Here we go! Originally posted here.
Dev Blog: Tech is fine L2P
Ahahaha just kidding moongoo is completely broken and we’re going to fix that starting in Inferno 1.2.
Disclaimer: Everything in this dev blog (just like every game change we make) is open to being changed at any point. If you dump all your isk into speculation around this blog and lose it all because we changed something again, you have only yourself to blame. Always speculate at your own risk.So by way of introduction, I’m CCP Fozzie the new game designer here at CCP. I’ve been playing EVE for years and am very excited for the chance to work alongside the great team here and in partnership with all you passionate players to make Eve Online: A Progressively Improving Game.
For those of you who are interested in how I look, I have included a picture of myself below:
Now if I’ve learned anything about prison from television (and who hasn’t), it’s that the first thing you should do when you arrive is find the biggest guy around and beat the living daylights out of him so everyone knows not to mess with you. Since I figure most imaginary prison advice should be fairly transferrable I came in here looking to find a big game problem and smack it around a bit.
Many of you will be familiar with this graph:
Over the past several months the price of the moon mineral Technetium has risen sharply, bringing some pre-existing game design issues into sharper relief. The value of these moons combined with the fact that they exist completely in one distinct region of the game has caused wealth transfers that are simply too large for the effort and risk involved. So we are going to kick Technetium in the balls.
There are more problems with our current system of moon mining and tech two production than just the price of Technetium, which is why we now have a comprehensive plan to address these issues over multiple releases. The end goal is for the materials for tech two production to come from player activities that require group gameplay and risk taking, and that provide appropriate rewards. This will eventually involve changes to both resource collection and the build requirements for construction of tech two materials and items. A responsible first step in this plan is to ensure that as much as possible the tech two components market is shielded from unnecessary price shocks.
Those of you who have been playing for a while may remember that there was a system introduced in 2008 for this exact purpose called Alchemy. It allows players to replace one moon mineral type with another in a reaction; simulating the innovation that occurs in the real world when supply of a resource is tight (the fuel conservation innovation that resulted from the 1970s oil crisis springs to mind). The details of the system are available at CCP Greyscale’s original alchemy devblog for those who are interested.
Our first step in fixing the moon mineral and tech two production economies is to expand alchemy to every applicable reaction. You will soon be able to create Platinum Technite without using Technetium if you so desire.
Most of these reactions will sit unused at any given time, and that is by design. Alchemy will kick in as a pressure valve in case prices of any moon mineral spike. As long as prices remain low there is no need to bypass the original mineral.
Since enterprising individuals will soon be able to find the details of the reactions from test patches, I’ll give the technical details of the reactions below for your perusal. Like I said above, speculating on these changes is to be done at your own risk as we reserve the right to change anything anytime should we see a good reason. You will notice that we are starting these reactions at the same conversion rate as the original alchemy instead of the conversion rate of current boosted alchemy. These ratios can and likely will change over subsequent releases as we adjust the system.
I will also repeat that this change is only the first step in our plan to revamp the methods by which the materials for tech two ships and modules are collected and used. We will be taking the time we need to do it right, but that process starts very soon in Inferno 1.2 with these alchemy changes.
If you aren’t interested in the gory details feel free to skip this next part, but for those of you who have skipped over the whole blog looking for numbers here are the most recent set of planned reactions for your mathematical enjoyment:
click to enlarge
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy this and all the other changes we have planned for Inferno 1.2.
*checks to make sure it's not end of march*
nope. we're safe from "APRIL FOOLS WOLOLOL" CCPTroll
Whats the math on the actual alchemy? Including Fuel Costs, natch
Someone did the math and with jita prizes from yesterday (18.07.12) one tech can be made for a bit under 6.000…
Calculate urself what that means!!
Was so happy about a possible solution to tech then I read this:
"Alchemy will kick in as a pressure valve in case prices of any moon mineral spike. As long as prices remain low there is no need to bypass the original mineral."
So CCP is going to take an active roll in artificially fixing the prices of materials… yeah that's a great idea. Of all of the awesome things you could have done to stimulate conflict you decided to go with. We will dictate the prices indirectly. We've all seen how that works throughout history.
