Personal stations. but for PI

[Rail_J_kar]

@Ancietusjr

i dont mind it costing a billion though i think 3 to 400 mil would be a better trade off.

I don’t think there’s any reason to go that far, at least for the low level version of the structure.

The base price for the entry level option should be around 100mil (or lower) and potentially have higher level versions that are around around the 300, 600, billion isk price points (we’ll refer to them as A, B, C and D.) Perhaps those more effective versions (C and D) could be corp assets that would be wardec-able, while leaving the entry level options (A and B) as personal assets. That way you have your entry level solo operation, and also your mass fabrication options that increase efficiency, so there are reasons to take on more risk for more potential reward.

CCP might even make it so only the highest level of manufacturing can be done in the C and D versions, so they’re susceptible to war declarations (since those are corp assets.)

@Syzygium

do PI outside the planet, so he doesn’t have to pay taxes to the guys who placed the POCO

This isn’t too much of an issue, as it’s merely about economic balance, not a fundamental flaw in the design.

If CCP keeps base rates for doing PI on planets the cheaper base option, but also gives players an in space option it effectively puts a price ceiling on taxes through effective competition on how much people are willing to pay. High poco taxes mean only resource extraction will be done on the planet, and low taxes will incentivize PI manufacturing. This is very much in the spirt of EVE, to allow players multiple ways of doing things.

Further more, I would add even more to the competitive experience, since I want CCP to add more to the planetary gameplay for players.

The following is quoted from post 9 in my thread about a reworked a mission system

@Rail_J_kar

I also have a concept for how to incorporate planets into EVE gameplay. Planets and moons would create a mass shadow that would prevent warp, minimally within 100km of the surface of the celestial. Larger planets and stars might have a much larger area.

Furthermore, the mass shadow would create a warp scrambling effect around 30km from the surface. This serves as an incentive to fit both microwarp drives and afterburners on ships.

I would also put warp scrambling zones of control around some pois within the atmosphere, to serve as geography people would have to navigate around.

When pois are placed within the atmosphere and on the surface of the planet or moon, you’ll be able to recreate that more traditional feel in open world environments, because you have to actually travel to locations rather than just warp to each place you want to travel to.
As a side note, when you take into account potential vanguard interactions, all these surface pois (whether they be planetary interaction nodes or purely npc dressing) can serve as a beachhead for EVE to vanguard interaction.

So not only would PI be something that could be attacked on the surface of the planet by Vanguard players, it could also be potentially attacked by ships within the atmosphere of the planet.

Another interaction here is players could pick up PI resources directly from the planets, entirely bi-passing the poco entirely (and opening a new branch of smuggler play.) The downside for players in doing this is in highsec, is if the player doesn’t have a state sanctioned mission for the sector of the planet the player is visiting, getting within 100km of the planet’s surface would suspect flag you. On top of that, regardless of what sec level system you’re in, you’d be warp disrupted while within the mass shadow of the planet’s surface.

Opening up more potential options is really only good for the game.

@Syzygium

make the structure invulnerable or incredibly nasty to kill … with a RF-timer he has absolutely zero risk

The op said he was on board with the RF timer. I wouldn’t say this is zero risk, the player can sill be ganked when he or she goes to collect resources or when pulling the structure down.

Also, consider the effort in pulling down one of these structures, putting it back up and the setting up all the production lines again. Part of this is about endurance, and shooting the structure takes much less effort.

Furthermore, if CCP includes my concepts about the planetary additions, some of the risk is offloaded to the PI facilities themselves. So, a player could potentially raid one of these planetary based installations, steal the processed mats, and then move them to their own structure in the sky for manufacturing.

@Syzygium

A long timer even makes sure others can’t “camp” his structure effectively

I personally would go with 2 standard timers, but this ultimately is something for CCP to balance. So it’s not a structural flaw with the concept. Assuming it’s balanced, it’s ultimately up to the camp to succeed of fail at, just like a wormhole eviction.

@Syzygium

it creates profit without risk because if he can use PI-mechanics in this structure, he frees PG/CPU in the planets that would require factories to do the same. So he can extract more raw resources, export those cheaply and do all the more expensive steps “on his own” in the station.

So, I already addressed the aspects of the risk factors involved up above, so I’ll not do that here. However I should address the aspect of increased profit. The market will self adjust since these are all products all players will have equal access to. More raw resources coming off of planets isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if you consider the potential ability to raid the production lines.

@Syzygium

It would need so much tweaking and balancing, that he wouldn’t agree with the end result anyway,

Ultimately CCP isn’t going to add a feature that is one sided, but the idea of a pi manufacturing base in space (which is the core concept) is a pretty good one.