You my good sir have obviously never ran as a logi.

If you want to base price off average ISK destroyed things are going to get very expensive for HAVs and proto suits.

Let's say a tank averages 15 suit kills and 0.5 tank kills (since tanks pretty much only die to tanks).
Let's further estimate an average suit price of 40k ISK.

That gives us:

T = ( 15 x 40k ) + 0.5 T
T - 0.5 T = ( 15 x 40k )
0.5 T = 600k ISK
T = 1.2M ISK

Hey, that's what tanks used to cost! And I came up with that honestly (no reverse calculations).

So there you go MLT HAVs should cost 1.2M ISK again.

They will all reach an equilibrium eventually. If tanks go up to 1.2M then fewer people will use them, and only the best tankers would be on the field. The amount of ISK destroyed would drop as a result. Eventually balance would be achieved, and that would be a reasonable price.

This is a very fair way to price things. Consider it this way: let's say there was a very powerful dropsuit released that was immune to 90% of enemy fire, and it averaged 2Million ISK worth of stuff destroyed for each death. If you priced it cheaply, the only sane thing for a corp looking to inflict maximum economic hardship on another corp (and lets be clear, wars in New Eden are fought and won with ISK far more than with skill) would be to field those in every engagement with your enemy. You would eventually bleed them out financially. It would have to be balanced based on he cost of what it deals and not on the feasibility of being affordable to run 24/7.

Proto suits shouldn't be affordable to run all day, every day. They should be saved up for and used when the situation merits it. Big alliances in EVE don't pull out the Super Caps for small/meaningless engagements for a reason. They only do so when the risk/ISK ratio is reasonable. You don't hear EVE pilots whining that it's unaffordable to run expensive ships. You may have to mine, haul, run missions, trade, manufacture, etc. to support your Heavy Assault Cruiser PvP habit. There's nothing wrong with that. It forces you to value your ship as a real asset that took hard work to earn. It forces you to play smart and defensive. This is what makes DUST unique and fun. If tanks and dropships are cheap and disposable that can easily be run 24/7, then you can afford to be very reckless and aggressive with them. The game looses the sense of value, and combat feels cheap and spammy, instead of strategic with a high emphasis on loss aversion and self-preservation. This is the only FPS I've ever played where people try to retreat, and care a lot about avoiding losses. Combat is much more meaningful and interesting as a result.

The ISK DESTROYED / TOTAL NUMBER OF UNITS LOST is a reasonable metric to find balance. I have no idea what that would be for tanks or dropships, but it is a fair way to balance the price.

This is a pretty compelling post and I'm inclined to agree having read it. Thanks for taking the time to write it up, it definitely puts things in perspective when you bring EVE style Super Cap. comparisons on the table.

They will all reach an equilibrium eventually. If tanks go up to 1.2M then fewer people will use them, and only the best tankers would be on the field. The amount of ISK destroyed would drop as a result. Eventually balance would be achieved, and that would be a reasonable price.

This is a very fair way to price things. Consider it this way: let's say there was a very powerful dropsuit released that was immune to 90% of enemy fire, and it averaged 2Million ISK worth of stuff destroyed for each death. If you priced it cheaply, the only sane thing for a corp looking to inflict maximum economic hardship on another corp (and lets be clear, wars in New Eden are fought and won with ISK far more than with skill) would be to field those in every engagement with your enemy. You would eventually bleed them out financially. It would have to be balanced based on he cost of what it deals and not on the feasibility of being affordable to run 24/7.

Proto suits shouldn't be affordable to run all day, every day. They should be saved up for and used when the situation merits it. Big alliances in EVE don't pull out the Super Caps for small/meaningless engagements for a reason. They only do so when the risk/ISK ratio is reasonable. You don't hear EVE pilots whining that it's unaffordable to run expensive ships. You may have to mine, haul, run missions, trade, manufacture, etc. to support your Heavy Assault Cruiser PvP habit. There's nothing wrong with that. It forces you to value your ship as a real asset that took hard work to earn. It forces you to play smart and defensive. This is what makes DUST unique and fun. If tanks and dropships are cheap and disposable that can easily be run 24/7, then you can afford to be very reckless and aggressive with them. The game looses the sense of value, and combat feels cheap and spammy, instead of strategic with a high emphasis on loss aversion and self-preservation. This is the only FPS I've ever played where people try to retreat, and care a lot about avoiding losses. Combat is much more meaningful and interesting as a result.

The ISK DESTROYED / TOTAL NUMBER OF UNITS LOST is a reasonable metric to find balance. I have no idea what that would be for tanks or dropships, but it is a fair way to balance the price.

Prices should be balanced around ISK destroyed, not the ability to run profitably. CCP should do a simple calculation: total_ISK_of_assets_destroyed_by_dropships / number_of_dropships_killed for the data since 1.7 released. In other words, if dropships are averaging 600K in in suits, tanks, and other dropships per death, then the price should be roughly 600K. If they're only destroying 150K ISK then that's roughly what they should cost. The same is true of tanks.

[quote=Vell0cet]You have it wrong. It's not the total ISK destroyed by tanks, it's the average per tank.
So as tanking becomes a specialty that average will only climb. The strong players will get more kills per tank, so the pice will have to increase to keep in balance.

EVE comparisons are totally irrelevant as there is no restriction on player count as there is in DUST.

you want to know why derpships are expensive... its because we use proto turrets. turrets are what makes a vehicle expensive. Most tankers run adv turrets because its easier to create a fitting with adv than a proto one.

But I've played against proto turret tanks and believe me, I can tell their pockets hurt when i destroy one..

I use all basic modules and an ADV turret and my ship still costs 372k ISK.

That's the equivalent of running an ADV racal suit with STD modules and an ADV weapon. Should that put you negative if you lose one?.

Dropships are still cheap compared to what tanks used to be before 1.7. Can't see why everyone is complaining so much. You're immune to half the AV weapons available and can be out of range faster than a swarm can lock on. Shouldn't have specced into Pythons.

but ads will be spammed and op

That's too moronic to be funny.

It took me a week just to get in the groove of both maneuvering and hitting targets at the same time. You can't spam something that requires such a skillpoint investment and has such a high learning curve.

I'm using an Incubus with an afterburner

Your tank also survives most games. Most dropship pilots don't survive. Oh, and don't forget about us support dropship pilots. The ones who transport troops, scan areas, act as a CRU, all the Good stuff.

I've had many games where i've successfully survived under tank fire in my ADS if your a good pilot you can know how to avoid them but not every match goes your way just like you said i survive most not all if its a map with a bad advantage think about it before you call in the ADS and see if you can survive

There are good and bad matches and nothing CCP can do will change that

Going positive or negative is completely irrelevant. If your ship manages to put 6 other players in the negative then you got your ISK's worth out of it.

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