Are alphas a sink of some sort?

Theorizing, it clicked to me the following:

alphas are now gonna fly battleships.
you need battleships to run incursions
incursions make mad isk.
you need mad isk to buy plex.

now, yea, the fact that if alphas can do incursions could be an isk sink, since ammo, the stuff they buy, and plex could be whatever magnitude of a sink, but could it be used on those who don’t normally run incursions?

plex prices would skyrocket after awhile if alphas train battleships, get into incursion communities, and buy their plex with isk, so would that mean everyone else is gonna get sinked with having to buck up more for plex in-game?

I thought the answer was straight forward when i started writing, but not so much, what’s everyone else’s take?

Once they are buying plex they are no longer alphas though, also, running incursions with a T1 fit BS with minimal skills is not going to result in a very efficient fleet, i don’t think TVP would take any alphas

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TVP should accept them, as they have an entry fit with meta 4 guns and ~2.2M SP required. There really isn’t much T2 that alphas won’t be able to get come the update, and you can always use faction/DED equivalents for the odd thing (like in the unlikely case of them not getting T2 invuls/hardeners).

More details:

oh hell, I know a guy who crafted up a gnosis fit in pyfa with current alpha skills that he was confident you could to incursions in. not sure if TVP does that, but…

Neither buying BS, buying PLEX, or buying ammo is an ISK sink, since the ISK is just moved from one player to another, so the total amount of ISK in game remains the same.

Alphas running incursions, as well as alphas getting blown up in BS and getting insurance is an ISK source though.

Alphas making ISK and then quitting the game is an ISK sink. (Assuming they don’t give it away first.)

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I think the goal for CCP is simply to get more players to try / play the game, and ultimately go Omega, and this goal is more important than ISK faucets / sinks at this point.

Although, looking at the Monthly Economic Report, the ISK sink from Alphas buying the skills they need (bottom of the graph) is bigger than the faucet from Incursions (third from the top). So YES, your scenario of Alphas running incursions would be a net sink.

Keep in mind that Alphas (or anyone) can only buy as many Plex as other players actually shell out cash to purchase. If more Alphas earn more ISK and want to buy more Plex, and the amount of cash-sourced-Plex in the game does not significantly alter, then the ISK price of Plex will go up. CCP may be hoping that a higher ISK price for Plex will drive more cash-plex sales, or simply that more Alphas with a higher need for skill injectors, Omega training past 5 mill SP etc. will drive sales.

Either way, you can expect ISK-Plex prices to rise. The only questions is by how much?

Money changing hands between players in the market doesn’t exactly make an ISK sink.

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It is also important to note that specifically related to incursions, use of LP is an ISK sink because in order to cash it in you typically have to pay ISK to the NPC corporation thus removing ISK from the game.

The term “ISK sink” and “ISK faucet” as you correctly noted is a very specific term in EVE only related to ISK entering or leaving the game via NPC mechanics.

It’s not EVE specific. I’ve seen the term thrown about in various MMOs from WoW to EVE. Grossly simplifying: any multiplayer game with in in-game currency is going to have faucets and sinks which drive inflation/deflation of the in-game currency. Economically speaking, the faucets/sinks are what IRL the central banks control when they adjust rates or print more currency. EVE is one of the few games I’ve seen where it’s reasonably managed (in comparison… WoW is Zimbabwe, 1g ten years ago is 1000g now… not to mention Diablo II)

Thing is the TVP waitlist also enforces checks on other skills not specifically required by the fit, some drone skills and nav skills etc, it won’t actually let you queue up if you don’t have them, the FC’s can see what skills you have and you’ll probably spot the obvious alpha characters a mile off, yes faction stuff will make up for a bit and you’ll end up with a deadspace tank eventually but at this point you’re going to be upgrading to omega :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah, I haven’t ran with them yet, still working on a few skills. It is quite possible that alphas won’t make many runs, but it should be better to run with an alpha with basic skills than to be missing a hyperion/vindicator. Given the amount of isk you will make once in fleet, you only need to get in a few times to then PLEX. So it is indeed not much of a problem as far as I can see: the account will be omega soon enough.

Training for minimum requirements for free vs paying two months sub/rmt, well, that’s CCP’s call and obviously they think it’s worth it.

no it just means all omegas will become alphas cause heck why pay for your accounts when you can train to 20m sp for free lol

they have isk in wow

actually, part of it was because someoen has to buy the plex in order for someone to turn it into gametime, so realistically, if people stop buying plex they could very well force everyone to buy game time.

One of the peculiarities of EVE, is that ship destruction is not, in and of itself, an isk sink. There may be some small sinks in the production process, but those are negligeable.

Infact insurance makes ship destruction an isk faucet.

As to Incursions, almost all instances are run, populated and saturated.
It doesnt make a difference if they are run by Alphas or Omegas.
The isk reward remains the same.

As to PLEX, that also is not, in any shape or form, an isk sink.

In other words, its impossible for players to destroy isk in this game, except by paying to NPCs or by biomassing.

So, if you set up an NPC order for plex, could that technically cause an isk flushing event?

“isk flushing” that visual made me lol

i know they won’t do it, just making it said.

CCP could theoretically introduce NPC traders into the player market.
(Dynamic or flat, permanent or temporarily activated)

Buying x from them would then be an isk sink, and the supply/demand would be adjusted downwards to their price.

However the player outrage would be enormous.

One instance where this “could” work, is if CCP introduced specific NPC stations which sell certain commodities for isk, either at a flat or a dynamic price indexed to the universal market. There already exists an algorithm for calculating the average price of any given item which is used for Asset Recovery.

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