CCP Dev Blog: Building Better Worlds

So... CCP just announced planned changes to the industrial side of EVE Online in their latest dev blog:  CCP Dev Blog: Building Better Worlds.  I for one think it is high time for some changes.  Some of the things that come up are lab slots and usage costs, POS setting requirements and changes in the "extra minerals" mechanic.  Some of these I like.  I will admit, I am a bit weary on a few of them.  

CCP's big plan is (and I am paraphrasing) to make the industrial profession more robust, meaningful and to provide more reward for more risk.  They want to increase the value received from playing the game as an industrialist.  Something I applaud.  The indy side of EVE is uber important, but it is overshadowed by lack-luster game play and predictable results.  These changes, I feel, will make the profession more appealing to the casual player.  Don't get me wrong, industry is a huge part of EVE.  I think it will be better once these changes take place.  

One of the very cool things CCP is doing is reorganizing the market tabs for industrial items.  Instead of a hodge-podge assortment of items in the marketplace, they will try to make sense out of them.  Faction materials, gas cloud materials, raw minerals, etc.  The will also break up the components and research items better. Reactions have been moved out of the "manufacturing & research" category and placed in its own.  It should make traversing the market tabs a hell of a lot easier.  Yay!

Another very cool change is to remove the damage from RAM's and Research Databases.  I'm not going to go into this deeply, but if you are a T2 manufacturer, you will now use more RAM's and R.Db's.  So instead  of using 10 RAM's and losing 2, you will now use more RAMs and lose all of them.  Same thing happens with R.Db's.  They are factoring it by 100. So 100 x % = ram requirement. 

The example of an Adaptive Invulnerability Field II:

• requires 1 RAM - Shield Tech with a damage of 60% per run
• after the change, it will require 60 RAM - Shield Tech

This makes the mechanics of manufacturing easier because what you need is exactly what you need.  Hopefully the price of RAM's goes down to counter the increased requirement, but I expect them to soar in price until the supply catches up.  Either way, it makes job costing a lot easier for you pencil and spreadsheet folks.  Speaking of removing mechanics, the "extra material" mechanic will disappear.  This is due to the refining mechanic change announced in a previous blog.

Another highly awaited change is the lab slot cluster-f.  They are removing the slots and charging more for usage.  So, they are going to have a cost-scaling feature at NPC stations now instead of the bottleneck at the station, they are now going to charge way more depending on the popularity of the station's lab/manufacturing services.  Without careful consideration, your profit margins could diminish quite rapidly.  They threw out 0-14% numbers.  Who knows what the actual numbers will be, but better find a quiet station and keep it on the down-low.   Stations without labs will not suddenly gain them.  So as always, location. Location. Location.

This next change is something that I don't necessarily agree with.  POS's will no longer require a faction standing requirement.  Anyone can hang a POS anywhere in high sec.  This doesn't include places like start systems, Jita, etc.  They will still not allow POS anchoring. To me, this makes POS access far too convenient and effortless.  It could also lead to more war decs as they don't appear to be adding more planetary systems with moons.  I might be flamed for it, but I think they should focus more on POS/Corp management mechanics than add a bunch of rookie-run POS's and wasting valuable moon space.  I don't know if that is better than corps setting dummy POS's on moons and leaving them anchored but offlined.  

There are some UI changes that look pretty decent.  I will review and blog about them as I see them.  Stay tuned for more and as always, fly safe-ish.