This high level proposal seeks to retain the ‘use and activate anywhere’ conveniences of skill extractors and injectors while introducing an ability to disrupt skill injector farm production in the ‘mass premium’ logistics pipeline of wormhole industry.
Step 1: Skill extractors create a new raw material
The skill extractor makes a raw material instead of creating the readily usable skill injector we all know and love. This raw material, B.R.A.I.N.S. (Biological Receptacle Aggregating Independent Neurological Synapses), is available for capsuleers to buy and sell on the market.
Step 2: Uncompressed memory takes up space
The raw resource B.R.A.I.N.S. takes up 10m3 per unit. One extractor creates 500 units of B.R.A.I.N.S.
Step 3: Memory Hole
B.R.A.I.N.S are delivered to wormholes where Sleeper T3 production is integrated into a wormhole exclusive, minimum seven day manufacturing process to create a skill injector (500 B.R.A.I.N.S. + Sleep = Knowledge). B.R.A.I.N.S. need Sleep to function.
Step 4: B.R.A.I.N. Drain
The reaction formulas for skill injectors could come in batches of 1, 5, and 10 injectors–each requiring a lower scale of Sleeper mats at each higher tier. All tiers would complete their job in seven days. The associated risk to higher batches lays in allocating more raw B.R.A.I.N.S. materials for a research job, that inside a wormhole industry station could be destroyed in three days–dropping that hot scattered knowledge.
Step 5: Think of sinks
Some B.R.A.I.N.S. may die and the loot fairy is fine with this outcome. Skill injector farms would be no longer an unassailable passive income machine.
If you read this far, thank you for letting me pick my brain.
I believe this, or something similar would be a useful addition to the value chain. Another step in the process that adds an element of risk since materials and finished goods will need to be transported through dangerous space.
This does not solve an existing problem or introduce an interesting or desirable element of gameplay.
On skillpoint farming: There’s little profit to be made from this to begin with, ESPECIALLY after the introduction of relist fees where prices of everything are plummeting (as was to be anticipated), so really it’s not much of a plague to begin with anymoreso than PLEX is. And when it comes to skillpoint farming for SP reallocation, it is almost exclusively at a loss, thereby being its own punishment such that no additional steps are required
This makes it inaccessible to Alphas
This makes it inaccessible to those who lack the skills and/or interest in production capabilities - the relatively small number of people who can handle the production would have a monopoly over profits whereas now anyone can profit equally.
The concept is neat and I applaud the graphic design, but it is impractical at best and has too many undesirable outcomes with no real benefits associated with it.
You can still clear 3 billion profit in the exchange of selling 10 injectors to buy orders from an Omega running one battery character in the background. I’m not suggesting removal of passive income stream from Omega’s selling their brain goo. This adds a new resource stream as a conflict driver and makes the value of injectable skillpoints stronger.
Alphas can still extract the raw material and buy/sell it on the market. While the price of injectors would assuredly increase due to risk and manufacturing costs with T3 materials, there is no change to the alpha injectors sold by CCP.
Monopolies are good gameplay. They drive an impetus for conflict. Go kick over a wormholer’s sandcastle or hire Inner Hell to do it for you.
Can you give me a little more to ‘work’ from on that statement. Are you saying busy work for the sake of work?
I see integrating T3 production materials into the skill injector manufacturing pipeline as a cost/benefit choice for Tech 3 cruiser producers. Tech 3 cruisers (which retain skill point loss) are going to remain desirable ships and so are injectors.
This is not something that is needed or desired. It does not address an existing problem and does not make the game more interesting or enjoyable. To the contrary, it makes the game more of a hassle, it cuts revenue streams for most, and shifts profits to a select few, thereby diminishing the value of an item from which value/profits should be uniform for all those who buy/sell it.
This is true, but why deal with raw materials when we can deal with the final product? This is less realistic than the extractor being filled up directly in such a manner that can be readily injectable. The notion that BRAINS come out and need to be refined is absurd namely because that implies it is a physical substance of volume and chemistry, which it is not - it is a matter of cybernetics and software akin to Neo being injected by a Jiu-Jitsu program in The Matrix.
