PI Suggestions

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

After the last patch changes to the ship industry I decided to move from simple P0 → P1 PI to different high manufacturing tiers. I noticed different issues in the gameplay mechanics including the UI concepts. To improve it here’s my suggestions:

  1. Let users grant names to Launchpads and Storage Facilities. This is so important when it’s required to set up high tier manufacturing like: P1 → P2 → P3, P2 → P3, P3 → P4. This is a scenario with two or three importing Launchpads and an exporting one. It’s hard to remember that DC-1TU Launchpad (for example) is required for Biocells and when it’s empty we have to open the PI UI and check the correct node based on created routes. Also user defined names/aliases are very important when installing such production. A scenario when it’s required to link the incoming and outgoing routes for 18 Advanced Industry Facilities between 4 Launchpads.

  2. Improve the install route UI. Currently it requires too many clicks. It should open a Storage item UI overlay to let us Drag-and-Drop it over each facility or to grab an item and install a route with right mouse click over each facility. Currently after each Create Route command the Storage is resets and we have to click on the storage icon every time.

  3. Downgrade Expedition Transfer Cooldown. This cooldown is way too high after transferring goods between Launchpads and Storages. It’s very important for different P0 → P1 setups to balance the load between different storages in a long run process. Such a long cooldown makes no sense.

  4. Needs more options to Sync the manufacturing process. For P1 → P2 → P3 setup it’s hard to pair all facilities (like 4 → 2 → 1) on medium or big planets. Usually it will turn into a setup like 3 → 2 → 1 or 4 → 1 → 1 to fit into enough CPU and PWG, which will ruin the cycle flow and lead to production residues.

  5. It will be nice to add new PI skills and Supportive Facilities. For example, on Barren and Temperate planets it’ll be nice to install some Solar Power Plants to increase a bit PWG at the cost of CPU or vice versa to install some Data Centers to increase a bit CPU at the cost of PWG. On Storm planets it would be nice to install some Wind Farms.

  6. A better tax concept. I did a little investigation and on many POCOs the tax is relatively high, considering the lack of high-tier components for Capital ship production. As I know, many low-sec and null-sec players aren’t interested in doing PI. And on almost all Low-Sec POCOs the tax value is set between 10-25%, while on many WH POCOS the tax values will vary from 3% to 100%. I didn’t find good POCOs to produce the most requested components, so I began to produce few less important components for my industry production.

  7. Increase the Launchpad’s storage. (updated) The current 10k m3 is too small for hi-tier PI. It would be nice to have it set at 20k m3 or at least 15k m3. We can’t install more than 4 Launchpads on a planet. I want to set the production cycle period to 3 days or 5 days by increasing the storage size and decreasing the production quantity. It can be partially implemented with Storages, but the Expedition Transfer Cooldown ruins the entire concept while importing stuff.

It’s funny that named Launchpads were suggested many times back in the day and after the last PI patch it was not implemented, but instead some color rebalance was added. To implement these suggestions requires only a wrench to change parameters. Pls, make PI less tedious…

2 Likes
2

Should turn it into sim city. Then we’d have dynamic battlefields to fight on when project nova is reintroduced.

2 Likes
3

Or Civ VI.

Or snag the free code from FreeCiv.

2 Likes
4

Could be good. Although civ has a whole bunch of features related to science / invention that would be redundant in EVE

1 Like
5

PI isn’t so profitable compared to Reactions or Industry, but is way more interesting on its manufacturing process. PI is very similar to the manufacturing process ( are the steps through which raw materials are transformed into a final product) with its production cycles, facilities, conveyors, pipeline links and so on. While industry is similar to old school MMO’s professions. Also, PI give some “useful sense” to the in game planets from a “sandbox” point of view.

2 Likes
6

I would much rather get rid of factory planets and move P3 & P4 production to a refinery service module. Leave P0, P1 & P2 production on the planetary colony. Add a bit of risk to the advanced and specialized production process.

1 Like
7

I know it’s a bit of a read, but anyone who’s interested in adding risk to planetary infrastructure, should take a look at this.

Its a post I made a few months back about how to tie some of these systems (PI / dust / rest of eve) together. The general idea is: Sim City for setting, rts players creating plot, fps dust / nova players bringing the hammer. The same process could be used for stations or even ship interiors.

1 Like
8

I AM EXTREMELY IN FAVOR OF ALL THIS

9

Could be nice.

