Bringing Back Manufacturing Slots Would Have A Positive Impact

Communications Center General Discussion
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As a returning player, it’s been startling to see how deserted a lot of New Eden is.

Even with more players online than 2008-2014, Dodixie, Hek and Rens are all but dead.

Looking at players in space/docked on the map everyone is in Jita.

Sure, Jita 4-4 has been the economic center of the game and the busiest station since forever.

But the scale that has gotten to isn’t having a positive impact on the game.

And almost all of that can be put down to slots.

Empire was long the domain of industry carebears. A group and play style very much focused on supply chain efficiency, and will establish their manufacturing base as close to a trade hub as is profitable.
System cost index simply isn’t a powerful enough mechanic to encourage these players to spread out and populate Empire.

Slots were the perfect way to achieve that. They were completely egalitarian, isk and skills had no influence on getting a spot. It was just a queue the richest industrialist would have to wait through alongside the poorest noob.

If you wanted to manufacture, you had to spend the time to find a good, quiet station with open slots, haul mats in and products out.

RESEARCH slots being gone is definitely a positive. They were pointless except as a commodity for a corp with POS.

But manufacturing slots forced manufacturers to spread out and prevented Jita 4-4 eating the universe.

Bringing them back would have a great impact on the game, forcing empire players to soread out, bringing the universe back to life for new players, revive the other hubs and forcing pirates to spread out as well.

The system cost index SHOULD stay as well, but manufacturing slots need to be limited.

It would also be great to have the NUMBER of slots influenced by system security as well.
1.0 having some base number of slots, increasing by X% per security level down to null.

Having a small number of slots at 1.0 would also discourage big manufacturers from clogging up starter systems, giving new players an opportunity in their first couple of weeks to get started.

This should apply to upwell structures as well.
If a corp needs more slots, they need another complex, or to move to a lower security system.

I think this is a simple mechanic that would have a massive impact on activity in New Eden

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I think the main problem is the fact that you get charged a broker’s fee every 90 days, which penalizes every unfilled order. Unlike real-world storage and listing fees, this broker fee is not a flat rate, but a percentage of the entire order value. This causes everything to condense into a single hub, in order to avoid unfilled orders.

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90 days

Yeah, I think that’s a really long bow to draw. I can’t think of any manufactued gear in game that would take more than a couple of days to sell.

People just naturally gravitate towards centralised locations for trade.

And the issue I’m seeing is that even basic equipment is in short supply, which is frustrating new players.

Jita 4-4 existing in itself isn’t the problem. It’s that CCP have gimped the universe by removing incentives to spread out in the universe.

Once you get the manufacturers to spread out, they’ll start gravitating towards their closest hub, bringing trade, traffic and ultimately life back to them.

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I can. Have you ever done market trading before?

Basic equipment is not in short supply, but it’s not listed on the market, because people don’t want to pay the broker fee. Instead of trying to guess what will sell, how many at what price within 90 days, people just don’t bother to list the items. Serious trading is generally done with contracts, to avoid the broker fee altogether. Change the broker fee to stop penalizing trade, and people will list more items, in more locations.

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market trading before?

We’re talking about supply chain and manufacturers here, not station trading.

Station traders mean nothing without active players bring in commodities for trade. They’ll follow wherever the stock is.

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Ok, you seem a little ignorant and narrow-minded.

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You are really, really bad at reading.

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Cool chat.

:+1:

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Really wasn’t. But there’s a corner over there for you to ramble irrelevant nonsense into.

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You may not have looked over the trading changes since you last played, but they definitely now favor “post your item at the price you want and leave it there until it sells”. Every update has a noticeable fee and people are posting goods in smaller lots and more of them. So high volume of trade is needed.

When EVE has roughly half the players, many of those free Alpha alts, that it did 5 years ago, trying to spread them out across space in dribs and drabs may not be the best idea. Certainly it’s better if more hubs are active, but you do that by adding reasons to be more active, not by penalizing people away from where they want to be.

