I usually don't make posts on Weekends, but Rubicon is upon us and the main feature, highsec POCOs need further discussion. I already wrote that the only "empire" I can think of is nothing but a price cartel and a wardec price increaser alliance, without any real alliance function.
It wasn't really popular, because people want a "real" group (corp or alliance) that actively defend POCOs. Below I prove that such entity cannot exist in a significant scale. I don't question that a group of friends can own a few POCOs in the middle of nowhere, allowing themselves to do low-tax PI, but in any significant scale, such corp cannot exist.
The main problem is - just like with nullsec moons - POCOs are a top-down income source: the money comes from taxation of the POCOs and go to the corp wallet, where the corp leadership can control it. On the other hand it needs lot of players who do the busywork of capturing and defending these POCOs. The question is why would anyone do this work to let other people get ISK?
In nullsec it's done by propaganda. The alliance leadership upholds a positive image attached to the alliance tag, and for that image, a bunch of dumb socials are doing unpaid work for them. No, reimbursement isn't a payment as you wouldn't lose your ship if you wouldn't be in their fleet. So people shoot structures in bombless bombers for hours for the ability to tell "we aren't highsec pubbies, we are Goons". People are ready to pay scam money to "goon recruiters" or join Sniggwaffe for the faint hope that one day they'll be in PL (actually, did anyone, ever got to PL from Sniggwaffe?). I can (and do) call them stupid, but they are still exist and can be exploited by smart manipulators.
This will not work in highsec, because highsec itself has no respect in the EVE community. No one will do unpaid work just to belong to a prestigious highsec corp, because such thing cannot exist. The "join friends, have fun, shoot stuff" recruitment of lolpvp organizations doesn't work either since in highsec you can't really shoot anyone but war targets.
Of course you can try to borrow the prestige of a nullsec group, by being their official highsec arm. But I wouldn't bet on this, because nullsec alliances often get into wars and need everyone there. Unlike with Sov, you need permanent presence to protect your POCOs, due to trivial logistics, lower structure HPs and less reinforcement timers. Someone can drop a dozen of 2 month old, 5M AFK Catalysts on your POCO and take it down to reinforced in less than half an hour, with trivial risks of loss. If you can't show up, you lost it.
In lack of dumb socials to be used as slave army, the members have to be paid. Any payment method can be gamed and the administration of protecting your POCOs can be a larger task than actually protecting your POCOs. Who were there, how many hours, what shiptype and above all, how much that POCO worth?
If the POCO-corp is a one-man show, such administration is not needed. You know how much it worth, and you can't cheat yourself. If you can protect it alone, you do. If you can't but the POCO worth it, you hire mercs. If you can't profitably hold it, you give it up, or sell it. Since you are already fine alone, you don't need an alliance. My original idea just added a little bonus by gaming the wardec costs.
Of course we don't have hard numbers and the whole highsec POCO thing can be unprofitable due to low utilization. Remember, there are 25000 planets, so lot of places to go for someone who doesn't want to pay your tax.
It wasn't really popular, because people want a "real" group (corp or alliance) that actively defend POCOs. Below I prove that such entity cannot exist in a significant scale. I don't question that a group of friends can own a few POCOs in the middle of nowhere, allowing themselves to do low-tax PI, but in any significant scale, such corp cannot exist.
The main problem is - just like with nullsec moons - POCOs are a top-down income source: the money comes from taxation of the POCOs and go to the corp wallet, where the corp leadership can control it. On the other hand it needs lot of players who do the busywork of capturing and defending these POCOs. The question is why would anyone do this work to let other people get ISK?
In nullsec it's done by propaganda. The alliance leadership upholds a positive image attached to the alliance tag, and for that image, a bunch of dumb socials are doing unpaid work for them. No, reimbursement isn't a payment as you wouldn't lose your ship if you wouldn't be in their fleet. So people shoot structures in bombless bombers for hours for the ability to tell "we aren't highsec pubbies, we are Goons". People are ready to pay scam money to "goon recruiters" or join Sniggwaffe for the faint hope that one day they'll be in PL (actually, did anyone, ever got to PL from Sniggwaffe?). I can (and do) call them stupid, but they are still exist and can be exploited by smart manipulators.
This will not work in highsec, because highsec itself has no respect in the EVE community. No one will do unpaid work just to belong to a prestigious highsec corp, because such thing cannot exist. The "join friends, have fun, shoot stuff" recruitment of lolpvp organizations doesn't work either since in highsec you can't really shoot anyone but war targets.
Of course you can try to borrow the prestige of a nullsec group, by being their official highsec arm. But I wouldn't bet on this, because nullsec alliances often get into wars and need everyone there. Unlike with Sov, you need permanent presence to protect your POCOs, due to trivial logistics, lower structure HPs and less reinforcement timers. Someone can drop a dozen of 2 month old, 5M AFK Catalysts on your POCO and take it down to reinforced in less than half an hour, with trivial risks of loss. If you can't show up, you lost it.
In lack of dumb socials to be used as slave army, the members have to be paid. Any payment method can be gamed and the administration of protecting your POCOs can be a larger task than actually protecting your POCOs. Who were there, how many hours, what shiptype and above all, how much that POCO worth?
If the POCO-corp is a one-man show, such administration is not needed. You know how much it worth, and you can't cheat yourself. If you can protect it alone, you do. If you can't but the POCO worth it, you hire mercs. If you can't profitably hold it, you give it up, or sell it. Since you are already fine alone, you don't need an alliance. My original idea just added a little bonus by gaming the wardec costs.
Of course we don't have hard numbers and the whole highsec POCO thing can be unprofitable due to low utilization. Remember, there are 25000 planets, so lot of places to go for someone who doesn't want to pay your tax.
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