Greedy Goblin

Friday, December 20, 2013

Zombie Clubbing Club

  • C1 with highsec exit (N110): 215
  • C2 with highsec exit (B274): 334
  • C3 with highsec exit (D845): 105
  • C1 with lowsec exit (J244): 105
  • C2 with lowsec exit (A239): 141
  • C3 with lowsec exit (U210): 294
  • C2 with C1 exit (Z647): 128
  • C2 with C2 exit (D382): 141
  • C2 with C3 exit (O477): 104
These are the wormhole systems available to new players. 654 is connecting to highsec directly. 540 to lowsec that can be hauled via covops hauler or jump freighter. 373 connect to another C1-3, so after rolling the static some times, you can find one that leads to highsec. The tasks of living in these holes and their hauling isn't much harder than in highsec. A solo player can run the sites and earn some seed money, PI earns 5-10B/month, especially for the direct-highsec systems. So these systems are ideal for someone who is new to WH space to learn the ropes.

Or it would be, if not for the zombies: bittervets who once moved in, no longer really active, but hostile and dismissive to anyone who tries to use "their" system. Coexisting with them is impossible, evicting them needs funds and determination that can not reasonably expected from a solo player or small corp who just want to try out WH space.

This is where the Zombie Clubbing Club could make real difference and nice amount of ISK. ZCC is a lowbie-wormhole renter organization. ZCC would seek out such holes and claim them, telling the current inhabitant to become renter or leave it for someone who would. The rent is small compared to the riches available to an active player in the system. ZCC isn't a ransom crime organization. Like every decent landlord, it protects the structures of the renters. If your tower or POCO is reinforced, or hostile is planted, ZCC comes and saves yours, cleanses the hostile (that includes NPC customs on request). So ZCC space would be like lowsec and NPC null: your ships can be ganked, but your assets in the tower are safe.

Sure, some current inhabitants won't be happy to pay rent. But there is an easy way to evade it: move to a harder wormhole! If you are too good to be a renter, you shouldn't be living in lowbie systems! So these players would get the much needed push to leave the relative safety of the lowbie-holes and try out something more dangerous, but also more lucrative.

Zombies of course won't be happy at all. They "own" the system, why should they pay ransom to "som pirat"?! Well, we don't want zombies on our lawn, off you go punk! What makes someone a zombie? Being so inactive that his hole can't even pay for fuel+rent. One really needs to slack for that and shouldn't take the living space from someone who wants and can utilize it!

New players to WH space would finally find a helping hand. As soon as they rent a system, the landlord guide them to the hole, protect the anchoring tower and information would be always available on the ZCC renter channel. It's not "niceness", it's simple self-interest: an informed and productive renter is a paying renter. But above all, ZCC protects their assets from being blown up. Having to risk everything is a big roadblock for most players from trying out WH space, and renting would completely remove that.

The renters would not blue each other, just have to refrain from attacking the structures of other renters. Blowing up ships is part of WH life, no one will protect them from it. Also, they are free to take "your" sites: if you want them, complete them yourself! ZCC itself is of course blues the renters.

Where is the money coming from? From the extreme increase of GDP. WH PvE is well known to be lucrative, even in these lowbie systems. While it's not capital escalation money, PI is really good. I moved in less than a month ago, I had to deal with the zombie, only 2 of my pilots had previous PI skills and I was locked out from POCOs, so I had to place storage units to hold the material until I took them. Still, I got these:

With 12 trained pilots (only 4 accounts) I expect 6-8B/month and it's not the theoretical maximum. But zombies don't use this source of wealth, nor the sites. Replacing them with active people would create this pie which can be distributed between the renter and the landlord. From my own WH income experience, I'd consider the following prices fair:
  • N110: 400M + 15% POCO tax, POCOs owned by ZCC
  • B274: 500M + 15% POCO tax, POCOs owned by ZCC
  • D845: 600M + 15% POCO tax, POCOs owned by ZCC
  • J244: 700M
  • A239: 800M
  • U210: 900M
  • Z647, D382, O477: 1B
Of course some especially good or bad systems should have premium/discount. ZCC should own the POCOs in direct-highsec connected systems, because they have very lucrative and easy PI, but demanding 1-1.5B up front would be devastating to newcomers. The newbie first pays only 4-600M and as he increases his PI activity, he gradually pays more and more. Don't forget that the tower fuel price is in this range too, so if paying the rent is too hard, living in a WH is too hard anyway. Also, they can save on fuel as there is no need for a large deathstar, a medium with token guns to pop campers would be enough, as the main deterrent from eviction is ZCC.

