Getting back to Planets

For more than a year now I've been running a small albeit efficient production of Guidance  Systems in a multi-character PI setup. I say efficient but it's when I remember to update production on planets and move materials between other planets.

 

So not very efficient at all.

 

Don't get me wrong, it's been profitable and when I have it running full blast it makes a lot of Guidance Systems very efficiently. It's just PI is incredibly boring and a click-fest that I really hate to do.

 

Making Money

 

I pause my PI production and I see this morning that Wetware Mainframes are at 2.2m each :S

Those were the words I received from Bex late last week that piqued my interest. Wetware Mainframes have  risen recently in price, most likely due to speculation around Citadels I thought but it could easily be due to increased POCO destruction, from an average of 1.1m ISK to 2.2m ISK.

 

A nice profit if you can make them.

 

So I reviewed my available characters and planets to see if I could manufacture this P4 item.

 

I realized I could and it would cost a whole briefcase full of ISK and need a lot of clicks in my future...

 

Planning

 

Wetware Mainframes are P4 production, meaning that you have to make P2 (Refined) items from P1 (Raw Materials) and P3 (Specialized) items to manufacture the P4 (Advanced). It's not a simple tree nor is it possible to do with one or two characters.

 

I use the wonderful EVE PI Diagrams 1.4 to see what I need to produce and to understand what planets I need to be setup. Other tools are available, many of which work in-game, but to me this PDF one with its simple flow setup is exactly what I need.

 

I spoke with Bex about his setup and decided to go a different way to him. I have available to me two systems with a variety of planet types (Barren, Temperate, Lava, Ice, Gas and Storm) from which I'll extract the raw materials then use a single character to produce each level of manufacturing I need.

 

I have six characters allowing a total of 30 planets with two having Command Centre Upgrades V and the rest all have IV.

 

My plan, which Bex commented on that it would be "labour intensive" is to use five characters (~24 planets) to extract all the raw materials which I will then hand off to the final character who will setup two or more planets to produce the P2, P3 and finally the P4 items.

 

I don't mind the labour at the moment, I can always redevelop planets at a later date to increase savings or to change how Raw Materials are gathered or processed into P2 items.

 

This isn't something that will be setup and left alone to run, I see it as an entity that will require monitoring and when I can develop it to make it more efficient or cheaper (in time) to run then I will make those changes.

 

Future Posts

 

I'll cover in the future my progress with this. I've already got three characters setup and producing Raw Materials as I type. The others will be setup over the next few days as they JC into system and are given a small amount of ISK as a float.

Moving In

The WH Alliance has a new home, the tower and POCOs from the Russians have been removed (or are in the process of being finished off as I type this).

 

Our Dear Leader has been having much fun setting up the POSes we'll be using, fiddling with roles and creating new art in space using star base modules. He's very good at pictures, he's no Picasso but that's fine with me as Picasso's pictures give me headaches to look at.

 

I haven't been able to help much this weekend, aside from RL things I've had to take care of I've had three characters moving assets around high sec as it was the end of my financial year and I needed to move what I could sell to Jita and Amarr.

 

I, Slightly, Dislike Freighters

 

I hate their lack of manoeuvrability and speed but I love their ability to move large amounts of material. I've moved nearly twelve million cubic metres of stuff since Friday night, fortunately most of it was no more than six jumps in length but there were a lot of trips not to mention the 100 jump one I had to do on one character.

 

It has been worth it, I've listed nearly fifteen billion ISK worth of items for sale with another six or so being ready for listing in a week. Of course this tied in nicely with my need to buy more raw materials and pay my alliance taxes for the towers I run.

So what was a great profit will only yield a billion or two after I've paid my dues.

 

It comes in slowly but leaves too quickly... the race for ISK.

 

Adding Value

 

A few weeks ago my null-sec CEO made me aware of the possibility of improving income on the carbides/sylramic fibres I was producing by combining them into Armour plates. I had previously not thought of doing this because it would add extra costs to production and, at the time, the difference between raw/processed was less than 7% increase in profit

 

He made a good case to have another look at the setup and see if it was more profitable. So I did and it appears that it is indeed more profitable, averaging 20% over the four armour plate types. I produce the sylramics myself and purchase (from an alliance friend) Fernite Carbides and thanks to my CEO moving into reactions I also now have a good source of Titanium Carbides.

 

So I've now started using sylramics and the two carbide types to produce Armour plates and it's been very good. It is a pain to have to wait nearly a week extra to get my armour plates but with two sets of BPO's I've got a nice production line going. Researching the BPO's (I've had for years it seems) has increased efficiency in materials and time to produce a product that sells well in Jita and Amarr.

 

What raw materials I don't use I either stockpile, for later use, or sell directly on the market so I'm not really losing any ISK, especially with volatility the market currently sees.

 

Profits are up, generally, which is excellent and if I had shareholders they'd be very happy I'd imagine and thanks to my CEO I'm already looking for the next processed material to get my teeth into to increase my profits but to make use of the BPO's I've got.

Getting on the bandwagon

It's that time of year again where everyone who has something to sell is advertising that they have are having some form of "MEGA BONUS UBER ONE TIME ONLY SALE". It can be a little overwhelming or just plain annoying if you see the same adverts over and over again.

Almost a Fire Sale

This year I decided that I would join in but instead of advertising I'd just drop the price of my items as if I was having a fire sale. Not everything I trade was covered but all my T1/T2 modules and ships. Thanks to some unknown person who has cleared up the Metamaterials and Sylramic Fibres market these too were included.

From the 20th December to 2pm (AU TZ) I've been selling over three thousand items in both High Sec and Null Sec at under market price. As of 2pm today this is my trader's wallet:

Normally I try to keep as little ISK as possible in my wallet but in three days I've gone from a little under 1.5b to almost 10.5b ISK, 

Why Do This

Aside from the title, I wanted to clear out my current stock of items in my locations because they were annoying me and I was a little tired of the 0.01 ISK price updates I'd have to do several times a day. By dropping the price to well under market I may have lost some profit but I sold the item and no longer have to keep trying to sell it.

