An Idea of What To Do With the Space Trash of Dead Corps

[Eveni_Rowden]

I’m not sure if this has been thought of before. And I’m not sure if this is the best place to put this. But I’m going to present it here anyway and pray the gods of the internet are kind today.

I’m fairly new, as anyone can see by looking me up. Today I helped my corp. take out a POCO in our system left from a long dead corp. As we sat there bombarding it with drones, fighters, and missiles, I wondered if there wasn’t a better way to deal with the structures and assets of dead corps that sit collecting dust and are, essentially, resources lost to the universe.

My solution?
An ‘corp inactivity timer’. It’s simple, if no member of a corp. logs on for over, say, 6 months, the corp is considered dead and their assets begin transitioning to a status of ‘player relics’. Give them a timer of, say, a week. After a week they are considered derelict, abandoned, whatever. They are locked down but can be ‘hacked’ and claimed by another player or corp.

What about structures owned by living corps but have been abandoned for all intended purposes? Create a system in which a corp, say one that now holds sov in the system, can activate it and puts it in a status of powering up for a period of time, say, a week. This alerts the owners to the activation so that they can decide whether or not to try to make good their claim or even negotiate the sale of the structure in order to avert an fight over a structure they don’t want to have to protect.

Why do I think this is a good idea or even necessary? Let’s pretend that Eve is ‘real’. Would a space-faring society really just leave an abandoned structure or blow it up to get it out of their now claimed space? No. They would try to make it useful for them. Whether by scavenging it or simply restoring it and using it for themselves. If they make no steps to avert the activation timer, then after the timer ends, the structure becomes the property of the corp. or player that activated it.

POCOs would be claimed in order to allow the now present and alive corp. to use it.
Stations and other docking structures could be opened, claimed, and its contents inventoried and sold or distributed by the new owners.

Would this be a big f you to corps that take long hiatuses? Sure. But, honestly, if not a single member of your corp. can’t be bothered to log in, even just as an alpha, in order to reset the timer, f you. This goes for solo corps as well. Have an alpha alt just for logging in once every so often to reset the timer.

While this workaround would perpetuate the issue I am attempting to solve, it would still leave those structures open to attack as they are now. A corp. on ‘life support’, to wit, that logs on only so often to keep their assets from becoming derelict, is still open to having their assets seized and/or destroyed as they are today or taken from them as described above.

But for those corps that truly are dead, it would open up new avenues for the rest of us to ‘salvage’ and expand our hold on systems through claiming ‘derelict’ structures already existing in them. It would increase the real estate value of systems with lots of derelict structures.

[Corraidhin_Farsaidh]

This kind of idea comes up regularly. Allowing stuff to be hacked sounds nice in principal but remember that the market is driven y destruction. Anything that is hacked and stolen rather than simply destroyed actually shrinks the market that little bit instead of driving it.

My choice would be for derelict structures to be taken over by rogue drones and become targets as sigs.

[Eveni_Rowden]

I think that would also be an excellent option and could even be an interval from abandoned, to drone controlled, to claimed.
And I do understand that Eve is very Keynesian in its economy. No broken windows, less market movement. However, the price increase for structures that would likely be the market’s response to this sort of system would be balanced out by the ability to claim structures that this system would introduce. Thus, those systems with abandoned structures would be more valuable, more fought over, and thus, more ISK lost to fights for sov in order to claim existing structures for want of avoiding having to spend the increased ISK for structures off the market.
Of course, while volume of new structures being bought would drop, price would increase which would balance the volume loss for producers. However, this price increase would be further balanced by an claimant’s ability to repackage the structure and then put it on the market(if such a thing does or would exist) thus helping to balance the volume loss and increase the demand by removing said structures and allowing them to be reanchored elsewhere.

Ultimately, I think that while the numbers would change, they would be balanced out in the end with very little loss at the end of the rebalance in the market.