How profitable would it be? Assuming the very modest 4B*0.15 = 600M POCO tax, and all above listed systems rent, the monthly rent income would be 1.5T/month. That's nullsec coalition level income. Of course the systems will never be fully rent, there will always be empty ones and ones under eviction. But after ZCC control is established, 1T+/month can be reasonably gained.

How should ZCC look like? Well, it can't be a "real" WH corp, as it must base in highsec to reach the targeted lowbie holes easily. It must be pure-PvP, meaning the pilots inside must do ZCC jobs and nothing else, especially not PvE, or highsec wardeccers would cause too much trouble. Of course one could have alts in NPC or 1-man corps to earn ISK; or even have a main in a serious alliance.

Such organizations usually end up in an administrative nightmare and a multi-trillion corp theft. However I designed a system for easy and safe management: after a proving period, a ZCC rookie is promoted to member level 1. After each month of good performance, he gains a level up to 5. For every level he is entitled to be the landlord of a system. He keeps a scanner alt in the system, and he might keep a dread logged off (dread sitter can be trained in 90 days). He keeps contact with the renters, helps them finding their way back and such newbie stuff (for random questions, there is a general ZCC help channel). He receives the rent from them, so it's his interest to keep the booking fine. He keeps 30% of the rent, 50% if he has a dread inside (60/90% in holes where the POCO tax goes to ZCC) and sends the rest to ZCC.

The ZCC part goes to the pilots and FCs doing the work and to reimburse lost ships. The accounting must be completely transparent with clear paycheck and ship-cost lists and low coffers. What comes in, must go out, piling trillions usually ends up in a corp theft, but no one steals an empty coffer. Money not spent should be distributed to the members via the shares system: every member level means one share, FCs, directors have extra shares.

The above system would be protected against rogues, spies and inactives. The random grunt shooting in a subcap knows nothing, just like in nullsec: he forms up in a doctrine ship and follows the FC. A traitor landlord-member would betray his own income. I mean if he goes rogue or inactive and doesn't pay the ZCC part of the rent, the ZCC directorate just contact the renters to no longer pay that guy and to scout in the new landlord. If the renter doesn't pay in time, the landlord is very motivated to try to contact them to resolve the problem or alert the fleet for eviction and pull his dread out of the mothball. A rogue FC of course can whelp a fleet of cheap, insured battlecruisers, and a dread. A rogue financial director can steal one months ZCC part of the rent, nasty, but not devastating. A rogue HR director can kick the members, annoying at worst. A rogue CEO can do both. But since there is no Sov to drop, only a few staging towers to offline, there is nothing that can't be fixed by reforming under a new name and resuming operations.

If you are living in WH space, fighting boredom, mention the idea of ZCC to your corp/alliance leadership! I'm ready to put some starting funds into the project and by no means aspire to lead it. Send me a mail if you are interested in creating the core of ZCC! Of course it's possible that a former nullsec group takes on this opportunity and leaves the "fight in 10% TiDi until server crash" life for the much smoother WH combat. As soon as we have enough people to do an eviction in reasonable time (20-30 online), the revitalization of lowbie holes begins!

34 comments:

Unknown said...

I think I'm in love, mails away

Anonymous said...

It's usually not enough to have a great idea, even if it's a great idea that would be self sufficient. You probably have to manage it yourself if you want it to succeed, and here's why:

Unless you're doing it yourself, people are free to create something that is similar to your plan, but missing something you consider crucial to long term stability - no currency stockpiling. If someone decides to start this believably, and has the charisma and contacts to make it happen, it's in their personal best interest to allow money to accumulate and then steal it when it becomes bigger than any one player could use.

Provi Miner said...

NIce, and interesting. A couple of things though, A: you do realize that there are some in eve who will piss away billions just to mess with ZCC. Merimite will war dec you eternally and blah blah. B: your old idea is still your best essentially the three corp alliance pvp, pve, indy (which by the way occures in provi in every alliance and pretty much in ever corp in provi). C: this would have been better to just do it and then report the results.

