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Alchemy design is broken

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POS Trader	Posted - 2008.12.13 21:38:00 - [1] Unfortunately, alchemy design is seriously broken. Instead of facilitating T2 production, it makes is just as difficult if not more so. Alchemy was suppose to be transmutation of one mineral into another. So Platinum => Mercury would be alchemy. To maintain radio of abundances and efficiency, why not just have 100 items of abundance A moon => 50 items of abundance 2*A moon So like 200 Mercury => 100 Dysposium. Or, 10000 atmospherics => 5000 cobalt => 2500 platinum => 1250 mercury => 625 dysprosium => 312 thorium where => is a reactor. You know, 1/2 as rare means 1/2 the amount produced with the reaction. Currently, these T2 production is still PITA with specific moons that you need for alchemy (two miners + reactor) being in shortage anyway.
Mari Katarin	Posted - 2008.12.13 23:56:00 - [2] Because there must be incentive to fight for high end resources. Homogenization of moon minerals would be game-breaking. It would reduce the entire system to a competition of who can spam the most POSes. We already have that. It's not exactly "fair" that the high ends are pegged to one race's components, but whatcha gonna do.
Ghoest	Posted - 2008.12.14 01:10:00 - [3] As is alchemy is useless. Im not saying we need the extreme the OP suggests but we need alchemy to least be improved to the level it was at before release. If you think corp is different than a guild or clan you have some insecurity issues.
Nightsabre Caldari T-Cells	Posted - 2008.12.14 04:19:00 - [4] I did the maths on Ferrogel, it is profitable, but not alot, but the sheer management needed, its really not worth the effort at all! In order to keep up with constant production, without uber micro management, you need around 25 POS... for 1 complete reaction at the same rate as what you would normally use. Insanity, and nobody in there right mind would do it!
Kiki Arnolds Caldari Allied Caprican Heavy Industries	Posted - 2008.12.14 05:54:00 - [5] My calculation was that with the fuel use of a non-faction tower, only the dysporite reaction was currently profitable... and that given current market conditions running the regular dysporite reaction with market bought raw materials would be much MORE profitable... The prices on all the materials need to move a bit further before the unrefined reactions are worth the hassle/risk/fuel... ç¦
Kazzac Elentria	Posted - 2008.12.14 05:54:00 - [6] Originally by: Mari Katarin Because there must be incentive to fight for high end resources. Homogenization of moon minerals would be game-breaking. It would reduce the entire system to a competition of who can spam the most POSes. We already have that. It's not exactly "fair" that the high ends are pegged to one race's components, but whatcha gonna do. Given that R32s and R64s have been spawned from thin air for a number of years now, I think we're at the game breaking point already
strarray	Posted - 2008.12.14 08:31:00 - [7] One thing will fix this problem...empire reactors :D
FredFred Burger Caldari Council of Human Urban Meatshield Paratroopers	Posted - 2008.12.14 15:04:00 - [8] Everyone's talking about the reactions and all that. I'm getting up to speed on it a little late. But were new reactions entered into the game or do you just use the same ones as you did for the original reaction you are trying to reproduce with alchemy.
Space Wanderer	Posted - 2008.12.14 17:10:00 - [9] I respectfully disagree. Read the devs blogs. Alchemy has not been introduced to make rare resources less rare, and I approve of it. Control of rare resources is an important ingredient of alliance warfare, and as such it must not be modified. And I say that as a solo player. What they wanted to do with alchemy, and I find it a very clever way, has been do dismantle cartels. The owners of a rare resource may still expect to make the full value of that resource. What they CANNOT do anymore is to artificially inflate the resource prices beyond its availability. I think they did a good job at it. As far as making the same abundance but making the transmutation easier, I might agree to a point, but the reasoning of the dev team is that if you want to produce a rare resource without having the proper materials you have to deploy a more complex infrastructure. I can't really dispute that approach, it makes sense.