By selling it I now have ISK I can use to invest in the New Year on things that will generate me more profit. Believe me, I've spent the past two weeks looking for new opportunities for 2015.

What If

Imagine you're doing your evening routine, managing your tower setup, reading chat channels speaking to friends when you receive a conversation request from a character whose name you don't immediately recognise but after a check of their notes you realise is the alt of a friend. This person says hello then your wallet blinks and you find yourself with a significantly larger wallet balance.

Aside from thanking the person, what would you do if you received a large amount of ISK with instructions to enjoy it?

This is what happened to me last night, completely unexpectedly and without any warning. My friend had already liquidated their assets and they'd gifted me some but this donation was quite a shock and I'm sure they were laughing at me as I was trying to gather words to thank them.

As a result the Tracker inside jEVEAssets looks like this for my character wallet balance:

Mount St Wallet has arrived. She's gonna blow!

This is the Tracker view of my day-to-day character who received the ISK, as you can see they normally have between 5 and 7 billion ISK in their wallet for use over all my accounts. 

Plans

My first thoughts was to invest in PLEX, I already have a sizeable investment and they have given me a good return (5% to 12% depending on when I bought them) on my investment but the more I thought about it the more I realised that this is not the best use of the ISK I've been gifted.

I will be using a small amount to PLEX two of my accounts for the next 3 months and I'll invest a few billion in buying up cheap moon goo materials I need for my reaction towers and be safe in the knowledge that I can stockpile what I make for a while without the need to make frequent JF runs to high sec to sell what I make.

Aside from that I don't know, I could invest in a Super carrier or a quarter/fifth of a Titan but I don't see that as a good idea in the current climate (I've been seeing A LOT of capital characters appearing for sale on the official forums since Phoebe was announced).

Toodlepip o7m8

Lorna Sicling, of the A Scientists Life in EVE, has gone but will no be forgotten. Fortunately I have their RL contact details and when I do return to the UK I shall certainly be heading to the pub for a drink or two with them.

Who knows, I may also join them in Warframe which is showing a lot of promise...

Can I have some of your stuff?

No. It's mine, MINE.

Any similarity to The CEO is intentional

Metamaterial Prices Gone Wild

Disclaimer:

This is not meant as a serious analysis of the EVE Online Market but it is my view and conclusions that I have made with regard to how things are and may be in the future. Your opinion and conclusions may be different and as such no claim of accuracy is made by me.

As part of my daily dashboard I monitor the prices of the four different metamaterials and I've seen a sharp drop in the per unit price over the past three months.

This is especially interesting for me as I produce Terrahertz and Photonic Metamaterials and the drop has seen my profit margins drop from 2 billion to just over 1.1 billion per month in this time and if there is something an industrialist hates, it is losing money.

Market Conditions

Using the Market History Display (provided by Fuzzworks) it is easy to see and compare several market factors 

Nonlinear Metamaterials price since 1st June 2014

Plasmonic Metamaterials price since 1st June 2014

Terahertz Metamaterial price since 1st June 2014

Photonic Metamaterial price since 1st June 2014

Much like any market product there will always be volatility but I've been trying to work out why there has been this drop in price and whether or not to stay I should stay with these metamaterials or move to something else.

Volume is still very good, with over a million units per day being sold, usually a lot more, but it is Photonics have seen the most price drop (from around ~11,500 to ~9,000) even with a large volume being sold daily.

So far there has been no price rebound and the price continues to decrease

Supply and Demand

Supply and demand will impact any price, but if there is a large demand then we'd expect to see the price increase not decrease. Consequently should there be a large supply then we'd expect the price to drop and this is what we're seeing.

I checked the number of Orders and was surprised to see that there was far more Photonic Metamaterial for sale than any other metamaterial, nearly three times in some cases but usually at least double, and as a result there is a lot more market competition for people selling.

In fact checking the other metamaterials I see that they all have a lot more for sale than they have in previous weeks and that the demand is only slightly more than previous weeks. As a result this is most likely why we're seeing the price of each metamaterial dropping so much.

Over Supply or Market PvP

The market is showing that we have an over supply of Metamaterials and this is causing the price to drop, some more so than others, but is this going to continue or is it just a short term result of the Crius expansion being released?

Changes in the Crius expansion have increased the material requirements for T2 blueprints (copies/originals) and this has had the result of more metamaterials being needed per blueprint, so this will drive the demand up. 

However this cannot solely explain the continuous drop in price, I believe that people are Market PvP'ing these materials rather than selling to buy orders (which is logical as the difference between Buy and Sell for MM is usually between 800 and 900 per unit) and this is causing the price to drop continuously as people update their orders and lower their price to be below the "current lowest".

Conclusion

This 0.01 ISK dropping is at times followed by a significant price floor drop of between 1 and 10 ISK which just causes the price to get even lower. There has, a couple of times, been a "White Knight" of sorts who has reset the market buy buying all the low priced orders and reestablishing a higher price, but this person hasn't appeared in recent times and the price has continued to drop.

I'm still not convinced that I need to change anything at the moment, as always I am looking at other sources of income to supplement my reactions, but I still have a few weeks of inputs remaining and the price has not yet hit the level where I feel action is required.

Of course I'd like a higher price as this means more profit for me which means I can invest this ISK elsewhere, pay bills and buy shiny stuff to fly but I'm still making money. Just not as much as two/three months ago, that's market volatility for you.

Fun with Goo and er... Spreadsheets

Since it was announced, that the bug with Moon Mining equipment that prevented their use in 0.4 systems was being fixed, I've been working on a scanning and cataloging local 0.4 systems and working on a spreadsheet to help me determine whether or not moon goo extraction is profitable.

Google Docs has been my primary spreadsheet for some time, I still use Excel both at home and work but it's much easier to share via Google Docs than Excel. The ImportXML feature is outstanding too, I know Excel can do it but for portability Google Docs wins every time at the moment.

