Finished moving... now pondering POS setup

I have finally moved my last alt from Amarr space to Gallente space.  I am operating mainly in low security space while a conflict is raging in our 0.0 space.  My ability to pew pew is limited because of 1) It’s mainly just my main in 0.0 during US tz, and I’m still new at pvp… and a Manticore stealth bomber does not lend itself to solo activity to BC / Cruiser gangs.  2) I only have one (1) drake up there atm.  I could jump more… but if I’m the only one up there with neuts and reds… not wise to JF.  So I’ll wait.

So, due to lack of pew pew, I’m looking at setting up some POS now that I’ve ripped down 6.  Setting up 7 for now sounds about right.  I am getting paid a % of the profits to assist with setting up for the most isk.  I have reached a puzzling quandary while working on getting the logistics going.

I have an alt corp.  It has 4 members, and they are all my alts.  My main + my main manufacturer comprise 6 of the 7 characters I have made.  (7^th is a market price checking alt with 0 skills; which is also useful for Evemon alt planning).  My alts are neutral standing to all factions, having run NO missions.  The corporate standings allow me to anchor in high security space for Amarr and Caldari.  My substitute for POS management while I am away on business does not have an alt to place in my alt corp.  I do not have access to a corp hanger.  Ugh. 

My solution: Keep everything in my alt corp, and anchor an additional silo chained linked with each reaction.  Only turn the silos on when I’m heading out of town, turning off the Moon mining.  The simple reactions aren’t an issue, as it takes them 10d to fillup.  Only the larger m3 complex reactions matter… which is pretty much everything except the Carbide reactions.

PI POS fueling.

I want to fuel all of the POS through myself… or as many as possible.  I have 26 planets to work with.  All the calculations are assuming I can pull 40k P0 units / 5 hrs and I will click 3x / day.  (Or, 120k P0 units / day / extractor)

P1 – strait forward

Oxygen: 1 Oxygen planet can fuel 16 POS

P2 – 2 methods.. produce P1 and transport or make P2 on 1 planet

Method 1 – produce P1 and transport.  This requires 5 planets, 2 of each P1 and 1 manufacturing.  I will produce about 4,000 P0 units / day of excess goods.

The manufacturing planet, if constructed correctly will push out 1,920 units of P2 / day.

Coolant: 10 POS

EU: 20 POS

Meach: 10 POS (5 units for fuel, 3 for robotics)

Method 2 – produce P2 on 1 planet.

20 units / hr / planet in 0.0 or low sec is possible, 15 units / hr / planet is pretty much given.

Coolant: 2.5 POS / planet – 12.5 POS for 5 planets to compare above.

EU: 5 POS / planet

Mech: 2.5 POS / planet

The 2^nd method will be cheaper and produce more, but may not ‘work’ if you can’t get 20.  You also will not know what yield there is before diving in with the cost structure, so it could be the lower amount or 1.875 POS Coolanet/Mech / planet and 2.75 POS EU / planet.

Robotics: We pretty much need to have a manufacturing planet.  Previously I combined this with Oxygen  Curring Oxygen down to 12 POS, but giving Robotics 12POS.  We also need a Consumer Electronics planet, which method 2 will supply 6.67 POS / planet.

Oxygen/Robotics: 2 – 24 POS

Coolant: 8 – 20 POS

EU: 4 – 20 POS

Mech Parts: 8 – 20 POS

Cons. Electronics: 3 – 20POS

Total – 25 planets.  This gives only 1 planet lee-way and requires me to move my newbie indy hauler around in low sec.  Not ideal.  I also haven’t secured a good Plasma planet.  I am not certain that my low skilled alt hauler will go for any length of time without a ship loss.

Setting up industry again

With the move to 0.0, I am moving my items half way across the universe... I will hopefully be setting up a POS within the next couple days to begin my T2 production again, and I have scanned well over 300 moons.  After a minor conflict resolves in a few weeks, I should be ready to go.  I hope to have all of my alts in the staging area by the upcoming weekend getting PI underway.

After cleaning up house and assessing all my funds.. I had enough for an Anshar.  Yes... a Jump Freighter.  It's hard to believe that I was able to acquire one after only 15 months of playing, but it will prove invaluable for transporting materials to null sec.  The Anshar + 3 POS + research POS + 1bn isk + about 1bn in misc goods + working ships.  Eve business has been good.  PI itself was enough to fund the Anshar.

There are a couple of logistical issues that I need to figure out.  First, I need to move an alt to 0.0 through an extremely hostile / actively bubbled gate camp.  I'm certain that at least one gate will be bubbled, and I don't want to lose a Crane during the transport.  I can't see another way, however.  Attempting right after a DT may be the best option.

For null sec mining I'm moving in 3 covetors until the conflict is over.  I have moved 12 fully fitted manticores into my hangar and a few drakes as well.

Right now, the main industrial activity is setting up a research POS and getting PI fuel up and going for minimal need for open markets.

Now in 0.0

I haven't posted for awhile, mainly due to new position at work, and moving out to 0.0 space.  I am not in sovereignty space, but my alliance is NBSI.  My alts will be arriving in 10d, when reactions and research finishes up.  I have been in on a HAC kill and had 2 frigs die.  I still feel like a PvP noob (which I am), but I have scanned over 200 planets so far for setting up POS, and will be doing a lot of T2 construction and POS management.

I have assessed my funds and I can either stretch for an Anshar or fly a Rorqual in 21d.  I am thinking with my current funds that the Rorqual makes more sense, but an Anshar would be Very nice for Empire logistics.  I have a very long trip to by brother in law's wedding (30hrs driving one way), so I'll be pondering during that.  To create a proper indy buffer for the Anshar I would need to sell my Providence and several other item I probably won't need.

I should be able to get a copy of an Orca BPC to create an Orca out in Null sec for mining.  I don't like the idea of putting a Rorqual in an ore belt for potential hostile roams.  Another player in corp is also logistics / mining and has a Rorqual, so we may be able to figure out a good configuration of Rorqual in POS bubble, with the Orca hauling to him.