Shidhe Minmatar The Babylon5 Consortuim	Posted - 2008.12.14 17:52:00 - [10] There was a lot of discussion here for about a year about removing the supply cap from Prom and Dyspro (and others, but they were the first materials to hit caps). The alchemy solution I do not recall being discussed there - and it seems to only put off the problem a bit by introducing another supply cap. Note we are not talking prices - it was always taken for granted that alternative supply methods would be more expensive than having a standard dyspro moon. Also we are not talking about facilitating T2 production. It was to remove the huge instability in the market caused by operating at peak production of a freely tradable resource. (Consider the RL oil price recently...) Also the market conditions were ideal for market manipulation on a huge scale, which is not good for the economy as a whole. Now it turns out that everyone's calculations were way off, due to a bug in POS. It is likely that the alchemy solution, which would have been barely adequate, will not be enough. (Also I can guess that a lot of money from the bug went into market manipulation of the moon material market - it makes some sense of the market for the last year or so...) However I definitely do not agree to the all moons look alike scheme of the OP - there were far better alternatives proposed in previous threads.

Clansworth Blackwater USA Inc.	Posted - 2008.12.14 19:46:00 - [11] I look at Alchemy as a solution to the cartels in the way that Invention was the solution to Tech 2 monopolies. It is similar, and much like invention, may not work as initially introduced. Invention's yields went through changes early on, and alchemy will likely do the same. I DO think any changes to alchemy will be delayed until the market responds to the recent 'activity'. System Influence
Yerotun	Posted - 2008.12.14 22:33:00 - [12] Anyone have a link to how exactly Alchemy works?
Kazzac Elentria	Posted - 2008.12.15 00:34:00 - [13] Originally by: Space Wanderer Control of rare resources is an important ingredient of alliance warfare, and as such it must not be modified. Linking POS to SOV was the first thing that broke 0.0 warfare. From then on it was who could field the largest blob. Unlink POS from SOV, add other objectives akin to FW and you get the same feel, goal, and can have it at a much reduced size when the need calls for it.
Tanith YarnDemon	Posted - 2008.12.15 02:28:00 - [14] Correct me if I'm wrong, but alchemy was provided to slow down deflation of isk in relation to dysprosium, promethium and other highends. It was not introduced to actively compete with the current prices or drastically bring down the prices like invention did. So if ends barely meet with current prices - I'd say they've done an excellent job at balancing it.
Saltire Sekura-Corporation	Posted - 2008.12.15 22:14:00 - [15] alchemy wont slow down anything unless it is made profitable, just slightly. say - up the output from 100+100 = 1 to 100+100 = 50.
Kerfira	Posted - 2008.12.15 22:40:00 - [16] Edited by: Kerfira on 15/12/2008 22:41:50 Alchemy is not intended to provide cheap T2 building materials. It is intended to provide a price CEILING for the materials most limited by moon availability! Most likely it is also designed so it doesn't really become profitable with the current size of the EVE subscriber base (which is adequately supplied by the moons) In a way, it works exactly like invented T2 BPC's versus T2 BPO's. It can't compete on price, but it can compete on volume (when subscriber numbers gets higher, that is). It was just introduced BEFORE any problem arose instead of way after (invention was implemented way after T2 supply was a limiting factor). It isn't broken, but working as intended. Just because it is a new feature doesn't mean it is necessarily intended to be used. Here, it's just a kind of safety valve. Originally by: CCP Wrangler EVE isn't designed to just look like a cold, dark and harsh world, it's designed to be a cold, dark and harsh world.
Lord Fitz Project Amargosa	Posted - 2008.12.16 02:06:00 - [17] Originally by: Kerfira It was just introduced BEFORE any problem arose instead of way after (invention was implemented way after T2 supply was a limiting factor). That's where you're wrong. The idea came up over 12 months ago, when prices got to levels which CCP said were unacceptably high. This was thought of in order to be a safeguard if those prices didn't drop over the long term. 12 months down the track and they continued to rise, and we have a solution that is going to be ineffective until prices are 3x higher than what CCP considered unacceptably high. BEFORE the problem arose would have been more than 12 months ago, and the solution would have been one that didn't let prices rise past a third of their current level. There in lies the problem, invention was deflationary, Alchemy was put in as a 'status quo' solution. The status quo being quite undesirable. Like invention, Alchemy will no doubt be boosted as it was released pre-nerfed.
