixed in a system BTW).

As to advertising, CCP already shows faces (with bounties) on the boards so why not company/individual selling goods?
Might be an idea to see if you could change the market to show who is selling/buying (orders) an item and give the option to set bulk buy/return shopper discounts (qudos to someone above that I can't find in all the text!)

But whatever is decided (or not as the case may be) KEEP IT AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE (for a huge number of very wise reasons I will not go into)

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by procurement specialist

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 20:59:00 +0000

Component Freeform = Complete Freeform
Component freeform is a further step past mineral freeform. Using prefabricated components you can design and assemble your own items. Take a Caldari battleship hull and select your bonuses from the list of Caldari battleship racial abilities (ewar per scorpion, guns from rokh, and missiles from raven) and then add turrets and components to taste. At some point you will have diminishing returns as to add more speed would require bigger engines which take power grid away from other systems which requires a bigger reactor which increases ship volume and requires the current armor be spread out over more ship so increasing ship armor plating increases mass once again and you are slower than before you started. Balancing is largely impossible externally in this system. Players will determine the best base builds be it an 8 launcher super raven that moves 2 m/s but has 16k hp shield base or by leaving off almost all shield emitters and armor plates from a frigate hull can make a fantastically fast frigate. After designing said ship players will begin a research job based on the number of components selected to create a new bpc/bpo of their idea.
Pros: complete freedom. Developers no longer have much balance work to do. The players will discover effective counters on their own.
Cons: complete recreation of current system. Not practical in the extreme. Market orders will be a nightmare. No standard fleet will exist except by alliances producing mandatory use bpos/bpcs of the ships they want there people to fly.

i said it in my linked post. It would be horrendous to implement but does offer the most freedom.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Wayward Hero

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 20:34:00 +0000

Originally by: Deviana Sevidon

*Idea to alter BPO's to change attributes of the manufactured item*

Interesting idea in theory, would require massive analysis for balance, other ideas to allow modification of blueprints to modify the items they produce have been made before.

In general, such changes would be better implemented to BPC's not BPO's, so as to limit availability and increase value through scarcity of these heavyily modified items.

___________________________________________
The Forgotten Children of EVE

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Deviana Sevidon

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 19:47:00 +0000

Edited by: Deviana Sevidon on 26/06/2008 19:49:41
An idea that might be a bit radical and hard to balance at the beginning but would research and production a lot more interesting:

Let people make direct changes to BPOs but also limit the amount of changes that can be done. Introduce modificators that could be added to a ship during a research job on the BPO and are later part of the BPO, so that every ship produced from it has the modificators.

Modificators are things that are added to a BPO, that increase some abilities and lower others, while drastically increasing build cost and take a long research time. The modificators are a bit like rigs for a BPO, but cannot be removed once integrated and take a long time to be researched.

Modificator Examples:
Anti-Proton Injectors. A change to the main reactor, so that much of its output is directly brought to the engines. However this comes to the cost, that the energy flow to all other systems suffer from this modification and a critical system failure is likely if the engines are overheated.

Base Speed +30%.
Capacitor Recharge, Shield Recharge, Powergrid -30%.
Additional Heat Generation of all Speed affecting Modules + 500%.
Building costs: +40%

Gravity Lense
An extensive modification of large parts of the ships subsystems, to replace them with focused graviton field generators. These generators do nothing by themselves but provide a powerful boost to certain modules:

Removes one of the ship bonuses and replaces it with a +10% bonus to stasis webifier and warp scrambling modules, for each level of ship skill.
- Additional capacitor consumption of all propulsion jamming modules +150%.
- Increases ship mass +100%
- Additional building cost of ship +350%.

You see the logic here? It is a build in modification of the ships BPO. One thing that would be important is that, the more changes are made to ship design the longer it takes and each mod should increase the research time exponentially. So just piling up changes to a design would be possible but not viable, because changes that would create a super rifter, would also take years of time to research.

This would allow producers to create their own brands of ships. Maybe everyone would just die to get their hands on the new super rifter, or the new breed of anti-nano mallers would be the new top sellers of eve.