I am still figuring out logistics and realistically, I will need 2 Rorqual trips / week to do what I want.  Compared to 1 Anshar trip.  The Anshar would be nice, but I may be a bit short on my indy funds to swing it.  I would have less than 2bn isk after an Anshar purchase, and that makes me nervous.

T2 Manufacturing

I have been quite busy with a new promotion, travel, and well... making a new profitability spreadsheet for my T2 calculations in Eve.  I know I haven't posted recently, but here's to making up for it.

I have been deeply looking into both the T2 invention calculator and the Eve Blueprint Information site http://bp.kiwi.frubar.net/ and I have had difficulties with a couple of assumptions.  The T2 invention calculator assumes that you buy everything off of the market, and it calculates for maximum income, not maximum return.  (I know the first can be corrected with settings).  The Blueprint information drawback is that you have to set all component BPOs at the same ME level, and can't mix and match.  This is troublesome for ship invention, as ships won't tend to have 100ME.  That, and I want to ensure I REALLY understand the profitability mechanics... I've been making my own spreadsheet.

I am almost done, and there hasn't been any grand epiphanies, but I do have a clearer understanding of what could potentially make more isk.  So, I am spending tonight traveling around in my Viator and picking up a few BPOs.

This has also helped in prioritizing my science skill learning as I can now get a maximum increase for my lvl4 learnings.  (lvl5 just doesn't do enough for the time spent.  2 lvl 5 skills give an additional 0.025% chance AT BEST more than lvl4s... assuming you're using a meta 4 item for invention.  with no item, it's 0.005% more)

For those not familiar with the Eve invention formula, it's argued to be: (1 + 0.01 * racial encryption)*(1 + (Skill1 + Skill2)*0.1/(5-meta item lvl)) * base %

Base % is 40 for modules, 30 for frigates, 20 for other ships.  In general, modules & ammo are going to be the most profitable, but very time intensive for the 1hr research times.  Ships are slower, but not as profitable. I do a mix of everything.

Not all inventions are profitable, however.  And, as in T1 construction, people don't always value their raw materials.  The big culprit here is datacores.  In order to obtain datacores, you need to research with an appropriate agent. However, some people see these as free, and don't value the opportunity cost of just selling them.

This means that some inventions actually make more isk if you sell the datacores and raw materials rather than inventing the BPCs.

Ex: Miner II invention
Datacore cost : 905k per attempt
% success with lvl4s: (1.04)*(1.16)*0.40 = 48.25%
# of attempts for 1 success: 2.07
average cost per attempt: 2.07*905k = 1.875m isk

Cost to make 10 Miner II @-4 ME = 2.85m
Sale of 10 Miner II = 2.24m

Profit: 2.24m - 2.85m - 1.875m = -2.5m  (ouch)

This is where people tend to complain that T2 BPOs from the old days have an innate advantage and invention can't win.  Which is true, but if you have enough isk, one could be yours as well, and people have paid dearly for their BPOs.  Reality is, demand isn't high enough to overcome the BPOs... so just look elsewhere.

Remote Eve

I have been traveling for work in London this week, and been working on Evemon skill plans and Excel T2 construction worksheets.  Working on Excel without a mouse and a subpar keyboard is frustrating at best.  It's been hard to keep at it. 

Evemon has shown that my autions haven't been going so great.  It's wonderful checking evemon to see that the biggest item your selling has dropped 25% in price.  I really hope it recovers, because -25% would be an ugly 9 figure loss.  Hopefully, the prices will rebound; which they should.  The prices are at a four week low, so I'm not too concerned, but it is still discouraging.

Hopefully, I can update my POS this weekend, and my partner was able to restock reactions.

PI income

One of my board game friends has reactivated his accounts (2) and I have talked him into joining my laid-back corporation.  I was finally able to point out how lucrative PI actually is with less than 5 hours of training.

Standard Command Center : 12k CPU, 12k Power = 1 Launchpad + 15 Advanced Industrial Facilities + links.

Looking at something simple… like say Coolant (easy to comprehend need with POS fuel) using all Jita 3day rolling average sale prices.

Water = 337 isk / unit

Electrolytes = 413 isk / unit

40 of each = 30,000 isk

5 Coolant @ 7,651 = 38,256 isk.

Now there is import and export costs.  30 isk to import, 45 isk to export, plus sales broker fees.  So, to make things, ‘easy’ profit per 1 hour cycle is 38,256 – 30,000 – 256 = 8,000 per hour, per factory.  This is about a 26% return on investment.

15 factories = 120,000 profit per hour or 2.88 million isk per day.

For three planets (lvl 2 interplanetary consolidation) that is 8.64m per day or just over 207 million isk per month.

What is the time commitment?  Well, first you WILL need a hauler that can haul 10k m3.  Any race industrial cruiser should be able to do this relatively painlessly.  (Expanded Cargohold II and cargo rigs make 10k transport rather trivial.)

A launchpad can hold 10k m3 of goods.  This is 26,315 TOTAL water + electrolytes.  So if we put 13,000 of each commodity into the launchpad, and spider out everything from there, it will take (13,000 / 40) / 15 = 21hrs 40min to deplete the launchpad.  So back and forth 3 times (3 planets) a little for frequently than 1x per day is the time needed to make 207m / month, plus swapping materials out and buying / selling raw materials.  If you’re slow, this would be at worst 30m / day or 15 hrs / month.  This income is basically 13.8m / hour of work.

Is it worth it?  That depends on how you view almost 14m / hour in Eve.

Oh, and this is just for Coolant manufacturing, other items can give a larger return.  I’m over 100m/hour on my PI production.  So, eve-players please abandon the boring PI game play.

It only helps my profits.

Mission alt update

Drones.  Very useful… takes forever to train.  I’ve been working on drones for my missioner for almost 2 weeks now.  Drones 1-5, Scouting Drones 1-5 and then the drone support skills to lvl 3 or 4.  (pondering whether I even want logistic and/or heavy drones.)

