In my last entry I mentioned that I had come to an agreement with a reader of my blog about joining his industrial corporation that is currently doing reactions in a C1 and was offered a mentorship of sorts. He has offered to set up a POS with two lines capable of running reactions, plus a drug lab, and also offered to pay the fuel for the first month. In addition, he will give me starting money to purchase the initial gas. In exchange for all of this, I will be producing PI to offset the fuel costs, I will be manufacturing fuel blocks in high sec to save some ISK, and I will also be sourcing the gas at trade hubs and will be placing buy orders.
The other day I scanned down the high sec static from the old system and found out that I was only 6 jumps from the high sec static for the new wormhole. How lucky is that? Thank bob! I quickly jumped in and began setting up my PI chain for producing robotics. Luckily, this system has all of the planets needed to produce POS fuel, and I decided on robotics as it's the most cost intensive component of building fuel other than isotopes.
Now soon the POS will be put up and we will begin with the initial reactions. The most important consideration is deciding what reactions to run. Of course, I am limited in two ways: by the sheer cost of stockpiling certain types of gas, and the logistics of hauling that gas in. However, a third limitation is the fact that this needs to be profitable. No one gains anything if the reactions don't pay for the fuel (at the very least).
A Gallente fuel tower costs in the ballpark of 640,000 ISK per hour to run. This means that running a reaction needs to make more than that to break even, and the reactions need to be running the entire time or you will start cutting in to your bottom line. Chatting with my mentor I was told that it is best to diversify the reactions being run because the prices fluctuate wildly. Therefore, I need two different reactions that will be worth more than 640k an hour in order to break even. It looks like we have a preliminary idea of what to run, based on the reactions he's already running in the hole.
Over the next couple of days I will be setting up a factory planet to convert my P1 into P2 and then P3 Robotics. I will also hopefully see the beginnings of the reactions, too.
Showing posts with label pi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pi. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Pioneering in W-Space: Part 8
It seems like my arrangement with the new residents of the wormhole might be short lived. It seems that the new residents killed someone from an alliance and as a result, ended up being camped for days on end. I was even advised not to enter the wormhole, although I had never left. Some of their towers are no longer showing up on my d-scan, so I'm left wondering whether they left with their tails between their legs and just haven't let me know.
Interestingly, the person I was living in here with prior to the new people moving in had no issues with other people. Perhaps this is because the purpose of his corp was industrial operations only, and you don't make waves when you aren't blowing up ships of kids who apparently take it personally and proceed to camp you for days.
I've read conflicting reports on how industrial corporations are dealt with in w-space. I hear a lot that some corporations take offense if another wormhole corp doesn't put up a fight. To some, even offering a 1v1 is better than sitting in your POS and waiting for the incoming connection to collapse. I have read stories of people evicting corporations that won't offer up a good fight, because a lack of content in wormhole space can sometimes be a problem. This is especially true if you end up with bad connections or chains.
Wormhole life as an industrial corporation can be quiet if you don't make waves or annoying, depending on your luck with connections. But it certainly can be lucrative, as certain arrays can only be anchored in 0.4 and lower security space.
A few days ago I received an EVE mail from someone who has been reading my blog. He has a corporation in a C1 with good PI planets and is doing reactions and is looking to start up a second reaction tower, along with a drug lab. The idea is that I'd be able to help him with sourcing the gas in known space, get it transported to the static, and help with ferrying it in. Eventually as we worked together longer, I'd gain the necessary permissions to have more control over the POS, including being responsible for fuel and babysitting the reactions. It seems to me that this is a good way to start learning reactions, as the individual is willing to front the capital (in terms of the POS, fuel, initial gas, etc) while I help with logistics. This will be the second learning opportunity to come from someone who has read my blog, and hopefully we will be able to move forward with this. I expect the next Pioneering in W-Space blog post to have more information on this endeavour.
Interestingly, the person I was living in here with prior to the new people moving in had no issues with other people. Perhaps this is because the purpose of his corp was industrial operations only, and you don't make waves when you aren't blowing up ships of kids who apparently take it personally and proceed to camp you for days.
I've read conflicting reports on how industrial corporations are dealt with in w-space. I hear a lot that some corporations take offense if another wormhole corp doesn't put up a fight. To some, even offering a 1v1 is better than sitting in your POS and waiting for the incoming connection to collapse. I have read stories of people evicting corporations that won't offer up a good fight, because a lack of content in wormhole space can sometimes be a problem. This is especially true if you end up with bad connections or chains.
Wormhole life as an industrial corporation can be quiet if you don't make waves or annoying, depending on your luck with connections. But it certainly can be lucrative, as certain arrays can only be anchored in 0.4 and lower security space.