You seem to have missed a key part of this Blog:
"I will also repeat that this change is only the first step in our plan to revamp the methods by which the materials for tech two ships and modules are collected and used. We will be taking the time we need to do it right, but that process starts very soon in Inferno 1.2 with these alchemy changes."
I forsee comets in our future…either way OTEC is still set
I truly hope you're right. Where you see temporary I see first of several changes that will also remain in place.
I would argue that it's the first step in making Moon Goo income more accessible to the Grunts (with a little work of course). This small change doesn't bring us to our desired state, but if they keep up with any of the ideas proposed, it should make for an interesting new profession. Hopefully whatever they create will be bot proof though.
Yeah… it's not like CCP has ever started something, and then never finished it.
like titans
And PI, and WiS
+1 yes people should read the whole blog. Step 1 is alchemy, prob step 2 is redistribute and reduce moon yields, step 3 add activities to gather moon goo (guessing)
CCP has always taken an active (not always efficient or well-received) role in trying to balance the EVE economy. At various times they have removed Ice from high sec empire, rebalanced mineral layouts, rebalanced T2 ship moon goo requirements (which led to this), redid insurance so that it wasn't profitable to build and then detonate, and most importantly they introduced invention to cut down the price of T2 ships and mods.
Haha. Remember the last time they tried their hand at price controls?
http://www.evenews24.com/2012/06/21/goons-running…
Let's not forget the fact that the original alchemy system was exploited horribly for months: http://community.eveonline.com/devblog.asp?a=blog…
I also remember buying up shuttles to make tritanium for building ships once upon a time, because it was significantly cheaper than buying the mineral off the market. This throws a wrench in the technetium problem, but they best work fast on a true solution, because it is only a matter of time before this "fix" gets exploited horribly in some way.
Last thing of note… Region with the 4th most Platinum moons and 3rd most Cobalt? Querious. Catch and Esoteria are the only regions with a slightly better collection of both. What regions were targeted by the CFC in this recent sov grab? http://evemaps.dotlan.net/region/moons
Not all the moons are reported
Lots of them in the drone regions in systems no one has leaked to dotlan yet
Nullsec region moon reports are notoriously innaccurate/incomplete.
They have an active hand in every single thing about the game, since they designed all of the game mechanics and implemented most of them. Everything in the game is artificial. The sandbox has structure, and that's not a bad thing. Of course, I'm not suggesting that they manually fix any given price (eg, the shuttle thing), but I am suggesting that the price of everything in EVE is purely a result of decisions that CCP have made combined with the ingenuity and effort of the playerbase.
nice, although alchemy has been pretty dead in the water as fuel costs are very high, per unit. but this should at least create an artificial ceiling, or give zealous opec-haters a chance to avoid giving cash to their enemies.
the amount of product you get out of these reactions is very low, so many cycles to get to anything remotely useful. However still a good start. also nice to see cobalt, the bastard child of moon materials it's time in the spotlight
So long as you can get SOME tech without access to a tech moon, this is huge. It might not be cost-efficient to the point that selling huge quantities of alchemy tech is viable, but it means that the smaller nullsec alliances are no longer paying the OTEC alliances when they build their T2s.
Always buy genuine OTEC products.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSsTxJCyCpM
Although I had almost no confidence in the senor/existing dev's to fix the tech bottleneck, I find it somewhat strange that they would put the new guy on one of the biggest problems in eve atm.
Goons don't fuck goons… hire someone else to do it….
Only a Goon can fuck Goons
Only a Goon WONT fuck Goons
i fooked a goon once and all I got was yellow discharge. The only logical explanation was a priest as you sure as hell can't pull physical women in your mums basement
This
they should make a tier 4 mining barge/exumer that can mine moons …. for 1 it would give griefers more pubbies to shoot… also open up 0.4 sec moons for moon mining too but only by barges/exumers
maybe not tier 4 but a covetor/hulk variant that can mine moons and has a bonus for it.
i got what your saying maybe a special turret system, and force to mine moon goo with a skiff (1 turret)
Would be slow but you could mine enemy tech hehe
problem with this is what would stop some one in null sec getting 100 people doing this in null at once the amount they would produce would flood the market (note the price of Tech currently is due to a cartel managing the flow to jita at a high rate) >_> and sense they can be a moon near a POS there relatively safer then a grav site ect
If it wasn't a moon (ring mining?) the idea wouldnt be bad… but that has been pushed back untill whenever
Implement active, mining-barge-required moon mining, and then get rid of passive moon mining modules on POSes.