I am now flying a Harbinger.  With T2 drones now a reality, it has become quite nice.  I am still lacking in firepower, but I am planning on training Medium Energy Turret 5 while working in London next week.

My Harbinger can handle lvl3 missions consistently, and I haven’t needed to refer to the web for reference.  My current set up is to send the harbinger with armor mods activated into the fray, and eventually send a salvaging Rokh in afterwards.  (I know there’s better ships, but the Rokh looks kewl, and I didn’t need extra training for my Caldari pilot.)

My Rokh has armor repair drones, which I have needed on a couple missions, like Recon where I didn’t notice that I just had to warp in.. not kill everything, or on a couple other missions where killing was, um… optional.  (I’m here to pew pew with this guy, after all.)

Now I’m beginning to approach a decision… should I A) go for a T3 cruiser, or B) go for a BS.  I am tempted to cruiser since I could afford it, but the BS may be more practical .  Regardless, I have swapped missioning people so I need to work back up to lvl3 missions before deciding.  I found a nice combat mission agent to help me along for the pew pew.  I should hopefully be done with drones before too long (need EWAR drones still), and then it’s back to pew pew skills.  Cruiser V may be worth it for T2 ships and a T3, I need the lvl5 core skills anyway.  Although the BS may just make more sense from a cost perspective.  Hopefully, I can have time tonight to read up on Legion T3 PvE feasibility.

Next day- having looked.. Legions stink for PvE.  So, while there may be a lot of utility for a Legion, my goal for this character is to have him only mission.  Looks like BS route for me!  My current plan (with tons of travel coming up) is to train Medium Lasers 5, grab the specialty skills and more gunnery, then dive right into BS training.  During this time, I should hopefully have lvl4 skills open in Amarr space for the new corp I’m working on.  (Searched for a corporation’s final lvl4 agent that is near my industry base, so my salvager doesn’t have far to travel.)

Manufacturing

Work has been crazy for the past several days, so I haven't had much time to post.  At night, I've just refueled my POS, kept invention and manufacturing going,and that's it.

I do feel like I need to improve my spreadsheet for invention, and the datacore cost and success % from the blueprint tool i'm using may not be entirely accurate... but that would require time.

Precious, precious time i do not currently have.

Haven’t had my usual time to play this week, and it looks like it’ll be just PI and attempting to keep my invention / manufacturing going, with a little logistics.  My latest set of sales pushed me above 3.2bn, for about 10seconds before I bought down below 2bn again.  I’m going to need to decide soon regarding my specialization as to what I’m going to make.  I only have 10 slots to play with (1 base + 5 production + 4 adv skill) and those are quickly becoming the bottleneck. 

Currently, I’m using:

2 for T2 missiles (2wks / pop for 11m ea or 780k/day)

4 for T2 indy/frig (1wk for components + ships for 225m total or 803k/day)

4 for T2 modules (1d for 4m)

Which means my T2 research / manufacturing is generating ~20m/day (600m/month), with modules making the most isk (by far).  I may be dropping the missiles, saving them for times when I know I’m going to be away on a business trip, although 2wks is still quite awhile.  I believe I’ve been doing the T2 ships ‘wrong’, and may be able to reduce the producing time on them.  I am tempted to anchor and online a component assembly array to decrease manufacturing time, but I need to figure out if the waste increase makes it worth it.

Equipment Assembly Array – 25% faster to build, same cost, 6 slot, high sec anchor

Rapid Equipment Assembly Array – 35% faster to build, 20% more cost, 6 slot, high sec anchor

Ammunition / Component / Drone arrays – same cost, build

So, an equipment assembly would increase profit for pretty much anything, and I’d be able to move my 4 reserved module slots into the array.  The POS could easily handle the CPU / Power load with minimal changes.  The question remains, would a 17hr construction cycle on station mods being reduced to 13hrs be worth the hassle?  .

I login every morning and evening.  6pm -> 7am ->8pm->9am(work).  So the 4^th  cycle on a station 17hr job would fail, only to start up again.  Compared to: 6pm -> 11am (work) or 24 hour cycle = a 17 hour cycle for me.

The hassle of an equipment array component managing would basically squeeze in 1 more production every 2 days. This alone may be worth the hassle.

Rapid assembly would push the 17hr cycle down to 11hrs; which has pretty much the same effect, but I’m paying 20% more materials.  Ship arrays don’t appear to be worth it, unless I’m remote… which I’m not.  I have a feeling they’d also scream “juicy target” to bored pirates as well.  I’d rather not have a bull’s eye tattooed on my POS shield.

I would like to finish up my T2 missile BPCs (still ~30 left), but with 2 slots of 2wks each, I’m looking at six months until all those missiles are completed, unless I load up for my 1 week trips.  Thinking I should save up and launch multiple indy/cruiser builds during that time instead.  I currently have 4 different frigate BPOs, 4 different indy BPOs, 2 cruiser BPOs, and 10 components.  I’m going to hold off on further acquisitions until I get these workstreams / markets fully appreciated.  In the meantime, it’s T2 joy all around.  Although, I am burning through some datacores pretty fast.  (~100 mechanical engineering over this last week)

Hopefully, I’ll have time to update my spreadsheet further, putting more into the planning portions.

I will be off to London soon (for work), and should have time on the plane to update my spreadsheet / evemon plans... hopefully.

Memorial Day POS joy

This weekend started off pretty normal in Eve. PI, manufacturing, invention, light missioning, etc. I also spent quite a bit of time updating my T2 manufacturing spreadsheet. I didn’t like how manual everything was, so now I have an automated shopping list working for anything that gets invented. (Now I just need to add a profit component.)


