The biggest pain to PI to me is setting up the planets. Even if I know exactly how each planet is going to get setup, it still takes a load of time, and makes changing planets unattractive due to the setup work. I would like to suggest a way to save planet colony layouts.
You would save the formation and the structures and then be able to place that saved formation as if you would place 1 structure. If possible too, it would be nice to be able to share those saved colonies to other players like a fitting or skill plan. I think that will make doing PI a little bit more manageable.
I disagree, I think PI shouldn’t become any more scalable than it already is. Unlike a lot of other activities it already is a very passive and scalable activity that you can set up on a lot of characters across a lot of accounts for semi-passive income.
The main thing that stops a lot of players from scaling this up even more is that it takes some effort to set up the planets.
While there are things about the PI UI that can be improved, don’t think CCP should remove the active part of setting up planetary industry.
Copy pasting planetary industry across planets and across characters means that instead of my current 36 planets I could PLEX a few more accounts and manage 360 planets instead. The main thing that stops me from doing so right now is the effort it takes to set up all the planets. ‘Scalable PI’ would make it possible, no, would encourage such gameplay.
I don’t think that would be good for the game. Abundance of PI supply would mean that PI prices would fall and anyone who is doing PI on a single planet or single character would be better off not doing it at all as it isn’t worth their effort unless they too ‘scale up’.
I suppose you do have a point about deterring single players to do it then, its just such a hassle when you have alts and have to move all of their planets.
PI is the only jigsaw puzzle I consciously pursue. If I get dragged into a real world jigsaw puzzle I eventually become engrossed, but I don’t pursue it. Don’t make Eve PI another cut and dried no-brain-required activity. If anything, turn it into a planetside CIV/Freeciv type game. Let the lore run wild.