Good idea
this blog sounds verry fuzzy ….
So they gona fix something, but mean wile they will put something Not new to patch the old problem for a bit…
Eh, I am confused. What are they gonna do exactly?
"The end goal is for the materials for tech two production to come from player activities that require group gameplay and risk taking, and that provide appropriate rewards."
You want group activity and risk taking…
Then … remove the POS-es as moon mining platforms
oh wait, that wont be it as POS-es will still shout anything that come close the moon….
oh wait, that will mean POS-es should not be anchored on the moons anymore ….
oh wait WHAT???
What exacly are they gonna change?
Dude calm the fuck down and learn to comprehend what you read. This is a stop gap measure to address the issue as soon as possible while testing the new systems out. As he said if you bothered to read the entire thing through . . . they're introducing fixes across multiple patches. Easier and quicker patches to relieve the problem in the short term and harder more wide affecting patches that require more extensive testing for the long term.
Capitalism and free markets are a LIE and a FAIL. Leave CCP Centralized Goverment take the control of all! Long live to new EVE Comunist!
shut it!
so its like you are making a synthetic tech >_>
this brings to mind the Alliance Tournament add of otec… 100% cert. tech >_> goons know all (tinfoil hat)
HA HA – fuck u goons!!!!
Actually believe this will effect Goons or the CFC at all? LMAO! Seeing as we own HALF the universe by ourselves. Well I think we are still gonna be ahead of ALL of you. Your still gonna fall under our jack boots.
This is true. The isk already stored in the OTEC coffers is more than enough to fund their continued programs for the foreseeable future. Plus redistribution of moons would be mitigated by the space they now hold. But it is still something that needs to be done. Better to contest those moons over half the map than 1/8 of it. But yeah, this won't have much effect on CFC or Goons. Stil needs logical fixing.
THIs will change EVERYTHING!!
Tech is no real income anymore and whatever u have or not doesnt matter at all. The north will completely lose its role and everything will be newly defined by the sandbox.
You have a lot of tech isk – fine…but you will need to face other alliances on a equal financing lvl in future times and that will change everything as quality will mean someting again.
ATM one tech would cost sth about 6.000 isk if you get it out of a reaction – so all that tech is worth a shit now!!
"So we are going to kick Technetium in the balls" its about FUCKEN TIME!
This first change won't really change much at all. It'll give a new area of (possibly high) income to carebears, while still allowing "otec" their massive amount of ship replacement program (and RMT) isk to keep flowing.
Even at 25% of todays technetium prices, they will still have a massive amount of static isk income. So this first step doesn't really change much apart from adjusting prices a bit down.
Cobalt (which is what CCP is currently sayign they are going to use, though I get the feeling that will change) is a fairly common moon mineral, so Tech prices will almost certainly (hopefully) plummet to a level where tech moons will fall in line with other R32s
so they dont want to fix the problem, instead they plan a workaround.
I think the balance between the moon-matrials is broken and not. For instance if you want to build a Basilisk you will need about 16000 moon-matrials (depence on your ME-LvL) and 17 different moon-matrials. You will need about 1100 Technetium, thats an quota about 6.875%. The average used moon-matrials are about 940, so you need more Technetium to build the Basilisk then other moon-Matrials.
If Technetium is a rare moon-matrial, why do you need so much tech to build a ship? isnt it suppose to be vice verse? "This moon-matrial is rare, so you need less" (see T1 production for instance). Note that rare matrials usually have a higher price.
i recommend: "balance the usage of moon-matrials in T2 Production"
I think the balance between the moon-matrials is broken and not the amount of Tech
Alchemy was added in more to prevent this from happening with other moon minerals as well.
Hopefully they follow through with this being the start of a solution.
A fix this is not. A kick in the balls it is certainly not. Alchemy is nothing more than passing along crumbs from the OTEC table.
CCP obviously knows the issue and stated it clearly: "The value of these moons combined with the fact that they exist completely in one distinct region of the game has caused wealth transfers that are simply too large for the effort or risk involved."
Their response? Do nothing about the distribution of moons or the effort and risk associated with passively harvesting the resource.