During this process, I ended up checking out some corporate numbers, and discovered that we are slowly losing funds to our research POS upkeep. To solve this ‘problem’ I set up 3 more POS for reactions this last Memorial Day. I acquired all the materials Sunday and moved them to my staging area, then spent time Monday on-lining towers, reactors, silos, coupling arrays, moon harvesting arrays, guns, more guns, and some EWAR batteries. I make it a point to not go after the ‘best’ moons in system, and to be one of the most defended POS in system. This way, the entrepreneur will easily discover that there are more profitable non-alliance corporations to assault than ours. If that fails, I have full strontium bays, lots of guns, and my EU time zone partner and I can each have Starbase Defense Management 4, and can fly a shield repairing Osprey. If it looks bad, we’d need to activate one of our alliance mercenary contracts, but fortunately, that hasn’t been an issue.

Putting the towers, reactors, and silos online took the same amount of time for 3 towers as it does for one, with the difference being no down time. Fly to tower 1, anchor, fly to tower 2, anchor, fly to tower 3, anchor, go pick up more stuff and repeat.

I like how I have my reactors set up: raw material silos are physically underneath the reactor, with the final product being physically above. Final product reactors are ‘pointed’ to the Corporate array, which makes storage of goods easier. I have shield hardening arrays aligned, so if war declarations come, I can online 8 hardening arrays and all of my guns / EWAR easily.

Keeping everything fueled is a continuous task, but my partner and I have things going fairly well. Now, our research POS will be continuously fueled without tapping the main corporate wallet, and my personal quest for a Jump Freighter will get a harsh reminder every 10-14 days.

Skill planning mini-game

I am heading to Europe again on a trip. With my latest work laptop ‘upgrade’, I am now unable to install Eve due to some downgrading of the graphics drivers. (Don’t get me started). This means that I can no longer update skills while traveling, and have to, once again, plan skills on my four accounts to be training for my week long trip. With my work changing, I will be heading to Europe one out of every four to five weeks; so this will be a frequent activity. My four currently training characters include: My main, who is working on missile support skills, My POS managing alt, who is working on energy laser skills, My industrialist, who is finally learning drone skills; and my new missioner, who is learning drones as well. The week long skills I have planned include (in order) Caldari Cruiser 5, Some Gunnery support skill @5, Jump Drive Calibration 4, and Medium Energy Turret 5. For Cruiser 5; I’d swap out when back so I could finish that skill after my next couple trips, being over a 20d skill to train.




This will continue to be tricky, as several lvl5 skills finish in 4d; so I either live with a few hours of no skill training, or plan those for other times. I am aware I can queue up 23hrs of skills before doing the 4d skill, but the total time away from eve would average 121 hours (5d 1hr); so I’d miss 2hours of training… IF everything lands on-time.



After several trips, a T3 cruiser may not be so far off, as I would get all my requisite skills to lvl 5, and would have as much time to get distracted. Although I am not too keen on paying 1bn to minimally equip such a ship. I wouldn’t be able to fly one to its fullest capability, given how much I do industrial things. Getting a Charon is probably a more reasonable purchase, as I’d probably use it more.



What will be the worst is time away from Industry jobs. Several things do take 5d+ (missiles 2wks), but with 10 manufacturing + 10 research slots on my indy character, I have plenty of things to queue up. I have these items normally queued up pretty well, but few things take 5d+ that don’t require proper prior planning. This will take quite a bit of thought.



PI income will drop 70m/day. 



On the Indy front last night, I ready to queue up my 10 Viators and 3 Manticores. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough RAM Starship Tech units, So I queued up 50 more to fill that hole. This morning, I was able to queue up my last Viators and manticores. May wait a bit on the Viators before batching up more, I still have 6 up in local regional markets. I may need to send these 10 off to Jita. That will be 4 sold in current region, 6 sold in 2 adjacent regions, and 20 sold in Jita. I also spent 90m on T2 component BPOs, and have been researching those instead of inventing. The times on the BPOs are small to make perfect. I am only doing PE10 on the long time frame parts (armor and microprocessors), with the others at PE5. I have also acquired 2 BPOs of each armor and microprocessor to further reduce the required time.



I feel like I may eventually need another Research manufacturing alt to help with components and BPC creation. Right now I am producing around 100k T2 missiles, 80 T2 modules, and 15 T2 frigate/cruiser/indy ships a month. I feel like I could do more, but am restricted by queue. Maybe I should spend the time and increase my slots by 1 more.



The average manufacturing queue is: 2 slots on missiles, 4 slots on ships, 3 slots on components. (1 base + 5 Mass Production + 3 adv mass production). My average research queue is 1 long term research (currently ME perfect adv. mobile lab), 6 inventions, 2 copying/component research. (1 base + 5 laboratory research + 3 adv laboratory research). My T2 indy character has so much I want her to learn… eventually lvl5 slots for manufacturing /research, lvl5 science skills, T2 sentry drone capable for Orca, better armor resist skills, carrier capable (already JF capable)… and of course those support skills. My industrialist is also my salvager.. so I may need to train for a salvaging Dominix to go with my freshly trained drone skills. Realistically, the carrier + support skills will probably wait. I am having a hard time justifying lvl5 science skills as well, outside of the racial encryption skills. Maybe if I move away from generalist… nah. I like playing any part of the market if I obtain a BPO. I would like to acquire some Cruiser BPOs, more module BPOs, and a Cloak BPO soon. This will put off my Freighter dreams even more however…. I am also tempted to acquire T2 capital component BPOs, but I’d rather wait and blow that when I’m ready for true JF construction… which is quite awhile off. AND I should probably grab T1 capital construction BPOs first.



While pondering these things, my missioner completed enough missions to be eligible for lvl3 missions. I am not sure if I want to move that far away. It would place me in an adjacent region, which would mean I couldn’t launch new research / copy tasks in-between missions like I am currently. Before starting to mission, I send my Viator through low-sec to team up with my missioner… jumping into a salvaging Catalyst. Due to time constraints, I may rotate my main or BPO alt into that role, so I can train my indy alt more in indy stuff. I just need to check to see if a Rokh would work well as a salvager (I’m guess that’d be better than a Raven; plus a Rokh just looks kewl.)

