Insurance change Idea

Council Of Stellar Management Assembly Hall
1

I know CCP is trying to remove isk from the game and balance the economy. A lot of changes have been made in an effort to accomplish this but I feel one of the easiest non intrusive ways to accomplish this has been missed. Ship Insurance.

As is every ship in the game comes with a basic insurance policy, at no cost. My idea is quiet simple. Remove this for every ship except for standard frigs. This allows new players to keep the basic payout as they learn the game. If you want an insurance payout on anything else you have to actually buy an insurance policy and keep it paid on a per ship basis.

According to the Oct 2020 econ report, Insurance is the 3rd largest faucet for isk in the game. With 7,940.13 Billion in payouts with only 3,784 Billion being paid into it. Making insurance a 4,156.13 Billion isk Faucet that should be a sink. Pend Inc should have gone bankrupt a long time ago with these numbers.

  • Adding a tick box to keep insurance automatically paid is the equivalent of ship maintenance others have talked about and suggested.
  • Also would like to see a popup reminder to buy insurance on an un-insured ship at undock like is done with offline modules. This would eliminate the “I didn’t know…” factor that always happens with updates.
  • CCP could adjust costs and payouts over time to tweak and balance this faucet / sink of insurance payouts with little effort.

Thought’s? Idea’s? and of course troll’s?

1 Like
2

Total faucets + total sinks matter, yes, but so do their locations. While an argument could be made that ISK faucets need to be removed and/or less ISK needs to be generated from existing faucets, removing them from ship insurance would be horrible, even if it’s just the removal of the free basic insurance but the paid insurance still existed.

3

Well, I like it. The free payout is trivially small when looked at from the individual’s perspective, but likely a significant sum when all added together. So, most players shouldn’t miss it. I know I wouldn’t.

4

You might have forgotten what it feels like to be poor and/or ignorant in the ways of making ISK (particularly in ways compatible with your enjoyment of the game) :sweat_smile: . The loss of a ship, even a cheap T1-fitted T1 hull, can be devastating to a newbro, and insurance is pretty much what keeps them from ragequitting. Free insurance also permits players to consecutively deploy into combat for continuous bloodshed (a good thing!!!) without having to stop at some point to engage in downscaled or non-combat activities in order to recoup ISK to further sustain their efforts. This is particularly true in PVP doctrines that revolve around using swarms of cheap ships to engage pricey targets. Insurance is literally what makes T1 ships worth using. If there was no insurance, T1 ships would frequently be skipped over in favor of higher tier ships when destruction is anticipated since insurance is no longer part of the ROI.

5

Please explain why you think it would be “horrible”. Because the only people I see it would really be a negative for would be a new player and I already said it should remain on basic t1 frigs.

Beyond that even the highest level of paid insurance is ridiculously low pay out compared to cost of the ship. ie paying 12m for a 39m payout on a 200m ship.

6

The game isn’t exactly fun if, by virtue of your ignorance as a still-learning-the-game player, you’re restricted to frigates.

If the payout is low, then there is no need to remove it. This isn’t a mechanism being exploited by botters/krabbers/etc but it benefits newbros and those engaging in continuous-bloodshed T1 doctrines (whereas that continuous-bloodshed, and even the relevance of T1, would not exist without insurance).

7

I could see your point if insurance covered anything close to the real cost of a ship. even on a basic hauler , the highest ins pay out doesn’t even cover half the ship. On a Miasmos Platinum ins costs 334k for 1,116k payout on a ship hull that costs 2.2m. Basic unpaid insurance only pays 320k. I just don’t see how getting 15% of the hulls value does anything you claim it is doing.

And this gap is only going to grow as mineral prices increase. ( A goal CCP has said they are trying for)

8

The insurance payouts, even the free payout, are on the order of being able to acquire a ship one hull-size down. For for example, right now a Brutix’s free insurance payout is 19.7m while a Thorax costs 13.9m, and the Thanato’s free insurance payout is 371.7m while a Dominix is 275.1m. So while you cannot recoup the same tier ship from insurance payouts alone (even with Platinum insurance), in a worst-case scenario ISK-wise you are in good shape toward getting a fully-fitted ship one tier down with which to profit and eventually reacquire the ship you just lost. And of course if you already have the ISK to reacquire the same ship, you simply soften the blow - no player wants to feel discouraged from playing the game just because they lost their ISK and assets regardless of their knowledge and talent for rebuilding their wealth from scratch.

