nah that would not “make them viable”. They already have better bonus.
They are ■■■■for indus because CCP decided to make them ■■■■. It’s a perfectly understood choice from CCP to make structures completely useless for small indus, therefore people who want to play in structures need to go in big groups or join public facilities, therefor shooting their value down with the increase in index.
I am pretty sure that I didn’t think that one all the way throw.
Would thow limiting the number of slots for npc stations in high and low, cause a lower production rate. This would also move some industry operations out of thier normal area do to being too full.
The danger from NPC station industry comes during hauling production materials and consumer products around. And I’m not sure that we need risk at every step, as long as there is sufficient risk at other steps. That being said, there are people that buy, produce, and sell out of the same stations (i.e. in major trade hubs). So, perhaps that specifically can be addressed.
This would mostly hurt newbros, casual industrialists, and small groups who can’t afford/defend structures. I’m sure some players would switch to building out of structures (whether it be their own, or other players), but I bet this would also cause a bunch of people to get out of industry, and discourage newbros from getting started.
This would apply upward pressure on consumer prices, which I’m not a fan of. I know Hilmar is all about making loss more meaningful, but this also encourages farming and makes players risk adverse. Making things more expensive just makes players and FC’s less and less willing to take fights where they don’t have a clear advantage. In fact, I think this is why destruction has been trending downward in spite of a massive war and good player numbers.
In the days of limited production/research slots, serious industrialists would anchor a POS with as many assembly arrays/ labs as needed to meet their requirements. For a solo industrialist, a small POS had a lot of advantages - it was cheap, consumed very little fuel, you could take modules offline without cancelling active jobs - they would pickup where they left off when the module was brought online again. If wardecced, you could unanchor the POS in 15 minutes and store it in a station.
I do agree that the system cost index has not had the desired effect of spreading out industry. I’m not sure reintroducing slot limits would be a good idea but would support reducing the functionality of factories/labs in NPC stations - perhaps limiting them to basic T1 research and production. If you want to copy, invent, manufacture components, capitals, T2 or T3 you need to use a structure.
Those were better indy days for sure. But CCP as CCP, they change things for the sake of changing things. It doesn’t metter if things go for better or for worse. That is CCP. These days TQ is both test server and live server.
Unlimited numbers of jobs in station/POS/structure/should never seen light of day in EVE, but CCP meh