Currently I solve this problem by using my launchpads alphabetically so I always easily know which product goes where.

This is already possible: reduced ecpedited transfer cooldown is one of the few reasons to upgrade your links.

It’s not really clear to me what your problem with tax is and what you are proposing as solution.

I’ve not had much tax problems, but I’m doing my PI in null using low tax customs offices owned by my alliance.

If the taxes for export become too high, I bepieve you can smuggle your goods from the planet for about 15% tax cost using the command center launch option. It has limited volume though so it’s not ideal and you cannot import that way, only export.

People say PI is passive AFK income, and up to a certain point it is, but it still requires attention and action from time to time.

Increasing storage space would sure be convenient, as it makes PI even more passive and AFK than it is right now.

I’m just not sure if that is a good choice.

I’d love to see supportive buildings unique to each planet type!
This could make type of planet you set up on more relevant than it is today.

1 Like
10

In light of the upcoming Smuggler content, perhaps a module for T1 industrials that can be used to bypass the customs offices, with possible negative repercussions, of course.

And in light of basic physics, it should be easier to “glide” materials down to the planet than to launch them from the command center. Add another skill for accuracy, add ability for an extractor to grab the stuff, and (Ta Da!) the ability to steal the dropped stuff before it is picked up.

Dust 2024

1 Like
11

Really like the OP suggestion for ability to label facilities.
I ended up making a sketch of each planets layout in a legal pad and labeled the facilities on the sketch.
Saves me from having to click on a bunch of stuff to remember what it does or what inputs need to be stored where.

As far as taxes go… once you have established yourself as a customer by running your chain for a month or so, contact the diplo or CEO of the corp holding the POCO.

I’ve been able to negotiate reduced taxes more often than not. Most people would rather get 4% of my volume than 9% of nothing.

2 Likes
12

Not a bad idea, but with one exception.

The P3 production should remain on the planets for the sake of the game. The P4 production can be ported to refineries, because its components are used for Upwell Structures and Capital devices mainly. Production flow model P2 → P3 and P3 → P4 is somewhat repetitive and has many import/export steps.

1 Like
13

we have been asking for years to simpify PI. such as eliminating multiple clicks and mouse movements to restart extractors. simple, one button, restart.
however a bigger issue is the new prettier planets make it very difficult to see the extractors and the links. what we really need is a friendly view of the planet without all the graphic details. imagine your are older or color blind. just let us have a plain planet view for interaction. nuff said

3 Likes
14

I’m using another “hook”. I drop items into Launchpads based on the n + 1 formula. As soon as all n items will burn the last one will indicate what should be there. But it remains an ugly UI interaction.

Check my ultimate factory setup:

p2-p3
p2-p3952×552 152 KB

The loaded pipeline tooltips show how the production is configured. CPU load is 99.9%. It can be done on very small planets only. The input load of this factory is 66k m3, while the POCOs storage is 35k m3. Runtime - 66 hours or 2.8 days. Therefore, I have to drop the first 13 320 (19 980 m3) items on a POCO storage first and perform an import transfer, for the first 6660 (9990 m3) items, on a Launchpad afterwards. Then I have to do an Expedition Transfer from the Launchpad to the respective Storage Facility. Then I have to import the remaining 6660 items on the same Launchpad. And it must be repeated for the other two Launchpads respectively. I just can’t drop all my raw components (59 940 m3) into POCO storage at once. In a WH or populated Low-Sec system, I have to warp away and back after each import operation. The POCO spot isn’t the best place to stay with 400M ISK in Epithal’s cargo while doing this micromanagement.

I want to downgrade the production quantity by increasing the storage depots respectively (to 5 - 7 days). The output Launchpad is filled before all input materials are processed. With more Storage Facilities all this mechanic becomes even much more tedious.

