Tech alliances were considered "dirty rich" despite their income wasn't that high. I mean the whole CFC-HB made about 1T/month which is just 20x bigger than my individual income. However it was nearly 1T/month more than the non-tech alliances. It was enough to not only pay for sov bills but also have a reimbursement policy. Those who lost a doctrine ship in fleet action got the cost back, being able to buy a new ship for free. This was a large bonus as it allowed casual PvP-ers to join. They could fly in the fleets with no additional costs. Without reimbursement the pilot must grind enough ISK to get ships and be motivated enough to fly it in battles where losing it has huge risks. The reimbursed fleets shown clear and obvious superiority in numbers over non-reimbursed ones.
Now what? With the recent Tech changes the Tech alliances lost their former financial superiority. Look at this TEST accounting sheet: 40% of their income (107B/month) is coming from Tech. In February it was 73%. No wonder they are losing 49B/month due to increased sov costs and increased reimbursements from the intensive battles.
How can an alliance get money from the post-tech era to be able to upkeep reimbursements which is more or less the IWIN button in EVE sov wars? Let's dig that sheet more. TEST has income from other moons too, as non-Tech moons also have minerals that sell for some price. Those provide 62B. They get 37B from station and PoCo taxes (broker fees, PI, manufacturing...) 53B from taxing bounties and such. Again, not as chest-beating but to show how small the budget of the largest alliance is: these numbers are all in the same range as my personal 40-50B/month income. Well, they could increase bounty taxes but the low number shows exactly that few people gather bounties and higher taxing may further decrease their number. They could increase broker fees but those can easily be dodged by direct trading or not trading at all but hauling to highsec and sell there.
There are two ways out of this for those alliances that want to upkeep reimbursement in the post-tech era: one is some form of VIP-membership that costs significant ISK/month for benefits. Such system would lure IRL rich people (who convert PLEX) and highsec industrialists into nullsec. Having just a few dozens of them would solve the income problems of the alliances. However when I had a similiar idea, it failed badly, exactly because of lack of benefits. Why should anyone pay for something that can be gained for free? If I wanted to join TEST I could just start a reddit account, post some, start a new account unrelated to my blog and could join. As there is no demanded minimal contribution (in WoW it's common to demand 3*4 hours/week attendance or kick), there is little room to give VIP benefits. The only way to implement something like that is first to make a non-VIP baseline with demands like 3 fleets/week mandatory, one of them is alarm clock, and then allow to skip it by payment. Membership payments could also work in "elite" alliances (like PL) where people want to join for prestige.
The other one is supporting and taxing nullsec PvE. It means that creating mining and ratting fleets with protection and instant mineral/loot buyouts to make it profitable for PvE players despite the taxing. I mean if you just tax PvE without providing superior support, the PvE players just go away to other, cheaper alliances or to their highsec alts. PR and propaganda can help here, giving respect and cheers to the alliance PvE players, so they prefer to stay in the alliance over going somewhere for higher profit but being called "lol carebears". Such PvE activity can be fostered by dedicated PvE corps where the similar-minded members can easily find groups and exchange information. Organization is needed for taxing mining as you can't set mining taxes the same way as bounty taxes. You must be there in the mining fleet to evaluate how much minerals were gained to calculate the tax.
Now let me suggest an advanced way that cuts out the administration overhead from PvE fleets: ratting/mining license instead of tax. Tax is a kind of punishment for doing the activity. You rat 2x more, you pay 2x more. When you make the decision to log your ratter or not, the tax says "don't". This is fine with the casual PvE players (who are actually PvP-ers earning ISK on the side) but more serious PvE players (who want to earn serious ISK) are scared off by taxing and the administrative overhead. For them it would be much more tempting to pay for a license once a month and then do PvE tax and administration free. Also, the license system would allow fast recruiting, as the joining member pays in advance, so if he turns out to be useless, annoying or spy he still provided one month license money.
Anyway, in the post-Tech era the alliance budgets must be filled by members doing PvE. One way or another the PvE (or PLEX-converter) players must be lured into the alliances because without them even the sov costs would be problematic, not to mention the reimbursements.