A few days ago I received an EVE mail from someone who has been reading my blog. He has a corporation in a C1 with good PI planets and is doing reactions and is looking to start up a second reaction tower, along with a drug lab. The idea is that I'd be able to help him with sourcing the gas in known space, get it transported to the static, and help with ferrying it in. Eventually as we worked together longer, I'd gain the necessary permissions to have more control over the POS, including being responsible for fuel and babysitting the reactions. It seems to me that this is a good way to start learning reactions, as the individual is willing to front the capital (in terms of the POS, fuel, initial gas, etc) while I help with logistics. This will be the second learning opportunity to come from someone who has read my blog, and hopefully we will be able to move forward with this. I expect the next Pioneering in W-Space blog post to have more information on this endeavour.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Pioneering in W-Space: Part 7
This is the last re-post of my blog from the EVE University forums to catch you up with what I've been doing.
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My host left sooner than expected. I logged in after work at my usual time to go through the process of refreshing my PI and transferring the P1 to POCOs. To my surprise, I warped in to find that the tower was gone. I switched over to the pod saver tab and noted that the POCOs had been transferred over a new corporation. I also noticed that the POCO tax had been changed to 100%.
A day or two later I received a mail from a diplomat of the alliance that moved into the wormhole where I was staying. My old host had mentioned our agreement to them and they were wondering if that was something that I was interested in continuing with. Seeing as how our agreement was making me 144 to 168 million monthly for a very tiny time commitment every day, I agreed to continue.
Still, though, the thought remains that I'd like to branch out of just producing P1 and try to do something more interesting. There are several options, including making P2 or higher products or trying my hand at hybrid polymer reactions. In both cases, there will be an additional time commitment required. The main problem is logistics. P2 requires two different P1 inputs to make. Generally, you'd use a factory planet to construct your P2 or higher goods. However, you need to import the P1 from your other planets in order to do so, and this increases the amount of time. For hybrid polymer reactions, you need a POS with the appropriate reactors and silos. In addition to having to bring in the materials required to do the reactions, you'd also have to bring in fuel. Then you'd also have to haul the completed reactions back out to k-space to sell. There is the potential to make a good amount of isk though. Of course, this would depend on whether or not the new alliance would allow me to set up a POS in the first place.
There's a balance to be reached here. Currently I spend a little time and get a little reward. If I invest more time, I will get more reward. The question is: will I grow tired of investing that much time like my old host did?
As an aside, I've been thinking of creating a blog where I can post entries like these. In addition to being a wormhole dweller, I also dabble in the markets as a trader and I also recently started trying out manufacturing. I do read quite a few Eve-related blogs on various subjects, so there might be some interest by newer players in reading about my perspective on a lot of these things.
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My host left sooner than expected. I logged in after work at my usual time to go through the process of refreshing my PI and transferring the P1 to POCOs. To my surprise, I warped in to find that the tower was gone. I switched over to the pod saver tab and noted that the POCOs had been transferred over a new corporation. I also noticed that the POCO tax had been changed to 100%.
A day or two later I received a mail from a diplomat of the alliance that moved into the wormhole where I was staying. My old host had mentioned our agreement to them and they were wondering if that was something that I was interested in continuing with. Seeing as how our agreement was making me 144 to 168 million monthly for a very tiny time commitment every day, I agreed to continue.
Still, though, the thought remains that I'd like to branch out of just producing P1 and try to do something more interesting. There are several options, including making P2 or higher products or trying my hand at hybrid polymer reactions. In both cases, there will be an additional time commitment required. The main problem is logistics. P2 requires two different P1 inputs to make. Generally, you'd use a factory planet to construct your P2 or higher goods. However, you need to import the P1 from your other planets in order to do so, and this increases the amount of time. For hybrid polymer reactions, you need a POS with the appropriate reactors and silos. In addition to having to bring in the materials required to do the reactions, you'd also have to bring in fuel. Then you'd also have to haul the completed reactions back out to k-space to sell. There is the potential to make a good amount of isk though. Of course, this would depend on whether or not the new alliance would allow me to set up a POS in the first place.
There's a balance to be reached here. Currently I spend a little time and get a little reward. If I invest more time, I will get more reward. The question is: will I grow tired of investing that much time like my old host did?
As an aside, I've been thinking of creating a blog where I can post entries like these. In addition to being a wormhole dweller, I also dabble in the markets as a trader and I also recently started trying out manufacturing. I do read quite a few Eve-related blogs on various subjects, so there might be some interest by newer players in reading about my perspective on a lot of these things.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Pioneering in W-Space: Part 6
This is a re-post of my blog from the EVE University forums to catch you up with what I've been doing.