Variables

Calculations for profitably are quite simple, figure in the running costs of a tower against what you can sell the moon goo for. It's really quite simple but calculating this based on "live" data from EVE Online can be tricky, especially when you have to take into account Sovereignty and the fluctuating price of fuel/goo.

It would also be nice to see the 30 day average amount sold for each moon goo, that way we can see whether we're be selling reasonably fast or it will not be a fast sale. i.e. The more sold per month would indicate faster selling.

Features

I settled on the following features for my first version:

1. Calculate extraction profitability based on different numbers and tower types
2. Allow indication of number of sovereignty based towers to reflect reduced fuel costs in overall calculations
3. Show Profit/Loss for 7, 14 and 28 day periods
4. Show average 30 day volume sold in Jita

Few initial features but some could end up being rather complex to get working, regardless it's a nice challenge and would certainly be a useful tool.

Implementation

I played around with various user interfaces to allow information to be entered and displayed but eventually I settled for a layout that had the different moon goo's listed vertically on the left axis and along the horizontal y axis I had the number of and tower types with the 7/14/28 day profitability result.

User Interface for Moon Goo extraction profitability

I added colour coding for the different moon goo groupings as well as using vertical colouring to indicate non-sovereignty/sovereignty towers. It's quite a simple arrangement but more importantly contrasts and works well.

Functionality

Most of the functionality of the spreadsheet is via the use of ImportXML() to get data from EVE Central and the 30 day volume information from EVE Market Data. Formulas are then used to concatenate data and perform calculations based on a couple of known constants:

• Moon mining is fixed at 100 units per hour, this gives a maximum weekly extraction of 16,800 units
• Use of a tower with the Sovereignty bonus yields a 25% reduction in fuel use 

With these constants we can calculate both moon goo output and fuel usage based on the tower types selected by the user.

Example Mercury Moon Extraction

Let's take a hypothetical system that I'm interested in I want to extract Mercury from a moon using a Large Tower. I input the number 1 into the white cell under AL to indciate I want to use a Large Amarr Tower:

Moon Goo extraction using an single Amarr Large Tower

Well that isn't a good start, using a Large Amarr Tower will result in a loss of 30m ISK per week or 122m over a months use if we just take what we mine and sell in Jita at current prices.

What if we downsize to a Medium Amarr Tower?

Moon Goo extraction using an single Amarr Medium Tower

That's better, now we're showing a weekly profit of 27m using just a single Medium Amarr Tower with current prices. 

All we've done is change the tower we're using so the difference of 10 fuel blocks per hour (30ph vs 40ph) is what has turned our operation from loss to profit.

We're making money now but what if we used a Small Amarr Tower instead?

Moon Goo extraction using an single Amarr Small Tower

Just as I thought, we'll make a lot more money (~50% more) using a Small Amarr Tower instead of a Medium. If I don't want to use Amarr Towers I can change the value to the type of tower I want and see an instant change in the calculations.

One serious thing to consider when selecting the tower is security, using a small tower will result in larger profit but will be more vulnerable to attack as it has lower hit points than larger towers, and more importantly, less fitting for defensive modules such as guns and dissipation arrays.

Once you've determined any tower usage you need to go ahead and purchase/deploy your chosen tower and modules. Unfortunately I do not take that into account in this version, but it is on my wish-list for the future to include "asset costs" to work out how long until profitability for towers.

Future

I would like to add information to the view to show current sell prices for moon goo/fuel blocks in Jita and I plan to allow public access to this in the, hopefully near, future. I'm currently improving the back-end to be a little more open and allow less complex formulas than I currently have. 

What I have works and I've already used it, successfully, to calculate tower deployments in a couple of null sec locations where I'm currently running towers.

I'm also working out the kinks with a version of this that works for Simple Reactions but that one is a little further from actually working.

I'll leave you with this final screenshot, it shows the profitability of running a single Small Amarr Tower on each of the different moon goo's. I think you'll agree that it's quite eye opening in what is/isn't worth the effort of extracting if you're not using it yourself and just want to sell it.

Moon Goo extraction profitability using an single Amarr Small Tower

Would you like PI with that?

I've continued to procrastinate on PI since my post last week but I have made small headway towards getting past this by doing some research and reading up on the finer points of setting up production planets.

I've still got more to read, I wish more people shared their setups and production schedules as seeing real examples really helps me learn, but I've know the following:

• what planets I have available to me
• what characters and skills they have
• no idea of what I can produce

I also really need to pay attention to my Factories and make sure I'm keeping them running at full capacity. This means making sure I know how much input I need and produce at least that amount elsewhere in plenty of time for my production planets running at full speed.

Planets

I try to keep all my PI actions within one system, this simplifies my logistics but also the increased security I get because I'm not flying between systems with cargo. An additional benefit is the system I'll be in has several friendly POS setup which I can make use of both to share cargo (the characters I have are in not all in the same corporation)

I have the following planet types available to me:

• Barren
• Ice
• Lava
• Gas

The lack of Plasma and Storm planets really limits my P4 production possibilities, I could use Gas/Barren or lava to make up the difference but with the characters I have I'd rather maximize what I can produce.

I'm going to setup production planets, that is planets dedicated to producing the final goods from intermediate materials that are produced on other characters and planets.

Characters

I have six characters available for PI in my chosen system. All have reasonably high skills in Planetary Interaction and can all fly the the same racial industry ships. Each character has, at minimum, Interplanetary Consolidation to Level 4 and CCU Level 4. 

Available characters PI skill levels

I really should spend a little time training them all to have Advanced Planetary to Level 3 at least and at some point I really should get them all to CCU 5 and IC 5 but this is what I have and it does give me the ability to have production spread over a total of 30 planets.

Production

Deciding what to produce using my planets has proven much harder than I thought. Originally I thought I'd make POS fuels because that's always been a good seller and I've done well with them over the years.