This could even be a boost to pirates and mercenaries, when a modified ship can be traced to certain producer corp, then pirates might try to extort the modified BPO from them and as a responce the producers might have to hire mercenaries for protection and a share of their profit.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by procurement specialist

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 17:44:00 +0000

Originally by: Manfred Rickenbocker
I thought perfect refine was 5/5/1? Anyway, this wasnt supposed to really affect people out in 0.0, but rather that they should stay the same. We have a few people in our alliance that do the same thing as Im sure every alliance does. The problem of mineral overproduction doesnt come from 0.0 anyway, it comes from empire where there is relatively low risk for high profit. One of the issues discussed by the OP was the lack of unique-ness in the market that helps promote competition above and beyond the penny undercutting that now occurs. To be honest, the only real problem I can see with this is that it will cause an increase in named loot on the market, driving down prices, and making T1 modules look even less attractive than they do now (its common to see T1 mods sell for MORE than named due to manufacturing costs). A question I'd have for Dr. EyjoG is this: what percentage of market minerals come from mining vs. refining?

refine and refine effic V gives 99.5% in 50% station. refine V, refine effic V, refine (special) V, and 4% implant give 99.39% refine in 35% stations. :D more specific info now. we are both correct.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by CPark Finner

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 17:24:00 +0000

With regard to specialized items, store-fronts and cottage industry

Some items, like the Orion Tracking CPU I, have plug-in scripts, like the tracking speed script. These enhance a particular attribute of the items capability with a corresponding decrease in another attribute of the item. If I understand correctly, they were introduced as a balance / strategic decision modification to the game a while ago. The significance of scripts to this discussion is that at least the outline of a customization mechanism exists for individual items.

Perhaps it could be extended so that characters with appropriate skills could research and build scripts for any characteristic of an item but the item would have a limited number of script slots and the scripts, like rigs and implants, would be destroyed when removed. Or perhaps the script could not be removed at all. Once installed it changed the item forever. Alternatively, it might take a special skill to insert and remove item scripts just as rig usage has requirements.

The script research outcome could be a combination of skill, input materials, a random chance of success and a random magnitude of targeted outcome. Serendipity might also be added producing an exceptional magnitude of effect or a different effect than expected.

Play balance could be maintained by limits on number of item slots and magnitude of script effects.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Manfred Rickenbocker

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 17:04:00 +0000

Originally by: procurement specialist

eliminates purpose of refining ore skills except for equipping t2 minin crystals. I would only accept this is empire stations went to 35% refine. also I spent a lot of months training for ark, bis, scrapmetal 5 and the 4% refining implant to be a refining specialist in 0.0. Goonswarm has several who have trained peoople such as myself to do this and we do it professionally for nominal fees. Not a lot of peopel melt their own loot when they know one of us lives around.

I thought perfect refine was 5/5/1? Anyway, this wasnt supposed to really affect people out in 0.0, but rather that they should stay the same. We have a few people in our alliance that do the same thing as Im sure every alliance does. The problem of mineral overproduction doesnt come from 0.0 anyway, it comes from empire where there is relatively low risk for high profit. One of the issues discussed by the OP was the lack of unique-ness in the market that helps promote competition above and beyond the penny undercutting that now occurs. To be honest, the only real problem I can see with this is that it will cause an increase in named loot on the market, driving down prices, and making T1 modules look even less attractive than they do now (its common to see T1 mods sell for MORE than named due to manufacturing costs). A question I'd have for Dr. EyjoG is this: what percentage of market minerals come from mining vs. refining?

Another interesting solution comes to mind: low-quality minerals. For example, instead of normal tritanium you get from refining modules, you get low-quality tritanium. Pure minerals would only come from asteroid ore. The use of low quality minerals would have no real impact on the quality of the finished good, however their consumption would be greater and there would be a chance they incur other penalties, such as increased manufacturing time.
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Peace through superior firepower: a guiding principle for uncertain times.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by procurement specialist

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 16:33:00 +0000

Edited by: procurement specialist on 26/06/2008 16:36:33

Originally by: Manfred Rickenbocker
Introduce more waste into refining. During real manufacturing, things are always permanently changed: burning wood to ash, you cant refine ash back to wood. This way you cant get all the mineral cost back. But wait, this can hurt miners and people out in 0.0! Make refining raw ore perfectly efficient. This should give mineral miners a leg up in the market over mission runners and ratters, but still make those perfect refine skills highly worth it. Psychologically, if you reduce the "unrecoverable" number for modules, module refiners probably wont even notice for the most part. As for 0.0 people, make Empire stations incur the module refining penalty, but player outposts and POS refineries more efficient. In a way, this can encourage more people out of empire for increasing efficiency.