TBF, I’m not overly familiar with all the mechanics of Eve and how they affect the markets, but assuming that the market is largely unregulated by the mechanics, I stand by the above assessment.

Essentially, the market would at first drive up very fast until people began taken advantage of the system, at which point I believe it would come to balance out in other ways.
Further than that, since such a system would end up reducing the number of producers as many wouldn’t have the patience to wait out the initial upset, it would only increase the value of already existing and anchored structures which I would assume would lead to more content for pvp, which seems to be a large part of the ‘driving force’ of Eve.

Again, I am knew and not all that familiar with Eve’s mechanics, but, personally, I don’t go for relying on broken windows over sustainability. But then, I’m a long haul kind of guy.

[Memphis_Baas]

6-month inactivity sounds ok, but it also needs email warnings at the 6-month period that the corp is expiring, and more than a week of waiting for someone to react to the emails and log in. Probably another month or two.

And then, instead of being able to hack and claim, CCP will probably want destruction so they can maintain the economy, so I’d say switch the assets to some “vulnerable” mode where it doesn’t take ages to shoot down 1 million hitpoints or whatever. But the only option is to destroy so you can free up the anchor point.

[Eveni_Rowden]

Agreed. There would need to be a slew of chances for ‘dead’ corps to be aware and consciously decide not to protect those assets.
You’re probably right that it would likely just become simpler to destroy the structure, if only because, as I said above, Eve seems to rely heavily on Keynesian theories for markets. Which, I suppose, in a confined and artificial setting, can and does work. I don’t agree that it would ‘have’ to be destroyed as I personally find Keynes to be short-sighted, but since there is, literally, infinite resources in Eve, though bottlenecked by the amount available at any given time, I suppose broken windows can work forever, lol. That and the ability to literally generate value through ratting and mission running. These two mechanics in mind mean that, though I still don’t agree with destruction being needed, the market can and does work well being driven by broken windows.

Economics aside, really, its my obsession with efficiency driving me in this. While I am not zealous about recycling through special cans, I do love repurposing things and making things last as long as possible and I think it would be interesting to see a system that encourages that introduced to Eve. If anything, it would force players to adapt and evolve to find ways to work such a system to their benefit.

Still, considering the long tradition of destruction driven markets, I doubt I’ll ever see this sort of system implemented except perhaps in very limited circumstances that I can’t conceive of at this moment.

[Agondray]

I love how new plays come up with these ideas while knowing none of the mechanics but believe its alright.

if you make things able to be captured, the market need for them would crash eventually killing out the production.

Just make dead corps disband into npcs, gear goes to ceo hanger, structures become npc like they used to be and if you want to put one down, you still have to blow it up

[Giddy_McFee]

@Agondray

I love how new plays come up with these ideas while knowing none of the mechanics but believe its alright.

if you make things able to be captured, the market need for them would crash eventually killing out the production.

Not necessarily, the OP is suggesting this from corps that are dead and their “stuff” is still floating in space somewhere, if a corp is still active then the items can still be destroyed by grinding as they are now.

Also as an addition to the riginal idea, even if a poco (for example) is hacked so ownership is transferred then the poco could be in a derelict state and need items available from the market to put it in a fully working condition.

[Eveni_Rowden]

My apologies for not waiting until I’ve played enough to have earned the ‘right’ to present an idea that, admittedly, may not take into account all the mechanics of the game. However, what you are arguing against, a market crash, is not necessarily a mechanic nor an absolute if you make structures reclaimable. Somehow I doubt that the majority of the ISK lost, and thus necessarily replaced on the market, is from the destruction of structures. While they are expensive, they also appear to be, largely, ignored unless they pose a direct problem that must be dealt with.
Meanwhile, ships of all classes are hunted down with glee innumerable times a day.

In other words, your broken windows that drive the market aren’t likely to go away because some structures aren’t being destroyed. Especially when you consider that many of the structures destroyed aren’t replaced but, rather, are destroyed simply to deny another corp. a place to hole up in a system.

