So it would be ok if the T3 Titan is sold as a blueprint?
You can’t get additional SP with any other item. On the other hand there are other spaceships, so a T3 Titan would be less of a problem right? Because a T3 Titan doesn’t guarantee win, so it isn’t pay2win, right?
And again… that is a balance affecting item. Injectors don’t change balance, because they don’t give you something you can’t normally get.
You keep conflating SP with skills. SP gives you skills, SP is the means to the end (skills). At the end of the day, you don’t get skills that you can’t get otherwise.
You might be fighting someone who hasn’t got those skills and that might give you an edge. You might be fighting someone who already has those skills, and not have that edge. That same edge would exist between a new player and an old player regardless though, so the mere presence of that advantage is moot.
At the end of the day, new players and old players and injected players of both persuasions all have access to exactly the same skills.
We aren’t bracketed into groups so that we’re only fighting players around our SP level, there are no brackets around our pilot’s age, there are no brackets period. You will never assure yourself an advantage over a non-injected pilot, not ever.
Instead of comparing Extractors in the NES to a T3 Titan Blueprint, a better example would be something that can speed up Industry job times further than what is allowed through skill training.
In any mmo we do not compare player skill when determining what is pay to win or what is not. You must assume both parties, fleets, whatever is completely identical then say what if this fleet had X and the other didn’t.
The fact is we can get SP through in game methods and we can get it through credit cards.
This is unimportant. Pay to win can’t be argued against with “it’s a shortcut they’re still the same in the end” because otherwise almost all p2w mmos suddenly become fair and balanced. Gear shortcuts, massive exp boosts, things that make you better while investing less time than the guy who didn’t pay, these are all p2w.
To put it simply
If you can pay for an edge, it’s p2w.
REGARDLESS OF THE OUTCOME.
This is true, especially in the context of EVE, but people like to confuse the issue so they can pretend they aren’t buying their edge with RL $$.
First off, you will get the crowd who will refer to theoretically ‘pure’ P2W - which is a PvP oriented game where the cash shop sells super-items, bound to character, available no other way in the game, against which a non-cash-shop player cannot possible win (Super Vorpal Sword of One-Hit Instant Death! Only $100!). Of course, there are virtually no games like this, and even then it’s not ‘pure’ P2W, because if someone else buys the same sword, then you are not guaranteed a win.
Then there are the games people often cry ‘P2W!’ about, which are in fact PvE games (Neverwinter, Star Trek Online), with minimal PvP. In general, since neither the in-game market nor 93% of game play is actually competitive, what you are really paying for is “P2-have-more-stuff, P2-look-cooler, P2-be-top-DPS in a PvE dungeon”. Also, there is generally a natural limit to what you can pay for… once you have dropped a couple hundred bucks on things there just isn’t much more you can add to your character.
Then there are games like EVE, which are actually “P2-adjust-the-odds-in-your-favor”. The wallet warriors who are desperately trying to convince themselves they aren’t buying wins will say “bu-bu-but the guy who pays could be AFK! He could be a noob! He could be asleep, and he will lose! So it’s not P2W see!”. But as you said, you have to assume two roughly equal players… one pays for an edge, one does not. Who wins?
EVE is directly competitive, in all aspects - resource gathering, material production, market trading, player PvP, even PvE farming. Because the market is ‘player driven’, all economic aspects (which is pretty much everything) are in competition against other players. Your effectiveness in this competition is directly driven by your ISK bankroll, your bling modules, your trained SP, the pilots in your stable, the number of accounts you can Omega, the ships you can afford, the alts you can bring to the action.
Every single aspect of EVE (except for personal player experience/skill at ‘playing the game’) is purchaseable, with no upper limit (except maxing all skills), and it all contributes to your competitive edge. EVE is actually, in my four decades of gaming experience, the most P2W game that has ever existed.
Worrying about the effect of extractor/injectors (as per the OP) is short-sighted at best, since it is merely the ‘icing on the cake’ of the EVE P2W model.
As an important side note: EVE is pretty much only successful because it is and always has been P2W. It is a competitive game, with real consequences to losing, where you can pay real $$ to make it less likely you will lose. Whether those dollars were spent on subbing for years so you can train your SP higher than someone who didn’t, or buying pre-trained pilots, or on RMT, or Plex, or more recently, injectors… you could always buy an edge with cash.