PS: I reworked the blog structure, making it easier to find old but relevant posts. Read the about page
Wednesday morning report: 141.9B (which is 40% of the whole TEST asset) (3.5 spent on main accounts, 2.4 spent on Logi/Carrier, 2.2 on Ragnarok, 1.6 on Rorqual, 1.4 on Nyx, 1.8 on Avatar, 2.6 received as gift)
Now what? With the recent Tech changes the Tech alliances lost their former financial superiority. Look at this TEST accounting sheet: 40% of their income (107B/month) is coming from Tech. In February it was 73%. No wonder they are losing 49B/month due to increased sov costs and increased reimbursements from the intensive battles.
How can an alliance get money from the post-tech era to be able to upkeep reimbursements which is more or less the IWIN button in EVE sov wars? Let's dig that sheet more. TEST has income from other moons too, as non-Tech moons also have minerals that sell for some price. Those provide 62B. They get 37B from station and PoCo taxes (broker fees, PI, manufacturing...) 53B from taxing bounties and such. Again, not as chest-beating but to show how small the budget of the largest alliance is: these numbers are all in the same range as my personal 40-50B/month income. Well, they could increase bounty taxes but the low number shows exactly that few people gather bounties and higher taxing may further decrease their number. They could increase broker fees but those can easily be dodged by direct trading or not trading at all but hauling to highsec and sell there.
There are two ways out of this for those alliances that want to upkeep reimbursement in the post-tech era: one is some form of VIP-membership that costs significant ISK/month for benefits. Such system would lure IRL rich people (who convert PLEX) and highsec industrialists into nullsec. Having just a few dozens of them would solve the income problems of the alliances. However when I had a similiar idea, it failed badly, exactly because of lack of benefits. Why should anyone pay for something that can be gained for free? If I wanted to join TEST I could just start a reddit account, post some, start a new account unrelated to my blog and could join. As there is no demanded minimal contribution (in WoW it's common to demand 3*4 hours/week attendance or kick), there is little room to give VIP benefits. The only way to implement something like that is first to make a non-VIP baseline with demands like 3 fleets/week mandatory, one of them is alarm clock, and then allow to skip it by payment. Membership payments could also work in "elite" alliances (like PL) where people want to join for prestige.
The other one is supporting and taxing nullsec PvE. It means that creating mining and ratting fleets with protection and instant mineral/loot buyouts to make it profitable for PvE players despite the taxing. I mean if you just tax PvE without providing superior support, the PvE players just go away to other, cheaper alliances or to their highsec alts. PR and propaganda can help here, giving respect and cheers to the alliance PvE players, so they prefer to stay in the alliance over going somewhere for higher profit but being called "lol carebears". Such PvE activity can be fostered by dedicated PvE corps where the similar-minded members can easily find groups and exchange information. Organization is needed for taxing mining as you can't set mining taxes the same way as bounty taxes. You must be there in the mining fleet to evaluate how much minerals were gained to calculate the tax.
Now let me suggest an advanced way that cuts out the administration overhead from PvE fleets: ratting/mining license instead of tax. Tax is a kind of punishment for doing the activity. You rat 2x more, you pay 2x more. When you make the decision to log your ratter or not, the tax says "don't". This is fine with the casual PvE players (who are actually PvP-ers earning ISK on the side) but more serious PvE players (who want to earn serious ISK) are scared off by taxing and the administrative overhead. For them it would be much more tempting to pay for a license once a month and then do PvE tax and administration free. Also, the license system would allow fast recruiting, as the joining member pays in advance, so if he turns out to be useless, annoying or spy he still provided one month license money.
Anyway, in the post-Tech era the alliance budgets must be filled by members doing PvE. One way or another the PvE (or PLEX-converter) players must be lured into the alliances because without them even the sov costs would be problematic, not to mention the reimbursements.
PS: I reworked the blog structure, making it easier to find old but relevant posts. Read the about page
Wednesday morning report: 141.9B (which is 40% of the whole TEST asset) (3.5 spent on main accounts, 2.4 spent on Logi/Carrier, 2.2 on Ragnarok, 1.6 on Rorqual, 1.4 on Nyx, 1.8 on Avatar, 2.6 received as gift)
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