I've done all sites that are available in a C1: ore anoms, combat anoms, gas signatures, hacking signatures. Each and every one of them could be completed easily without help of another player. As they are not infinite resources, sharing them with someone else is actually cutting into your income.
PI, the main income source is naturally solo. You can't connect your colonies with other players, so you can't cooperate. Having other players extracting materials from the same planets that you use decreases your income. I already had to diversify my planets because my alts are draining them too hard, putting the next one on the same, more expensive resource would give worse results than using a cheaper but more abundant one. So my results are directly the opposite of what Foo found.
EVE is not "everyone versus everyone" because of the unrestricted PvP and scamming. That would only create wars between groups. EVE is so "evil" because the optimal way of getting ISK is playing solo. Since I can't cooperate profitably with another player, he is nothing but trouble to me and I threat him accordingly.
There is one more reason for solo-friendliness: people are looking for fights. If you'd explain EVE mechanics to a non-player, he would assume that people are farming assets and fight to take more assets from others and to defend their own. In reality, many EVE players don't want assets, but the fights themselves. So standing up and defending your threatened assets is the worst possible way of keeping it. The best way is denying the enemy fight. Safe up, sit behind an extremely fortified POS and keep as little value in it as possible. If someone is giving you trouble, add him as contact with watchlist. I'm not sure why CCP implemented this immersion braking feature, but it serves well to notice hostiles before they would show up on any "legitimate" intel source. Go extended AFKs to make camping you tiresome.
This means that having more people make defending things harder: every member is one more target, giving kills to enemies. Remember that highsec wardec costs scale with target size for a reason. CCP recognized that not the few-pilot industrial corps need protection, but Goonswarm, EVE-Uni and RvB, since wardeccing them provides you lot of targets, lot of opportunities to gank people who are busy doing something else. They of course can't hit back as your PvE pilots are not in the wardeccing corporation.
I'm not sure what CCP can do about it. I'm not sure if it's a problem at all. I'm sure in one thing: if you want to try WH space, you should do it solo, by moving into a C1-C3. Until you are ready to run capital escalations, having more people around you just increases the chances of being attacked, on top of the corp theft risks. Of course you can always share with completely reliable (typically real-life) friends, but it's just that: sharing with a friend.
PS: I found how can you determine who is using a planet. If I'd knew it a few weeks ago, I could contact my zombie directly and negotiate something before moving in:
PI, the main income source is naturally solo. You can't connect your colonies with other players, so you can't cooperate. Having other players extracting materials from the same planets that you use decreases your income. I already had to diversify my planets because my alts are draining them too hard, putting the next one on the same, more expensive resource would give worse results than using a cheaper but more abundant one. So my results are directly the opposite of what Foo found.
EVE is not "everyone versus everyone" because of the unrestricted PvP and scamming. That would only create wars between groups. EVE is so "evil" because the optimal way of getting ISK is playing solo. Since I can't cooperate profitably with another player, he is nothing but trouble to me and I threat him accordingly.
There is one more reason for solo-friendliness: people are looking for fights. If you'd explain EVE mechanics to a non-player, he would assume that people are farming assets and fight to take more assets from others and to defend their own. In reality, many EVE players don't want assets, but the fights themselves. So standing up and defending your threatened assets is the worst possible way of keeping it. The best way is denying the enemy fight. Safe up, sit behind an extremely fortified POS and keep as little value in it as possible. If someone is giving you trouble, add him as contact with watchlist. I'm not sure why CCP implemented this immersion braking feature, but it serves well to notice hostiles before they would show up on any "legitimate" intel source. Go extended AFKs to make camping you tiresome.
This means that having more people make defending things harder: every member is one more target, giving kills to enemies. Remember that highsec wardec costs scale with target size for a reason. CCP recognized that not the few-pilot industrial corps need protection, but Goonswarm, EVE-Uni and RvB, since wardeccing them provides you lot of targets, lot of opportunities to gank people who are busy doing something else. They of course can't hit back as your PvE pilots are not in the wardeccing corporation.
I'm not sure what CCP can do about it. I'm not sure if it's a problem at all. I'm sure in one thing: if you want to try WH space, you should do it solo, by moving into a C1-C3. Until you are ready to run capital escalations, having more people around you just increases the chances of being attacked, on top of the corp theft risks. Of course you can always share with completely reliable (typically real-life) friends, but it's just that: sharing with a friend.
PS: I found how can you determine who is using a planet. If I'd knew it a few weeks ago, I could contact my zombie directly and negotiate something before moving in:
9 comments:
With two tengu or one marauder accounts you can easily farm C4. And they are super peacefull. Imho the most peacefull area of eve. Where you can spent undistrubed and profitably your time until you can get yourself into capitals.
Even capital escalations are solo content. I would just rather create more accounts with that kid of income than rely on other players for PvE.
PvP and space deffence is another issue where group of players might be of use.
EVE as a solo player, with multi-boxing. You should mention this; there are players who do not like having to play double accounts. Still feels like cheating to me.
PI, the main income source is naturally solo.
PI is only the main income source in C1 or C2. The anoms there are of little value. Because they are low value, most people don't run them, and also many systems are not occupied, and turn into "anom parking lots". So the incidence of new spawns is low. One or two per week is what I observed when I was in C1. They were worth maybe 10m apiece, so the total you collect over a month is 50m.