However everyone who does PI seems to make POS fuel components and the margins aren't great, especially as in order to do well I'd need to figure jump fuel into my costs. I did some more research but was getting nowhere so I decided what I needed to do was look at the price per item in Jita and then see what the 30 day average volume was in order to better see what would be profitable and what would not.

So I came up with this:

PI options with pricing and 30 day volume information

It shows the PI materials I can produce from Base to P4 along with the item price and 30 day volume. I've highlighted in purple the POS fuel PI for reference and looking at the 30d volume you can certainly see its a good item to make should you wish too, but I don't (if I can avoid it).

I'm ignoring Base, P1 and P4 PI items (P1 because profits are small and P4 because it's a low profit/volume item) so I need to find one or two item in P2/P3 that I can make.

There are a few of items in P2 that stand out as interesting and two P3's that will warrant further investigation for me.

Further Investigation

I'm not going to say for now what they are until I've run further investigation and worked out what my margin's will be.

My further investigation uses the Planetary Interaction Diagram to see what I need and how complex any manufacturing chain will be. The more chains I need the more maintenance my manufacturing will need and I don't want to be doing PI daily, I want two to three day cycling for optimum return.

Loving and Loathing PI

I both love and loath Planetary Interaction.

I love it for the passive income it generates and the setup of the planets/systems really appeals to my OCD loving brain.

That said I do not like the process to setup planets, the lack of tools to test and theorise PI setup (think EVEMon or something more graphically orientated) but most importantly the time it takes to setup more than 1 character to produce anything.

I really shouldn't complain, I know a lot of people have more characters to deal with and have it much worse. One of my friends had 16 or so characters to setup when he moved to a new alliance in null sec. He managed to do it without, much complaint, so why am I procrastinating about this.

Anyone able to suggest good webistes and/or guides for setting up and running PI?

Wheelin' and Dealin'

It's been a nice week, long skill queues are nicely coming to a end and I've been able to buy, at very good prices, lots of faction modules to fit out ships to add that extra dps or resistance that they deserve.

I've also been spending too much time idling in Jita local, reading the messages from the people I haven't blocked for scamming. One thing I've noticed is a lot of people do not understand Margin Trading or many of the other scams that appear so I'm aiming to produce a few posts on these for educational purposes.

Buying and Making

I've spent nearly 4 billion ISK in the past week buying modules, salvage materials and T2 materials for a variety of purposes. Faction and deadspace modules will be used to replace lower meta/T2 modules on a few of my major ships where as the salvage materials will enable me to finally produce T2 variants of rigs I use without having to buy off the market.

The T2 materials I've purchased are for a small production run of the new T2 Venture variant, the Prospect, I managed to secure a 4 run -4/-2 BPC last week from a friend for the excellent price of nothing so I'm going to make them and keep two for myself and give two to friend who is helping to make them. It's a nice test to see if we can work together and more importantly develop some trust because there may be more we can do in the future, war withstanding...

Selling

It's been reasonably quiet, my Curse inventory is nicely selling for a mininum of 15% profit per item and I've been able to manufacture any new items myself without having to resort to trips to high sec.

My best news for the week was the Revelation dreadnought that I had spare in Mai finally sold after nearly two weeks on contract. I put up the T2 rigged Revelation that I had spare for 2.5billion ISKand received a counter offer rather quickly of 2.25b, I declined as I really wanted 2.35b mininum and so I left it and late last week a member of Nulli bought it from me.

I only hope they were successful extracting it from Mai :)

Freighter/Jump Freighter Changes

Kronos introduced the low slots to F and JF's and as such I've invested in a set of T2 Reinforced Bulkheads, Cargo Expanders and Nanofiber Internal Structure's to help my ships. 

The cargo expanders are fitted to the Jump Freighter and this gives me an extra 5000 m3 of space and trust me, this is used. When I jumpt o high sec I transfer the cargo to a freighter with either two bulkheads and a nanofiber or triple bulkheads (depending on the cargo carried). Of course I keep a full set of each nmodule in my cargohold so I can swap out as needed.

I have cut down on my trips personally but I have found myself doing a few more "urgent" trips for alliance people and so long as the fuel cost is covered I have no problem with this.

Wallet Restoration

Cashing Out

It was time to cash out, I had less than 42m ISK in the wallet division that my trader has access to and I had a whole raft of things I needed to buy or sell (sales/broker fees still have to paid when selling). I still have around 19billion in sell orders pending but they're not items that will sell quickly.

My missioning in both High Sec and Null Sec has been profitable with ISK and rewarded LP, so much so that I went to market with ten Slave Omegas and nine Snake Omegas. All were put on the market immediately and when I woke up this morning every single one had been sold at an average profit of 700m each (this takes into account the ISK to purchase and the cost of the implant needed to cash out).

Instead of looking at a 42m ISK wallet division I now have over 7 billion available and this doesn't include another months output from my reaction towers that will be going on the market this weekend and I expect will run me over the 12 billion mark.. 

Don't tell my CEO though as he'll want some ISK for the Alliance coffers...

All Quiet On The South-South-East Front

It's quiet.

Possibly too quiet.

But then again I'm happy that it's like this, it's allowed me to concentrate on grinding standings with one of the NPC corporations in a fairly fast time frame. Zero to 8.34 personal standings with the corporation in a little over a week has meant that I now have access to all the Level 4 agents in the area. 

Mining PvE 

I've found the mining missions not as boring or repetitive as Security ones and much faster to finish. Mining missions seem to comprise one of three types, mining ore, gas or ice. I was told only to do the gas mining missions for best reward vs. risk but I've found that the ice ones (mine 20 blocks of ice) are quick to do with a Skiff or Procurer and are worth doing with Gas. I do decline all the ore missions as they take far too long and usually require two or three trips back to station to drop off what I've mined.

I invested some of my liquid ISK in buying six Ventures and fittings so I could get three characters running missions in the future, the LP rewards (between 7,500 and 12,500 LP per mission with Mining Connections IV) are excellent and I have some good items (Vindicator/Daredevil/Snake Implants) to choose from when I do cash out. 

