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[LordBucket]

The [Armok] Player-Owned Station
It's been a week since we formed [Armok]. If we're going to build a PoS, it's time.

The benefits
Let's be honest. The primary reason we want a PoS is to be able to say that we have one. Yes, it's possible to put up facilities, for example laboratories that research more quickly than npc stations. But the real motivation here is just for the sheer awesomeness factor. And that's it.

There is very little benefit to running a PoS. And that's ok. But if we do this let's just be clear that we're doing it for the fun of it.

The cost
Stations are expensive. I've previously suggested we go with a small control tower to reduce costs. Others have said no we need a big one. Which is totally ok with me...if the people insisting we need a big one are willing to pay for it.

Any takers?

No? Ok, then. Here are Jita prices for a small control tower, assuming we anchor a Gallente tower in Ordion. Why Gallente? They have enough cpu for three labs plus extra left over, they have double silo capacity and they're prettier than the other. And since we'll be in empire space we probably don't need as much defense as some of the other towers allow. And odds are good that we won't even be using up the capacity of a small tower since it will be hundreds of millions of ISK to buy facilities to do so. In any case, we're not stuck with that choice, but unless anyone gives me a compelling reason to do something else, here are the numbers for a Gallente tower:

Gallente Small Control Tower:
 * (Jita) 74 million

Daily costs:
 * (Amarr) 24 * 1 Amarr starbase charter # 2600 each for (24 * 2600) = 62,400/day
 * (Jita) 24 * 10 Gallente fuel blocks @ 13,275 each for (24 * 10 * 13275) = 3,186,000 ISK/day

Starbase charters can be purchased for loyalty points at a rate of 100 for 500 loyalty. That's like one level 4 mission every week. Charters are not an issue. The fuel however, is, at roughly 3 million ISK/day roughly 95 million/month. That's more than can be easily written off.

Ongoing funding for the PoS
We can either do donations or have a corporate tax. Either way works. Personally I propose a corporate tax rate of 10%. That applies only mission rewards, time bonuses and npc bounties. Things that you sell are not taxed. There are enough of us that it's likely that this alone would be enough to pay for ongoing costs.

If not, we may need to organize the occasional corp mining or mission run. I can't imagine it taking more than one a week. If that. And it would be good for us to have regular events anyway.

Anchoring
It was previously pointed out that anchoring a highsec PoS requires that the corp have high standings with the npc empire in control of that space. Corp standing is computed s the average of the standings of its various members. [Armok] current standing with the Amarr empire is 1.44, and it needs to be 5.0 to anchor a station in Ordion.

When Mostyn first made the corp, he addressed this by stating that people could join at any time but that anyone with low standings would need to leave when it came time to anchor the PoS. Then after the station in anchored they can come back.

But first we need to actually acquire a control tower.

Funding the control tower
73 million is a significant sum, but there are roughly 20 of of. A week ago 5 of us did missions together and pulled in 30 million in a couple hours.

Locating the PoS
Player owned stations must be placed in orbit around a moon. Ordion has roughly forty moons. We need to identify one to place our PoS. This might involve evicting another corp. Odds are good that even if there are no available moons, some of them may be occupied by abandoned corps that we can simply declare war on and evict without hassle.

Other issues
Strontium Clathrate. Ice mining. Passwords. Defense. Rights management. There are other issues that will need to be dealt with. I'm not ignoring them. But not everything needs to be dealt with at once. We can take care of these other issues, but we need to start somewhere and right now we seem to lack momentum more than anything else. So let's do something, and then we can take care of the rest one thing at a time.


So, I propose the following:

 * Change corporate tax rate to 10%
 * Several of us get together tonight or tomorrow and do some group missions or mining and donate proceeds to the purchase of a Gallente small control tower
 * We then scout out a suitable place to anchor it, and/or evict other corps as needed.
 * After the tower has been purchased, people with low standing leave [Armok] to allow standings to recalculate high enough to anchor it. In theory this happens every day at downtime, but I suggest that everyone be prepared for it to take a day or two before coming back to [Armok]. Note that only characters with standings below 5.0 with the Amarr empire will need to leave
 * Mostyn then anchors the station, reinvites everyone back and we have a PoS

[Poltifar]

Why is Gallente Tower's double-silo ability of any importance to us? We won't be moon mining, and probably not moon refining, at least I think.

[forsaken1111]

An important question: Does anyone have access to a level 4 agent near Ordion (or wherever we plan to place the PoS)?

I'm fine with setting up for once weekly (or more) level 4 missions provided we have someone who can access such. I'll check my own agent access in the area.