Saltire Sekura-Corporation	Posted - 2008.12.16 07:40:00 - [18] Edited by: Saltire on 16/12/2008 07:39:57 for it cause a status quo, someone has to actualy do it right? and produce the new materials? why would they start producing materials if they know there is just a huge loss? up the output from 100+100/1 to 100+100/25. that way at current prces for dysporite and costs for cadmium and merc 1 reaction could make 1-1.25m an hour, assuming materials were bought to be reacted. u can run a 4 silo into 2 reactors output to 2 silos on a large caldari POS, so someone could make <>2.5m an hour from 1 pos - fuel cost, so they still come out in the black. it might take a while to recoup investment but at least it would get people started.
Lord Fitz Project Amargosa	Posted - 2008.12.16 09:05:00 - [19] To be honest, I think the value of a dyspro moon should be at least 1b/month before alchemy kicks in. I also think that it should be mostly POS fuel / labour based to get the alternative, rather than materials based. (where upon those materials are limited by other moons). Like invention, the players should be able to control the supply, by putting in the effort required to produce the outcome. I'm not sure that the output itself needs to go up all that much, I just think that the input of the R16 should be drastically decreased instead. (personally I would have rather had an R8 or a gas of the same amount, so that it meant that MORE people had to be involved in the chain.) I mean requiring 20 moons of gasses to be mined to replace a dyspro, is probably fair. It requires a lot more work. You could also have 10 moons of gasses for an R32 and 5 for an R16. etc. That would also mean that it wouldn't place demand on another material that already has demand on it, and you are always going to be burning x amount of POS's worth of POS fuel as an alternative. It also creates a very large amount of potential industrial activity in terms of POS fuels and actual POS 'work'. It would also average the value of moons more, and mean that holding a region required more than a single person to extract the most value. (as the cheaper moon materials would actually increase in price as their counterparts would be less limited (ie, neodymium / thulium would go up, the value of 0.0 would go up as a whole, but it would be less concentrated on 2-10 moons in a region.). Unfortunately I think this great opportunity, more or less as Chronotis described a year ago, is probably now lost forever with this implementation. Doing it right of course now would involve inconveniencing the 3 people that have bought the new reactions. Sometimes I think doing a bad job in order to sabotage any possibility of doing a good one is really disappointing.
Lord Fitz Project Amargosa	Posted - 2008.12.16 14:45:00 - [20] Edited by: Lord Fitz on 16/12/2008 14:46:16 Originally by: Space Wanderer I respectfully disagree. Read the devs blogs. Alchemy has not been introduced to make rare resources less rare, and I approve of it. Control of rare resources is an important ingredient of alliance warfare, and as such it must not be modified. And I say that as a solo player. What they wanted to do with alchemy, and I find it a very clever way, has been do dismantle cartels. The owners of a rare resource may still expect to make the full value of that resource. What they CANNOT do anymore is to artificially inflate the resource prices beyond its availability. I think they did a good job at it. This TBH, you should have to replace the value of the moon with POS fuel and labour. However the addition of already fairly rare materials to the mix means that far from maintaining the status quo, or even deflating the value of 0.0, Alchemy boosts it hugely. I don't think there is a problem with the value of 0.0, there is a problem with the fact that so much can be made from so little. Obviously it should be valuable to be fought over, but you shouldn't be able to hold 3 regions of valuable moons with a single person easily able to run them all. The value should be more spread out, the single moon value doesn't promote alliance conflict, it just means that people do hit and run, and are able to hold back enough to defend their own space. People don't truly commit to inhabiting space they take in order to extract the value any more, which IMO is really destroying the game. Back when Dyspro moons were only worth 1b/month there was still plenty of conflict, but it wasn't ridiculous levels where one individual could effectively harvest the wealth equivalent to a titan in a week. (yes I know it requires an 'alliance' to bring the force to capture that, but 99% of the time they can sit on their hands, as it doesn't require more than a tiny tiny fraction to exploit 99.9% of the space). As it stands, Alchemy, which was designed to allow for growing supply to meet the demand which already has grown far beyond what they had accounted for, does no such thing unless the price of materials goes way way up. Cartels are bigger than ever, though I wouldn't say that manipulation is exactly that much of a problem itself, fewer players control those resources now than in any other time, they are also worth more.

