Then there was this tweet today:
@ktouborg TEST is now renting space out. Fix nullsec, or renters (instead of one's own pilots) are the future of nullsec income.
Whatever happened to the old credo: "CCP can change what they want, but players will always adapt."
I just see a lot of complaining. Not a whole lot of adapting. Or at least, not a lot of willing adaptation.
Granted, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about nullsec finances or politics, so feel free to clue me in. I'm just coming at this from the outside looking in. Wondering, what the big deal is all about.
From what I understand, current technetium prices are at about the same levels as they were 18 months ago. Everyone seemed to be doing fine then. Sure sure, Test Alliance now owns thrice what it once did, but if the rumours are true, they can't afford it. They wouldn't have been able to afford it 18 months ago, either. So other than the intervening 18 months of unfettered OTEC bliss, not much has changed.
Has OTEC, and the price increases it successfully manipulated, has that caused a mass loss of sense and reason?
Why does Test have to resort to renters? Why can they not simply adapt the Goonswarm model? From what I understand, Goonswarm doesn't rent space to its allies (Razor, Space Monkeys, Fatal Ascension, etc.) It simply gives it to them for being good, capable and reliable allies. If they aren't reliable, Goonswarm kicks them the hell out of the space and gives it to someone willing to be reliable. Goonswarm ends up with an amount of space it can manage and afford, and in turn is rewarded with a good number of large and faithful allies.
Based on the influence map, I see Test trying to hold three large regions (Fountain, Delve and Querious), while having given Period Basis to their allies, Tribal Band. Why not give Querious to their new buddies, Raiden? Or, maybe it's about time Honey Badger partner, Pandemic Legion, started pulling it's weight in sovereignty and took some piece (if not all) of Delve.
Even if that's not possible or realistic, what really is the big deal with renting?
At the end of the day, there's been a change to EVE Online (i.e, the re-introduction of alchemy). It's shaken a few things up. OTEC made some people very rich. Everyone knew that wasn't going to last forever. And it hasn't. While OTEC lasted, overly-optimistic expansion occurred. But things change. After every boom comes a recession. Booms are not indefinite. What could be afforded, can no longer be afforded.
Keep over-extending, refusing to adapt, refusing to admit to the reality of the situation, and the necessity for contraction will turn into a forced catastrophic collapse.
Feel free to clue me in on the reality, if I'm way off base.
I won't touch upon every point, but some stuff you raised shows you aren't familair with 0.0 economics/politics
ReplyDeletePL won't take sov, period. Raiden will eventually but you can't force it on them simply because you (TEST) need to offload some of it. INIT took sov just yesterday (2 constellations) and other allies will surely follow. Querious will mostly be allied territory I presume. That answers your question and observation that holding onto 3 regions is folly.
Be also aware, expenses (Setting up two whole new regions, jumpbridges, posses (How do i correctly say this?), fighting a war -all very expensive!) will only fall off the next few weeks/months, thus reducing war time costs immensively. -A- are putting up token resistance and the war has cooled down.
This is TEST simply trying to find a way to fill the Technetium gap which you rightly so call a honeypot that Alliances have gotten accustomed to.
Renters is apparantly the direction CCP wants Alliances to go, active income over passive income.
In the HBC SOTA they said they will give some of there sov to there allies.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with renting is not that it exists, it's that it's a necessity just to be able to pay bills and get by in non-Tech 0.0. Take a look at every alliance that controls at least one region, and they've most likely got renters (generally a "________ Citizens" or "________ Associates" feeder alliance).
ReplyDeleteBottom line is, holding sov in 0.0 without a nice source of income (Tech or otherwise) is barely worth it, and in some regions not worth it at all (the Drone Regions post-alloy-nerf are a particularly harsh example). Nerfing Tech itself was an absolute necessity, but only if it was replaced with something else that could at least allow an alliance to independently control a region without bankrupting themselves to do it. In typical CCP fashion, they nerfed the tech before even thinking about how to replace it (same treatment the Drone Regions got with the aformentioned alloy removal), and now people are left scrambling. Even Goonswarm, who you hailed as a positive example, is still doing well enough only because of some really great financial people and a tech price that's higher than expected due to the wars in the North. They'd be hurting just as much without those things.
Being able to rent your space is fine, but it shouldn't be a necessity just to be able to pay for it.
They should make nullsec like FW, so the more regions you hold..the better the truesec of all of your systems becomes. o\
ReplyDeleteIf I had to guess, this is part of the war against -A-. -A- treat renters like crap, so if TEST can lure them away, they remove big part of -A- wallet.
