Teronolus
   |
Posted - 2006.04.21 22:24:00 -
[2]
Ok, this idea has probably come up allready but I am not reading 10 pages. 
So, I don't think the T2 market is really imbalanced (maybe a little unrealistic, but not imbalanced) but what EVE really needs fixed is T1.
Here's an example: In this example of 'real life', you have two car manufacturers. How does a customer who wants to buy a car choose between the two makes? Well, they look at the characteristics of them. Namely, which one has a better fuel efficiency? Which has a bigger engine? Which just plain old looks cool? Which is cheaper? So the customer has a choice between two quite different cars.
In EVE, these are the characteristics between two supliers: Which is cheaper? Which is for sale closer to me? Do I want to screw T1 and get the T2 version instead? Which is cheaper? Did I mention that they also look at which one is cheaper? 
So there you have the root of the T1 market problem: the lack of variety. It's also the one key thing holding back EVE from having a truly great virtual economy. Who needs player-run banking, share-brokering and market competition when every single person has to make the same product as everyone else.
So what I suggest is adding that variety in the form of 'player-created' products. It works like so:
 You get yourself a BPO of any ME/PE. Let's use a Maulus Gallente frigate as the example.
You decide what area of ship you are going to research. This can't be potentially role-changing so for example we can't research laser cooling systems or covert-ops cloaking on our Maulus.
Let's go for hybrid turret range research. The research would be performed with the aid of an R&D agent and would obviously require the necessary skills. The process would be very cost-intensive in terms of materials so effectively you'd end up spending at least the original item's BPO's cost and let's say, 4 weeks for a frigate improvement.
Once completed, you receive the original BPO back without a scratch and a 'blueprint' for the improved aspect of the ship. You can now perform even more research using the BPO to gain more 'blueprints'. (Lets say we then did research on EWAR drone control.)
Once you have the desired research completed, it is now time to compile this all into a prototype. Using the research agent again, you select the improved aspect blueprints you wish to use and any other modifications you wish make. These modifications could be tougher armor in exchange for speed and agility, an extra high-slot instead of a low-slot and so forth.
This will give you an estimated resulting product (with the specifics depending on the time then allowed [ranging from 1-3 weeks for this stage] to compile the prototype and the player's skills). For our example, we'll use the blueprints for the EWAR drone control system and the hyrbrid turret range improvement to give us a 5% bonus per level to EWAR drone effectiveness and 5% per level to hybrid turret optimal (which in this case cancels out the original 5% bonus to hybrid damage). We also decide to add 10m3 to the drone bay - sacrificing some hull/armor hp and cargo space- and remove a high-slot in exchange for a med-slot.
Once the prototyping stage has been completed, you receive a 5-run BPC for the protoype (if you somehow run out, you can ask for another) which - assuming you do not wish to make changes - has the exact same stats as the finished product but a higher mineral cost to prevent people from bypassing the final stage. Now you get a chance to play around with your design. 
Once happy that you have tested your product enough, you can instruct your agent to either make some more changes (which will take less time than before) or to produce the final blueprint. Let's assume that we are happy with it at this point and receive the BPO to this item (which you get to name  ):
------------------------
\(>_<)\ \(>_<)/ /(>_<)/
GO TEAM
|