Jump Freighter dreams

I want a jump freighter. I want one really, really bad. I have a pilot who is Anshar capable NOW, and one that could become Ark capable in about a month. (Just need Jump Drive skills).


I am managing 3 POS in low sec. I transport ~180k m3 of goods every 10days. Now, this is easier with PI, as most of the PI materials are in-system. Discounting those items, I am still moving around 154k m3/10days. *Ice product takes up a lot of space*. With my trusty cloaky transport, that is almost 20 trips. Ugh. Now, I do bring online 4 transports to move, so It’s 5 trips from the entire crew, but still. It’s painful. I devote 1 night of Eve / 10 days entirely to POS refueling management. An Anshar would be able to haul over 390k m3 in a single jump.

Drool.

That means 1 jump, I can transport all the goods I need to the POS for 20days of fuel. I’d need to ferry it around from POS to POS, but this is a HUGE time savings. Damn, with this amount of freedom, I could set up another 3 POS with the same RL time burden. (And JF every 10d, as opposed to every 20d.)

In the meantime, I make angst decisions of: T1 ity 5 / Bestower / Impel to transport through low sec… 1 Indy trip = 5 transport trips, so I sometimes pull those out after doing a few initial trips with the transports if the coast is clear. I do fit my transports with Inertia Stabilizers II and/or a Warp Core Stabilizer II. It cuts down on the cargo space, but they’ve saved my ass before, and I wont’ venture an indy into low sec without at least one of those mods.

I’ve only been locked in low sec once, and that was for less than 1second as I warped through the gate. After that I warped to POS and sat there for a couple hours (huzzah for alts!) until I could scout the gates with an assault frig and warp back to high sec. (I think the pirate got bored waiting for a motionless Indy in an armed POS bubble.)

Wealth in Eve

When I played WoW, I eventually gold-capped a character. I was bored, and did my 30-45m/day AH thing, and after 18months, I capped out on gold. The problem is, there isn’t much you can actually _do_ with all that gold. I filled the guild bank, payed for all guild raid repairs, supplied all guild raiding potions, supplied all guild enchanting materials (was in a hardcore raiding guild), but still, that was maybe 10k gold / week.



In EvE, I passed 2bn liquid isk. I immediately re-invested it to make more (of course), but let’s look at what 2bn isk can actually do:

=Allow 1 account to play for ‘free’ for 6 months
=Purchase 80 fully fitted Manticores.
=Purchase a very well fit T3 cruiser
=Purchase 250 Omen lvl2 mission ships (L4 / T2 mods)
=Purchase one freighter BPO
=Purchase two BS BPO
=Purchase 135 T2 fit Assault Frigates
=Purchase 889 million trit
=Purchase 3 freighters
=Purchase 1 Large POS (reaction or lab), fit it, arm it, and fuel it for 2 months
=Buy materials to construct 35-40 T2 Transports
=Purchase ~10 fitted HACs



There are many other examples, but my point is… 2bn is a lot of isk; but in EvE-terms…it’s nothing. 30bn to construct a titan. An ‘isk-capped’ character in WoW equivalent terms would be 7.5 Trillion isk… and even then it is VERY feasible in EvE to actually USE all that isk. In WoW… gold just sits there as a testament of just how boring the game can become.

Jita 0.01isk wars

To keep my PI engine going, I make a trip to Jita every two or three days. I now need to take my freighter, due to the ever increasing cargo size. The frustrating part is, I am _just_ over my Orca’s ability to carry the goods. An Orca can make the trip in half the time, but I now need to take the slow-boat and not use the full m3 capability of the ship. At least it IS only one trip, and not several.




I have an alt in Jita with some basic trade skills. I set up the buy orders and sell orders, so my hauler just needs to dock, do a quick trade, and head back out. My hauler, who has Tycoon 3, is usually scanning the 4 regions I pass through, doing opportunistic buy/sells from afar as I pass through the Jita route. Occasionally I will stop by and drop off a manufactured item to sell, or pick up something priced way to low. But, for the most part, I buy /sell from my freighter while slowly aligning and warping through.



My Jita alt does all the 0.01 isk fights. It makes it handy to have one character that does all the Jita purchases I want. Set up the buy orders, and update continuously. If I have a few minutes, I can load one toon, update orders, and logout. She’s still sitting in her Ibis, and hasn’t left Jita since docking there after character creation and picking up her trading skill books. She also does buy/sell orders for the corporation, being perma-docked in Jita.



I have tried the tedium of flipping items in Jita. It does make isk, but becomes quite tedious. I can only keep it up for a week or so, until I need to take a few weeks off. I tend to like items that flip fairly quickly, and it seems as the isk level rises, the potential to flip decreases… although I could be just looking at the wrong items to trade. I also tried my hand at regional trading. That… did NOT go well. I lost 5-6m from the venture, but I’m certain it’s because I traded in the wrong item at a hub that gets frequent Jita updates. I went for a large differential item, and it became apparent that many other traders saw the same thing…

Eve Missioning

I have been messing around with my missioner alt for the past few nights. He’s lvl1, has almost all the needed skills to satisfy the basic certificates that matter (Core Proficiency – shield skills, armor tanking, frigate laser turrets), and I now have Amarr Frigate 4 in queue to start the cruiser training regimen; which is basically medium turrets and a few more ‘core’ skills like EWAR and electronics / engineering / mechanic / navigation to levels 4 or 5; and maybe mwd training is in order. (‘Running’ / non-warp flying is the most frustrating waste of time for me.)




A few comments on my missioning ‘break’:

=The pew pew of lvl1 missions is pretty boring. A few intense points, but the travel time is painful. 80km away? At least I’m in a frigate that can Afterburner I at 600m/s. BC travel times are going to hurt… mwd training time, I think.