One really good thing about the mining missions are that they take place in the system with the agent or at most 1 jump away so I don't have to worry much about being caught on a gate. 

Last night I was fortunate enough to get three gas mining missions in a row and not just the "rat free" 7,500 LP reward ones. I got the 12,500 LP mining missions with "drone rats" (which are very easy to tank in a shield boosting Venture) and an hour later I'm 36,000 LP better off and a few million ISK richer.

Towers

My towers are good, we haven't had any siphons since Brave Newbies Inc. moved out and whilst we get a lot of traffic this doesn't interfere with my towers or reactions I have running. 

I did make a mistake last weekend, I bought in new raw materials from Jita about three weeks earlier than I should have so. This caused my liquid ISK reserves to be depleted (read: I spent all my wallet ISK) and now I don't have to buy anything for six/seven weeks apart from fuel.

ISK Today, Gone Tomorrow

The lack of ISK isn't a problem, aside from Ventures I'm not in need of buying anything at the moment outside of tower materials or trading opportunities. I have nearly 20 billion in buy and sell orders active so I'm not really in any trouble it's just depressing to see my wallet balance so low.

The reason I'm so low is I finally bought, and injected into his skills, the Amarr Titan book for one of my characters, not that he has the titan nor do I have the need or ISK for one yet. 

Musings on the proposed Jump Drive Isotope Consumption changes

CCP have proposed changes to the use of racial isotopes for jump/jump bridge capable ships.

It hasn't been said, at least in the three pages of responses I read on the Forums, but this does appear to be a partial nerf (despite CCP Fozzie saying that "[we] don't expect this change to significantly impact behaviour around jump drive power projection") directed at capital ship proliferation as well as an attempt to 'balance the books' with the excepted drop in tower usage in high sec once the new industry changes come in to effect.

What Is Changing

Initially fuel bays were going to be increased by 50% (60% for black ops) but after a comment suggesting a one third reduction in isotope size that has changed to leaving fuel bays as-is but reducing the size of isotopes by one third or from 0.15m3 to 0.10m3. 

This will mean more fuel can be carried (by one third) but the 50% increase in fuel usage will lower their range due to the consumption but also the amount carried meaning that crossing the galaxy in minutes is going to be slower and cost more. The only example given was a high sec to null sec Rhea run that showed a 50% increase in fuel costs and this did not show a breakdown of what the trip was or how much fuel was consumed (so i'd say its a poor example).

What Does This Mean To Me

I see costs increasing (not a surprise, the industry changes were going to do that anyway but this adds extra overhead) and I think I'm going to have to stockpile isotopes before the Summer Expansion in my jump locations so I can ensure I'll have a steady supply at least for 2/3 months afterwards.

I'm also considering changing my jump freighter fleet from Ark's to Nomad's to take advantage of the isotopes available in the region I'm in. A couple of hours mining a week should cover my fuel costs but I will need to look into this in more detail.

Creating a Super Capital Character - Part 3 - Polishing Skills

Previous Parts of the Guide can be found here: Part 1, Part 2

 

As previously stated the Basic Skill plan of Part allows you to create a character that can sit in a Super carrier for around 4b ISK but sitting in the Supercarrier is a far cry from being able to actually being a useful holder character.

 

Basics are just that

 

The basic skills needed for sitting in the hull are just that, basic, if you want to make your character more attractive for someone to purchase you need to inject additional skills and train a few of the basic ones to higher levels.

 

A side effect of the missing skills is any modules dependant on them will be offline when the holder is in the ship but when swapping in a character that does have those skills they will remain offline and have to be onlined manually. Without the aid of a mobile depot/Ship Maintenance Array this is problematic so having skills for all fitted modules on the holder toon is highly recommended.

What To Train

 

Thinking, Pondering, Working out what to do

Obviously the Core skills need to be trained along with any Shield/Armour specific ones but being a super carrier the benefit of agility cannot be understated and as such I'd train any skills that will provide a bonus to agility or agility modules.

Armor - everything except Armor Laying and Amor Resistance Phasing (to IV) to V with Capital skills to I
Drones - Fighter Bombers I
Electronic Systems - Electronic Warfare to V and Projected ECM to I
Engineering - Everything except Advanced/Weapon Upgrades, Nanite skills and Thermodynamics to V with Capital skills to I
Navigation - Evasive Manoeuvring V, High Speed Manoeuvring to III and all Jump Drive skills to V
Shields - Shield Management V, Tactical Shield Manipulation V
Spaceship Command - Capital Ships V

We don't need to have perfect skills, Level I is basic is enough (it will be the responsibility of the buyer to further train, if they want) for most skills but there are some pre-requites skills that we do need to get to IV or V to unlock the next skill book (Fighters is a good example, we need it to V to unlock Fighter Bombers).

In Summary

All up this is another ~190 days training that will need PLEX and skill books for but will make your character more appealing to those interested in a "pre-packaged super character". It is totally optional to do but if you're looking for maximum investment return (and remember this is a long-term investment) then doing this will be something you'll want to do.

Creating a Super Capital Character - Part 2 - Basic Skillplan

In Part 1 discussed the motivation and basic needs for creating a Super capital pilot this Part describes the initial plan design along with the use of implants and remaps to ensure maximum efficiency.

Below is the skill plan I use to get a basic "ship holder character" started, the example is for an Amarr Aeon, but substitute any racial skills for the one you want to train. 

Plan Design

I designed the plan on the basis to maximize skills learnt in the shortest span of time, because of this 94% (16 of the 17) of the skills in the basic skillset are to be able to sit in and move the ship only, this is not a combat capable pilot. As a result of this decision the first skill we train is Cybernetics and this is to Level V in order to get Improved implants to maximize skill points per hour.

A new character benefits from two remaps being available instantly so we'll leverage these when appropriate and I determined that these should be applied to when training Memory/Perception and Perception/Willpower (approximately the final two thirds of the skills). We could use the remap immediately but getting the Improved implants with the default attribute setup I thought was more productive.