Clansworth Blackwater USA Inc.	Posted - 2008.12.17 00:22:00 - [21] I may be understanding you guys wrong, but it looks like you are basing your opinions (some of you at least) on the alchemy reactions being 100(R32) + 100(R16) = 1(Complex), which is not really the case. The actual reactions+refining results in 100(R32) + 5(R16) = 10(Complex), which is VERY different. It does, however, take 20 times the reactions to yield the same amount of output, which is where the extra cost actually comes in. System Influence
Lord Fitz Project Amargosa	Posted - 2008.12.17 10:36:00 - [22] Originally by: Clansworth I may be understanding you guys wrong, but it looks like you are basing your opinions (some of you at least) on the alchemy reactions being 100(R32) + 100(R16) = 1(Complex), which is not really the case. The actual reactions+refining results in 100(R32) + 5(R16) = 10(Complex), which is VERY different. It does, however, take 20 times the reactions to yield the same amount of output, which is where the extra cost actually comes in. I know what you meant 100 (R16) + 5 (R32) (as what you wrote would be much worse. The non Alchemy Reaction is 100 R32 + 100 R64 = 100. (simple material). The Alchemy Reaction is 100 R32 + 2000 R16 = 100. + 20 x as much fuel. Now I don't think the 20x as much fuel is a big requirement, I think the 20x R16 is too big. While other people here think that the 20x fuel is a big requirement and the 20x R16 is fine. I base my opinion on the limited supply of R16's anyway, and the fact that you would need what, ALL of the R16's in the game to up the equivalent R64's by 20%. Invention on the other hand, upped the supply of many T2 items by 1000% or more. To have an effective ability to be a price cap, Alchemy must be able to add more supply based on the amount of effort that players put in, not based on another limited resource. The current implementation of invention is akin to replacing hulk BPOs with other less valuable T2 BPOs (say 20 of them). And calling that a solution. What we got in invention was far superior to that, players can create as much supply of the materials required for invention, depending on their price, more will be created. The price goes down, and the effort required is too high, so the material supply doesn't grow as much (ideally it would actually drop). The other issue with the Alchemy reactions is that even at the point where they DO become profitable, they are still a third as profitable as a non-alchemy simple reaction, which means that the price of the material they are replacing needs to get much higher before it is effective as a solution. In the end this has become a very short term solution, because the replacement materials are not that abundant, we will be looking for replacements for the replacements in 6 months time, and get it in another 24months at this rate. Chronotis had the PERFECT idea for Alchemy a year ago, it disappoints me that it took a year to destroy that good idea. I can only imagine how hard it is to get good ideas through the process to actually deliver one.
