We need to be able to stack identical BPC’s this is insane trying to do these event tasks that require you to collect and make thousands of BPC’s you end up with so many of them your hitting the item limit in your hangers. Trying to take part in the shipcaster shadow war stuff my hanger now is just a wall of
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You can’t stack BPCs because they can have different stats (e.g. number of runs).
To make them “stackable” would require the creation of millions of additional item IDs for every combination of blueprint and stats.
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Not a issue for the event BPC’s which are All identical as they all have 1 run, 0 Efficiency, no exceptions event BPC’s could absolutely be stackable with only 1 item ID and be a massive quality of life improvement for anyone trying to take part
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OP, this is one of those programming things that sounds easy, but actually requires a disproportionate amount of engineering effort that risks breaking a lot of things unintentionally.
Very high cost and high risk, low reward. I doubt it would be implemented now as it hasn’t for 20 years.
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It would be a quality of life improvement, but the system simply isn’t programmed to function like this at the moment. We have “standard” items and “custom” items, and all things like blueprints, mutaplasmid-modified items, etc. are the latter. There’s probably so much stuff heavily intertwined with this code behind the scenes that it would be complex and take a lot of time to change the system, which is likely not a priority for CCP right now.
An ideal system would outsource BPC “stats” to separate items that would be much more broadly generalized (e.g. one for any sort of capital component), and you would need to plug in these items alongside the BPC when consuming it. Then baseline copies could in theory be stacked.
But since we already have a working system already, it’s not really that necessary. An easier solution would be to combine the runs of similar BPCs into one copy, and giving it the lowest of the stats in a stack (e.g. a 1-run ME2 BPC and a 2-run ME5 BPC becomes a 3-run ME2 BPC).
What we do need is for BPCs to show their stats right on the icon, so you don’t have to mouse over them. Same for used laser crystals and such.
I think an easier solution is to hard limit the number of copies you may own, everything else is deleted. That will help keep your inventory clean.
Well if thats the case just so we dont get inundated with so many copies they could lower the drop rate but increase the runs per copy so instead of 1000 x 1 run copies we end up with 50 x 20 run copies. Exact same amount of event progress available in a far more manageable way
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That would distribute the wealth more in favor of those who spend a lot of time playing. For example if right now you get about 1x 1-run BPC per hour and then you’d get 1x 20-run BPC per 20 hours, most of the players who only play for an hour or so per day would never experience getting these drops. Instead of every casual getting a BPC copy reliably, you’d have 1 out of 20 casuals getting a big payout and everyone else getting nothing. That would be really frustrating for those players.
I see what your saying but right now its actually you get about 8 x 1 run BPC’s per 10 mins of playing, the event is designed around making a massive quantity of small items so your looking at 50 x 1 run BPC’s per hour.
If it was 2 to 3 x 20 run or 5 x 10 run you were getting in an hour it would be better for everyone from casuals to the hardcore grinders
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How about a way to combine these BPC into multi-run BPC via a science service job in a structure?
We can already create T2 BPC from T1 BPC via industry. It should be possible to combine a number of BPC with identical stats into a single BPC that has the combined number of runs of the input BPCs.
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I like the new science service job BPC combination idea. However for BPO copying, it would mess with the concept of ‘max runs’ on a BPC: game designers would have to think on that part. Remove the “max runs” limit in the first place, and players could make a [64-bit integer] max run bpc if they wanted. (A manufacturing / invention job from that massive bpc might take several thousand years to complete, but ohwell.)
Alternately, and for BPC drops, stack by making a fake container + filter, for selected BPC’s which have the same name. Filters for ME/TE/Runs, default All. Dropping the “container” in the industry panel would create a batch job: manufacture or invent from this set of BPC’s, starting with lowest runs. Editing filter options on the container (was default All) would kick out any bpc’s that don’t fit the filter
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Earlier comments on the nature of generic vs. “custom” items do apply, however CCP is missing some obvious dodges that could help here.
For instance, the “base” copy of a blueprint should be a generic item. That would allow all base, unmodified BP copies to stack. A generic, base BP would only become a “custom” item when some modifier was performed on it.
(Before some non-programmer comes along with the usual “oh no I’m sure that’s impossibly difficult with the way the code works” supposition - this is exactly the way mutaplasmids work on generic items.)
A second dodge would be having a “modified” marker on a base BP copy - if Modified = 0, it can stack with other Modified = 0 copies. If Modified =1, does not stack.
The notion of combining two identical copies to make one copy with an extra run is interesting, but would probably only be workable on base/unmodified copies as above.
CCP has simply never done any changes to the system, because until they started dropping BP copies like candy 3-4 years back, copies didn’t pile up like this unless you were making them yourself.
CCP isn’t terribly concerned about programming changes to suit player preferences. They have their own preferences to implement.
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That was my idea as well. A science Job that simply merges copies that have the same ME/TE values to a new copy with these ME/TE values. Since the item ID for this copy already exist and the number of runs is just an attribute, this should be not much hassle. If they really want, they even could set an upper limit of runs on copies, but I don’t see the need since jobs are limited to 30days in a row anyway.
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Just stick them in a can like the rest of us do:
At a thousand a container, you are not going to lose much hanger space.
Mr Epeen 
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But you need lots of containers. My corp has 3 containers full of BPC of just one kind. Merging them down into fewer BPC with more runs would alleviate this problem.
I don’t think that is much of a concern. You can already have hundreds of runs on a single BPC (light missiles can have up to 600 runs per copy, for instance). For all it matters, you could limit the runs number of merged BPC to 200 or 500 or something like that. This would already reduce the clutter considerably, and it’s not a new mechanic as existing copy jobs already impose max runs per copy.
Additionally, using all runs of a higher run number BPC in a single job poses a greater risk compared to using fewer runs in multiple jobs. The longer job duration makes you more susceptible to someone coming by and reinforcing the structure, which means you’d lose the job and mats. In effect, most people will still do shorter jobs, but they don’t have to move around so many BPC anymore for that. Overconfident people can do more runs in longer jobs but have more risk for the added convenience. Sounds good to me.
Three containers sitting in your hanger rather than three thousand individual BPCs.
And if you are going to whine about three containers being a problem… well… vOv
Mr Epeen
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3 containers for 1 BPC kind. We have thousands of BPO you can copy, and the same number of Inventions from Copies.
You could try using them vOv
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OR… you can be more organized.
You can’t stack them. They are snowflakes, just like CODE., separate and unique with neon hair… they can only accumulate.
Spitting truth.