[LordBucket]

Does anyone have access to a level 4 agent near Ordion

I'm sure at least few of us do. For that matter, if Mostyn can place a PoS in .5 space, that means he has an Amarr empire standing of at least 5, which means he should have access to level 4 agents with every npc corporation in the entire Amarr empire.

Also, the stations in Ordion appear to belong to the Amarr Navy, and their storyline agent is there. So gaining rep with them in that system should go very quickly.

Shouldn't be a problem.

[sluissa]

If you're just talking about the charter situation, you don't NEED a level 4, it just makes it quicker. Those 500 LP earn pretty quickly even with lower level missions. I earned that much in less than an hour just running piss easy level 2 distribution missions where I was just hopping between stations picking up and dropping off stuff.

Of course you earn nice money in a level 4 as well, which takes care of some of the maintenance as well.

[Comp112]

I'm fine with the 10% tax myself, the corp has to get an income some how.

On another note, I purchased an Orca in Jita, and I will be able to fly it Sunday. I would like to move it to Ordion, but doing it by myself is rather risky. I wouldn't mind getting a bunch of corp mates together Sunday to bring it from Jita to Ordion.

That may also be a good chance to purchase what we may need, as I will have plenty of space on the Orca for hauling purposes.

I would also be willing to purchase the tower for the corp if I would get paid back for it, so if you would like it up sooner rather then later, that may be an option.

[Aavak]

Firstly, that was a fantastic summary post LordBucket, very well done and thank you!

Secondly, yes, I have access to level 4 agents with every NPC corp in the Amarr Empire, so gaining personal standing with a specific level 4 agent will be a largely trivial affair.

Thirdly, I'm fine with a corporate tax, however should there be enough interest in trying a donation route I would certainly approve of that. Ideally, those of us with the greater means to generate income could take a bit of the economic burden off those who're just starting out, and for whom every million counts. Alternatively, as was suggested, mission/mining events with a specific goal of funding the corp's PoS for that month might also be a good route, and likely very fun.

Fourthly (is fourthly even a word?), although I agree that there are fewer risks involved in anchoring a PoS in high-security space, I would caution against ignoring security completely. Often times, having some bite is enough to prevent anyone bothering you at all, even if they could easily overcome your defences, if there are other people who are even easier targets, they'll go the path of least resistance and leave you alone. I think the Gallente station is the better looking of the lot, but if we're not too interested in silo space, it may be worth just calculating what we can fit in terms of facilities and weapons (including possible weapon boosts from the towers) between the various towers to work out what can strike the best balance between industry and defence. But assuming there's not much of a difference, I'm happy with going with the Gallente tower for looks alone

Finally, a note on future-proofing. While as LordBucket has pointed out, I can anchor the PoS after a few people leave so the corp standing is recalculated (the forums seems to agree that this takes a few days sometimes) once people rejoin, the standing will drop again. Obviously if we're running local missions the whole corp's standing will start to rise nicely, but should we find that we do manage to get the funds together for additional facilities and want to make use of them. It will require another mass exodus from the corp for a few days. That isn't much of an issue on the whole, just an exercises in patience more than anything, but for the sake of convenience it'd be worth being sure that we're not going to run out of space only a few days after we're done setting this up.

For that, it'd be useful if people who've got an interest in the PoS outside of the awesomeness of owning one, to give a shout out on the forums with what activities they plan to engage in and what facilities would be necessary for that, as well as those who intend to help out with donations for these facilities. If we know there are a bunch of people looking to sink a few hundred mill into the PoS to make sure we have the right gear, then we can plan accordingly

[LordBucket]

I would caution against ignoring security completely

Defense structures are far cheaper than production/service structures, so by all means...half a dozen assorted warp scramblers/hardeners/turrets will probably cost less than the control tower. Some are as little as 5 million each.

a note on future-proofing.

but should we find that we do manage to get the funds together for additional facilities and want to make use of them. It will require another mass exodus from the corp for a few days.

Or if it's ever necessary to dismantle the station, for example, to keep it from being destroyed. I agree it's an issue. Leaving and rejoining seems bad for morale. But the only long term solutions are:

1) Anchor bigger or more control towers
2) Build in lowsec/nullsec/wormhole space
3) Plan for people to build Amarr empire rep

I think the Gallente station is the better looking of the lot, but if we're not too interested in silo space, it may be worth just calculating what we can fit in terms of facilities and weapons

I spent an hour looking over it, but eventually it comes down to the fact tht with the exception of research, there isn't really anything that a PoS does better than an npc station. Sure, we could pay hunderds of millions for ship construction facilities, but why do that when we could simply build ships at npc stations in Ordion? It makes sense to build facilities like this if one is 20 jumps out into nullsec, but in Ordion we'll never be more than a minute or two away from an npc station. There's no point paying hundreds of millions of ISK to duplicate services less well than the npc stations next door.