That is what has led to the whales in EVE, that is what has led to sloppy game design, and CCP devs deluding themselves into thinking they are selling in the “$1,000 Designer Japanese Jeans” market when they are actually closer to the “plastic guns, building blocks and train sets at Wal-Mart” market.
I used to know the days when it was pay-2-win and non paying players lost after 30 days.
To bring up the argument in Runescape, it devalues the sense of achievement when someone else can do the same through paying (apparently). So to those that feel it devalues said achievements it’s considered “paying to win” to them.
As far as sloppy game design is concerned, that’s a different subject for a different thread.
You either don’t understand the concept of context and how to use it, or you are practicing the fine art of the straw man.
Either way, I’m pretty sure you are just itchin’ to argue about something. Anything. Even if you have to make up the thing you want to argue over. If you had thrown in an ad hominem, I’d have guessed you were a Sol alt.
You already know that sp != the ability to keep your ships alive, there is a reason new players start small and build up, there is no need to argue the point, it is logical. No matter how much sp they have it is not game breaking.
Yes, exactly. I mean basically it could be described as pay2win since PLEX, but obviously most players invested in a game will go out of their way to justify it like we see here.
That said, it is not necessarily a bad thing despite the negative associations. I don’t think a player sandbox was affected by the PLEX alone and it wasn’t really ever perceived as pay2win. SP extractors/injectors changed this. Over night this turned a unique skill training system into a regular timer paywall like they appear in every crappy mobile game, and that is what new players will associate with, because that is what they know. And that is the real problem.
what advantage? is there a skill level 6 i am not aware about that sp injectors have? 
I think you know that was not what I said. By advantage it means that instead of playing the game to achieve some goal you literally use your credit card to get there faster. I know this may sound old-fashioned, but I myself always found it borderline cheating to basically buy game progress with out of game resources, which is what people mean when they say pay2win.
sorry not a native speaker, just realized that the phrase should have been, “aware of”.
anyway, i am glad that there are few, albeit loud, people who consider “convenience” as “winning”.
fact still remains that there is no character to date that accelerated it’s growth via injecting sp that is curb stomping anybody whether 1v1 or fleet fight.
i never injected any sp, but i am happy newbros who did that joined our corp/alliance can fit our doctrines to lessen the burden of our fc.
You sure? I guess you wanted to say “everybody” instead of “anybody”.
Because if there was one person who used skill injectors and then won any 1v1 will render your “fact” false.
Yet, in case you mean that there is no such unbeatable hero in EvE then i guess you could provide one example from any other game around?
were you curb stomped by an sp injector?
curb stomping = dominate, lol… so to rephrase is there an sp injector that dominates the game 1v1 or fleet fight?
in real P2W games like Archeage, 1 overgeared whale exist and can defeat 20 normies easy.
again, anybody like that here in EvE?
I’m not sure any player can be curb stomped by any item in the game 
Maybe you mean “using SP injector was deciding factor in pvp”?
Then if you take two equal players and give one additional SP then don’t you think this one player will be able to use it to his benefit?
Does this 1 overgeared whale always beats 2 slightly less overgeared ones?
On the other hand does spend, say 1USD, makes you overgeared whale and be able to beat “20 normies”?
well you’re being pedantic…
sp injector - obviously refers to the person that injected sp using, well, sp injector.
well you obviously don’t know the game… there are gears in the game that can be acquired if you shell out money, hence, overgeared. so comparison is between the p2w players (aka overgeared whales) vs the normal f2p players (or normies).
well to answer your question, yes 1 overgeared player will always beat the 2 *slightly less overgeared players, and their chances of winning decreases the less op gear they have.
wat? 
I am glad there are few, albeit loud, people who consider stating their opinion, unsupported by any evidence, makes a ‘fact’.
I am glad there are few, albeit loud , people who can’t distinguish between “paying for a competitive edge” and “paying money makes you unbeatable, winning all fights”.
I am less glad that there are still so many people who have no idea how to frame a rational thought, express it, or support it by evidence.
there’s the evidence, anybody dominating the game because they injected sps?
paying for competitive edge…hmmm, again, is there some skill level 6 you can acquire when using sp injectors that i am not aware of?
Sadly, I do not debate with people who have no idea what a fact even is, much less how to establish one.