In C3 and C4, anoms are worth running. The better C3 anoms are worth perhaps 50m. The better C4 anoms, 100m. Also the spawn rate is higher because more people are running them, and there are fewer parking lots. We see C4 spawns about once per day on average. The total per month just for in-system spawns is upward of 1b. The upshot of this is that above C2, an active group gets (or can get) more from anoms than from PI. Much more, assuming they choose their system to have a static in the class they want.
C3 anoms can be run solo, but this takes quite a while, and operational security is hard with just one person. Also, some of the sleepers repair themselves or others, so adding DPS gets a more than linear speedup. The effect is much more pronounced in C4; a few of the sites can probably be soloed, but most of them absolutely require at least a spidering pair, and some require dedicated logistics. Combine that with the need for opsec and salvaging and it is very hard to do with one person.
You can't connect your colonies with other players, so you can't cooperate.
You cannot connect industry on a planet. But you can connect the production chain at a POS, making higher value P3s or P4s for your output good instead of P1s or P2s. This is worth doing both because it adds value (and using CPU, which you have extra of), and because it compresses the PI goods, making them easier to move. Even in C1/highsec, using Epithals, you still have to spend time carrying PI goods out to a station.
Having other players extracting materials from the same planets that you use decreases your income.
You are running an army of alts. Most people run one or two accounts, and that will not consume the production of even one good on a planet, much less five. I would guess that most planets can support at least 12 characters running extractors per good. Some of them might not be on a hotspot, but hotspots move in any case.
You live in a C1 with a static highsec.
You have chosen to do the very easiest wormhole content, and you have chosen to do it in a way which limits your access to other wormhole content as much as possible.
That's fine, and you seem happy in your choice, but it seems silly to extrapolate as if other corps will make the same choice.
You could instead have chosen to live in a C2 - all C2s have two statics, so you could have found one with that highsec you so crave along with another static giving you access to more w-space content.
If you had done this then having more players would be useful - as Foo said, it would share the cost of the POS fuel bill. Additionally, if you were to engage in PvP more pilots would be very helpful.
So yes, for your specific hole, more pilots just means more people to split your sites with, however had you been just slightly more confident in your abilities you'd have chosen a hole with an effectively unlimited number of higher quality sites.
Von Kaigai, the numbers you cite don't fit at all to the C1 I am living in for 2 years now.
Yes, a combat site is worth about 10-15m each. But the spawn rate is much higher. I get about 500mil a month from doing anoms and sigs (while I don't do data or relic sites, killing the ships is worth the time). That means I do about 30-50 sites per month, and I not even doing all of them (sometimes someone cleaned before I get to it), so spawn rate is higher.
About the comparison PI vs. combat: Per char I get about 250mil for PI per month (5 planets), and I am not even trying (optimized for low effort, i.e. 3 day cycle, etc.). That means even 2 accounts = 6 chars easily top the 1bn+ you site for combat sites for larger WHs (but I admit, those numbers sound too low, too).
Oh, and btw, since PI pays for the PLEX, *everyone* can run an army of alts. Except for getting CTS, there is no reason to not exploit your PI plantes alone, using as much accounts as needed.
I'm not sure I agree that multiboxing 4-5 accounts in one hole qualifies as 'solo'. To an outsider it is indistinguishable from separate players unless something like the name of the characters is really similar, and that is only an indication - not a certainty. Just as a curiosity GG, how do you multi-box. Several computers? Alt-tabbing? Personally I find it hard to multibox so I rarely do it. PI and industry I might handle.
Also, as I'm interested in getting into a C1/2 I'd like to hear people's opinion on C1 or C2 holes. Would it not be best with a C1 defense wise? I mean, people can't get BattleShips in, right? You build a battleship or marauder there and you should not have to hide in pos every time a bad guy logs on. Or am I mistaken?
@Smith: PI doesn't need to be multiboxed, you just log in one, do the planets, log off, log in next.
DON'T build a Marauder, it will attract gankers. Stick to T1 battleship, that's cheap enough that no one bothers to camp your hole.
Acquiring assets or material security in EVE too often means avoiding other players. In an ideal world, everyone should have some obvious opportunity to by employed or to employ others. Corporations should have incentive to pay their pilots. This incentive can be structured.
1)Expand POS vulnerabilities. Layer their defenses, with the outer most layers being penetrable by individuals or small groups. Mechanically, this might incorporate the deadspace system in conjunction with moon warp-in points. This will drive up the need for roaming combat pilots.
2)Allow inflation in scarce commodities. As you say, at its height, the tech cartel was only pulling 50M/mo per member. We need more cartels, not fewer. Connect capital warfare hardware to contested assets. ie, t2 cap mods, and moongoo jump fuel. Every sector of the economy beyond t1 should have half its output in a contested aspect of the industry, and half as inputs to other sectors.
3)Decent payroll tools.
4)Expand corporate market tools. Give them sell/buy slots based on a per station basis. Let them expand as much as they can manage. Give them tax rate advantages. Boost owned asset market performance in efficiency and availability for refining, manufacturing, researching, etc. This advantage should begin with the simplest of risked structures over npc options. The distribution of risk is more important than any other metric of risk.
@Gevlon Yes of course something like PI can be done in instances. I was more wondering how you handle things when you do sites with several ships. You of course do not have to answer if you don't feel like it. :)
Point taken on the ship size thing. Good thinking.
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