Many people know me from various endeavors in Eve, I have been a notable mention on the bottom of the Imperium Ticket for CSM, A Spectre Fleet FC for the Alliance Tournament Team or as one of the few and proud PVE fleet commanders to cause Time Dilation in High sec during the Drifter Incursions. What most people haven’t seen is my work with industry. I formerly ran a moon mining empire and several other highly profitable productions lines. After all of that, I set my eyes on the new Engineering Complexes and the wonders that they are…
My first thoughts were; This is going to wholesale make running corporate industry jobs easier and safer than POS. Asset security is hilariously generous for the known space builders and destroyed structures should be easily replaced. But upon looking at the bonuses and rigs for the different sizes, I am concerned the small corps of high sec will lose the independent lifestyle they were accustomed to as the medium and even the large require the owner to specialize production lines for max bonuses or build an XL.
Let’s Talk Costs.
- Medium ~ 600 Million
- Large ~ 4.3 Billion
- X-Large ~ 27 Billion
That seems reasonable at first glance. However, things get screwy if you build more than a few types of products or build component based products. For instance to build Freighters you need 3 Mediums and rig them for 200 million per rig x3 rigs, so 600 million each. Suddenly we are looking at a different ballpark than the old world of POS’s. The issue is if you build multiple types of products you are hindered by only having so many rig slots. Simply put, build an XL for convenience, or buy a freighter.
Current Rigs Average Build Cost:
- Medium ~ 150-200 Million
- Large ~ 3 to 4 Billion+
- X-Large ~ 25 Billion
Remember, you have 3 rig slots, and the hysterically bad idea of T2 rigging these incredibly flimsy structures for marginally more than your kidney is worth on the black market as the XL t2 rigs dwarf structure costs by hundreds of billions.
Now let’s talk XL’s because things are really strange on that one as the estimated rig price for T1 rigs makes building the hull feel like the easy part. At an estimated 25 Billion isk per T1 rig, the final build cost of an XL comes out to an impressive 102 billion isk with (in high sec) only a 1% increase in Material Efficiency. However, at that price, you can build everything better than in a POS can even after taxes.
What does this mean for the old one man operations of the old days? It means specialize, die, or go public. I think we will see High Sec XL’s that will be industrial Meccas used by thousands with low tax rates. There is some evidence to support this as 16 Mediums have been erected in Perimeter for public use following that specific purpose.
My advice for the small corps that can’t afford to go big, Get in with others in your area and see who is putting down what rigs for production. Alternatively find a nice public Engineering Complex to live out of.
