The problem as I read it was that if we switched to blueprints for, in your example, Limos, Malkuth, Arbalest, etc., people would only build the one or two that are useful.
In my idea, industrialists can only build, for example, Light Missile Launcher I. Pilots (or or corp logistics who are fitting ships) can, if they have one/enough, apply a Tuner to change its attributes. Unlike a Mutaplasmid, a Tuner would always change attributes in a predictable manner. So a Limos Tuner would drop from rats instead of a complete, usable module. It should still be possible to plan fits around, for example, a Compact Power Diagnostic, but it may be more practical to design fits around Tech I modules since now Compact Power Diagnostic modules can’t exist with a supply of Power Diagnostic I modules. Unless the problem is that you foresee entire categories of items that will be ignored by industry?
Right, but the person looting the tuner, still needs to acquire the base module, instead of just having the named module ready to go, this is the issue that you aren’t going to be able to resolve
They need to build, buy, or steal (from other players), yes. The idea of Tuners was specifically to address:
But, if you want NPCs to still drop ready-to-use modules, the original OP was of having NPC buy orders for items (probably based on a percentage of mineral value, and if Tuners replace Meta there’d only be T1 modules to buy) and the modules can only drop while NPCs have a stock of them, perhaps by region or constellation. It’s been a while since I read the opening post(s) and I don’t play Albion so I don’t remember all the details but I think that was the gist of it.
An alternative (because I don’t like the idea of NPC buy orders, it’s another ISK faucet) would be that the NPC stock for drops is based on loot fairy denial. A player has to die with the thing (and not drop it in their own wreck) for it to be added to the drop table for the region/constellation they died in (assuming it’s below a certain rarity, T2 mods and Deadspace mods won’t suddenly start dropping from belt rats). While it doesn’t make as much sense from a simulation standpoint, it does mean that the module existed before it was brought back into existence for someone else. The difference in balance vs. current drops/destruction would be that if players aren’t dying with X, then NPCs don’t have a source of X and thus players have to make more X from minerals.
what if pirates just piloted fitted ships and salvage followed normal PVP procedure? as an adendum to that, NPC miner flocks exist already, they can take the ore they mine out of the belts and convert them into goods to supply the existent NPC-provided market
I believe CCP still intend to make meta-items something that the player makes rather than NPC drops. And instead, NPC’s will probably just drop the materials to make meta items.
When you add that together then the npc stations should have their own buy orders for ships and their own faction NPC fleets for all groups. That would include pirate factions needing to be supplied their ships somehow and if not actually filled then they attack less. But it would also mean that you can reinforce areas if you build enough ships for your faction.
I’m actually fine with materials dropping instead and getting rid of bounties altogether - just as long as it’s not raw minerals. I realize that 25,000 voices in null-sec suddenly cried out in terror and were silenced, but the ratting tics in some areas are beyond obscene.
Raw materials, some minerals, components and blueprints would be fairly decent. I know that PI and miners will probably object, but who cares. Salvaging as a career might even make a resurrection… I guess I don’t have a problem with some bounty as part of the salvage component - but it needs to be diminished.
My thoughts exactly, it would also mean that NPC fleets exist to do NPC fleet things to people, places, and quite possibly NPCs the commanders of the NPC fleets do not have good reputation numbers on.
Player built meta modules are on the roadmap. The “named components” are already on the market for capital meta modules.
The prerequisite is completion of module tiercide so all meta modules fit the new model described as “compact”, “enduring”, etc… CCP has been working on this for at least 3 years - it doesn’t seem to be very high priority! Turrets were supposed to be done last summer but it didn’t happen and the project hasn’t been mentioned since.
Once complete, you will purchase a BPO and build the module using a T1 module plus some named components that drop as loot instead of complete modules.
Having NPC’s buy stuff from players would disrupt the player driven market. CCP has chosen a hands off approach to the market - let supply and demand set prices - which is why it works as well as it does.
There needs to be some reward for killing NPCs and bounties are problematic since growth in the money supply is disconnected from growth in the economy. We need more material rewards that are exchanged for ISK rather than ISK itself - Abyssal rewards are non-monetary which I consider a step in the right direction. Let materials and components drop as loot while players make finished goods.
But just think, CCP could waste thirty years tinkering with an economist AI to run NPC-side market interactions and create a skynet that uses faction warfare to dupe prices on what it sees, due to an unforeseen coding oversight by CCP assets, as optimal goods: Quafe.
I have no problem with bounties if CONCORD paid them using tax revenue - redistribution of ISK rather than creation of ISK. In the real world, governments that print money to cover their deficits eventually get into trouble. I suspect it will work the same way in Eve.
To be fair, the point of the OP was to implement the Albion Online Black Market system which has NPCs buy player-built items for distribution in the loot tables of other NPCs. The price and production of those items is still very much player-driven.
I don’t think this is a bad idea as the Black Market system was one of the most innovative ones in that sandbox game. Having items spawn in magically from NPC drops like in Eve is not very “hands off” on its own. A closed, or at least semi-closed system where players can build the loot to populate the loot tables seems like a more player-driven way to do it. It would provide more content for industrialists in any case.
But it would also be complicated to add in after the fact and involve rebalancing basically the whole game. I think it would be a good idea to at least consider borrowing and one I thought might have worked well as a trial with Resource Wars. The rewards could have been LP on a special NPC-run market but one where the items available are built by other players. Newer players would then be exposed to both sides of the equation both getting new-player appropriate ships and fits from this market, and be shown that they can make some ISK by supplying things to this special NPC market. You would still be injecting ISK into the game, but it would be a way to incentivize both industry and pew pew PvE. Not quite NPCs dropping player-made stuff like in Albion Online, but it would be a first step and a way to promote industrial demand, not completely undermine it like spawning rewards does (or in this case making the content worthless as the LP items cost more to spawn than they are worth on the market).
I would support this if there was a market for price discovery (perhaps players could bid for NPC contracts to build items for the loot tables) and if funds to pay for these items was raised through taxation so no net increase in money supply.
Isolating it into a system might be the better way to do it, pretty much what they had in mind with A-space, places where we can test things in isolation. Referencing Resources Wars is an excellent idea, it could be the place to test something like that’d give an incentive to newbies to craft things.
Hmm… gave me a question I wasn’t actually considering.
What if the npc items were made specifically with the ore in resource wars and thus action is what changes the game rather than just handing over things?
Plenty of people yelled to tell them to do exactly that.
It seems like the people who made Resources Wars legit disappeared right after making it. Like, “we have done this thing and it’s gonna stay untapped and useless for the next decade. Thank you”.