Anyways thanks for the read.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: no currency stockpiling isn't essential for operation. It's essential for no thefts. If someone makes ZCC without it, he learns it the hard way and adapt.

@Provi Miner: sure, like the Goons at Burn Jita, they grief us once a year and brag about it the rest of the year.

Mesar said...

What will happen to active corporation in C2?

Or what will happen if you own a C2, and an active corporation come in and decide she can manage herself on her own and decide to blow the POCO? (assuming there is no inhabitant at the moment or the inhabitant turned zombie)

ZCC awoxer said...

Maybe I have missed the point:

ZCC receives monthly rent + PI taxes and therefore protects the assets (POS) of a renter.
Like Noir defended your Phoenix.

We know what happend: Your Phoenix went down in flames and Noir had to reimburst him out of his ashes.

Am I right to say ZCC will reimburst the renters losses (POS + what was stored) if ZCC fails to defend the tower?

If that's what you have planed - count me in!
I will happily rent a system, place a medium tower, put 10 billion assets in it and shoot it with my alt and his corporation. That will be 3-5b ISK in loot and 10b ISK reimburst for not being able to defend the renter - for not being able to do what he paid for.

But if you say: No ISK are paid if ZCC fails to do it's job - why would someone want to pay monthly rent if he can't be sure that you will show up as promised?

Lucas Kell said...

There's absolutely no way that would be cost effective. You'd have to be way bigger than most WH alliances to be able to survive. Think about how much space you are talking about. How would you split your resources if attacked in multiple holes simultaneously? How would you ensure you could get a big enough force into non-HS connected wormholes in good time?

Although probably your biggest problem is that noone would pay you. Your target group would be noobs who don;t know any better. they probably would not have the logistics to set up 12 PI characters and ship the goods to high sec on a regular basis.

I kinda wanna see you try it, just to see it fail, but I imagine much like your gank corp you'd end up with a handful of you and have to give up unspectacularly.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a random organisation to me. Offering to protect structures? I'd imagine that a fair number of active players have the capability to defent their structures against reasonable assaults. It sounds as though becoming a renter to ZCC would offer them nothing more than protection from ZCC.

Moving up to C4 isn't much of an option either for small 1-2man corps.

Still, as a disposessed wormholder it might be worth considering 400M per month (as an A239 rentor/landlord with Dread) to get some extra piƱata action.

maxim said...

I love the idea

Though one has to wonder how much would be the military cost of maintaining security in WH rentspace. You will definitely face retaliation for trying to upset the order of things in this manner. As it is proper, of course, no worthwhile upset can happen without retaliation.

Regardless of whatever your endgoal is, you'll need to prove that this kind of business is not just profitable, but also has enough margins to maintain itself against serious and continious aggression. Which implies some sort of military command structure and war coffers, which are open to getting hijacked.

I doubt it is possible to pull off without the support of a close-knit group of people that have actual ambitions for being the de facto rulers of newbie WH zones (and thus would be willing to ignore any ISK benefit of undermining said rulership).

You'll need to find people with actual political ambitions in Eve that are not affiliated with currently dominant blocs :/

Gevlon said...

@Awoxer: there must be a limit of value (like 4B) for reimbursement. If you put too much into your tower, you are dumb. Also, to be eligible, one must stront his tower, place a minimal amount of defenses and ask for help 24 hours before reinforcement is over. These make the above awox impossible.

@Lucas: the "you must be strongest" is silly. They have better things to do than constanly lurk C1 holes for some battlecruiser ganks. Remember what happened in my case: NOHO came down, ganked some and left, they did not even attempted to stop the eviction. Sure, some WH alliances will come down on ZCC a few times to gank, but that's operational cost.

Your second point is indeed valid. The whole idea is based on providing a service to people who want to try out WH space, could utilize it, but can't defend it. If there aren't enough customers, the plan will obviously fail.

Anonymous said...

I like the way you are thinking! From reading your blog I was one of the guys who advised you to try wormhole space. Glad to see you turned up with a worthwhile venture!

ZCC awoxer said...