This takes something which should be straight forward and unnecessarily makes it convoluted and less fun and less of a uniform experience.
For some things this is true - but this is 100% completely and totally inappropriate when it comes to items which were redeemed for by PLEX, which itself was redeemed for by $$$ at some point in the pipeline. $$$ → PLEX → something in NES (ie. skill extractors and whatever is done with them)-> should be a uniform experience for everyone.
This is a very fascinating idea made more appetizing with a clever acronym and graphic, but it doesn’t make it a good idea.
This won’t do anything but increase the price of injectors by exactly the cost of dealing with the new process. Profit margins will be the same and skill injection creation will just be more tedious. I don’t see any benefit to the game from this idea other than increased annoyance.
Good. Alphas can buy the game if they want to be effective.
This makes it inaccessible to those who lack the skills and/or interest in production capabilities - the relatively small number of people who can handle the production would have a monopoly over profits whereas now anyone can profit equally.
Good. Success and wealth in EVE should be the result of skill and effort, not passive accumulation. If you’re too lazy to put effort into production then why should you get profits?
That said, it’s a bad idea because it doesn’t actually solve the problem of skill injectors existing in the first place. Instead of making the system more complicated CCP should just remove them entirely.
This isn’t a matter of effectiveness in EVE, this is a matter of having the same utility as everyone else when buying and using skill extractors. The value should be uniform for everyone.
This is true, but is also entirely out of context. There are numerous ways of actively accumulating wealth in EVE, and not all of them revolve around a specific form of industry, or even industry at all. This proposal would restrict profits to industry players, which is dumb. Profit potential from buying skill extractors should be a uniform experience for all players buying skill extractors, Alpha and Omega, newbie and veteran, low SP and high SP, indy and combat.
Skill extractors are here to stay. If you reeeeeeeally want to discuss removing them from a game, that should go in a different thread and not here.
Nope. If you want the same value as everyone else you can buy the game. Stop whining that a free trial account doesn’t get the same benefits as a real customer and be glad that alphas are permitted to play at all.
Profit potential from buying skill extractors should be a uniform experience for all players buying skill extractors, Alpha and Omega, newbie and veteran, low SP and high SP, indy and combat.
Why? You state this as fact but you give nothing to support your claim.
Once again you are taking my statements out of context. I am not talking about skill caps or ships you can fly or activities you can perform or how effective you are at those activities. I am talking strictly about the value of skill extractors/injectors and I’m only talking about skill extractors/injectors and nothing else.
Right now, Alphas and Omegas using or selling skill extractors have the exact same experience and exact same result: the input has the same value and the output has the same value and you can trade the inputs or the outputs and achieve the same profit (excluding skill caps for lowering market fees). Again specifically referring to skill extractors/injectors - this uniform experience between any and all players, Alpha or Omega, is the way things presently are and the way things should continue to be. Having this intermediate step shifts profits away from Alphas (whereas it should not in specific relation to skill extractors/injectors) and even several, likely most Omegas, whereas it should be uniform for all Omegas… all players, in fact.
The value of $$$->PLEX->Skill Extractors should be the same regardless of whether you are Alpha or Omega, Indy or non-Indy.
That’s because this is not a statement of fact, this is an assertion of values: “I believe this is how things should be”.
It already isn’t. The market values of PLEX and extractors/injectors is set by individual players and varies subject to the whims of EVE’s different markets.
That’s because this is not a statement of fact, this is an assertion of values: “I believe this is how things should be”.
But why do you believe that? What game design objective is served by having it work that way? I’ve already told you my reason: that players who invest skill and effort into something should get better rewards than someone who expects to passively accumulate wealth with minimal effort. So why do you believe that injectors should function differently from everything else in EVE and have a flat price for all players regardless of skill or effort? Are you a skill farmer with a personal stake in keeping skill farming a zero-effort activity so that your income is not disrupted?