Basic Skills for Aeon Pilot

Cybernetics I

Insert Basic implants for Intelligence/Memory/Perception

Cybernetics II

Cybernetics III

Cybernetics IV

Cybernetics V

Replace implants with Improved implants for Intelligence/Memory/Perception/Willpower

Science IV

Science V

Navigation IV

Navigation V

Warp Drive Operation I

Warp Drive Operation II

Warp Drive Operation III

Warp Drive Operation IV

Warp Drive Operation V

Jump Drive Operation I

Jump Drive Operation II

Jump Drive Operation III

Jump Drive Operation IV

Jump Drive Operation V

Jump Fuel Conservation I

Jump Fuel Conservation II

Jump Fuel Conservation III

Jump Fuel Conservation IV

Jump Drive Calibration I

Jump Drive Calibration II

Jump Drive Calibration III

Remap to maximum Memory(27)/remainder Perception(21)

Drones I

Drones II

Drones III

Drones IV

Drones V

Drone Interfacing I

Drone Interfacing II

Drone Interfacing III

Drone Interfacing IV

Drone Interfacing V

Remap to maximum Perception(27)/remainder Willpower(21)

Spaceship Command IV

Spaceship Command V

Advanced Spaceship Command I

Advanced Spaceship Command II

Advanced Spaceship Command III

Advanced Spaceship Command IV

Advanced Spaceship Command V

Capital Ships I

Capital Ships II

Capital Ships III

Capital Ships IV

Amarr Frigate III

Amarr Destroyer I

Amarr Destroyer II

Amarr Destroyer III

Amarr Cruiser I

Amarr Cruiser II

Amarr Cruiser III

Amarr Battlecruiser I

Amarr Battlecruiser II

Amarr Battlecruiser III

Amarr Battleship I

Amarr Battleship II

Amarr Battleship III

Amarr Carrier I

Notes

• The total training time for the above is 107 days with Basic and Improved implants and remaps or 119 days without.
• Use of Dual Character training adds an overhead cost of one PLEX per month. If you had a free account with no characters in training you could eliminate this.

Coming Up

 

Having a "basic sitter" is a start but many buyers want a more advanced character and so will you, especially if you want a character to sit in your own Supercarrier.

 

In Part 3 I'll discuss and show the additional skills that you can further train to increase the value of any character you sell.

Creating a Super Capital Character - Part 1 - Overview

Research

Quite a while ago I was looking on the official EVE Forums and I noticed a trend of people wanting to buy super capital capable characters. The demand was more than those selling and so I did a bit more research into what skillset these characters had and how long it took to make them.

What I found was interesting, a Super carrier Pilot could be made for an investment of ISK and time and, once completed, they would sell for between 9b and 18b depending on the skillset and what racial carrier skills the character is trained for.

What People Want

I've found most people looking for a Super carrier character want either a Gallente or Amarr trained character. This is because the two most used Super carrier ships are the Nyx and Aeon (not unrelated is the fact both are armour based ships).

Development

I've been creating characters like this for nearly 9 months now, focusing on the skillplan and maximizing my investment return by focusing on what people want. Some people want basic, "sit in ship" character that they can then train and expand on whilst others want the "whole package" which means maximizing a lot of core and racial skills.

The latter character obviously requires more ISK and time to train but is worth considerably more where as the "sitter character" is ready quicker and doesn't require as much ISK investment.

The choice you need to make is simple:

• What race ships do you want to fly
• Do you want a sitter or a fully developed character

Obviously the choices come down to how much ISK and time you want to devote to the endeavour.

What's to Come

Part 2 of this Guide will cover the Basic Skillplan needed for a "sitter" with Part 3 expanding on this to show the Core and additional skills that need to be taken to Level V for any pilot to be combat ready.

What I'm Doing

Null Sec Local Market

 

My local market sales have slowed, I haven't seen any new people selling but I have seen a drop off in traffic which I put down to the new people in the area. I will have to relist items in a couple of weeks (I sell on 60 days cycles not the default 30 or 90 day ones) and I will check all prices to make sure I'm competitive but elsewhere income is good so I'm not really concerned with this dip in sales.

 

Capital Production

 

I've decided to pull the plug on my Capital Production line and as a result have a nice stack of researched BPO's ready for resale but also a large stock of minerals that I can use for other things or sell.

 

Why have I done this, two reasons:

 

1. Effort
2. Profit

 

My profit margin for Capital ship production has dropped over the past few months. A lot of people are producing capital ships and unfortunately this has dropped the price to the point where the effort to make capital ships hasn't been worth it. I'm sure others can disagree but for me it is time to get out.

 

I'll be listing and selling my capital part BPO's (22 of them) over the next couple of weeks and I think I'll easily get between 25 and 30 billion ISK for them. The actual ship BPO's (12 of them) I'll keep and will add some PE and ME to them before putting on copying duty and selling the copies on the market (for a passive income of at least 2 billion ISK)

 

Missions

 

I'm stilling missioning although not for Thukker Tribe at the moment I've moved on to Caldari Navy to see if I can get my Trading Alt's standings up and in turn lower his broker fees from 0.75% to (lowest possible) 0.185%. I've been told this can be done but so far no change but I will be missioning all this week to get my standings up so I can use Level 4 agents instead of the frustrating Level 1 and 2's I am able to use now.

 

One alt is now maximising his missioning skills with all social skills to V within 60 days. If this works out then I may have to update all my other characters that will participate in PvE.

 

Blog

 

I'm enjoying this blog, I do wish I had more to write about and I do have lots of ideas but I'd like to throw the floor open. If you have any ideas for posts you'd like to see please leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do.

How Are You?

A friend asked me last night on TeamSpeak how was I and how was life now I'd left Providence.

