Frustration In Planning

One thing I hate about EVE expansions like the upcoming Ascension patch are the unknown details that CCP holds back but are crucially important to planning.

Take, for example, the Engineering Complexes.

Thanks to the dev blog and the updates on SISI we know a lot about how the Engplexes are going to work, down to the exact percentage of minerals a Raitaru in low sec with rigs installed will save over building in an NPC station. You can go on SISI and set one up today (although the rigs are not ready yet). But what you cannot do is verify the cost of the BPOs for the new items as everything is seeded at 100 ISK for testing purposes (which I appreciate BTW).

Repeated requests for information about the BPO costs has been ignored. Its frustrating because it should not be sensitive information; knowing the BPO cost ahead of time is not a market advantage. And its not something that might fluctuate wildly prior to release as its simply an ISK sink and not a play to player transaction. Its simply a value in the spreadsheet.

We can speculate that since the build cost of Engplexes are less than citadels that the BPO costs will be a similar ratio lower, but confirmation of that fact would be beneficial to planning.

The root of my frustration is that I want to plan out my fund raising for the new expansion but its hard to estimate if I can afford an Azbel blueprint without knowing that price. I'm concerned that I raise the money prior to release only to find out I don't have enough.

Yeah yeah, I know, first world problem.

UPDATE: CCP Fozzie posted a Q&A that addressed my frustrations. Planning can no commence in earnest!

Raitaru, Raitaru, Wherefore Art Thou?

So let's talk more about Engineering Complexes.

We got more details on the structures in a dev blog earlier this week titled Building Dreams: Introducing Engineering Complexes. These are the structures intended to replace the manufacturing and science capabilities of Outposts and POS arrays, up to and including the production of Super capitals (with appropriate sov control of course for the latter). They have a lot of similarities to Citadels including asset safety, docking, corporate hangers, vulnerability windows, reinforcements, etc. On the other hand, they have lower build requirements thus lower costs; for example, a medium Astrahus citadel costs about 1 billion ISK to produce while the corresponding medium Raitaru will run around 700 million ISK at the same material prices. They also have longer vulnerability windows (3 hours for Astrahus, 9 hours for Raitaru), and tighter docking restrictions: the Large EngPlex can build and launch capitals but can't dock them like the large Citadel can, and similar situation with XLarge and super capitals. Related: the Medium Raitara cannot build capitals.

There is no word on the BPO costs yet, but assuming they follow the same price differential ratio as the structures themselves, I expect the medium BPO to be about 5 billion, large ~50 billion, and extra-large 500 billion ISK.

So What Does this Mean for Me?

Overall, this is not very good news for me. I was willing to invest in a EngPlex costing about the order of magnitude of an Astrahus for my capital and structure producing projects, but the Medium Raitaru cannot build the capitals and the Large Azbel complex at 5.2 billion ISK just for the structure is too rich with too much risk (i.e. large vulnerability window) that I alone cannot mitigate and therefore justify. Someone building Tech II ships might make a lone go out of a Raitaru, but in that case why not simply use a POS manufacturing array at a far lower investment cost?

And that's the rub: small time producers are not served by these structures at all. With the savings in terms of materials and time these promise to provide, small time producers in NPC stations or private POSes are going to be out-competed by any small group or larger working together in a EngPlex. Its the same issue as POS versus NPC station only writ larger.

Short term, I plan to build Raitaru EngPlexes and sell them for profit like I do for Astrahus Citadels. Putting one up for my own building is a possibility if I can build capital and structure components in one but I have a feeling the answer might be no, some investigation is required. Long term, it looks like cooperation with some other people or entities will be required to advance Ninveah Enterprises to the next level.

UPDATE:

I found on the rig spreadsheet evidence that suggests one can build capital construction components, structure components, and structures themselves in a Raitaru:

So while I can't build capitals in a Medium Eng Plex, I might be able to improve efficiency with a Raitaru after all. More investigation required.

Engineering the Complexity

When the CSM 11 Summit 1 Meeting Minutes came out I quickly turned to the section that talked about Engineering Complexes supposedly coming in November, looking for information. In the section on Structures there was some:

Discussion then moved to the Engineering Complexes
Sullen asked what the benefits of the bigger complexes, to which CCP Fozzie
replied that it would be similar to the Citadel in providing bonuses to more things
at once as you increase in size. CCP also explained that the new rigs would
provide bonuses to manufacturing (both TE and ME)
[...]
CCP further explained that Engineering Complexes would be weaker than citadels,
have longer vulnerability windows and bonuses to manufacturing instead but
otherwise be quite similar.
Fafer asked if you could anchor Engineering Complexes near Citadels, to which
CCP replied no. The CSM expressed that they would love to see structures be able
to be linked to each other. Although this was discussed within CCP at the very
beginning of the project years ago, the complexity involved did not make this a
viable option.
CCP explained that there would be a service module that would enable
manufacturing everything but capitals and super capitals, another that enables
capitals and a final one that enables supercapital manufacturing.
CCP Fozzie also explained that materials in build or completed but not delivered
build jobs could possibly drop if the structure is destroyed, but the blueprint
would go to asset safety.

Emphasis mine.

So the most interesting part was the last point, that running jobs in a EngPlex that is attacked and destroyed would not lose the blueprint (although the materials are forfeit). That is good news for anyone like me who is considering a small EngPlex for a small operation and is willing to risk the investment in a structure but much more leery about risking my billions of ISK of BPOs, and not willing to put in the effort to create endless piles of blueprint copies.

The big outstanding question for me is whether the smallest EngPlex can support the module to build capitals or if it has to be the large or extra large versions. If the latter, that will put a hamper on my Ninveah Enterprises base of operations.

Firing Up The Forges

I took a break from building capitals over the summer as the Placid market adjusted from the capital changes and the end of World War Bee. I decided to move to more personal capital construction for pilots in my corporation and the Gallente Militia, as well as anyone else interested of course.

This means that profit margins will be far lower, much closer to material and factory costs. I've held off on Astrahus production for the moment while the capital orders get up to speed but I'll still build those occasionally to keep the dust off the BPOs. I toyed with the idea of trying to build a Fortizar as the margins on selling that were large, but I don't want to commit all of my liquid ISK to a bit of a gamble with the Engineering Complexes on their way in November which I plan to jump on like I did with the Astrahus production and make some of that early adopter profit. Assuming, of course, that the Eng Plexes have similar BPO and material costs as the Citadels did.

The Eng Plexes also present a different consideration than Citadels did. With the latter, I had no great need to set one up for my production operations as public stations sufficed well enough, but the former might present an opportunity to lower factory costs if the cost of copying BPOs and fueling the Complex is overall cheaper than using public factories. Something to consider, especially if I share the Plex with other like-minded individuals.

Still, need the details on these new structures before any plans can be made for sure.

November is Coming.