Well you’re talking about people minimizing their supply chains and moving closer to the nearest hub to maximize their trade potential. So I’m pretty sure the end of that chain is station trading. Take a look at the recent MERs and see what’s happened to fees, taxes and velocity of ISK.

CCP tried “making players move” by breaking the short route between Jita and Amarr. So far all they’ve accomplished is even greater concentration in Jita.

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This.

Even if addition of manufacturing slots would manage to spread out manufacturers, they would still all haul it back to Jita to sell it to avoid eating the broker’s fees when things do not sell outside Jita (because everyone else shops at Jita).

To have more markets and have people spread out it should need to be viable to sell your stock elsewhere.

1 Like
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I’m not sure how this is hard to understand: Station Traders are irrelevant, they will follow supply.
Losing manufacturing slots has compressed almost all manufacturing into a space of 5 systems surrounding Jita.

The other hubs are dead. Not “not as much trade as Jita”. They are dead, nothing is for sale and no one is home.

Forcing manufacturers back out, extends supply lines and increases risk and work, making supplying closer hubs more valuable.

Velocity is not indicative of game health at all.
Right now a new player comes in, finds an almost deserted universe full of empty markets where they can’t buy anything or see anyone.
It’s really really bad.

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Oh, it always was viable. Because long runs into Jita were high risk for little extra profit.
There was a lot of material outflow from null-sec corps selling there, but price differences were sub 5%.
just enough for inter-station trading to be profitable.

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Sorry you’re just exaggerating to try and support your idea. I’ve started new pilots in every region in the past year and it’s only 5-6 jumps to the local hub where I can buy anything needed.

I’m not sure how hard this is to understand: Station traders are where all your products will end up. They don’t “follow supply”, they follow demand and profit. If no one is “at home” in these hubs, and the area is dead, there is no demand. Who’s going to buy all your supply? Other manufacturers who’re only in your region for slots?

Yes, it would be nice to spread players out to more than one hub. No, your idea won’t do it. You’re not taking into account the realities of game changes in the many years you’ve been gone.

Those hubs aren’t lower traffic now (not “dead”, unless you’re only comparing to Jita) because manufacturers aren’t nearby dumping product on them. They’re low pop and low traffic because CCP has driven half the players away from the game.

When you want activity in those hubs, you find ways to bring players back into play and needing products around those hubs. You don’t force limitations on producers and then expect that dumping a glut of unneeded products on the local market will “raise demand and bring the traders”.

All your proposal would do is increase the cost of goods at Jita and other hubs, because producers would have to spread out to produce, and then pay extra to ship all their goods to Jita anyway.

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No. I am not.

I’ve started new toons in the past 3 months, and it’s dead.
I’m in Rens right now. There are 30 people in system. 30!
The cheapest 200mm AC II is 50% more expensive than Jita.

New players are complaining the starter corps about the lack of anything.

And as for “half the players in the game”, the number of players online right is double the PUC I started with.

Your idiotic nonsense that “I just don’t get it!” is idiotic.
You talk about the changes made to the game driving players away. “Can I have your stuff” isn’t new, people have always come and gone, but the COMMUNITY experience in game for new players was engaging enough for new players to stay awhile.

Nobody ever quit the game because they had to wait 6 months for an ME slot.

It is idiotic for you to attempt to defend the state of the game on one hand while decrying the toxic decisions CCP have made that have created your play style.

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Hauling and inter-station trading were profitable play styles.
Every station trader had a hauler alt who would ship in and out of Jita.

Traders will follow supply.

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Do people actually build near Jita in NPC stations? Um aren’t you better off selling the raw materials at that point….?

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Even POS had limited slots.

To be clear, getting rid of slots for ME and TE were a good thing. But the negative impact removing manufacturing slots has had on the game is astounding.

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Um that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m shocked people build at NPC stations, in HiSec. Hell even at Ciradels…. Why do this? Your profit margin is -.

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Laziness. Who needs a logistics plan when the majority of the universe’s production occurs one jump from Jita.
Laziness trumps margins any day.