 

I answered things were good, lots of things happening, and it was nice and quiet now I'd left Providence. I had a few things to do last night so here's a more expanded version of the answer I gave him:

 

Quiet

 

Last night every single chat channel was quiet and devoid of people. Normally the channels I idle in have between 10 and 20 people in them, last night the most any had was three, four if you include my main and the various alts I logged in at different times.

 

I expect this type of situation on  Monday night for me, as it's either very early Monday morning in Europe or late Sunday night in later time zones. This is the time most people aren't logged in and it's useful for me as it's a great time to do logistics or move freighters around in areas you normally wouldn't use them.

 

Consolidation

 

As it was quiet I used the time last night to send a couple of characters around New Eden to pickup buy orders and collect materials on various characters for consolidation in a single station. I base myself out of one system so it's very useful to have 99% of my assets located here, albeit spread over all my characters.

 

Two Providences and a Prorator were sent out to collect the assets, in total 146 jumps would need to be made between three characters. Slightly more jumps for the freighters but the Prorator still had to run the gauntlet of low sec for three jumps so it wasn't all popcorn and movies.

 

It took a little over four hours but every jump was completed, without incident, and I managed to get all the assets back to my staging system. Even managed to reprocess quite a bit of the T1 and meta modules I received into minerals for my production lines.

 

Projects

 

I have three major projects and one minor, on-going, project on the go at the moment (the names are just for easy remembering):

 

Project Vixen

 

Three years of research, asset buying and training have gone into this project. I'm still a month or two away from being able to pass Milestone 3. Milestone 1 was passed just before Christmas 2013 when I was able to finish all the training I needed to and Milestone 2 was completed just after New Year when I managed to get all the ISK together (two investors and a lot of savings/PvE Bounties) to finance the project.

 

Project Make Stuff

 

Comprises all my Tower and manufacturing operations, the aim is to provide income for my other projects as well as some passive income (in tax form) for my alliance .

 

Project LP

 

I'm in the process of reskilling a Minmatar character to have the best Social skills with the aim of using him to do PvE for LP for corporations/factions that I've identified have high value/profit BPC's available in their LP stores. It's more PvE but instead of grinding for standings this is specifically aimed at getting LP for rewards and something I'll do in batches.

 

Project Minerals

 

I'm using buy orders in a lot of new player systems and a few other highly populated mission running ones to purchase salvage (to make rigs) and loot that I can then reprocess into minerals for use in my projects.

 

Blueprints

 

I've amassed a nice collection of T1/T2 BPC's and am slowly working out what I will need to produce goods from them. Logically the input materials will have both a high cost and size but profit margins look to be between 10% and 30% depending on the items and where I'll sell them.

 

Previously I would have sold a large amount in Providence but as I'm now out of there I'm having to look at market hubs but also now I'm in Curse there is a thriving market there that I can move a lot of items via. Time will tell but my aim at the moment is to work through the blueprints I have before I look at selling anything.

Momentum

Status

 

The past few days have been productive, wares sold in Jita fattening the wallet and then some of the money spent on fuel and inputs. I even got permission to defer tower taxes for a month to purchased a new Jump Freighter to help out with logistics, still debating whether to go for a Nomad (fuel is more easily available where it will be used) or an Ark (which I'm already fully skilled for).

 

Training

 

The PI character in null sec finished Electronics Upgrades V and as I type this Cynosural Theory III will have completed and Command Centre Upgrades V is in the queue. When that finishes I'll make sure Cyno Theory V is added and he'll run out this before I switch the queue back to my 'main' on this account.

 

My new Jump Freighter character is finishing Armour skills but will be changing to Jump Fuel Conservation V in a week, based on research in a previous post, it makes financial sense to get this skill complete as the savings in fuel usage will add up over time considering he'll be making at least two JF runs per week.

 

Industry

 

I'm not quite as blueprint copy rich as Lorna but I've managed to collect nearly two thousand blueprint copies of various modules and ships. I'm currently in the process of tracking my mineral and component needs in order to use these up, not going to be cheap but fortunately the profit margin looks to be between 30 and 40% so it's a worthy investment.

 

I'm both disappointed and happy to see that the price of Faction Battleships has dropped, disappointed because I have four nightmare BPC's and two of those I've had for nearly seven months and cost me more than the ship now sells for but it's good because I'm able to market trade them quite well. Seven over the past week I've made at least 30m on each one.

 

My favourite current item are Hammerhead I drones, I had a few BPC's that allowed me to make 20,000 of them and they sold like hot cakes  within hours of being posted at around the 25,000 ISK each price point in Jita. I have a couple more BPC's left to use and I've invested in BPO that I'll research so I can continue to make them as they, for their mineral need, are a good source of reasonably passive income.

 

Towers

 

My towers are running nicely, fuel and input is added and the outputs exported to High sec ready for sale on a fortnightly cycle. It just works.

 

I'm going to add two more towers making Sylramic Fibres to diversify somewhat, I used to make these in Providence and they were a good choice but I'm not going to both with Fullerides anymore as the margin is small and the market saturated with sellers.

 

Mentoring

 

I've had someone in my new Alliance ask me about setting up towers and I will be working with this person to teach them how to do basic reactions and getting them up to speed with running towers and researching.

 

I've discovered that I know a lot about running towers but I need to find a way to communicate this to someone who is in a different time zone that doesn't really overlap with mine. This limits communication to EVE mails and chat messages rather than voice comms. Going to be interesting to see what we can do.

 

I am looking forward to the challenge though.

Channelling my inner Del Boy

I was idling in chat with some friends the other day when a contract was posted that listed two Nightmare's for sale, one faction fitted the other T2 fitted, for 2.05 billion ISK. The contract was listed by someone in a nearby system who was part of an Alliance that, whilst blue, doesn't have a lot of respect from our alliance.

 

I had a look at the contract and did some checking on the values of the modules/ships and worked out that the contract was about 200 million too expensive and that the contracts might be better value selling the modules and repackaging the ships (they had only T1 Capacitor rigs).

 

With the Left Hand

 

One friend indicated that had he the ISK he would have bought the ships and after I'd finished my checking I decided to see if I could get them for a lesser price.

