EVE: Viridian Patch Notes - Broker And Job Installation Fees

EVE Online's Viridian expansion, set to launch on 13 June 2023, is the game's second full expansion since the return of the content format in November 2022. The patch notes are fairly extensive. Instead of just composing a surface-level single post giving my thoughts, I thought I'd do a little experiment. Are people interested in perhaps a little deeper coverage? I'm about to find out, as this post covers changes to broker fees in Upwell Structures and the new job installation fee formulas. 

But before I continue, what perhaps is the most important change for the non-industrialist player is a temporary tax holiday.

The previously mentioned changes will have an impact where in the short term the installation cost to manufacture will be out of balance. To counter this impact, we are temporarily lowering the Sales Tax for all market transactions.

The developers "Reduced Sales Tax for all market transactions by 50% from 8% to 4%." Now to explain what the previously mentioned changes are.

Previously, CCP gave the following rationale for these broker and job installation fee changes:

Empowering and strengthening corporations is a major part of the Viridian expansion, and there are also changes coming to broker’s fees and industry job fees that will create a more equitable environment for industrialists, leveling the playing field and creating more opportunities for groups to increase profits by utilizing observable knowledge.

The developers are making changes in the way taxes are calculated in an effort to increase the value of corporation infrastructure as an income source. I read that as an effort to increase passive corporate and alliance income. Or maybe perhaps give the rest of the game a taste of the income generated by the Tranquility Trading Tower in Perimeter. The changes affect three areas:

1. Broker’s fee in Upwell Structures. Instead of a percentage cut, a fixed rate will be taken by the SCC, providing more ISK for facility owners.
   
   
2. Industry Job Installation Fee. Taxes will be applied directly on the estimated item value, allowing facility owners to have a meaningful income stream even in low indexed systems. 
   
   
3. NPC Stations / Monuments: Manufacturing and Research factors removal. Leveling the field and encouraging industry spread across systems.

Broker's fee in Upwell Structures - CCP explained in the patch notes that the purpose of this change is "to give more control, increase the value of income sources to corporations and to increase the competitiveness of facility owners with the market."

The broker's fee charged prior to Viridian was a flat 50% cut of the fee. So if the owner of the structure set the fee to 10%, the owner would get 5% and the Secure Commerce Commission would receive the other 5%. This is changing to the owner receiving the entire amount of the broker's fee charged, with the SCC receiving a flat 0.5% fee on top of any transaction.

CCP provided the following example in the patch notes.

Example: if you were to make an order of a cost at 100,000 ISK in a structure, where the owner has set the broker’s fee at 10%, the following amounts would be going to the following wallets:

Industry Job Installation Fee - "All taxes for industry jobs will be applied directly to the Estimated Item Value instead of the System Cost Index adjusted Estimated Item Value."

CCP explained in the patch notes the purpose of the changes.

Investing in industrial infrastructure is very expensive, this is felt especially by new corporations that are starting to make their mark on New Eden. Established groups have little incentive to grant access to their very costly infrastructure due to the income from such a bargain being mostly meaningless to them.

The goal of this change is to address both of those problems, to create options for newer corporations to access infrastructure without having to fork out for it fully and to give incentive to those that decide to do so. 

This change means that facility owners in a low indexed system can set their taxes to a very low value but still gain a meaningful income while still staying competitive. 

The tax changes are:

• Adjusted industry facility tax in NPC stations to 0.25% from 10%. 
• Adjusted Alpha clone tax to 0.25% from 2%. 
• Added a 0.25% tax that goes to the SCC. 
• The maximum tax that can be set for industry services will be capped at 10%. 
• You can now adjust your fees to 2 decimal places rather than being limited to 1. 
• We will be setting all current Player Ownership Tax profiles to 0.25%. This will need to be adjusted by facility owners as they see fit. [!!!!!]

According to the developers, the changes "will vastly increase competitiveness for facility owners. Even with it set at 0.25% the fee will earn the facility owner substantially more ISK."

Now for what most people have come to the post for, the new Total Installation Fee formula.

TIF = EIV * ((SCI * bonuses) + FacilityTax + SCC + AlphaClone) 

Where:

• TIF: Total Installation Fee 
• EIV: Estimated Item Value, the value upon which the fees are calculated 
• SCI: System Cost Index 
• Bonuses: Any bonuses that are applicable 
• Facility Tax: Fixed tax for NPC stations set to 0.25% or tax rate set by facility owner.
• SCC: SCC surcharge, this is a fixed value and cannot be affected by anything 
• AlphaClone: Tax applicable to alpha clones, set at 0.25%

CCP provided the following tables in the patch notes to represent the ISK flow in both Upwell and NPC structures.

NPC Stations & Monuments - "Removed all System Index Cost modifiers. This includes removing the bonuses that extra stations provided to a system, and the Upwell Support facility bonuses which were present in Null Security systems that had an Outpost prior to being converted to a faction Fortizar in 2016."

On 5 June 2018 CCP converted all the original player-built Outposts and Conquerable Stations in null security space into faction fortizars, with monuments placed in each system recording that era of EVE history. They also, among other things, provided modifiers to system index costs. CCP explained the change in the patch notes.

System Index Cost modifiers have existed since the creation of the Industry index system, but they are difficult to understand and identify through in-game means. Every NPC station capable of industry reduces the System Cost Index by a percent, while Sov Null Security Outposts granted their system a large permanent reduction depending on their type.

This powerful bonus invisibly shaped player behavior, while largely remaining out of sight for those not familiar with the System Cost Index modifiers. Our goal with this change is to create more opportunities for aspiring industrialists.

Hopefully this post has helped explained some very important changes to the EVE economy. The changes to broker and job installation fees, while perhaps just changing some values and formulas in a database, will impact every player who purchases something off the market. Which means, every player of EVE Online.