=The number of foes requires you to pretty much skill in tanking, which decreases your pew pew training potential. I like things going boom, but taking on 12 frigs at once (happened a couple times) seems a bit much. I didn’t have a problem completing it, and the worst ‘damage’ I took was 60% armor gone. I now have the passive armor resist skills; and the worst damage I have taken since has been 10% structure. Lvl2 missions may be in order, but I want a proper cruiser first.

=I have been sending my indy/orca character along in a catalyst to salvage / loot the missions. This probably saves at least 20m / mission, as I can tractor in up to 5 wrecks at a time. I did need to spend 1 day of supplemental training for my indy/orca pilot, but it’ll be worth it. The main drawback: I now need to travel this toon to the missioning area… more time traveling. In the Viator this only takes 5-10m, but still. Another drawback of trying not to make any faction mad: I don’t have jump clones for most of my characters. Even then, a 24hr cooldown is quite a bit. I should start sending my providence (different account) up to Jita for trading instead of my indy/orca pilot.

=The salvage has been great, and I have noticed how much salvage prices have increased since my last major rig construction project. I was sitting on 200-300m of salvage 3 months ago. That’s up probably 20-30% now. May be time to start making more rigs in between my various T2 items.

=Higher level courier missions always seemed ‘worth’ it. Lvl1 couriers to move a 10m3 item 7 jumps for 0.01 standing is just… bleh. The reward+bonus was ~75k, which is ok, I guess. Takes 7-10m to do (down, dock/hand-in and back), and I’ve done it 4x..



A typical lvl1 combat mission, with 100% looting/salvaging in tandem with my catalyst pulls around 500-550k, and takes 20-30m. This is at a ‘casual’ pace where I’m not trying to ‘push’ for time or efficiency. About 60-70% of the take from lvl1 missions is from salvage, and 20% from reward +bonus. If you’re new to eve and want to make isk; see if you can get in a destroyer and run a tractor beam + salvager setup with an agree-able Lvl4 missioner. You should be able to pay for your lvl2-3 mission ship + mods within a week, easily.



I am now to the point of deciding whether to train for T2 lasers, or go for a cruiser. In plugging into EFT, the Omen would be a much bigger dps increase than going for T2 lasers, and I could jump in the ship in a shorter period of time. I also looked at the Maller, but I feel my resistance skills should be sufficient for Lvl2 missions; without needing to sacrifice that much potential dps for tank. With my main (who does lvl4 missions in a passive T2 mod Drake), I greatly overpowered missions when I actually did them, having BC skills by the time I did my first mission. This character I am playing more while I ‘build him up’; at least… for now. While I’ll need T2 lasers eventually, I’m thinking of hopping into a cruiser now. T2 missions aren’t that rough, and for 5m, I should be able to fully fit an Omen for mission running, which would triple my dps.

mmmm, PI

I have been enjoying PI. I used to mine heavily; like 3hrs / night while chatting with my lvl600+ Mophia Wars spouse and watching movies. (My mining is controlling 3 hulks and an orca). This would pull in around 100m / night of rock slaying. Eventually, I needed a change, so I packed up my small POS and stopped pulling ore. Income plummeted, but not being tied down to a solid 3hr block was fairly liberating. With PI, I use 3 30-40m chunks of time per day and I’m pulling around 150m / day NET income. That’s 2x the iskies in half the RL time. Keep emo-raging over the painful clicks, eve-citizens & leave in droves! PI is _way_ more profitable than my 3 hulk + orca crew and I didn’t need to spend 8-9 months of skill training for it either.




My four accounts + 1 alt gives:

*26 planets, 20 in low sec, 21 with elite CC

*Enough POS fuel to meet almost all of the POS fuel needs for the 4 POS I supply. (I need 1 EU / hr off of market, otherwise I’m good)

*1.5 P4 units / hr unless I subsidize the materials for the ‘free’ 0.5/hr production (which I usually do)

*enough manufacturing capability to arbitrage off of Jita price discontinuities about every 2days.



I could boost up another alt, but I’m at my time commitment peak.

Eve Aspirations

I have assembled a list of things I’d like to do in Eve: (no particular order)


*Start a freighter ‘company’- Obtain BPOs, research them, and create freighters as a primary income source. I have created a business plan which shows that I could pull in about 600m / month from making and selling several freighters. I have even pre-written a potential MD proposal for a 5% loan over 7 months to enact said plan. Unfortunately, I do not have the collateral MD seems to require, as this is my first, big venture.

*Do the “Jita 0.01isk Trade” thing – I do this on a limited basis, but I’ve always been tempted to go ‘big time’ with several billion isk. I have flipped 50m -> 320m over a one month period; but then got burned out.

*Find a Titan – Yes, I know I’ll likely get podded immediately afterwards. I just want to see one, up close from a frigate. I have been scouting with a Heron. I may eventually need an interceptor to actually get ‘up close’.

*Obtain a Jump freighter – This is becoming more of a practical purchase with my 3 low sec POS. It would cut transport fuel hauling considerably. Jump to POS, Jump to non-camped exit gate with 2 total cynos. I can already fly the Anshar. Just lack the isk.
*Join a null sec alliance for indy logistics / POS reactions / pvp – after I make a bundle, I am interested in a null sec, and slowly making preparations for that. I am slowly training one toon for a Chimera, and another for a revelation. My ‘main’ vehicles (and preferred play style) would probably want be a Manticore and/or Falcon pilot to start with; only pulling out the dread and/or carrier when absolutely needed. (For a Caldari, I do have very good drone skills to go along with shield tanking.)

Diablo 3

I know this blog is primarily Eve-centric, but I am a big Diablo fan. (Hardcore only player, at one point I had 3 accounts of guardians, where hell difficulty Bhaal was defeated. I ‘quit’ before v1.10 that introduced skill synergies was released.)

I am excited about the possibility of D3 being released late next year. I haven’t delved too far into the details thrown around the ‘net, as I already know I’m going to buy and play the game when it’s released.