Furthermore, I should point out that the smaller the payments being issued, the stronger the case that the payments need NOT be removed. Small payments benefit “the little guys” orders of magnitude more than “the big boys”, and this is noteworthy because insurance payments are not farmable without incurring losses relative to market value. The argument to remove them because of their impacts at the macroeconomic scale completely and totally ignore their vital benefits toward the gameplay experience to individual players, both newbies and veterans alike. I again reiterate my original comment that it is important to specify WHICH faucets you are tampering with; they should not be selected arbitrarily regardless of their macroeconomic magnitude provided that perform a vital function and do so meaningfully. No one individual player or group of players is exploiting this faucet in terms of farming, but they all enjoy a better gameplay experience because of it.

We should avoid taking action akin to cutting off welfare programs to help address a government deficit where the savings are not worth the consequences. (This example is not a perfect parallel but it shares the same theme.)

9

CCP needs to add risk to the career criminal. Jail time attached to the IP so they can’t escape risk. Loss of docking rights in high sec. loss of gate jumps. No tethering with a negative security standing. Take that new bank they created for the career criminals and use it to hold the loot from ganked ships. Place it in the bank for 24 hours so the person ganked can get a team together to fight for the loot. They have grown to comfortable and they need risk added. After all, they can’t call money spent on the gank as risk, it no more a risk than buying ammo for your guns. Even NPC, you have high standings with. should fight and take your side and attack the career criminals.

10

It has been a while, but I never felt like the free insurance payout was a lot, even when I was a poor newbro. I guess it helped offset the cost of ships a little bit, but I always felt like it was kind of laughably small (especially since hull cost is so low when compared to fitting cost of smaller ships). Moreover, (aside from one retriever loss) I always flew what I could afford to lose/replace. I don’t know man. It might matter to some people, but I never cared about it, even as a newbro.

Are there any newbros around that might be able to weigh in?

11

It’s small relative to the ship you lost, but it is on the order of magnitude of a full fit of a ship one size smaller per my numerical examples.

So YOU already know this, but for those who do not: I am the Co-Head of the United Standings Improvement Agency [USIA], and our organization pays players, mostly newbros, to run missions and has been doing so for over 12 years. I can tell you from experience that insurance payouts are VITAL to their development as EVE players. They inevitably lose ships from ignorance, from cockiness, from trying new things and failing at them, etc, and that insurance is what allows them to recoup their losses and is what keeps them from rage quitting. Between my experience as Co-Head of USIA and having run corps for years before then, I can tell you that most newbros I’ve worked with do not like “handouts” - they feel they are unworthy, or they’re afraid of losing it, or they don’t like getting something they feel they haven’t earned, or they are worried about being unable to pay it back (or feel obligated to even if we tell them it’s gifted), etc, and insurance payouts give them compensation without that reservations they’d have if other players gave them compensation.

I’ve had several hundreds of newbros under my wing between USIA and my prior groups; they would not have stuck around without insurance payouts, even the free payout. (Many newbros don’t know that paid insurance is a thing until they receive a mail about free insurance.) I should note that many players often forget to pay extra to insure ships, so the free payout lightens what would otherwise be insult to injury.

12

Ok, now that is a good argument and got me to change my mind about the free insurance. 3rd times the charm. :wink: However, this does not make any sense for the paid insurance. I mean You pay for insurance on your car and if your sedan is totaled they don’t replace it with a scooter.

I think if you increased the payouts for paid insurance to cover the ship that is being insured along with the costs, appropriately, it would accomplish my original idea. People would actually spend isk to insure the ships they have rather then just settling for the non paid payout.

Then the insurance payouts would…

13

Okay, but it sounds like people are flying what they can’t afford to lose/replace if they need the free insurance just so they can afford a downgrade to the one they lost.

That being said, my early Eve experience was probably different from the average player’s. I joined Eve university early, and they made it clear to members that they should only fly what they can afford to lose. And, following that rule likely played a large role in shaping my feelings about insurance. Thus, I will concede that you are probably better informed about how free insuarance payouts impact the average newbro.

14

There is a huge difference here: In real life, nobody buys a car with the expectation or even likelihood of it being damaged or totaled, hence insurance is willing to be both affordable (relatively) AND able to cover the full cost of the car; however, when it comes to EVE - and this is backed up in lore, mind you - ships get blown up all the time both illegally and legally (ie. wardecs, bounties, suspect/criminal timers, nullsec, etc), including non-combat ships such as freighters incapable of arming themselves, so it is not pragmatic to cover the full cost of a destruction that is basically more likely to happen than not. In fact, did you know that you get insurance payout for ships you self-destruct and for ships that were destroyed but that you had ejected from? Do you really think an insurance company wants to pay the full cost of a ship knowing they are obligated to pay you even if you eject and fire upon or self-destruct your own ship? The insurance is there to mitigate the impact of your loss, not to recoup it completely. It is supplemental rather than compensatory in nature.