POCO tax above 10% is high and above 15% is very high. Thanks all import/export POCO taxes are normalized to prices in this table

Commodity level Base Cost
R0 5 ISK
P1 400 ISK
P2 7,200 ISK
P3 60,000 ISK
P4 1,200,000 ISK

Let’s say you want to process 18 000 P2 items (1.5 m3) into 1 800 P3 items (6 m3). Here’s the tax summary for a 5%, 15% and 20% respectively:

| Comodity | Q | Value | 5% Import tax | 5% Export tax | Total tax |
| — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
|P2 in | 18 000 | 129 600 000 | 3 240 000 | - | - |
|P3 out| 1 800| 108 000 000 | - | 5 400 000| 8 640 000 |

Comodity Q Value 15% Import tax 15% Export tax Total tax
P2 in 18 000 129 600 000 9 720 000 - -
P3 out 1 800 108 000 000 - 16 200 000 25 920 000
Comodity Q Value 20% Import tax 20% Export tax Total tax
P2 in 18 000 129 600 000 12 960 000 - -
P3 out 1 800 108 000 000 - 21 600 000 34 560 000

Market price of P3 Commodity will vary between P3 and 2* P3 Cost. So, 15% POCO tax will eat like 25% from your revenue on P3 and to compete on market with players which did it with way lower taxes you have to lose even more money. So, this tedious (aka AFK) activity turns into Much more headache like Faction Warfare: you have to join there and here, to go there and wait here, destroy that POCO and put yours… This just repels players.

It is with one ALT for slow extraction. As soon as you have all 3 ALTs per account working for P0 → P3 manufacturing it’s the same as Industry. I imagine, players with 6 or even 9 ALTs are jumping from POCO to POCO to handle it like Spiderman or kindergarten teachers.

Finally, with the latest Industry patches, PI isn’t AFK farming anymore - it’s a serious part of the game industry.
15

I wholeheartedly agree that the PI interface needs a major overhaul!!

I took the longest time to start doing PI. Then after I managed to figure out how to do it, I decided that I really disliked doing it. It is super tedious and time consuming and IMHO not worth the effort. I don’t mind doing it if I only need a few of something, IF I already have set up a planet. Setting up a new planet is a royal pain in the ass. Especially if you are installing a bunch of factories like in the example in the previous post. OMG… I have done that and IT SUCKS!!! I think I would rather have a root canal than do that again.

CCP please update the PI UI. PLEASE!!

2 Likes
16

The materials are needed for a lot of end products now. That raises the value (market price) of PI.
As prices go up more people want to do it, prices fall as supply increases.

However it sucks so many people don’t want to do it or stop doing it from the suck factor, prices rise.

Better UI, less clicks, larger storage would all make it less painful to do PI. Then lots of additional people will do it and prices will crash.

If we get everything we ask for, it won’t be worth doing anymore. To keep the prices at an acceptable level the activity has to have an appropriate amount of “suck factor” or risk.

1 Like
17

It does seem that once you have set up a config that should be savable. It just makes sense in a real world way.

18

It’s like I tried to tell my kids, who didn’t listen, the usual sane reason that someone is paid a significant amount more than someone else is they are probably doing something that’s hard. Pure how-human-nature-affects-the-market.

1 Like
19

Hello everybody.

I read the post and my main point i would love to see changed regarding PI is a massive reduction in the effort to set it up which is sooner or later required to get good yields.

Maybe introducing some sort of crawler and mobile factories instead of this tiresome process of setting up/removing and setting everything up again. Instead of tearing everything down you would just have to redirect your gatherers and factories to a new spot on the planet.

I also like the proposal of saving your layout but a bit more refined. This way you could create smaller building blocks of your layout and reuse them whenever you see fit. That would decrease this whole clicking spree a lot when setting up a planet anew.

Best regards. o7

20

It’s not the case. The amount of players involved in PI will remain the same (or plus/minus 15%), while the number of ALT accounts will increase/decrease respectively based on PI profitability. There are players which are doing mainly Abyss or PVP or Exploration or Incursion or ESS or C5 or PI no matter how profitable it is. Risk is a vague concept in EVE. I know a bunch of groups in EVE which are doing very risky tasks by design with no risk at all de facto. BTW, “suck factor” is a know-how in EVE :smiley:

It’s partially true in EVE, but…

Firstly, some players will wait until prices go down… They can wait for 1 or 2 years. Confirmed! Secondly, most involved player corporations will try not to buy things, but to harvest things by themselves. In my opinion, prices fall due to an effect of decreasing demand on markets over time - nor an effect of increasing supply. Marketing happens via private contracts and /or barter. Demand is a price driver in EVE. You can find a lot of very rare items and cheap as crap on the market because no one needs them. Just check the hi-sec Athanors and Orca mining fleets concept. Or take a look at the ISK velocity graph in MER.

My motto is “hi-sec players shouldn’t pay absurdly high prices for small-/medium ships, because they share the same highly demanded components that’s used for capital toy construction in 0.0”