Add fuel consumption and abandoned state to POCOs

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
#1

POCOs, once built, are a “no effort” passive income.

Introduction of fuel block consumption plus the newly created “abandoned structure” state would create a healthy challenge, requiring at least basic maintenance to own this ISK faucet (376B combined import/export taxes paid from player to player, May 2020).

In hisec it would in some cases help in removing pocos without the need for wardec’ing. These structures are often owned by 1-man corporations, some of which are probably not even active anymore. The hassle of having to grind through 4.5M HP in the current “reinforced state” (and costs associated with a wardec) prevents these structures from being removed and replaced.

Some notes in the margin for a new design:

  • fuel consumption scaled and modeled on existing structures
  • no taxes when structure enters abandoned state
  • immediate replacement by an NPC customs office when the POCO is removed
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#2

This is a completely unnecessary feature. It does not address a problem or enhance gameplay in light of how easy they are to take down already. These are easy enough to take down as it is, and their revenue can be so shittastic in HS that they might barely break even on fuel, so this doesn’t make much sense.

You also earn no revenue when it’s destroyed either, so this is unnecessary when they’re so easy to destroy

It is completely intentional that players are inconvenienced with the inability to export/import goods once a POCO is destroyed until a replacement is redeployed. This ruins that very healthy dynamic.

#3

Depends on the fuel consumption. The idea is to at least force basic maintenance. How much exactly is up to the devs, taking into account the average income generated etc. Tax rates of 17% and higher are no exception in hisec, even on planets lacking resource levels. If that isn’t enough to fuel the structure then the poco owner made a poor choice, didn’t do any prospecting to assess the quality of the planet and its possible wealth generation but merely launched a milking cow in space without any further effort. In this case most players would rather pay the standard npc customs fees, as the poco didn’t add value in any way.

Along that same line of thought, one could for instance design a poco module that improves planetary interaction in some way at least justifying the higher customs fees.

I agree with you for nullsec situations. For hisec and lowsec there is nothing healthy about it, apart from it being a deterrent to bring it down. Nothing unhealthy about replacing it with an ISK sink, especially in hi/losec, and creating new opportunities for other corporations that are active and making the right choices.

#4

Defending the structure against aggression _is_ the maintenance cost.

If the system is out of whack, it’s because the cost to aggress has become too high or the planetary value is too low to provide an incentive to aggress after considering that cost.

2 Likes
#5

Attacking structures should always require a dec. It allows for content like forming a fleet or hiring allies, and taking the fight back to the aggressors.

The cost to dec just shouldn’t be so stupidly high.

Aa for the topic in question, when my buddy owned a bunch of POCO’s, apparently the income was garbage.

#6

Lots of Customs Offices are destroyed, sometimes over 1000 a month and more than 100,000 in all. What is the problem? Doesn’t sound like a “no effort” structure…

That is over 14 Trillion isk destroyed value.

2 Likes
#7

If we want to address POCO’s then I would suggest a large scale addressing, not a small tweak.
Remove per planet POCO’s, implement a system wide upwell structure. Since we are all about reducing structure spam.
Allow competing structures in a system if people want, to cause reason for conflict without forcing it, allow PI players to decide which structure they use via a drop down list.

Now we automatically have abandoned state since it’s an upwell structure but because it’s a system wide structure it’s going to have much better fuel cost vs tax ratio.

#8

Originally i think Ytterbim (dont think i spelled the former devs name corectly) intended fro Astrahus to replace POCO’s so long as 1 was in orbit and had a market hub fitted.

#9

I do recall something along those lines, but I’m suggesting not 1 per planet but 1 per system.
Make them more strategic objectives. Maybe they can have a spawned deployable per planet that can also be attacked as a ‘raid’ that stops exports for 24 hours also (other than direct launch) so to keep small scale objectives possible.

I feel this would help reduce structure spam if we make upwell structures not 1 per moon for moon mining or per planet for POCO’s, but instead 1 per system and from there secondary structures get deployed by running the correct modules. This makes them far more a strategic objective with raidable deployables, and means that you don’t have 50 athanors in a system just to harvest moons, you only have one, maybe two or three is a system is disputed or shared but not being directly fought over.

It would also allow limits to be introduced without being totally restrictive or pointless, A limit of 3 per moon would get silly, but a limit of 3 per system when they deploy secondary platforms to each moon would be a lot more workable. Ditto for the idea of using a Citadel to replace POCO’s.
I am imagining that all three deployables would be on the same grid for ease of engagement, and that especially with regards to moon mining, it would share from the same chunk, not pull three chunks.

#10

Highsec POCOs are not a road to riches. Remember that the NPC export tax is 10% (reduced by the Customs Code Expertise skill). You need a lot of them to make it worthwhile. That said, it’s entirely passive income so the ISK per hour of effort is pretty good until someone blows it up.

When talking about structure spam, it’s important to remember that structures are the main sink for PI material - reduce the number of structures built and you reduce the demand for PI - we can already see that in the market as a result of the Forsaken Fortress patch.

An idea I’ve been playing with would combine the launchpad and command center so you launch a can, up to 10Km3, that needs to be picked up by an Epithal or other industrial with sufficient capacity. The new command centers would be player built - using PI, export taxes to the local sovereign - NPC or player. That gets rid of POCOs, the passive income they represent - and presumable some legacy code. There would need to be adjustments to CPU & power and moving colonies to chase resources around the planet would no longer be practical.

To keep players involved in the process, I would like to see a structure service module for P2, P3 & P4 - get that part of the PI production chain into space where it is at risk and can be taxed by structure owners.

I’m not holding my breath for this - there are probably tens of thousands of POCOs in the game and the transition would be a huge project.

#11

You do realize this is how you extract pi resources out of planet when you don’t build a launchpad? (which used to be called “space port” dunno, when or why they renamed it)

It’s just nobody uses that feature because launching a rocket with a can is tad expensive - especially compared to just moving it through POCO.