Planetary Interaction in HS - Profitable with exorbitant tax rates?

Industry Gameplay Center Mining & Extraction
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I feel like I need to ask this as I recently returned to EVE and it seems the tax rates are rather wild in high-sec when it comes to Planetary Interaction and the Customs Offices.

Some planets have customs offices with really high tax rates above 20%.

With PI requiring you to launch raw materials off the surface, plus send it down to a factory planet AND send finished products back up again the tax rate is just murder.

Also, been awhile since I played EVE admittedly, but I see now it costs 6,5mill to upgrade command center to high enough CPU/PG to actually run, well, anything besides a single extractor. In addition there is the cost with the extraction controller, storage, refining factories and launchpad which all pushes it into 10mill range just to install extraction on a single planet. Which might be peanuts to some players, but is an investment for anyone new to the game.

So how is PI profitable? Or is it only profitable for whatever cartel-corp is in control of the customs office and simply don’t pay taxes on their own production?

From first glance this player driven tax rate system for customs offices is driving people away from PI as the profit margins become marginalized to the point where it’s a fruitless time investment.

Or am I just being crazy? Is running taxes where it takes 1/5th, or even more, from an industrialist at least twice (extraction planet plus factory planet) something that creates good game play or does it just, almost literally, gate-keep average players from accessing what is (supposedly/arguably) one of the first entry level endeavors into industry ?

I’m sure some (whoever runs customs offices) are going to be throwing shade at me for bringing it up, but I honestly wonder how many actually bother with PI, and how much of it is just (ab?)-using the taxation system to block anyone else from using PI in the first place.

Is the player driven customs office system a good thing or does it just provide an artificial barrier to gatekeep others from using planetary interaction?

I’m guessing (speculation) that CCP put in these customs offices to somehow motivate corps to wardec eachother to fight over control, but honestly… do any corps really care about peanut profits from PI ? To the degree they will spend millions, if not billions, on a war just to control PI on a few planets? To me it seems like this would be fighting an expensive war over scraps.

But besides some motivation for corps to wardec eachother over “control” over some high sec areas, does the custom offices actually offer anything positive or interesting as far as player interaction and gameplay experience goes?

Thoughts?

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Take down the pocos and put your own

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Or contact the poco owner and ask if you can get a better rate.

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Not really possible for a new, average player to take down any pocos. Hence the gatekeeping by turning taxes up to unprofitable levels (for everyone else).

Which is fine in LS,NS,WH, but in HS where new industrialists start out it’s gatekeeping new players from the entire PI part of game.

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Its one guy that controls most of hisec pocos.

You could try it @Xeux way. You can’t accuse other players of gatekeeping, cause new players arent the only ones in hisec.

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One guy? How does he defend them? Hisec is enormous.

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True that new players aren’t the only ones in HS, but new players are the ones trying to get into the game by using game features like PI as part of industry.

Older players are not going to care about PI in HS cause they more than likely have access to it in NS anyhow, so why wage a war to kill a poco for what amounts to scraps on the table? Which means whoever is overtaxing HS planets is not really running into any opposition.

And it is literally gatekeeping new players from PI as it becomes entirely unprofitable to try it. Which means the whole PI game feature becomes unused by new players which, again, makes me wonder how is it a positive thing for the game as a whole to keep an entire segment of industrialism barred off for new players?

Again, I get this in NS and LS, but in HS it’s being abused with high taxes with the explicit purpose of keeping others out of the PI gameplay precisely because those capable of wardecc’ing and taking down the pocos are not liable to do so since the HS PI is simply not profitable enough for those corps/alliances.

Which means this whole cartel nonsense is left to it’s own devices, and becomes detrimental for new players as well as small corps who seek to do industry.

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come join my corp we have a low tax rate and live in null sec

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Highsec sucks anyway.
Also you can just extract and make up to P2 relatively easily on a single planet.
New players are also able to go to lowsec and nullsec as well.

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I just find it strange why they want a mechanic in the game which is specifically hurting new players and not many others, and it’s compounded by the fact that it happens with absolute minimal challenge or effort for those already established with overtaxed customs offices.

There’s a reason why can-flipping became a bannable offense in starter systems at some point. Because it specifically hurt and drove off new players. New industrialists looking at PI as a gateway into production are virtually facing the same issue where they have to put in an investment only to have it completely eroded away from rampant taxation.

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I hear what you are saying and I can tell you that New Eden is big and “ok” as in “not totally rapacious” rates can be found in HS. But they are in no way convenient.
LS can be cheaper once you get the hang of mwd cloak trick and get to know “the neighbors” .
But HS PI really is training wheels, to learn what you are doing, not to be the end but a side quest you can tap into for afk isk. Then of course there’s blowing up a POC or hiring someone to do it. Agreed, that neither of those is necessarily in a new players bag of options. But using an alt just for pi in sketchy space can yield you some surprising results, as mentioned earlier you just need to find one planet that can create P2 materials and still make Bank. While they are at it in losec have them mine for gas in a Venture (best 30million you will spend) that’ll pay for all the PI infra and ships and Ventures you’ll need to get the op going (and then some).

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CCP keeps trying to find a way to get the crabs to actually play the game. What better way than to tie taxes to structures that are dedicated to individual moons? There are so many of these that nobody can defend them all. Surely the crabs will put in the tiny amount of effort to fight over individual low-value planets. The big null blobs won’t make enough pennys off of the grift to make it worth blobbing the guys in highsec.

So for sure the crabs will choose to undock and blow up the jerk’s customs office that is gouging. Right? Wrong. Even this small amount of participation is too high for the crabs. Instead they will choose to complain to CCP about the injustice of it all and how it hurts the “noobs.”

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Well it is one guy, but with 100+ accounts to defend it. :slight_smile:

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No human can run that many accounts. Either they’re using input broadcasting, or you’re full of it. My ISK is on the latter.

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Omega And Friends Medialabs is who owns majority of the hisec pocos.

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Why don’t the structure bashing highsec corps war dec the guy? Or is he just the PI arm of their own operation?

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what an admirable and unselfish supporter of new players you are !
please pass the following information along to them :
in hi-sec , a planet running p2 can pay for itself within 2 months . it’s impossible not to profit , considering your time spent restarting extractors and hauling . the tax is a cost of doing business in the convenience and security of hi-sec .
advise them also , to carefully consider setting up a factory planet in hi-sec . you will be out-competed by those with lower overhead . you won’t be able to profit as you’ll always be undercut , even if the tax was lower . if the tax was set to zero , you’d still not be competitive as the price drop of pi would make it less profitable , and you’d still be outsold by those making their profit through huge volume .

maybe you should have looked into that , before setting up a factory planet in hi-sec .

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Customs code expertise will reduce the NPC tax that is on hisec POCOs, which is 10% without the skill.

Low yield and NPC tax is the premium you pay for doing PI in the ‘safety’ of hisec.

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Thanks Benson.

This was a very useful bit of information that I was unaware of. Consequently I’ve skilled all 5 levels into Customs Code Expertise which helped quite a bit with lowering the taxation.

Glad someone offered nice and useful advice rather than just being condescending.

Appreciate it a lot! Fly safe! o7

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