Think of it this way:

If you have a stack of paper cups, you can treat them as a stack of identical cups. Now, if you have 6 cups in a row and pee in one, I'm guessing you would not want to treat them as identical anymore.

A new Container called a "Paper Clip" needs to be created. It can only contain items that have the exact same attributes.

When the first item is moved into the Paper Clip Object it should
"Copy the attributes to the Paper Clip" so when you show info on the paper clip it can show it attributes of the BPCs it contains plus a item count.

Each additional item copied into it should check if the attributes match and if they do they can be added into the container else a error message is displayed.

Paper clips should be allowed to be put into containers.

The end user (The Player) will just see a paper clip and the item name will be "(Clipped) - Fury Heavy Missiles BPCs x100"

Show Info will display the Runs remaining for the clicked items, research, etc etc etc. since all of them are exactly the same.

I can't wait for something like this so I can manage all my extra BPCs I have.

The reason being is that the container doesn't actually exist, it's a virtual group, not a partition of data if you will.
The only way to *populate* the container is to select extensively from the database where the metadata values match and for the sake of common normalisation and the kind of data that EVE has to keep, there is likely no good index for this stuff.

That means it's exactly the kind of thing that CCP have been trying to avoid!

You have wone EvE.

This would almost certainly wreck their databases.

Obviously I haven't seen the source code, but I strongly suspect that the packaged, stacked items are kept in a database with all of the details of the item 'stored' by just marking down the name and number. Attaching meta-data to that would mean that every single item in every hangar in the whole game has to be stored by recording the entire property list for said item, and therefore force CCP to buy a whole pile of new servers just to hold all that new data.

We store non-singleton items / stacks simply as the type ID and quantity and track no metadata. By definition then an item can't have quantity 0 and then we store singleton items using negative quantities: Quantity of -1 is the most common and is simply a normal singleton item, including singleton BPOs, -2 is singleton BPCs. See this dev blog for more details. All metadata associated with singleton items is stored in side-tables off the main inventory table. A lot of this DB logic is then hidden from the client and server code using views and virtual columns.

Now, this doesn't preclude the client from presenting BPs in some other manner; e.g., through some BP Manager or through views or filters in the Unified Inventory. What ideas could you guys come up with in that regard?

Would it be possible (performance-wise) to just automagically repack and stack everything that is put in the item hangar? It is quite annoying to have to do ctrl-a, repack, stack, all the time. Now that we have filters, there should be no need for the precious sorting containers

CCP explorer can you please reply to my inquiry in the original post?

What about automatically repackaging/stacking anything you have of the same item type? (that has the capability of being packaged)

See RubyPorto's reply above; not everyone wants this behaviour and we don't want to add load by always scanning inventory locations to see if something can be stacked.

We store non-singleton items / stacks simply as the type ID and quantity and track no metadata. By definition then an item can't have quantity 0 and then we store singleton items using negative quantities: Quantity of -1 is the most common and is simply a normal singleton item, including singleton BPOs, -2 is singleton BPCs. See this dev blog for more details. All metadata associated with singleton items is stored in side-tables off the main inventory table. A lot of this DB logic is then hidden from the client and server code using views and virtual columns.

Now, this doesn't preclude the client from presenting BPs in some other manner; e.g., through some BP Manager or through views or filters in the Unified Inventory. What ideas could you guys come up with in that regard?

But as you can see from this thread, there's a lot of people that want this feature. That's why I said it should be optional in the first place.

I know it would be incredibly wasteful to make scanning requests like that, but would it be possible to make it a mechanical response from the client itself?

See RubyPorto's reply above; not everyone wants this behaviour and we don't want to add load by always scanning inventory locations to see if something can be stacked.

What about remote stacking and repackaging. Would that work for you, instead of it being automatic?

What about remote stacking and repackaging. Would that work for you, instead of it being automatic?

But youre missing the point... I wanted to make it an option to automatically stack ammo and other non-singletons. That way if you dont want it or it will screw with the way you do things, you dont need to enable it! Just turn the option off.

See RubyPorto's reply above; not everyone wants this behaviour and we don't want to add load by always scanning inventory locations to see if something can be stacked.

But youre missing the point... I wanted to make it an option to automatically stack ammo and other non-singletons. That way if you dont want it or it will screw with the way you do things, you dont need to enable it! Just turn the option off.

Read the whole reply, friend. Here I've bolded and underlined the important bit for you.

*munches on pretzels...

At first glance, I thought the topic's title was "i hate snacks"!

Without snacks, how can online gaming keep the reputation of everyone being bloated, fat, greasy haired, stinky neckbeards with empty bags of Cheetos lying around while playing Russian Roulette forgetting which Mountain Dew bottle has the soft drink to which one was a make shift urinal...?

The reason being is that the container doesn't actually exist, it's a virtual group, not a partition of data if you will.
The only way to *populate* the container is to select extensively from the database where the metadata values match and for the sake of common normalisation and the kind of data that EVE has to keep, there is likely no good index for this stuff.

A new Container called a "Paper Clip" needs to be created. It can only contain items that have the exact same attributes.

When the first item is moved into the Paper Clip Object it should
"Copy the attributes to the Paper Clip" so when you show info on the paper clip it can show it attributes of the BPCs it contains plus a item count.

Each additional item copied into it should check if the attributes match and if they do they can be added into the container else a error message is displayed.

Paper clips should be allowed to be put into containers.

The end user (The Player) will just see a paper clip and the item name will be "(Clipped) - Fury Heavy Missiles BPCs x100"

Show Info will display the Runs remaining for the clicked items, research, etc etc etc. since all of them are exactly the same.

I can't wait for something like this so I can manage all my extra BPCs I have.