I should also note that in real life we have something called “supplementary health insurance” that most people probably haven’t heard about unless they’ve worked for a large company; it’s basically a form of health insurance where you are paid a flat amount “per incident” regardless of the costs of the actual injury. The payout is almost always less (though sometimes it can be more and you could ‘profit’ from it, especially in conjunction with good primary health insurance), but it’s not intended to fully cover to cost, only to mitigate it (lucky you if it meets or exceeds the cost, however). Hence you have a real life example of insurance that is not one-for-one.

People buy insurance all the time. More often than not insurance is purchased rather than not purchased (at least for T1; you probably wouldn’t bother for other tiers unless you were certain you’d lose the ships within 12 weeks as in the case of continuous PVP). The problem you describe is not one that exists. You might argue that “middle tiers of insurance aren’t bought often enough to be worth existing”, but that’s an unrelated argument to this thread.

This is a solution in search of a problem. There is no problem to be solved, and this solution does not enhance the game, but it would mess up the market.

This may be true, but players are entitled to their ignorance and poor decisions. One may argue that they had it coming, but CCP should do everything in their power to ensure players are able to have fun without disenfranchising other players, hurting the economy, etc. Very little is being awarded here macroeconomically speaking, but so much is to be gained at the individual level.

I wish more players 1. joined (hopefully good) groups early and 2. actually participated in fleets/classes of groups they joined, good or not. It is a shame that you are the exception to the rule rather than the norm. Consider yourself fortunate. I appreciate your concession, however; the rose-colored glasses have to come off to see the situation from Joe Average’s point of view :smiley:

#Aet4CSM16 : Because when it comes to newbros, he cares without carebearing.

15

Deleted due to post below

16

That was directed at Shipwreck Jones, he’s a friend of mine. Coming up with cheesy slogans is a bit of an inside joke.

17

The problem is CCP made too many faucets for isk and not enough sinks… They realize this now and like it or not, Income is going to be cut and or as well as an increase in isk sinks.

As a player base we can try to come up with idea’s to help CCP and keep some say in things or just let them do whatever. If not this idea we need something for them to try before mission rewards and bounties start getting cut.

18

Admittedly I am more then a little nervous after seeing the the other suggestions out there for this…

Maintenance costs per ship, be charged for how much storage you use in a station, stargate usage charges per jump, and docking charges at NPC stations; are some of the other idea’s I have seen floating around.

CCP has already experimented with turning bounties for rats, according to Talking in Stations show. Not reducing them but shutting them off completely.

Just saying something more is on the way down to us and we probably won’t like it that much.

19

You seem very interested in this :slight_smile: . I’d like your opinion on one idea that was presented to me: quantum cores as inputs for capital ships, except that unlike those for structures those on capital ships do NOT drop, so they are 100% ISK sunk. They’d be the only manufactured item with an input material that is 100% ISK sunk rather than harvested. (Technically there are others that might consume something like “reports” but the extent of the ISK sink is not worth mentioning.) The market value would continue to be weighted heavily in favor of harvested resources, but it would simultaneously sink ISK as well as increase prices of capitals, which are arguably too low relative to T2/Faction BSes, and consequently it would decrease their utilization as many fleets (esp. nullsec) are too cap-heavy.

20

That sound like an interesting idea.
I do not like is it is a 1 time (per ship) charge and could be accomplished many other ways besides making a player hunt down what is basically another rig. If it was part of the building process I would be more supportive of it though. Builder already have the network in place to supply the materials needed to build things adding another item to the manufacturing process would be minor.

Note I am a builder myself…

The part I like about the ins idea, is that it was (or had the potential to be) a reoccurring charge. With leaving the freebie ins alone and just tweaking the paid ins prices and pay outs to be more attractive it still has that potential to be a repeating sink but would also be completely optional. Putting the player in charge of participation. not only on a player by player level but also a ship by ship basis as well.
That thought really appeals to me for some reason and would like see some thing like it…

Just another idea as well, but maybe the insurance payouts could be paid in Concord Bonds (like ESS hacking pays out) as well rather then just isk directly into the wallet. Not a big deal for those living in Empire but again something that the null sec need to bring into high sec. Potentially increasing trade between HS and Null.