eliminates purpose of refining ore skills except for equipping t2 minin crystals. I would only accept this is empire stations went to 35% refine. also I spent a lot of months training for ark, bis, scrapmetal 5 and the 4% refining implant to be a refining specialist in 0.0. Goonswarm has several who have trained peoople such as myself to do this and we do it professionally for nominal fees. Not a lot of peopel melt their own loot when they know one of us lives around.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Manfred Rickenbocker

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 16:25:00 +0000

Interesting stuff. Ive always thought of this market resembling something as perfect competition: low/no barriers to entry, absolute product catalog, price ruled by supply and demand with few absolute floors and/or ceilings. It is true that the marketplace has become quite complicated for both consumer and producer, and the complexity stems from an over-abundance of supply not due to the actual market mechanisms.

A lot of MMOs handle the price situation using NPC intermediaries and fixed pricing. While this helps remove excess inventory from the world, it also creates monetary supply issues. While this is levied by the fact that you can only sell things for a fraction of the full item price, the over supply issue produces excessive amounts of cash. Luckily money (ISK) isn't the only currency in Eve: minerals are a currency as well since nearly all modules can be refined to base elements. It reminds me of the original Diablo game where you could only hold 5k gold in a single pile. Every game you would end up with a ton of gold littering the ground because you couldn't hold it all. This is how I equate minerals.

The only two processes by which EVE has to remove minerals from the market is through A) waste (refining & manufacturing) and B) item destruction (ship loss, ammunition consumption, trashing). In fact, most every person probably holds more in mineral assets at any given time than the liquid ISK in their wallets. The reason keeping that market from falling apart is people tend to keep spares of everything they can find just in case (a.k.a pack-rat syndrome). I know my hangars across Eve have stuff I haven't seen or used in a good long time. Similar to ISK, there need to be more mineral sinks. Should things degrade from lack of use? How about each item taking damage over time (but never really being destroyed)? Is that fair? That only answers the B) side of the equation and clearly people would become extremely upset if their stuff suddenly disappeared. That leaves the A) side.

Since Eve is a buyers market, people want to buy low cost. This forces manufacturers to try and be as efficient during production as possible: high ME/PE BPOs, waste reduction skills, etc. Clearly, producers would be equally miffed as the pack rats if their manufacturing costs were to suddenly increase overnight (reference the outrage over perfect ME BPOs during last year's expansion). This leaves us with refining.

Introduce more waste into refining. During real manufacturing, things are always permanently changed: burning wood to ash, you cant refine ash back to wood. This way you cant get all the mineral cost back. But wait, this can hurt miners and people out in 0.0! Make refining raw ore perfectly efficient. This should give mineral miners a leg up in the market over mission runners and ratters, but still make those perfect refine skills highly worth it. Psychologically, if you reduce the "unrecoverable" number for modules, module refiners probably wont even notice for the most part. As for 0.0 people, make Empire stations incur the module refining penalty, but player outposts and POS refineries more efficient. In a way, this can encourage more people out of empire for increasing efficiency.

I hate to end with that, but thats pretty much all I can think of for the moment (and Im magically out of post space!).

Stealth Edit: another mineral/item sink I thought of during writing this is the consumption of minerals to repair items. Right now repairing damaged ships and modules is 100% perfect and uses ISK. While a good ISK sink, people might be more inclined to quick-scrap their loose modules for minerals if they can be used for repair. Add in a mineral quote to repair cost and let people choose whether they want to repair using mienrals or ISK. Also give them partial repair options, so they can repair 50% with minerals, and fill in the blanks with ISK.
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Peace through superior firepower: a guiding principle for uncertain times.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by procurement specialist

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 16:14:00 +0000

post

i think that a barrier to entry into the market is bad. at the same time how do you allow specialists or high sp people to be more effective. The easiest to implement (from my understanding) is the meta bpo variant. Currently it has been mentioned that the item can only be created by 1 blueprint and vice versa so new meta bpos would need to be created. If this was changed where they could be done on the same bpo it would be more ideal.

If components were added to t1 manufacturing requiring new cheap bpos then all the current bpos would need modified. I think this a better long term solution for fun but really I was pretty exhaustive discussing this stuff in my linked post.

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Wannabehero

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 15:59:00 +0000

Originally by: CCP Chronotis

One of the ideas we are considering is meta manufacturing...

