PLEASE redo PI by ripping out it's guts and using mechanics already in place

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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I was told to repost this in my own thread because I accidentally hijacked someone else’s so here goes.

PI is terrible and everyone is aware of this. I just got done hating myself for doing it so much I decided to bother getting on the forums and now I’ve bothered to check if it was commented on two weeks later and am reposting it in it’s own thread.

I feel that they should just rip the guts out of it, start over and make it a semi active thing you can actually pursue as an aside from mining in space. Basically there should be 3 structures that people can buy off the market or manufacture from bpo’s seeded in empire space and use minerals mined in space to build.

Planet side structures:

Extraction Command Center : Mining component of PI (ECC for short)

Processing & Refinement Command Center : Handles Production of Processed & Refined commodities. (PRCC for short)

Specialized & Advanced Production Command Center : Handles Specialized and Advanced commodities. (SAPCC for short)

Each Command center does a specific task that people pretty much already do with the more complicated system that is in place.

Mechanics :
All command centers are simply deployed anywhere on a planet.

ECC Mechanics :
After being deployed it brings up a 2D heat map of the surface of the planet where you need to select which resource you want and adjust to the best resolution aided by your relative skill level.

Once your satisfied with the resolution of the image you deploy a single extractor with an area of influence determined by a skill which increases the range per level. A second skill can be added to increase yield.

Once the extractor is in place your given a read out of the resources you’ll acquire over the course of 1 week in 15 min deposits to the ECC.

When satisfied with the results start the extractor head and the resources are deposited into the ECC where you can ship them any time up to the hub in space.

To clarify deposits are made to the ECC every 15 mins with the full mining period lasting a week.

Deposits are reduced by a loss in the resolution of the resource heat map over time. The player can pull it up daily or every few days to readjust and sharpen the image to maintain full yield.

After the weekly cycle ends you re-scan with the heat map and repeat with any of the other resources you haven’t already depleted so that the one you just depleted can recover.

PRCC & SAPCC Mechanics :
Once the PRCC or SAPCC is deployed to the surface you can send resources down to them and they are stored in the CC.

Taking the same idea from reactions you purchase blueprints from the market for the conversions you want to make and drop them into the CC as well or just simply make the PRCC/SAPCC capable of hosting all bpo’s without having to buy them pretty much as it is now.

Open the industry window any where in space or in station just like you do now and there should be an added tab called Command Centers in addition to the blueprints, facilities, jobs tabs that are already in game.

Proceed as you do now with producing other things.

Essentially the ECC allows for a mini game which determines the yield and degrades over time but can be fixed by the player to give them a reason to tend to it. Meanwhile planets are used to house the resources and commodities while you process them into different things. The reason you have both a PRCC and a SAPCC is so that it gives you a reason to fly to one planet and pick up goods then move them to another for further processing. Just like we do now only with out going through the massive pain in the ass interface.

I tried to use ideas that could possibly make use of existing features. So can we just implement my method and move along with our lives? Pleasssssse?

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God no. If we are going to change PI it should be to remove the basically pointless ‘minigame’ and change PI to be ‘fittable’ districts using how they broke planets up into districts. Each district will have a different ratio of extraction possible etc, then you just fit it like your citadel or ship.
Keep mechanics as consistent as possible between areas of the game.

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As far as I can see, the market is well supplied with planetary products in spite of dramatic increase in demand created by the Upwell structures. PI isn’t broken.

That doesn’t mean it can’t be improved but I would rather see the advanced processing moved to refineries - leave P0-P2 alone and create a refinery service module for P3 and P4. Get more of the process out in space where people can shoot at it and give us a reason to build refineries in highsec.

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How on earth is that a semi-active thing?

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I’ve said this on /r/eve before, and I’ll whack it here too;

CCP needs to fix the camera, abolish those holographic structures, and make the menus larger. That’s all. The problem with PI isn’t that you’re clicking a bunch. It’s that you’re often clicking on the wrong thing because of one errant pixel.

Not everything in Eve needs to be ‘active gameplay’. Would you make trade an active activity?

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redo the whole thing with planetside citadels, using service modules for extraction, storage, and factories. Reintroduce orbital bombardment ammo, and give the citadels orbital defence weapons

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OP you raise a good point but your solution sounds tedious. I like some of the other suggestions in the thread, like “fitting” the planet district with modules or fitting a command center and giving people the ability to bombard it from orbit.

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That is like saying that the market had plenty of T2 materials before they redid structures so there was no need to replace control towers.

Trade is an active activity I keep an alt open when doing mining or missions just to update prices so that I can stay competitive in Jita and other hubs.

Because you poke it a couple times a week to maintain full yield when you log in. When originally discussing PI it was stated that they wanted something that players could tend to on a daily or weekly basis without worrying about it too much.

I like the idea of fitting command centers, districts and shooting stuff but I believe the original intent with PI was to give people something that is pretty much safe from other players aside from them shooting you as you go to pick it up or drop it off and would function as an aside from mining. So having people being capable of shooting them seems against the original intent of the content. Yes I’m aware that there were talks about having people attack them as part of the fps that was released but that didn’t go anywhere and while hinted at was never promised or at least I don’t remember it being explicitly stated.