Of course, I suppose if it weren’t for hurricanes and wildfires, the housing market would also crash eventually killing out development.

But in all seriousness, if you had actually read what had been said before you came in to complain about the audacity of a ‘newb’ making suggestions about things he couldn’t possibly fathom, I’m sure we’d still be having this discussion because, well, you aren’t here to have a reasoned discussion but to make grandiose, dire predictions about the foolishness of such an idea from someone who couldn’t possibly fathom how an economy works because they don’t have a strong killboard yet.

[Lady_Ayeipsia]

The problem is that you may not fully understand the mechanics behind alliance ownership. Alliances are often controlled by a holding corp. That corp provably has 3 active people. They have all the alliance votes though so are in charge. Yet… You don’t need to log into the holding corp often. With the right setup, you may be able to ignore the holding corp for months to years. So your suggestion would force some to log in despite not really needing to.

Also… So e assets can be held in space by a corp but the corp lost access to. This happens in wormhole eviction often but can happen other ways. I know Red Federation had a random POS for over a year just sitting unused in a random system. Your system would miss such a structure.

Your idea also goes a bit against the the standard policy of CCP which is thst assets stay till destroyed. This means people have gotten rich popping a long forgotten POS in a wormhole. People don’t want to lose that possiblity.

As for your POCO… So what I am hearing is that your corp has a POCO that it might not be able to defend… Gee… If only some merc group knew. They may be tempted to take that POCO, or at least threaten to strong arm it away. Remember, eve has a meta. People will watch what others say and react accordingly.

[Eveni_Rowden]

While I don’t feel it’s so much a problem to necessitate a log in to a holding corp. every few months to maintain an activity level, your point is much taken. While I am not part of an alliance large enough to use such a strategy as you are describing, I am familiar with it, peripherally.
And, as mentioned above, structures that a corp. has lost access to could be addressed by the use of a system allowing the corp. having sov in the system to have a chance to claim such a structure if the owner fails to address the attempted claim on the structure.

And I agree, it does go against the general policy of destruction in the game. At the end of the day, this was just an idea I had. I’m not married to it and don’t expect it to ever be implemented, in part or full.

As for your last paragraph, I’m not entirely sure if you are talking about MY corp’s POCO or just making an example. But yes, the meta is strong in Eve. Which, in my opinion, is one of the facets that makes Eve so unique. In many ways, because of the meta, Eve is possibly as close to ‘real’ as an mmo can get in that intel gathering goes outside of your client and extends to what can be found on the internet or what you can get people to tell you directly through whatever medium you like.

Again, to reiterate, I am not so bright eyed and bushy tailed as to think that this is a perfect idea or that it is an idea that would or should be implemented. It was an interesting musing I had and thought I’d share and see what people thought.
I appreciate most of the feedback as it has been thoughtful and informative in a variety of ways.

[Lulu_Lunette]

Even if dead sticks and POCO’s were like 1/10th the hit points, no hacking needed and stuff blows up for the rest of the economy to keep spinning… would be great I agree

[Lady_Ayeipsia]

One problem with the SOV idea… Wormhole space. There is no SOV mad a lot of structures do get abandoned there, be it accidentally or through attacks by other people. This includes citadel like structures and POCOs.

As someone with intimate knowledge of POCO transfers, let me also state those can be a pain. You must travel to each system to transfer the POCOs in that system. They also do not make much income unless heavily used or taxed. This means in an out of the way place, a corp may even skip transferring a POCO just to save time and effort. POSes can be just as annoying to take down. About my only point here is sometimes people leave junk because it’s easier. Perhaps if gour mechanic is implemented it could be coupled with aome improvements to the interface side to ease some of this burden.

[DeMichael_Crimson]

I actually like the OP’s idea. There’s already way too much destruction in Eve.

Having the ability to hack, re-energize and gain control of defunct player owned structures would open up a whole new type of game play options.

Course the player would have to be very highly skilled to perform that ability.