My D2 characters I enjoyed the most include:

=Mega Tank Barbarian- he had 85% resists and maximum physical resist in hell, plus a TON of hp. (shael’d perfect Lightsaber for Beserk) Earned by lvl96 HC PVP amazon ear. He was the highest lvl toon I got, lvl 96. (I never had 99 as a goal, I usually stopped around 85 or so.) He could tank almost all the cows, including the king for the dps crew to work them down.

=’Daisy bomb’ nova sorceress

=Speed Werewolf – fastest possible scythe with shael. This toon would run so fast that you’d get game lag where the game would have to load while you were running. He never got hit, due to his insane attack speed.

=Minion-mancer- having tons of minions may get boring, but never gets old.

=Combat Assassin- she was fun to play, but I can’t say I ever played/built her really well.

=Meteor sorceress- My first guardian. She was one of the first fifty guardians on uswest b.net but skill changes ‘killed’ her playability. (Static, blizzard nerf)

=mf barb- I was able to pick up a set sazabi (sp?) blade off of a hell Bhaal run, and built this toon around that blade. Leap attack, berserk, resistance, Battle Orders, mf. Hell Mesphisto would die in 2-3 hits, literally. I kept track of how many ‘runs’ I could have him do in an hour… record was 18. That include loading the map, checking the loot, and avoiding ‘bad’ critters. I never used map-hack.



Things that have me interested in D3:

=Caravan/crafters that follow you. If implemented well, (Blizzard, duh), this could be an incredible addition to the genre.

=scrapping / modifying gear. Having ‘unique’ gear being ‘better’ than rares killed the game for me… everyone eventually looked the same. Customization was boring too, just ‘plan’ your unique items for the toon you want to build.

=Health/Mana orbs: this could really improve gameplay.

=Destructible object: Hello tactical improvements



Things that I want to see:

=Hardcore mode: The ‘edge’ you get playing HC is unlike anything else. Each fight has meaning. Either have HC or a severe death penalty. (Eve)

=skill respect: This will reduce some of the amount of times I replay a class, but will increase my enjoyment of the game. Make the cost increase exponentially if wanted.. just have an option.

=character improvement customization: WoW got boring near the end of TBC, due to all the clones running around raiding. Same gear, same spec, same bosses. Bleh.

=No PvP. This may seem weird, but the reason I want no PvP is to have developer talent focused on PvE balancing, gear, content. Either go all PvP or all PvE. I know it’ll realistically have both, because people will want to ‘fight’. If you’re going to do that, have some random creatures thrown in the fray too… (Guildwars guild fights).

=Keep me coming back: alternative characters, map experiences, REALLY HARD BOSSES ([u]really[/u] tough; like ‘omg’ tough, where you need to play multiple times to obtain the proper gear to defeat on highest difficulty. ps: this doesn’t have to be Diablo himself..)

=easy inventory management: don’t make me play inventory Tetris again. Learn from Dungeon Siege and Titan Quest.
Things that make me nervous:

=dupes. Please no. I’ll pay a monthly fee. Just keep on top of this blight.

=cookie cutter playing. If you roll a witch doctor you need to A, because the other options really stink. Ugh. I hope not.

=High levels PKing low levels. Hope not.

=Boosting. I hate it. Despise it. It removes SO much of any game, because people just want to play the ‘best’ areas, and refuse to play elsewhere. Very annoying, don’t let it happen. I used to hostile low level toons in hell difficulty; just because it annoyed me that they bullshitted through the game so obviously. Minimum/Maximum level requirements to enter an area would go a long way to solving this.

=Shared stash. It removes so much logistics burden. It made Titan Quest immensely fun.

=stash: Make it big. I don’t think you want me to have an account of mules, do you? HC toons take 3-5x the gear due to death potential. Shared stash would help, salvaging gear would help too, if crafting is done well.

=Ladder: If you’re going to have it, reset it frequently… like every quarter or so. Otherwise nobody really cares.

=crafting: could be awesome, could ruin the game. I have faith with blizzard… to a degree.

Finally, my fifth class prediction: A bow/crossbow based character that has some sort of nature/spirit style magic. Will definitely be a twist on a Ranger style class, but not like the Amazon or Rogue exactly.
Future guesses of expansion characters: A fallen, dark paladin, and a demonic magic based character (shape-shifter / mage).

New missioner alt

Missioning is not generally my thing. I started eve as a miner, and have moved to industry / PI (with some mining when I feel like it). There are times, however, when I want to pew pew. The problem with my other operations is that I can’t really afford to reach a negative standing with anyone. I NEED to travel across Eve to make iskies on occasion. I don’t want to be tied to any one empire. So, when one of my alt miners finished up his hulk + support skills regimen (drones, capacitor, shield tanking, freighter, transport); I started an Amarr missioner alt where I don’t care if he’s -10 with Minnie or Gallente. I *just* finished his learning skills and cha skills (cha skills using first remap). So, my non-learning skills are currently:


Non-scanning PI skills @ 4 (ie: 5 planets with Adv CC) – not using now, but I was already specc’d Charisma.

Social 5

Negotiation 5

Connections 4



I didn’t want to buy other Connections skill books, because I have no clue where I’m going to end up missioning.



So now my toon is ready to start the ‘fun’ skills. First things up in queue (while I’m at work) are:

Amarr Frigate 3
Survey 3 (for salvaging)
Gunnery 3
Hull Upgrades 1+2
Energy Grid Upgrades 1+2
Rapid Firing 1+2
Sharpshooter 1+2
Motion Prediction 1+2
Controlled Burst 1+2
Energy System Management 1+2
Energy System Operation 1+2
Shield Management 1
Salvaging 1



Whew… now bad for 1 day of non-learing skills training. I should be able to finish the last 4-5 missions of the advanced military tutorial later tonight after this. Flying around with Meta4 guns and civilian mods got me through the tutorial missions for manufacturing, trading, and initial military; but I was quickly becoming outclassed on the advanced military missions. After several days of training, I can finally start getting pew pew skills. My initial plans is to get a Harbinger trained up for some ‘easy’ lvl 4 missions, starting with the punisher, moving to Omen / Maller then Harbinger. Eventually I will learn skills for the Abaddon, but that will take awhile. I won’t be able to stomach a pew pew every night thing, but when I get the urge to blow stuff up, at least I can do it with this toon without the need to worry about negative standings. Who knows, eventually I may get standings high enough to anchor POS in high sec… ya, right. I don’t mission nearly enough for that to be a reality. Although COSMOS missions/rewards may eventually be possible. Would definitely want the Abaddon for those… probably with a Domi rep / salvage partner (one of my alts has most of those skills already, but for Destoryers).