ReplyDeleteEven Goons feels a bit short on money these day with all their tech and way less systems so... seems logical TEST has some little issues ^^
ReplyDeleteRenting is the poor man's method of space management. The success of the CFC was is in it's allied partners. If TEST wants to replicate that success then they have to foster those smaller partner alliances. The real questions are those almost every SOV holder at a high level runs into --- are their new allies that just flipped over from their enemies reliable enough for turning over large portions of SOV? Do they parcel out the good SOV or the shitty SOV? How to balance that against the needs of those who have been with them the longest instead of Johny-come-lately? Goonswarm largely grew or assimilated entities without such strong cultures and organization than INIT and RAIDEN have going in to the HBC.
ReplyDeleteYes, we've had tech fattening our wallets. Are you even thinking straight?
DeleteThe reason why HBC is not adapting a goonswarm model is due to the fact that we do not have alot of tech down here. With changes looming in the future, we have to adapt to it with more "Active income" rather than the passive "moon income".
ReplyDeleteCurrent Blue list are not renters. They are members of the HBC and retain full rights
Renters will be in a separate alliance called Honey Badger Coalition
They get fountain to do as they please, not limited to one systems; However they are not allowed south for
They will not get SOV.
They will be set to 2.5 standings. Can not join HBC fleets in south (if they want to partcipate in ops, they will have to talk to the renter diplo about it)
there's more but seriously listen to the state of the alliance to figure out more. (If I made any mistakes please let me know as I did not listen to the Q&A part of SOTA and my connection to it was cutting in and out.)
Alchemy is the wrong way to address the "problem" of tech scarcity. I can understand finessing the system to bring tech in line with its peers by adjusting bottlenecks. However, fundamentally disembowling the one sphere of the game that doesn't focus on bot grinding is removing content rather than adding it. Unlike t1, t3, and meta, t2 is all about competition for resources. It doesn't matter how rare they are, because that drives people to fight for them. If people can't afford it, then hopefully they are chewing each other up in other ships. At the end of the day, EVE's success depends on the frequency of fights, not on the amount of isk involved in each.
ReplyDeleteMoon empires need to have new vulnerabilities that are tactical rather than simply economic. Small gangs need to be able to sabotage or steal moon products from POS, even if they need capital hardware to blow them up. This kind of broad risk would be a major thorn in the side of defense planners, and cripple groups that aren't willing to defend their own space. It would also eclipse the blob, as a highly organized, dispersed and persistent enemy will mop up the finances of a disorganized mass fleet. Empires would shrink since expansion means exponentially greater risk. More space for all, more opportunities for all, and more fights, even if we're all flying frigates again to keep up with it.
Very broad vulnerability would drive demand for pilots, and many alliances would discover they have an economic need for them just as strong as their need for supercaps. Guess where the r64 income would flow then?
Don't forget a lot of things have gone up in price in the last 18months as well.. Plex is almost 50% pricy. Tritanium has gone from 3-4 to almost double. All of these add up.
ReplyDeleteGood point.
DeleteThe problem with owning sov is it costs isk. Any system that is claimed requires a sov payment. TEST is in expansion mode and usually will claim every system to prevent counter attacks. The main alliance has to pay that bill until the systems are occupied or distributed. Sov can be dropped in unused systems without the entire alliance collapsing. Such rapid expansions that we witness now will put a strain on their finances as it becomes harder to find qualified allies who want the space. Remember, those regions aren't technetium rich, so new allies aren't so eager to take them without the usual passive income from moon goo.
ReplyDeleteActive income requires mining and ratting. That makes it even harder to find a PVP ally to take sov, especially since maintaining it will require so much carebearing. So, who will make the space pay for itself? RENTERS turn the space into passive income!
The big problem with renters is they tend to have no loyalty. They pay rent and don't support the alliance when combat is required. They demand "protection" when threatened. They are a drag on the lean PVP machine and are seen to degrade morale of the entire alliance. History shows every rent-based alliance has collapsed when pressured. And yet, while they are working, they generate a lot of isk.
Mord Fiddle's blog was probably the best at covering the financial and psychological workings of big nullsec blocs, from moon goo to renters. You have to go back about a year as he switched his blog's focus lately to just hatemongering of The Mittani.
When the changes to Sov were made, and the prices set for upgrades etc, CCP stated that they wanted to get more smaller alliances into 0.0. This is just the consequence of TEST wanting to hold so much space. There's no problem doing it, but you need to work it to make it profitable.
ReplyDeleteOne problem with renters, over and above the lack of loyalty, is that they can view renting as a stepping stone to something else. They are renting because it gets them access to lucrative 0.0 resources, which is fine but unlikely to be their end aim. What are their plans for the ISK that they make? Are they looking to build their power before moving on elsewhere creating potential cash flow issues later on?
This will be easier to manage once the reworked contracts system gets in place, if it ever does. In the meantime managing renters can be a pain for the host alliance.