An example method would be a Mega Pulse Laser I Blueprint. The blueprint would be able to have alternative products, the blueprint could manufacture the four T1 metas such as the Modal Mega Pulse Laser for example. The difference would be a longer build time and requirement for additional components skills or other materials in addition to the T1 build requirements. The new components would come from NPC loot or LP store in the case of faction variants for example and be refinable.

Yes please. More variety in manufacturing will be most welcomed by all of the eve community I imagine. Manufacturing meta's would be very nice.

My only suggestion would be to not have the same blueprint used to manufacture all the meta levels of a tech 1 item, but instead include new skills in the science tree, similar to invention but without the requirement of datacores or the chance based pass/fail system, that permit characters to convert tech 1 BPC's into meta BPC's, with the build time and efficiency costs determined by the meta level of the item and the specific skills of the 'inventor'.

It might be possible that the type of meta level BPC that you cook up when converting a meta 0 BPC is random, but a successful meta is produced each time with lower chance of production the higher the meta level, but higher level meta production probability could possibly be improved with additional skills. This would introduce another sub-profession to the science field.

Originally by: CCP Chronotis

There are options we are looking at to affect supply. The first one which would go hand in hand with meta manufacturing would be to remove or reduce completed items from loot and replacing with the components required to build them instead so all or most items would be manufactured. This would certainly work wonders for the T1 market where players starting out have very few opportunities in an already extremely efficient market with generally razor thin margins (though there is many exceptions to this) to try and get a foothold.

You have mentioned before in other threads about including an intermediate step to manufacture between minerals and modules/ships, that of construction components. I think this is a wonderful idea and would love to see it implemented.

Originally by: CCP Chronotis

The second possible partial solution is something I discussed with the CSM, introducing some barriers to entry. This could be skill based in making manufacturing reliant on skills such as ammo/module/component/frigate/cruiser construction and then adding in additional effects to having those skills such as less manufacturing time per blueprint category rather than what we have now which is only the ability to affect all blueprints.

More skills to allow specialization is also an excellent idea, one which I believe has been tossed around on these forums for a while. Besides reducing construction time, allow these skills to increase efficiency and thusly profit, as Ricdic suggests. To prevent refinery exploitation, increase the base mineral inefficiency of the blueprint to match the benefit gained from the maximum skill bonus. This would allow specialists to compete more in their niche of the market.

--

Don't harsh my mellow

Enhancing Production, Promotion Marketing and Business Relationships - by Kii Ry

Thu, 26 Jun 2009 15:23:00 +0000

Originally by: CCP Chronotis
Your variation which is greater efficiency by skill is interesting but faces some challenges, namely reprocessing. We cannot currently allow an item to be manufactured more efficiently than the base cost as this is what the type will reprocess to. To allow greater efficiency, we would have to cap reprocessing at 90% of base cost for example or introduce an additional waste margin per blueprint which is only reduced by these new skills. The failings of the current system and problem would be that you could generate materials from building an item efficiently and then reprocessing it to gain more materials than were used to build it.

It is certainly nice to see this being looked at and discussed. I just wanted to reply to this point though.

You could include on each object in eve a 'construction efficiency' paramater which is the ratio of 'base cost' to 'real cost' used when building.

If that number is >1 then ignore it (or use it if you like) whereas if it is <1 then you can modify the reprocessing results so you only ever get back the same amount you put in.

To be honest the one area that's crying out for more skills is invention where we really need something, anything, to break the very linear relationship between decryptors.

Essentially everyone who knows what they are doing has a spreadsheet showing the cost of building and inventing a ship. From that you can work out price bands for the decryptors and ships themselves which tells you which decryptor is best to use and what the final build cost is.

That figure is the same for everyone - and there is no way to change it. If there were skills or implants or something that can be used to change things that would open up so many more options.

For example a +2 runs implant, a +2 ME implant or a +4 PE implant all in the same slot - so you have to choose which one you plug in which then changes the decryptors.

How about extremely long training time (the same sort of skill rank as cap ship skills) and expensive skills (with high reqs) that boost the ME and PE.

Invention Metallurgy - Rank 15, +1 ME to invented BPC per level
Invention Research - Rank 15, +1 PE to invented BPC per level

You could even have advanced skills i.e.:

Gallentean Starship Engineering (does as now).
Advanced Gallentean Starship Engineering (req GSE 5, adds +1 to ME of invention jobs requiring GSE)
Mechanical Engineering (does as now)
Advanced Mechanical Engineering (req ME 5, adds +1 PE of invention jobs requiring ME)

Something would be nice :)