Don't get me wrong, I somehow like your idea.
Until now we didn't shoot POS in c1/c2 because we didn't have the plan to move into one of these wholes. Reinforcing a POS in a c1 didn't give us fights as the owners were far too small to defend it.
We didn't shoot POS in rented nullsec systems either. We don't have SOV, we don't want SOV and the SOV holding alliance won't give us a cruiser/bc fight but simply drop some capitals or supers (if they would help the renter at all).

Now with ZCC things would change.
Reinforcing a POS in a c1 would give us a cruiser/bc fight for sure. ZCC will have to show up or none of their renters will pay a single ISK.
As one of us is the "renter" we can use the game mechanics to make sure reinforcement timers will be in our favour.
So whenever we want to have a large scale cruiser fight on saturday evening, we simply have to bash our POS into reinforce "just in time".

I'm just saying: your promise to bring in a med- to largescale fleet to defend every POS will attract a lot of corporations looking for fights. And corporations like NOHO won't look away if they see timers and know there will be two fleets on grid they can fight.

If you plan to bring back a lot of fleet fights to wormhole space you'll succeed. You create content - that's a good thing.
But you won't help new players to get their feets into wormhole space.

Gevlon said...

@Avoxer: or you just shot a POS and formed up twice for nothing as ZCC just pays the reimbursement and let you rot.

Anonymous said...

"Avoxer: or you just shot a POS and formed up twice for nothing as ZCC just pays the reimbursement and let you rot."

It doesn't matter how much your reimbursement is - unless you set it at an unrealistically high level.

People want their operations and 'play' to be uninterrupted. Once they realise you can't guarantee that, they'll lose interest.

Tithian said...

What happens if you come across active corps in C2s, C3s? Will you offer them the opportunity to join in the operation as part of the landlords? Will you demand they become renters?

And by active, I mean enough to blow through their own sites, at least.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: people who want their operations uninterrupted quit EVE anyway. CONCORD is undefeatable and arrives to protect you in 25 seconds at worst and still people die in highsec en masse. There is no such thing as "uninterrupted play" in EVE, just "reasonable safety"

@Chris K: at first, until there are enough zombie holes, they are just ignored. No point demanding them to pay rent and bother to evict them until there are simpler targets.

ZCC awoxer said...

"@Avoxer: or you just shot a POS and formed up twice for nothing as ZCC just pays the reimbursement and let you rot."

That would be nice, too.
Medium tower: 500M
"Stuff" inside: 3.5b (to take your 4b reimburst maximum)
Rent: 500M / month

ZCC show up and beat the crap out of us: good fight (fun), we'll come back next weekend

ZCC doesn't show up: 1.5-2b loot (tower + defensive fleet) + 4b reimburst, loot=profit.

ZCC show up and lose the fight: good fight (fun) + loot = profit

Remember, one of our corpmates alt will own the tower. We can't lose.

Anonymous said...

If you put too much into your tower, you are dumb.

You must be new here. I have several ships in my POS which on their own would go over your reimbursement total. WH space pilots tend to fly rich...or are you suggesting people fit like scrubs to keep their towers below your reimbursement threshold?


and you will need an enormous fleet to deal with the "big boys" coming to spoil your party. Because if it is as profitable as you claim it will be do you really think NOHO/Polarized/SCC and all those others are going to LET you keep your little renter empire? Have you seen how much WH space entities can organise against something they want to take or stop? You would need to cover potentially dozens of systems, from simultaneous eviction attempts...using low grade PvP wannabe's in scrub fit ships.. You are going to die, horribly.

Maintaining more than one system in WH space is difficult... so much so that hardly anyone does it with any great success. The odds are against you.

You have next to no PvP experience and you are painting a giant target on your back for some of the most skilled pilots in eve ... this will not end well. Why would n00bs pay you to protect them when they could pay the big WH entities money to not blow them up?

And your chief mistake is that you have guaranteed that you will come to the defense of ZCC owned systems. So you are guaranteeing others gudfites... and these are alliances that can command 100 man plus fleets.

How on earth do you hope to succeed?

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: because none of these alliances want to run a renter empire. So they don't want what ZCC wants. No conflict of interest. Sure, they might come down to gank once or twice, which can be handled by safing up and denying them kills.

Why on Earth would a new player put a multi-billion ship into a C1-3?!

maxim said...