I fully recognize that CCP says this is a multi-release effort over some unknown period of time, but the fact is that alchemy is just not a solution that will significantly impact the market. There is no way to reverse the wealth transfer that has already been accumulated, nor should they try. But as for the future, I think someone needs to actually kick a dev in the balls so they can comprehend what that means.
CCP: You know what the problem is because you created it in the first place. It is the use of tech-related material in the production process as well as the centralized location of the tech itself. Simple solution: shuffle the moon distribution and/or adjust the material requirements. If you want to toss in alchemy for shits and giggles, great, but the solution to the ongoing wealth transfer is to create a sensible distribution of moons. Of course, you could choose to get rid of passive moon mining entirely and make all moon material an actively harvestable resource like ore. But that might be too damn crazy. Shit, this isn't that complicated.
And before some troll says "more changes to come – this is a first step" let me answer by saying:
No, take the same broad brush mindset to nerfing tech that they did with drone alloys. Big change now and tweak shit later. Hit the wealth transfer problem hard and soon so as to keep from perpetuating the problem. The quickest solution is redistribute the moons and change the T2 material build requirements. All other changes become part of revamping the system.
+1 thats true.. Dronelands are still terribad.
What is fascinating to me is all the moons in highsec that have highgrade moon goo all of a sudden… Wouldn't that make it more interesting if all the indy alliances are fighting over the highsec tech and r64 moons?
Yes please, do this CCP. If wars in highsec actually had meaning… my goodness, EVE might even become fun again.
whats to stop the current tech holders from just going around and snatching up the tech all over eve after you redistribute it, or if they were to move the bottleneck (there will ALWAYS be a bottleneck) to another mineral whats to stop us from just going and taking that one?
This multi release plan is the best one you can possibly come up with because it will slowly phase out this passive income and eventually moons will just be a place people keep towers for supers. Doing anything else just invites the same people who hold tech now to come take whatever you replace it with.
I totally agree Grath. Redistribution is not a final solution. The big boys could just come and find the new moons and take them. But at least it gets the current passive isk faucet turned off for them for a little while. Passive income of that level for anyone is not in the best interests of the game so the long term solution has to be way more active and not just alchemy.
So many say that this will effect the CFC. But does anyone realize that we control half of EVE. We still win.
Tech is plentiful. the problem is the supply and price are controlled by only a few. Since this will create a mechanism to introduce a source of uncontrolled supply it's a good start. Even a small amount will create downward pressure on the artificial prices now in place. I'm curious to see what alliance breaks tank with OTEC pricing agreements. As this will surely happen since nobody wants to sell at the bottom. I'm guessing periodic "market dumps" will occur from OTEC in order to increase risk relating to alternative production methods.This may make industrialists even more valuable to large PVP alliances in the same manner as wormhole corps have had significant impact in the deployment of large t3 fleets.
So owning 1/2 of eve is irrelevant in this case. What's more important is the current stockpile of tech and who will be the ones that end up holding the bag.
pug
new alchemy is gonna lower the base cost at current prices to 2.9k per plat tech down from 92.5k with normal reaction
fuel is like 150k a hour but you can run more than 1 reaction per pos
Alchemy is inefficient. period.
20 alchemy reactions = 1 standard reaction.
Factoring in fuel and work, Tech will still be king.
Its a start to fixing things, but it is not finished, and it will proably be mid summer next year when CCP revisits it.
Most of these alchemy reactions mean nothing at all.
Ive charted moon reactions and just set these Alchemy reactions up. At current prices only Platinum Technite Will be profitable.
Tech prices will fall to a lower level, but its not like the North will not be the powerhouse anymore. You can bypass tech at 1/20th the rate of a tech moon.
Instead of using 100 tech and 100 platinum to make 200 Platinum Technite, you are using 100 platinum and 100 cobalt to make only 10 Platinum Technite per hour.
so you need 20 of these Alchemy reactions to match the natural rate in the north….
Tech is a lot more abundant, in the north, than the R64 moons, which is why SOME old alchemy reactions were profitable.
You need 10 full blown large towers in the south to match the Platinum Technite production of a medium tower in the north.
It makes reactions and pricing more dynamic, but it does not solve the problem, which CCP dodged.