My concept was built around how the current mechanics work but modified in such a way to simplify it so that it’s less redundant in its setup and maintance. I tried to use ideas that are already implemented in some way in game because I’ve read that ccp likes to use stuff they already have in place so that it would require less development time.

Hence we have a heat map for resources in game already so that’s already done. We have command centers so renaming them and giving them different properties i’d imagine wouldn’t be too daunting a task. The part about the resolution of the heat map going astray as the process runs isn’t something that would be required but would give people a reason to poke it at some point during the week while it does its thing. Finally the industry window is already a thing and should only require a tab added to it to run the production process to refine and convert the commodities as we already do with everything else in production. I am aware that me saying things should be easy and then actually making it happen are two different things so no I have no idea what the technical limitations or issues would be.

While I wouldn’t mind some kind of fitting system for command centers or something where people can attack each other’s centers. My suggestion was intended to rip out the guts but reassemble them in such a way that they don’t require redoing the entire process like they’ve had to do with control towers. Although if that is what’s required i’d be up for it but again my suggestions are predicated on CCP trying to save on development time while still providing updated and meaningful content.

To possibly clarify what may be tedious

Steps :
1 - Drop command center on planet
2 - Use extractor version to extract resources using heat map and single extractor node
3 - Move extracted resources to another planet for Processing & Refinement / No need for nodes
4 - Move to another planet for Specialized & Advanced commodities / No need for nodes
5 - Move to market to sell or use in production of structures

^^^ This is what is already done but in a much more tedious fashion then I outlined as you currently have to place every individual pin which can be as many as 25+ processing centers if a planet is only used for processing and not extraction. Then you have to link all of them, setup what their making and route resources to all of them.

Then to extract resources you have to put down 6 or so processing centers link them and setup each with what their making and route all resources. Then plop down your extractor and place up to what is it 8 or 10 pins to decide where you’ll be extracting then you have to setup routes for the resources to each processing pin and then route them to your command center or space port.

After all of that if you want to change what your processing you have to go back to every single pin to change it up and then reroute the new resources as well. That sir is tedious.

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PI can be restructured fairly easily, WITHOUT horrendously gutting it like you’re suggesting. Besides, in order to manufacture the higher tier PI, you’re required to use Barren or Temperate planets. To be fair, streamlining the extraction process (less setup) as well as streamlining the placement of other structures (preselect what the factory’s going to make and auto-link it to a neighbor, or an easy “paint” feature to copy settings) will go a long way to make PI better.

Furthermore, it’s already a semi-active process.

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Pi is active in the same way as trade is. The more attention you give it the more yield.

Unfortunately pi was not meant to be safe. It was designed with being vulnerable to players or dust bunnies in mind. But it never happened.

I really like the idea of moving advanced processes to refineries. That would be great. And the ui could get a lot of attention (pre-set extractor formations and I’m pretty sure a processor can tell what i want it to do when I try to route a certain ore into it).

I’d also like command centres to mean something. Right now their entire function can be removed and instead simply placing a structure on a planet sets up a network. The available grid and cpu can be determined by your skills rather than upgrading a cc. Most people don’t even have a cc connected to the network.

So i’d like CC’s to have a significant amount of capacity to make them useful and to switch upgrades from more fitting resources to something like; even more capacity, reduced link fitting cost, faster processors, reduced extractor head fitting cost and things like that.

But if you’re gonna rip out its guts, asukas pi 2.0 pls.

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Moving the advanced production to refineries has a knock-on impact on POCO owners though as P4’s generate significantly more tax than P3’s.

I’d still prefer the use of citadels, but as a planetside structure. Still leaves the POCO vulnerable and useful for taxes, reuses the citadel code, allows use of orbital bombardment in the vulnerability window, and some kind of scary anti-orbital mass drivers/missile batteries for defense. Now PI requires fueling, but reduces RSI.

Use services for extraction, basic/advanced/High-tech factories. Use modules to tweak CPU/PG (Factory produciton speed/Extraction speed accordingly), logistics network (increase extraction area), defence modules etc. Rigs could enhance scanning for better extraction yield, defence, PG/CPU etc).

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I gotta disagree with this. Market price is not any good indication of user experience. With increased demand you would expect prices to rise, sure. However the fact that supply is still meeting the increased demand only really proves that players are willing to do more PI when there is an ISK incentive. Which is really obvious when you think about it. Point is that there is no reference point for user experience in market trends.

This really comes down to one simple fact: poor user experience causes burn out. It’s worth considering that if the user experience is bad it’s not actually great that people are incentivised to do more of it. How do I know that the user experience is bad? Well, there is the constant flow of posts and suggestions on reddit and the forums and the fact that there are UI bugs in this feature that has persisted since 2010. This feature sorely needs improvements to the user experience and if that would cause prices to drop, alternatively that could be adjusted for, however its worth considering that it was never meant to be a serious earner in the first place. Personally I wouldn’t mind losing some of my income, if it meant a more enjoyable experience.

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