ZCC awoxer's line of thinking is pretty much the reason why i think the military costs of this operation are the risk factor here.

You will need not just some "good fight" level ability to defend your renters. You need a military cadre capable of trouncing most of potential agressors so hard that the whole thing becomes the opposite of a "good fight".

Only in the event where the agressor comes with overwhelming force, which would take many times more than the cost of assets in a given C-1 to destroy, are reimbursements viable. And even then you need to be able to destroy at least as much of the aggressing ships as the combined cost of assets being lost, so as simply not to lose your own face as the renter.

-------------

Now that i really think of it, though, all of these are very long-term considerations.

The immediate thing to do (after you get first couple of wormholes) is to put out word among your renters that those of them that join permanent defense unit and accept defensive responsibilities of your renter alliance get some sorts of perks (from free rent to whatever). So not only you get a dread in every renting system, but you can also mobilise a good fraction of your force as necessary.

Oska Rus said...

I think that talocan united tried something similar and had mild success with it. (POCO placement and protection in all levels of holes)

For the naysayers oabout moving up. Now in time of bastion mode you can solo C4 anoms. Before that two tengus could do it no sweat.

Anonymous said...

Sure, they might come down to gank once or twice, which can be handled by safing up and denying them kills.

No, not once or twice. You are Guaranteeing them fights by Guaranteeing your member corps protection. So they will hell camp you for eternity. You are talking about a group of players who have no problem spending months on end seeding capitals for 1 fight. WH players are patient, and usually have several accounts at their disposal allowing them to play a long game.

That, and your blog is attracting attention from people who will just do it because you think it is illogical. And they'll do it to run you out of their space. And they'll do it because they already have more isk than they know what to do with and don't care about "efficiency"

Even if you reneg on your agreement to your renters, your towers will be rapecaged and dismantled. The losses will be extreme because nobody will have your laughable minimum of 4bn isk, certainly not at a corporate level of any meaningful significance. Hell you'd keep more than that in PI mats.

why would anyone have multi billion isk ships in a low class WH? Because efficiency and competitiveness. Pimp fit is required or else you will be outmatched. Perhaps not in a C1 but from C2 up this is going to be par for the course. I've lived in WHs for years now, in every class, and every time pimp has been the name of the game. Pimp PvE ships let you clear anoms faster. Pimp PvP ships let you stay in the fight longer.

This is the way of WH PvP..in many ways it is PvP as you wanted it to be back when you first started looking at joining nulsec entities. Expensive ships for that very last % gain, no shits given about losing them.

Your idea is doomed. And your track record of not being able to see any of your ideas succeed is going to continue I fear. But please, prove me wrong.

Anonymous said...

"@Anonymous: people who want their operations uninterrupted quit EVE anyway. CONCORD is undefeatable and arrives to protect you in 25 seconds at worst and still people die in highsec en masse. There is no such thing as "uninterrupted play" in EVE, just "reasonable safety""

Yes - but if your solution to evictions is paying out reimbursements and getting people to move to another wormhole, they'll get tired of it and rent somewhere else - maybe null. You are assuming people don't have other options - except to suck it up.

But try it anyway - if nothing else you'll provide content to shoot at.

Lucas Kell said...

@Gevlon
"the "you must be strongest" is silly. They have better things to do than constanly lurk C1 holes for some battlecruiser ganks. Remember what happened in my case: NOHO came down, ganked some and left, they did not even attempted to stop the eviction. Sure, some WH alliances will come down on ZCC a few times to gank, but that's operational cost."
If nobody is going to attack, then who are the renters paying you to protect them from? A POS with guns protects them from most smaller groups. It's only people like you who are willing the just chuck away a few billion to destroy a single POS, and people like that are few and far between. They would probably get less trouble just by standing alone than they would with your fleets offering protection. And you wouldn't have the option of just leaving them to die, since then your rep would get around and you'd get pushed out.

Let's face it, what they will be paying for is protection from you. It's a standard protection racket. You make them pay a protection fee and if they don't you rough them up. You will find yourself being ganged up on pretty quick if you try to run a protection racket and don't have a very significant force to back it up.

Matt Wigdahl said...