So it might be worthwhile to somebody to have research slots, but it's like 100 million ISK for half a dozen slots. Though we have a bunch of new players, so people could run through the Sisters of Eve epic arc for the Hyasoda station.

Apart from that, I mentioned silos above because they can be used with planetary interaction, and while that's not something I know much about, the idea of making the station self sustaining doesn't seem like a terrible idea to me. If there are players who don't have any interst in PI but could be persuaded to set up some structuers once, they direct outputs to the PoS and forget about it...that could possibly fund things long term. Maybe.

for the sake of convenience it'd be worth being sure that we're not
going to run out of space only a few days after we're done setting this up.

We could go with a medium tower instead of small. That should give some room to expand, but it does double both the cost of the tower and the monthly costs. 70 million + 3 million/month vs 140 million + 6 million/month.


How about this: set tax to 10%, check the corp wallet then after 24 hours see how much money has accrued. That will give us an idea how much money would be coming in and how much difference we'd have to make up for. Then tomorrow let's do some group missions/mining and see how much of a difference that makes. If all it takes is 2-3 hours of 5 people running missions together once a week to pay for a medium rather than small control tower, that's probably reasonable. But I don't think anyone wants to pay 140 million for a medium if it turns out that we can barely afford to keep it running and never use it. So let's try it and see before we buy.

[dragonshardz]

If you guys want to get into wormholing and have a POS, there's this C2 that BRG has mostly moved out of in favor of our shiny new C5.

It's still occupied, sorta, but if you want I can hook [Armok]'s CEO up with our corp diplo and things.

[Not good with names]

Fine with paying taxes, although I'm not making much right now.  Is it possible to start having events sent through the corp's mail?  I haven't been on during the corp's peak hours so I haven't heard much about what's going on except after the fact on here.

(In case you were wondering, Dingus Atari here)

[Rince Wind]

I am all for a 5% Tax.
I'd be fine with 10% if i saw the money being put to good use. Like maybe get some pvp ships for the corp, or some sort of replacement scheme. I am fine with having a PoS, but would prefer those that actually use it to pay for the upkeep.

Just looking at the wallet for 24 hours seems a bit short. A week would give a better view, as you might pick a slow day, or an especially good one, and it would be less than optimal to calculate on that basis.

Unless someone used the money for other stuff, there should be enough money in the corp wallet to get at least the small tower.
I know I put 100mil in.

[Aavak]

Currently the corp wallet sits at 132,086,232 ISK due to donations. About 20 million has been spent on Office rental, and a bit more on station hangars.

Rince raises a valid point about using a 24 hour period as a snapshot, it would be better to base these calculations over a week instead. I also appreciate their concerns about everyone in the corp funding a station that only a handful of members might make use of. Not everyone might feel the same way about wanting a PoS simply because it feels cool, if they themselves aren't interested in the industrial facilities the PoS would provide.

Comp112 has very kindly offered to retool their planets to produce PoS fuel materials, if others who intend to make use of PoS facilities such as Labs and Factories did the same (even high-sec planets, when worked by multiple people, can support a PoS fuel needs) so depending on the tower we choose, all we'll need to gather are the ice materials to construct fuel blocks. With that in mind, it may actually be worth working out which type of Ice is available in Ordion (I'm not in that system at the moment or I'd check myself) and what type of fuel block uses those materials, and buy the Tower which uses that type of fuel.

[Comp112]

The Ordion ice belt is all Clear Icicle, seems like there's plenty there but I didn't run any scans. Id be willing to train for Ice, and my Orca could be useful for ops once I get my other skills up so it can use links.

[Tyg13]

Well, I'm already making rocket fuel consistently, if that's what you mean. I think that's useful for PoS's. Otherwise, I'd be more than happy to retool my planets to produce something that would work towards the upkeep and production of the PoS. Granted, I'm producing maybe 600 units of rocket fuel a day, but that's only because of the haphazard selection and setup of the planets I currently have. I just threw them together sort of as a source of constant free income, without much regard to efficiency.

[LordBucket]

Fleet Operation in Ordion in ~30 minutes
We'll be doing L4s for fast income and Amarr Navy standings farming. Current lineup:

 * Abbadon
 * Drake
 * Tengu
 * Cruiser

You do not need to have enough standings to start the missions. Mostyn will be doing that, so this is a good chance to get easy standings so you can stop grinding L2s. However, L4s are somewhat dangerous, may have warp scramblers, and if you're flying something delicate it might get blown up. So caution is advised.