For now, I am planning on flushing out my Punisher and starting in on an Omen or Maller.  I should be cap stable on the Punisher here within a few days.

One of the really nice things about Eve, is that if you get bored with one thing (mining / scanning) you can easily do something else (T2 manufacturing / PI / Missions).
Although… I just noticed I can top 100m / night again mining… That’s 500m / week, easy. I do get bored after 2 Orca fills (~1hr). That would mean only 41m, but still.

Industry T2 efforts

I have an alt that is now ready to start assisting with BPO copying and ME/PE research. I am hopeful that plugging this new toon into my T2 schema will assist quite a bit. Needing to build up my BPO stockpile (I have, like 5 BPOs), I am trying to decide where to start first. I have had success with Viator construction, but I am looking at branching out. Having frequent desires to eventually try stealth bombing, I may get into the invention of everything that a Manticore might need, then move up from there. I also have added Prorator construction to the mix. Unfortunately, all my science skills are currently at level 3, and I need to spend 2d / skill to get them to level 4. So many skills desired, so little time.




At least I can fly an Anshar now… just need the 4.5bn to purchase one. (ok, I’ll actually buy a BPC and make it myself, saving several million isk; or better yet, eventually invent my own.)

Joy of Excel

I don’t know how you could be a hardcore industrialist in Eve and not use a spreadsheet. My spreadsheet poison of choice is Excel, mainly due to the acquired skills I’ve obtained from work. With Excel, I can write macros, make api calls (this is still new to me, and is frustrating at best), use multiple advanced functions, conditional format, and do all sorts of other ‘fancy’ things. Most importantly, I’m FAST at doing these things. I set up a PI production schema in 2-3 hours that calculated the profit margins for P0-P4 and all combinations in between (P3-P4, P2-P4, P1-P4, P2-P3, etc) I can now view what could make the most money, the variance and investment associated with each potential income opportunity, and flexibility on pricing. This gives me advantage above several of the public tools, as they tend to be more limited in scope. (manufacturing up only 1 level, or figuring everything from P0 or P1, or not calculating an ROI (Higher ROI will tend to give more stable income in the face of market swings))




I wish my api was better. I can call api with macro and cycle through the desired codes, but I wish you could easily dump all Jita data from an api call into a sheet. I am not great at xml, but I feel this is the current weakness of my spreadsheet. I am doing a LOT more in Jita with PI, and I need to reconfigure my market information in Excel, which I haven’t done since Dominion release.



I searched google for Excel 2003 Eve api calls with no success. Sigh.



I may need to just focus on newer excel versions that will allow xml importing function to work properly. I also greatly prefer eve-metrics for data as opposed to eve-central; which a lot of older tools utilize. When I finally figure out a good way to do this, I’ll post; but no guarantee as to when this epiphany will finally occur.



Current method: Import External Data -> insert api call -> dump block of data -> edit out non-useful columns… repeat -> create macro to auto-update.



This seem cumbersome, and I end up with multiple blocks of data that isn’t very elegant. In everything I’ve searched, this unfortunately seems like the only way, currently with Excel 2003.

Overview

Faction: Caldari


Profession: Industry / Mining / Light missioning

Time playing Eve Online: 14 months

Prior MMOs: WoW, Guildwars



I have been playing Eve for just over a year now, and decided to start chronicling my activities. I do many things in eve: POS management, invention, research, mining, T1/T2 industry, exploration, a little missioning, PI, and trading (regional, station, and x-regional). I do not pirate, or PvP. (Not scared of PvP, just don’t have the time for it….)



My first MMO was GuildWars. I played a monk (healer/protector), and our group did really well… until internal drama. The group I was with was mainly older guys with kids (I have 4 children.) So, having a quick message of “my kid just woke up, gtg.” Wasn’t a big deal. Once that group split, all the other choices of teenage ‘kids’ just wasn’t appealing.



A RL friend talked me into trying WoW. I went overboard. Power leveled and raided TBC, defeating Illidan and going 3/6 SW pre-nerf as a healer. I really like the Illidan story form Warcraft III, and my heart wasn’t in WotLK. After a couple friends left the game, I did as well. I had my personal goal met of 500k gold, being able to competently play a tank, healer, and dps as a raider on a PvP server. Without the people playing, the drama was just too much. The time commitment was a bear and I couldn’t hold that down for very much longer anyway. 4hrs / night IMMEDIATELY after kids went to bed was hurting what I wanted to do. Can’t say I missed raiding. I missed the new challenges and figuring them out; but not the inefficient time spent.



Eve drew me in due to the economics. I played PvP GW and WoW, so the death penalty or the ability to die didn’t dissuade me at all. It actually made me want to play it more. Especially since I could do anything I wanted. After the tutorial missions or industry and trading, I was off… and didn’t do another mission for about 5 months. I decided I needed to start a bankroll to get my objectives done and went down the mining path. After upgrading to a mining barge, I created a new account… for hauling. Once my hauler was a month or so from an Orca, I fired up 2 more accounts for mining/industry. I then started branching out: perfect refines, industry, T2 invention/indy, capital construction, building fighting skills, mission for perfect refines, etc. In a month’s time, I will receive income from: Jita trading, x-regional trading, regional buy orders, mining, POS moon harvesting, T1/T2 manufacturing, PI, and a little missioning.



In this blog, I am planning on commenting on my current exploits, and observations. Hopefully, I can stick with it for awhile