If folks like ZCC Awoxer are correct about the likelihood of awoxing and harassment (and the arguments are persuasive), a possible solution is to reduce the proposed scale of your operations.

Rather than set up the ZCC as an organization to protect newbie WH renters, set it up as an organization to evict zombies only. Once the eviction is considered complete (POS and POCOs cleared), the newbies set up shop on their own. Eviction costs could be paid up front in cash or partially funded by ongoing tax revenues from ZCC POCOs as you suggest.

ZCC would retain the right to defend their own POCOs in renter systems, but renter POSes and any renter POCOs (if the eviction was on a cash basis) would be on their own.

Additional support for the new WH residents in cases where the original occupants (or other aggressors) tried to reclaim the hole would need to be negotiated on an ad-hoc basis and would be provided at the discretion of ZCC leadership.

Gevlon said...

@Lucas: good point. If there isn't any other threat, it's a protection racket, and those are usually not the profitable (RL protection rackets happen in the lowest neighborhoods)

Since the holidays are coming, no organization is possible, so there is more than enough time to think that over.

@Matt: if there is no permanent protection and rent, there is no need for new organization, current mercs are perfect for the job.

daniel said...

why would i pay you 15% pi tax, if foo is offering pretty much the same service for 4% or 20m/month?

why won't i just ask around if there is a wh corp that will let me do pi within their system (for less than 15% tax)?

i think what's hindering ppl to go to wh is the same that hinders them to go to ls/ns - lack of knowledge, being afraid of the unknown.



other than that, it is another typical gg post again.
you have an idea, it is a good idea, you didn't think it totally through, you demand that others do exactly as you want, you are not willing to take any of the hard work that will be involved.
why so few ppl are suited for leadership ... because it involves a tremendous amount of work. if you don't want to do it, why should others ?
why should someone else work his ass off to realise your project?

Anonymous said...

Disclaimer- I don't current play EVE.

Wouldn't it be a far bigger win for one of the larger WH groups to run with this idea?

1T-1.5T/m income for them
Guaranteed fights
Better WH experience/higher SP pilots
Pool of new blood to recruit

At the cost of managing renters?

Anonymous said...

how do the CVA guys "protect" their "pirate free zone" down in Providence?

Anyway. this idea is nice. brings pvp oriented people togehter with folks that want to try the WH pve side without the merc power.

Unknown said...

I like the feel of the idea. But your comments show you haven't thought it out.

Either you are offering excellent chances of fights to anybody who finds any of your holes, an opportunity people will jump on, or you are essentially running an insurance program, at a pretty high rate (monthly premiums at about 20% of maximum payout)

It seems like it would be a good idea if your goal was to generate WH fights.

Malcolm Shinhwa said...

Unlike most of your commenters I like you and I still think this is a fail. It might fail because its a bad idea, I think it actually sounds fun. I'm a New Order guy, so I love charging people for me not ganking them. This sounds similar.

No it will fail because I can't see many (any) people trusting you to see it through. I'm a newb and I've already watched several of your grand schemes be abandoned after a short time. You will at some point in the near future decide that you can make more isk/hr doing something else and off you will go. I like reading about your isk making ventures the same way I like reading about other people's PvP battle reports though, so I can't wait to see how this goes.

June said...

You realize that for people that live in c2s with higher class connections, that lack of activity running the local sites has no bearing on actual activity, right? Why should I spend time running pointless shit anoms in my own wormhole when I could be raking in the dough farming my c4 static?

Anonymous said...

Unless someone leaving Macharel floating free under POS shield, no one is going to shoot a POS in C1. There are simply no reasons to do it. It is not fun, profitable or providing any shiny kill-mails. Only reason to reinforce any structure in C1 is to get some fights. If there is no chance to get good fight no one will bother to shoot it.
So there is no reason for anyone to pay for such type of protection. Unless it is ransom.

Jack Miton said...

This idea reeks of someone who has no concept of how WH space actually works.
Sure, you can evict some random PI alt corp and move in a 'renter' but what's actually going to get them to pay? And what are you going to do when they inevitably do NOT pay?
Unless you plan on forcibly evicting renters who don't pay 100% of the time then the entire premise is pointless and unenforceable.

The correct entry point to WH space for 99% of people is to [i]join a WH corp[/i], not to move into a random C1 by themselves.