SirSpectre Gallente Harbingers Of Destruction	Posted - 2008.12.17 22:25:00 - [23] Alchemy is totally broken and not worth it in the slightest. Going off of market values, if you bought all the low end stuff for alchemy, you would need to sell Dysp, and prom for 550k per unit to make a profit. WTF!? Even if this new exploit is gone now, there is no way Dysp will EVER reach that price for alchemy to be useful. ---- Sig here. ---> X
mybuilder22 lazygit Corp inc	Posted - 2008.12.19 02:32:00 - [24] So I have been wondering I dont think I've seen the answer to this but... Does the unrefined product perfectly refine or does it take skills into account, so in otherwords is it a definate 10 per or sometimes reduces per skills??? Thx Mybuilder22
Clansworth Blackwater USA Inc.	Posted - 2008.12.19 09:39:00 - [25] Originally by: mybuilder22 So I have been wondering I dont think I've seen the answer to this but... Does the unrefined product perfectly refine or does it take skills into account, so in otherwords is it a definate 10 per or sometimes reduces per skills??? Thx Mybuilder22 Uses your refining/refinery efficiency/scrapmetal processing skills. System Influence
Umbriele Gallente Insurgent New Eden Tribe Systematic-Chaos	Posted - 2008.12.19 10:42:00 - [26] Originally by: Yerotun Anyone have a link to how exactly Alchemy works? I am producing dysporite via unrefined dysporite since 1 month and I like it: 1) The size of the unrefined stuff is VERY small. You can use a coupling array instead of a silo (hint hint !!) 2) The unrefined stuff must be refined in a regular station like a roid. If you have no tax and no waste you get 10 dysporite and 90 mercury from 1 unit of unrefined (so 10 dysporite every 60 minutes) 3) Make your maths: it is profitable (not much) Fuel cost of 1 medium gallente tower: 122k /h Cadmiun cost: 295k /h Mercury cost: 150k /h Total cost x hour: 567k /h Dyporite income: 10x64k: 640k Mercury income: 90x1500: 135k Net: 640+135-122-567= 86k /h
Marcus D'Eriellius Gallente Honour Bound Sc0rched Earth	Posted - 2008.12.19 12:33:00 - [27] How do you know in advance which of the two reactants is returned when refining? The blog said 100 of A + 100 of B = 1 unrefined which refines into 10 refined + 90 of A. I assumed A would be the first moon mineral in the reaction blueprint but that seems wrong. Prices or reaction ratios are going to have to shift quite a bit for alchemy to be worthwhile. As far as I can see only one reaction (unrefined ferrofluid) actually covers the fuel costs and even then it produces ferrofluid so slowly that you'd need a whole system of alchemy POSs to keep your complex reactor fed.
Clansworth Blackwater USA Inc.	Posted - 2008.12.19 16:48:00 - [28] Originally by: Marcus D'Eriellius How do you know in advance which of the two reactants is returned when refining? The blog said 100 of A + 100 of B = 1 unrefined which refines into 10 refined + 90 of A. I assumed A would be the first moon mineral in the reaction blueprint but that seems wrong. Prices or reaction ratios are going to have to shift quite a bit for alchemy to be worthwhile. As far as I can see only one reaction (unrefined ferrofluid) actually covers the fuel costs and even then it produces ferrofluid so slowly that you'd need a whole system of alchemy POSs to keep your complex reactor fed. In the most cases, it is the more valuable input material. This is the information gleemed form the database (via chruker's website). Raw-A Raw-B Unrefined Intermediate Recovered Cadmium[R16] Mercury[R32] Unr. Dysporite Dysporite Mercury Cadmium[R16] Hafnium[R32] Unr. Ferrofluid Ferrofluid Hafnium Platinum[R16] Vanadium[R16] Unr. Fluxed Cond. Fluxed Cond. ????? Chromium[R16] Vanadium[R16] Unr. Hyperflurite Hyperflurite Vanadium Platinum[R16] Mercury[R32] Unr. Neo Mercurite Neo Mercurite Mercury Chromium[R16] Cadmium[R16] Unr. Prometium Prometium Cadmium Fluxed Condensates is a little odd, in that it doesn't list the recovered product on chruker's site. I need to check this in game I suppose to verify. System Influence
Lord Fitz Project Amargosa	Posted - 2008.12.20 11:16:00 - [29] Originally by: Clansworth Fluxed Condensates is a little odd, in that it doesn't list the recovered product on chruker's site. I need to check this in game I suppose to verify. Given that you are replacing two high end materials, you won't recover anything.
Clansworth Blackwater USA Inc.	Posted - 2008.12.20 14:16:00 - [30] Originally by: Lord Fitz Originally by: Clansworth Fluxed Condensates is a little odd, in that it doesn't list the recovered product on chruker's site. I need to check this in game I suppose to verify. Given that you are replacing two high end materials, you won't recover anything. Yeah, I guess that would be the case. Still.. seems they SHOULD have put that table in the blog. System Influence



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