Wormhole space is a rich and expansive realm filled with all sorts of materials from salvage to gas to sleeper hull sections. In fact, roughly 1/3 of all systems in EVE are wormhole systems. There are more wormhole space systems than highsec systems, and nearly as many as there are nullsec systems. (34% wormhole space, 43% K-space null). However, despite making up such a large portion of the game, most of the materials found in wormhole space are only used in the production of T3 ships and subsystems. This has created a disparity between the abundance of these materials, and their overall usefulness within the game’s economy and the wider EVE ecosystem.
Over the years the value of wormhole space salvage and materials has gradually depreciated as supply has outpaced demand. The value of goods like melted nanoribbons have drastically crashed from their original value of 4-6 million isk down to only 200k. There is simply too much supply for the current level of demand with the materials only being used to produce the small number of T3 ships and subsystems currently ingame. As adding enough new T3 things to balance supply and demand is likely beyond the scope of an industry balance pass, I’d like to suggest that wormhole space material requirements simply be spread out among non-T3 ships and modules.
Adding wormhole space material requirements to things like Triglavian ships, T2 ships, T2 rigs, and assorted modules of various sizes would create a lot more demand for these materials and offset the supply glut currently drowning wormhole space industry potential.
This would reinvigorate wormhole space industry and make it a viable profession again. Currently, most of the value in wormhole space comes only from blue loot, which devalues low-class space and makes high-class space a blue loot farming hub. The more time that goes on without this disparity between supply and demand being corrected, the worse the problem will be. As the value of T3 salvage and gas drops lower and lower, producers are beginning to sit on it as selling it isn’t worth it. As these stockpiles increase, the problem will become harder to solve as these stockpiles will need to be worked through before values can begin to rise again.
Spreading wormhole space materials out into more parts of the industrial ecosystem is a relatively quick fix compared to adding enough T3 items, ships, and modules to make the demand commensurate with the supply, and could be done without radically changing the balance other parts of the game. It is my hope that with these changes, the industrial landscape in wormhole space will experience a new renaissance and with increased demand for these resources more people will come to call wormhole space their home, resulting in more PVP, more fun, and a healthier wormhole space ecosystem for everyone from daytrippers to large established organizations. CCPlease, make wormhole space great again.
It’s almost like vast numbers of people live in high end WH’s and farm constantly or something.
The thing is that in high class wormhole space, the majority of the ISK has always come from blue loot. The balance is such that in C3 space and lower, the majority of the isk is in salvage and gas, and in C4 and above, the majority of the ISK is in blue loot. So as time has gone on, high class space’s value has only increased because the blue loot is unaffected by the industry system, while low class space has become harder and harder to make a living in. If you’re worried about farming and balance in high class space you could reduce the amount of blue loot or the NPC sell prices of blue loot that comes out of high class space at the same time, causing a higher percentage of their income to be tied to the market value of salvage and gas, and I think that would also do good things for the health of the space.
I’m not saying anything should or shouldn’t be done, but spreading wormhole space materials out into more parts of the industrial ecosystem will either drive up the price of ships and mods (if you just add wormhole materials to the production input) or drive down the incomes of others (if you replace existing inputs with wormhole materials). So, it would have consequences, and definitely piss some people off. Like I said, I’m not saying that nothing should be done (I know jack and ship about wormhole industry), but I don’t think that the fix is a simple as you suggest.
By the way, was there ever any intent to release more T3 stuff? Like I know they started with strategic cruisers in 2009, and then released tactical destroyers in 2014. Does that mean that we’re overdue for another T3 ship class?
So lets start with this, see if it slows down the amount of WH farming and naturally gives WH Salvage more value.
Making it compulsory to use WH’s to build anything that isn’t T3 is just going to be really annoying for people.
So lets start with this, see if it slows down the amount of WH farming and naturally gives WH Salvage more value.
I think the problem is that like, we want people to be able to live in wormhole space, it’s already one of the least popular areas of the game. If we just reduce the value of the blue loot, it will make it even harder to live there and make people even less likely to do so. So what we want is a change that improves the ability of small groups to live in and make ISK in wormholes, without making it easier for big groups to turtle up and krab endlessly.
Do we?
Is this actually a desirable thing? It wasn’t a planned thing. And is the reason that salvage has such low value because it is so overfarmed compared to use.
And even if we do want people to live there some short term pain is needed. If we drop blue loot we can’t up salvage without even further depressing the value of salvage.
Now, if we were talking upping the sites in c1-3 to spawn some of the more valuable but hard sites, eh ok, that’s fine. But upping the salvage per site will just double the problem, not reduce it.
I think the answer is decidedly yes. Doesn’t matter whether the devs intended to or not, the result was more game depth, more content, and more reason to cooperate/compete with other players. In fact, I’m almost positive that I once heard a dev mention that they were pleasantly surprised by players living in WH’s.