EVE Search - Sticky:Dev blog: Introducing Upwell Refineries

SIEGE RED wrote:

Liira Savlin wrote:

So here are some thoughts i have from what i've read so far:

Active gameplay is all well and good, but i do think these should be released with drilling platforms. If you assume drilling platforms provide the ability to passively extract resources, you could set the gameplay for these to work in tandem with drilling structures, but they would have less yield than actively mining them. Snuff and a few others here have raised some very important points about how this hurts lowsec groups that rely on passive moon goo income.

Something to consider yes. None of that however offsets required organisational adaptation - things change in EVE, it's the only constant.

Liira Savlin wrote:

If you're going to force active gameplay, you're going to HAVE to open up w-space and hisec to moon mining with these structures if you don't want to see the t2 economy to violently crash and burn. I'd bet my left toe that MOST of the people (if not upwards of 90%) rely on moon mining to be passive, and would prefer to keep it that way to suppliment their most decidedly non-pve activities. Many of these people, especially non-fw lowsec groups, would sooner go to null or w-space than be forced to mine or do PVE activities to suppliment their income. The idea of any of them running mining operations in lowsec, let alone the meat grinder of FW space, is one of the grossest misunderstandings of player behavior since Incarna. It will NOT end well for anyone involved.

Why? Things crashing and burning is not only good for gameplay, it's good for underlying economics - and there's never been any situation where such a thing had any tangible impact on player abilities. I remember cap recharger II's at 40m a pop with towers burning. And the show was still on the road. If anything, **** was more alive. If one can say such a strange thing about biological waste.
Good counterpoints to my doomsaying, but you can't deny that goo suppy is going to be hit massively. There was a good post about balancing distribution of goo more widely that could be a good compromise to this, since it would also help out smaller groups.

Liira Savlin wrote:

If this is going to come to pass as-advertised, then let me make a little suggestion: Add d-scan immunity to the porpoise and the skiff. Giving lowsec and nullsec mining operations some decent counterplay is going to be essential if you're putting the burden of AN ENTIRE SECTION OF THE ECONOMY into active gameplay with a fat load of risk involved, where it was passive before. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding of player behavior in regards to how the t2 economy works with moon goo.

Our BPO's welcome that suggestion, but I'd kinda like to see the Noctis pick up a little love here. Small, specialised, room for younger characters, less n+1 counter paths, more room for small scale pew pew, etc.

Also, it's not "an entire section of the economy". It's just human behaviour. It can still be passive, just pay/seduce/let/make/force others to do it for you, if needs be. Economics of scale following group behaviour still applies. And specialisation remains king.