 

So I convo'd the contract owner and offered 1.85billion, explaining that the T2/faction modules plus the ships did not equal the value he wanted and I'd pay, right now, 1.85billion for his ships.

 

It took him a couple of minutes but he accepted my proposal and deleted the contract then recreated it with the new price. Two clicks later and I have accepted the contract, and five minutes later have a character in the station.

 

With the Right Hand

 

As I'm negotiating the purchase of these Nightmare's I checked my contacts and saw that there was another pilot online whom I recently spoke to who said they were looking for a Nightmare with fittings for sale in the area.

 

I convo'd the pilot and explained that I had two fit Nightmare's for sale in the area and would he be interested in purchasing one of them. To my surprise he said he'd like both, but only if the price was right.

 

So I linked him the fits and informed him that both could be had, with fittings, for 2.5billion. Over the next ten minutes we haggled and eventually settled on a price of 2.35billion. I'm not ashamed to say I let him believe he had me over a barrel in order to get a better price.

 

Five clicks later, contract is up and accepted by the pilot.

 

There's More

 

Total elapsed time since I started talking to the original seller and closing the sale to the new owner, 16 minutes (give or take a few seconds, I wasn't exactly timing it). '

 

16 minutes to turn a 500 million profit, not bad at all.

 

But it doesn't end there, what made this funnier is the pilot whom I bought the ships from and the pilot I then sold them two were not just in the same alliance... no they were in the same corporation.
 

MOST. ENJOYABLE. SALE. EVER.

 

 

 

 

Note

The post title is in reference to the character Del Boy from the BBC show Only Fools and Horses. Sorry I you don't know this, but if you don't I suggest you watch one of the best comedies ever from the BBC and then you'll get the reference.

 

L4 Paladin Mission Runner - Revisited

After losing a Paladin to the Damsel I refit to add more survivability to my fit as well as increasing the DPS as much as I could without training further skills.

 

Now that Rubicon has been deployed I have had to modify my fit a little more as stasis webifiers no longer get a bonus. I have spoken to Bex a fair bit about my Paladin fit and he has shared his which I've modified to get what I now use.

 

I've used the following fit for nearly a week now and L4 missions are faster to complete than before Rubicon. DPS and tank are definitely increased when in Bastion mode and the reduction in MJD charge time really helps movement around the battlefield, if it's needed.

 

Fitting

My fit is as follows:

[Paladin, Knight]
Tachyon Beam Laser II
Tachyon Beam Laser II
Tachyon Beam Laser II
Tachyon Beam Laser II
Bastion Module I
Small Tractor Beam II
Salvager II
Salvager II

Large Micro Jump Drive
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script
Tracking Computer II, Tracking Speed Script

Corpum C-Type Energized Adaptive Membrane
Reactive Armour Hardener
Core A-Type Large Armour Repair
1600mm Steel Plate II
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink
Imperial Navy Heat Sink

Large Capacitor Control Circuit II
Large Capacitor Control Circuit II

 

Pyfa reports this being 1.21 billion for the hull and another 987 million for the fittings (for a total of 2.2 billion ISK). It hasn't cost me that much, I bought the armour repair and ENAM for a lot less than the prices Pyfa is showing (335m and 197m respectively) and two of the heat sinks I actually had from my previous Paladin and were dropped when that blew up.

 

I can hear what you're thinking, THREE tracking computers in the mid-slots. Well yes, I originally was going to have a Sensor Booster with a range script but the range of the Paladin was tweaked so I now can lock to 113.5km which means I don't need further range. All my targets either spawn much closer or up to around 110km.

 

The three TC's actually double my tracking and help me to alpha cruisers at 90km with Imperial Navy Multifrequency and a few times I've changed one to a Optimal Range Script and that has helped me increase DPS at 70km to 90km on Battleships.

 

I don't use drones either, I lost so many before Rubicon that I gave up using them for all but the frigates I could web and even then would still go through 15 at least a week. Now I've changed how and what I target first and small tackle no longer poses a problem.

 

Thoughts

 

I'm almost certain the Bastion Module has made the most difference, whereas before Rubicon I was MJD'ing around to keep out of frigate range and also to having to wait for ships to come into optimum range now I don't have to.

 

Faction Multifrequency crystals have an optimum of around 65km with a falloff to 96km. I can alpha cruisers at 90km with INMF and still hit battleships for around 800/900 per salvo at that range. When they come within 70km I switch to a Optimal Range script in a Tracking Computer and the DPS rises to around 1100. No more than 7 shots per Battleship to kill it.

 

Frigates (especially fast webbers like the Spider Drone) are primaries and even as they accelerate the tracking I have allows me to kill them. Destroyers and Cruisers are next and if they do get within 20km I now have the option of MJD'ing away and maintaining the locks I have.

 

So far the Bastion Module has meant that I do more DPS but more importantly my tank has increased from 1555 hp/12s to 3110 hp/12s when it's active. More than enough even for the Damsel mission when you have aggro from the whole room. As a result I've never gotten lower than 80% armour and I typically pulse the Core A-Type repair only when I get into the low 80's.

 

Outcome

 

I'm certainly doing missions faster, before I was following the Blitz guides and hating every second. Now I warp in, drop a new Tractor Module then start shooting. As I move around I'm still killing things and the Tractor Module is moving all my wrecks to one spot so I can salvage and loot when I finish.

 

It works well and I'm making more on bounties and loot that pre-Rubicon and I'm enjoying L4 missions more than I was. Previous posts show how much of chore I felt it was, now it's not so much a chore but a challenge to complete as quickly as possible whilst killing and looting everything.

 

I'm only using one character for this and he's a high skilled Gunnery and Amarr Battleship character. I worked out since the Wednesday after Rubicon was deployed he's made just under 1.2 billion in ISK either as bounties, rewards or loot from missions (excl. LP). This isn't solid missioning, this is at most four to five hours a day ad hoc (I estimate two missions an hour at most he's doing).