Introduction
Dominion is not too far away, and CCP has so far only given vague concepts and ideas. So, let's take a look at the latest dev blogs and look for clues as to what they actually plan to do!
Revenue Stream of 0.0, the Lingo
CCP has been dividing revenue into two forms, point and diffuse. A diffuse source is something that you have set up to make your alliance money. This includes things such as corp taxes, manufacturing/assembly lines, and other similar ideas.
Point involves a specific item that occurs by change or by design from the EVE Universe itself. Finding a moon that lets you assemble T2 components or a 10/10 complex would be an example.
Now that we have CCP's lingo down, lets look at what they are doing to change money flow in EVE.
Playing an RTS within EVE
CCP has a system planned where a hub is placed in a 0.0 system. The alliance controlling the system will get to purchase "upgrades" for the hub that will unlock things like hidden belts, better NPCs, and escalation sites.
Wait a second....I have seen something like this before. Yes! It's a game called Sins of a Solar empire, you can upgrade your planets and add more resources (except instead of being THAT direct, you add logistics slots, population space, things like that).
In a way CCP is adding a sort of RTS-style resource management system. The Alliance leader will be choosing what upgrades to buy based on what he needs. He can basically post a buy order for more natural resources!
To me at least this seems to artificial. I'm not sure how one orders up more NPCs or better moon minerals. However, CCP says this will create more incentive to own less, better developed space, instead of the current "spread out and disregard the resources" ideas.
Invention
Moon minerals are needed to make T2 components. Unfortunately, only a small number of moons produce the most valuable resources, creating a bottleneck on production. CCP wants to do three things here:
- Increase alchemy.
- Re-balance component creation.
- Non-Lunar sources of moon minerals.
Let's look at the first one. Alchemy, in EVE, is the ability to turn a lot of cheaper moon minerals into some more useful ones. Unfortunately, the returns were not great enough so people just continued to sell the low-level minerals. CCP wants to boost alchemy by fixing current reactions and adding new ones, so you don't need the best moons to be a serious manufacturer.
Secondly, to build a T2 ship you need components. Minerals go into making these. These minerals come from moons. CCP is applying a sort of rebalance to them that make more expensive components less needed, and less expensive ones more needed.
Finally, they are exploring some non-Lunar sources for moon minerals so alliances will have a harder time bottling up moon minerals. They will make these point resources, like the current sources.
CCP
CCP wishes to add that nothing is final and that all of this is subject to change. Here is the original dev blog: Eveonline.com . Thanks for reading my simplified, to the point, version.
