When I look on the market, t4 l-demob says it has 300m range, is that incorrect? I got something like 934 when I tried to calculate it out, zenith bonus included (mk1 only). Is it possible to post the equation you used to get 1200m, or the 950 with 3 range extenders (if that was mathed out rather than tested in game).

Yeah I understand that much, but I think I'm doing the math wrong. Looks like about 900m to me.

Hmm no it doesn't seem to have come through. I reset this account a while back, maybe it deleted forum messages? Bit of a stretch I guess. Maybe in game mail me if you get a chance?

I definitely don't see where any modules can 'make it through'. Where are they coming from? PvP bots automagically spawned fully fitted? Someone built them, and any active pvper knows he is going to have to replace them at some point. If Y is the amount of modules that get lost when bots explode, PvP demands X modules and supplies X-Y modules, how does that devalue them? Still seeing the same thing. The only concern is whether everything is obtainable from NPCs. I don't know if that is the case but I doubt it.

Obviously ratting is a form of production, so the issue is whether it can produce everything at a similar cost to manufacturing. That's definitely a valid concern. Is it possible to gather the resources required to build a standard missile launcher in the amount of time it takes to obtain one (and the NIC to repair it) through ratting? Clearly not, and perhaps more modules need to go boom when the bot does.

Actually, rethinking that last section, perhaps it is possible, and the real issue is simply that supply is far higher than demand, which devalues ratting, not production, since gathered resources can be used on modules that are more valuable, while you don't get much say in what the rats drop. This scenario seems more likely, since I must have collected a thousand missile launchers in my short time in the game, and never used one. If I could kill guys that dropped t4 nexus mods, you can bet I would be doing that instead of flooding the standard missile launcher market to the point where they're only worth recycling.

Which puts us right back at square one. Don't build stuff that people can easily obtain for themselves. Mechs right now will net you 1.5+m each, plus I supplement my income with a small profit on titan ore mining charges. A few days ago someone somewhere was realising a profit on t4 small magnetics at 550k. With very little change in commodity prices, they're now selling for 1.1m. Build what people can't get for themselves. If you're in the business of shipping sand to the sahara (which btw, you're not, ratters are. manufacturers are more in general transportation ), you need to find something else to do.

I don't think manufacturers are in a position to complain tbh. Log in, start production, go to work, NIC is waiting for you when you get home.

Well, what you're effectively saying is that it's not possible to net a decent margin on items that people can easily obtain for themselves. I agree.

I don't think the emphasis is entirely fair. I can do about 1.6-1.7m per hour solo ratting on inner alpha islands, and I'm certain I could do more if properly fitted for it. It's not quite as much as transports, but it's not a massive gap. As far as mining and harvesting goes, if the market won't bear price increases on raw materials due to the opportunity cost of not running transports, more people need to make the rational decision, and run transports.

Personally I suspect that the market will bear price increases. Looking at the cost of commodities for a kain vs the cost of a kain, I see an 80-100% markup. I understand that CTs won't always be 100+%, and that producing the CT in the first place is an extra cost, but those alone can't account for such a discrepancy unless people are consistently running mech CTs all the way down to the minimum material ratio. If mechs are selling at the listed price (and I suspect they are, since there isn't much movement in said price), manufacturers are making a killing due to the low price of materials*.

Since raw material demand is fairly consistent (only so many robots get blown up and need replacing each day), if prices are low, the problem is actually an oversupply of raw materials. Too many people gathering instead of running transports, shooting themselves in the foot.

The only issue here is how much currency the devs want in the market. Do they want to devalue insurance payouts relative to the cost of a robot, encouraging cautious play, or do they want to bring insurance payments closer to the cost of replacing the lost robot, encouraging more beta activity? If they want more beta activity, they need to reduce inflation caused by assignment payments, if they want less, they need to increase assignment payouts.

I think that reducing assignment rewards is fairly dangerous at this stage, since the market price for materials for a mech is actually very close to the insurance payout if it gets blown up. If you're producing robots right now, you're really only risking your insurance deposit and whatever modules you have fitted when you deploy one. As more NIC enters the market though, that gap will grow to the point where you are actually risking some part of the value of your robot too. Of course you also need to consider that as people move out of the newbie stage and begin to pvp more, demand for robots and thus the materials required to build them will increase. At some point I would expect to see them lower assignment rewards, but right now it doesn't seem like a good idea.

Summary - If someone is not making enough money mining, they should do something else. Irrational behaviour is the problem, not assignment rewards.

*Come to think of it, I haven't seen much movement in raw material prices, but t4 small mags doubled in price over the course of two days, so perhaps the problem is actually a lack of competition in manufacturing, rather than a commodity glut. Not enough purchasers for materials, too many purchasers for finished goods.

Thelodica mechs certainly seem to be seeing some pvp. Over a quarter of the robots listed on the big fight today were artemis'. There was 1 gropho (the only heavy), although obviously the list didn't include everyone who was involved.