The problem is, that a single material that is VITAL to Tech 2 Production, is concentrated in the north, and was adjusted to take the price of R64 materials down.
REVAMP TECH 2 PRODUCTION TO USE LESS TECH!!!
Stop cutting the branches and unroot the tree.
I like the long term solution of removing moon mining altogether. My fingers are crossed that ring mining rolls out in the winter expansion.
yea lets fuck the regualr mineral market by intoroducing more mingin , we dont have enough miners for all the mining lol
Keep in mind that this is a first pass. It's also not about shifting where powerhouses are, but about making the system more interesting and dynamic.
Better to make small iterative changes and watch how they go than one big revamp and wonder why it's not working.
Whether something is economically viable or not depends on the supply / demand equation. CCP hasn't directly set the prices of anything, and nothing is intrinsically viable or nonviable. If you get enough people on board, you could quite literally set up a cartel on any commodity that you want to in EVE. Of course, it's highly improbable that you would succeed in doing so, because it becomes harder and harder the more distributed the resource is, and the more effort would be required to stop anyone else from accessing it. I agree that adding alchemy for tech does not solve the problem (depending on your definition of what the problem is) but it does mean that a perfect monopoly cannot realistically exist. So, it's a good starting point.
Hmm I did not see this zeal to nerf tech when it was in the hands of anybody else, why does this mean something now? The price of tech is high because it is player driven. Eve Online is a PLAYER driven game. Why would you want to mess that up? Are they nerfing the systems in the south so most of the “rich” 0.0 systems are more equitable? I am against giving anyone an advantage in Eve but it is this game that we love to play that makes us seek out advantages over other players and exploit them. Why not set one price for all goods, or one price for mods? Imagine if the max price for a Dreadnaught was 100mil, or drakes were capped at 20mil? Or perhaps Trit has a set value of 1-isk? What a boring game it would become. If the rest of eve wants to nerf tech, they can form some fleets, strike up north, and commence attacking. It’s as easy as that and no tweaking is involved.
CCP has interfered with EVE's industry/market often and in a few instances still actively controls prices.
EVE's economy may be player driven but changing the rules and boundaries is a neccessity that sometimes works, sometimes it fucks everything up.
But it has to be done, be it for the sake of "balance" or "insertreasonhere" and alchemy is a good first step to, well, either fuck it up again or not.
OMG All this whining want some cheese to go with it. or should we just call you people a wambulance. I guess the large power blocks are gonna have to find another way to sit on there asses and get isk
was about time for the yearly PL nerf
Jita – cobalt went from 500 to 6k+ . . . nope, nuffin broke here – crystalline carbonide prices doubled, naw everythings fine. . . void price unchanged hmmm…… gunships arent going broke buying ammo – hot patch needed asap
When are CCP getting rid of T2 BPO's?
Maybe instead they should give a way to get more of them into the game? Perhaps a crit on invention, or using a bpo to invent instead of a copy? (Burns a bpo if you fail, higher ME = higher chances?)
Never and if you dont know why by now, i just dont know what to tell you.
BTW 2 years 2 late
Check in-game price history. Tech blog released 19. ,cadmium price spikes at 13.-14. . Nice example of CCP/CSM leak.
Pathetic, it would have been better to do nothing than to produce this piece of rubbish.
CCP could get around to releasing T2 Moon Harvesters while they are messing with the formulas…I mean geez…
every one who want nerf technetium, is just Nearsightedness ;]
yes i dont like that one entity keeps all technetium.
but: if every one gets everyting then eve will die
now we have all ore in almost the same price, ore is everywhere ;/
then we get every moon go in each system ;/ then we get every ship with 8/8/8 slots layout
mabye then every one be happy ? yes al those who siting in station and just looking on theirs walets ;]
sorry for bad english
I don't see any argument in your post for:
a) Nearsightedness/shortsightedness,
b) EvE will die.
c) Ships with 8/8/8 slot layout. :
SO TL:DR the market is being affected by one moon mineral so we are going to fuck with all of them and that will make everything better. Why the fuck does CCP keep giving the FNG the nerf bat and pointing him at the current issue and telling him to swing for the fences? don't get me wrong tech needs nerfing in the worst way possible but all this is going to do is devalue EVERY moon goo not the one causing problems. Way to fuck the market while calling it a rebalance.