Science!

When I was writing the post last week I realized that I am finally getting close to invention skills. Well, actually I was looking at Large Armor Repairer II and apparently it requires Mechanics V. And then when checking what else requires it, I remembered that a number of science skills do. I looked at those when I started playing, because I like science in principle, but then stopped thinking about it because they were going to get so long to get to.

In the meantime my perspective on what a long skill has changed, especially after starting Gallente Frigate V, which I know is not even that long compared to some, but it is as long or longer than requirement for basic invention. And I trained Science IV at some point for some reason, Engineering V for obvious reasons, as well as Mechanics IV and Electronics IV, so the remaining time is both fairly short and I need those skills anyway.

So I read up on invention and it seems that it should be doable casually without a dedicated POS. There are some copying slots more or less available, and while a POS should work about four times faster, considering the queue times, even on lowsec, since I don't plan on focusing on invention to keep my slots occupied it doesn't matter that much.

So I set Science V in the queue after Gallente Frigate V. Who needs focus. But once I get Mechanics V I will be able to train Assault Frigates, which would be my first T2 ship, and it should make pretty good lowsec belt ratter. At least with T2 guns, which I think need five more days of training. But that will wait a bit, because I want to play with invention first, so at least let Science V finish, train Production Efficiency IV, because while production efficiency doesn't seem to matter that much for most T2 items, it still matters. Of maybe it matters a lot and my numbers are wrong.

This is probably not the best time to get into T2 production, because the moon products were changed, and the prices seem to be in a state of shock, at least those that require the new moons, which don't yet have established production lines. Not to mention the whole war thing. And there appears to be plenty of stock with old prices. But right now I plan to just tinker, without sinking more that few tens of millions into this.

I played with EVEIPH a bit, and apparently there is still basically no ISK in producing any T1 module, at least without researched blueprint and Production Efficiency V. Which makes sense. I am hoping that since ME on invented blueprints is locked that matters less. And there should be some actual demand for T2 modules, because with many meta-modules usually available at reprocessing prices, why would there be for T1.

The other reason for thinking about trying invention was crashing decryptor prices. If I can't make ISK selling them, or finding them for that matter, even lowsec seemed stripped of sites when I tried it this week, then maybe I can make some using them. Not sure how worth it is will minimal invention skills, but I guess I will find out. Eventually. I have set copying for some blueprints, at bought some others of contracts, which should be researchable only with science derived from Engineering V. So maybe during the week I should try inventing something.

In the meantime I took out the Brutix I bought recently and did a bunch of anoms in lowsec. By which I mean two. It wasn't particularly constructive ISK wise, compared to even L3 missions, but more about that in a moment. Also did some belt ratting in Thorax. An assault frigate could really be better there, cost about the same, the effective DPS should be similar, much smaller signature, a bit better speed and much better agility. I haven't checked EFT for details, because I think I will leave that for after I have done at least some inventing.

Anyway, the belt ratting was actually better that anomalies, because I got lucky with high meta loot, and I got good twenty million in drops in an hour or so. Unfortunately no faction or tac4sec spawns, which could have pushed that into great category. One courier and transport spawn, but filled with tritanium, and didn't bother to bring an industrial into lowsec for a few million ISK. Maybe if I had a blockade runner. But that is something for the future.

Getting tired of missions and trying to do other things brought me to a realization what was bothering me about missions before. Everything else in EVE is a limited resource, at least on a time and system basis. Anomalies, exploration sites, belts rats, even asteroid in belts run out in most populated systems. If in any place there are too many people trying to do too much at the same time, the system becomes depleted, which exerts population pressure and encourages people to spread out.

But missions are not limited in any way. Anyone can go to an agent, well, anyone with proper standings, which is beside the point, press a button and a fresh instance full on bounties, loot, salvage, occasionally even ore asteroids springs into existence no matter what anyone else is doing. And then, no population pressure. No point in competing for limited resources. This really seem to be antithetical to the nature of EVE.

Of course nothing will probably be done because it would necessarily seriously nerf highsec, because missions are essentially the only thing that allow highsec to maintain its population density. Well, I don't actually know this, but how many people could actually make any ISK from anoms and sites in highsec? Mining and industry are a whole other thing, but at least they are nominally limited, even if they could support in high sec alone probably ten times more people. And they are not an ISK fountain.

What I would like to happen is contracts or something with agents, limited by new skills per agent type, analogous to R&D agents. Every agent would generate a number of missions per twenty minutes or so, put them in a pool, then send out the missions in a pool to randomly selected contracted capsuleers, giving the a notification in the same way storyline missions happen now. Only those who have no outstanding mission offer from that agent count, obviously, and missions that are declined or incomplete after say, four hours, go back into the pool. This way missions would be a limited resource, but they would be distributed fairly. And people not doing missions would not block other people from getting missions, because the pool of missions would keep growing until enough people who actually complete them get them. And if the proportion of missions available to people contracted was displayed in the agent finder it would encourage people to spread around. And it would make missions feel at least something that is actually happening in the universe, as it were, rather than getting triggered by button push.