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The time has come for me to move out of the wormhole that I am currently living in. My host has told me that he will be moving out and I probably won't be staying around to be at the mercy of whoever decides to move in. All in all, the arrangement that I had with my host worked very well. I produced PI that was useful to him, and he paid me a fair price for it. I didn't have to deal with the logistics of running the PI out to k-space and he got to make less trips for the necessary PI. In addition to all this, he gave me pointers to setting up a nice PI system that really helped with producing P1 goods efficiently. I will miss this arrangement that we had.
Now it's time for me to come up with something new to do with my wormhole character. My main character has been in the WHC for some time now, and I've given some thought to moving my alt in there and setting up PI. However, now that I've learned PI, this is just a menial task of logging in every day and updating everything.
One thing that I am considering is finding a new wormhole to live in and run the combat sites there solo, in addition to my PI. I would need to train my alt to be able to fit some sort of battlecruiser (I'm thinking a Drake) to be able to run the sites by myself. I've also grown curious about doing reactions as well, but I do know that it requires more of a time investment to be running in the required materials every week.
I'll definitely have to give this more thought. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know!
The time has come for me to move out of the wormhole that I am currently living in. My host has told me that he will be moving out and I probably won't be staying around to be at the mercy of whoever decides to move in. All in all, the arrangement that I had with my host worked very well. I produced PI that was useful to him, and he paid me a fair price for it. I didn't have to deal with the logistics of running the PI out to k-space and he got to make less trips for the necessary PI. In addition to all this, he gave me pointers to setting up a nice PI system that really helped with producing P1 goods efficiently. I will miss this arrangement that we had.
Now it's time for me to come up with something new to do with my wormhole character. My main character has been in the WHC for some time now, and I've given some thought to moving my alt in there and setting up PI. However, now that I've learned PI, this is just a menial task of logging in every day and updating everything.
One thing that I am considering is finding a new wormhole to live in and run the combat sites there solo, in addition to my PI. I would need to train my alt to be able to fit some sort of battlecruiser (I'm thinking a Drake) to be able to run the sites by myself. I've also grown curious about doing reactions as well, but I do know that it requires more of a time investment to be running in the required materials every week.
I'll definitely have to give this more thought. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Pioneering in W-Space: Part 5
This is a re-post of my blog from the EVE University forums to catch you up with what I've been doing.
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It has been a while since I updated this. In my last post, I was talking about the tax rates on the POCOs nearby and how I wanted to find another wormhole to settle in. I haven't been able to find a suitable wormhole to settle down in. However, this past week I received mail in-game from an individual who had read my mini-blog here and had a proposal for me. He had settled in a C3 wormhole for the purposes of PI and other things, but couldn't extract all of the PI goods from the planets from himself. In exchange for first chance at buying the PI I'd be making, he offered a very low tax rate in addition to tips on how to optimize my organization to extract more. Needless to say, I accepted his offer.
The other day I bid farewell to Frontier and scanned my way out into high sec. 20 some odd jumps later and I scanned my way into the new wormhole. After being fronted some start up cash to upgrade my command centers (my PI alt is supposed to be self sufficient), I set up extraction on 5 different planets, making P1 items that my host has mentioned that he will buy off of me for use in his production chains. So far, the tips that I have been given has allowed me to fill up my launch pads about a quarter of the way each day.
As of now, the money that I was fronted has already been paid back and my PI is churning along very well. Now, I wonder if there is anything else that I can do from an industry perspective to make ISK in a wormhole? Hmmmm.
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It has been a while since I updated this. In my last post, I was talking about the tax rates on the POCOs nearby and how I wanted to find another wormhole to settle in. I haven't been able to find a suitable wormhole to settle down in. However, this past week I received mail in-game from an individual who had read my mini-blog here and had a proposal for me. He had settled in a C3 wormhole for the purposes of PI and other things, but couldn't extract all of the PI goods from the planets from himself. In exchange for first chance at buying the PI I'd be making, he offered a very low tax rate in addition to tips on how to optimize my organization to extract more. Needless to say, I accepted his offer.
The other day I bid farewell to Frontier and scanned my way out into high sec. 20 some odd jumps later and I scanned my way into the new wormhole. After being fronted some start up cash to upgrade my command centers (my PI alt is supposed to be self sufficient), I set up extraction on 5 different planets, making P1 items that my host has mentioned that he will buy off of me for use in his production chains. So far, the tips that I have been given has allowed me to fill up my launch pads about a quarter of the way each day.
As of now, the money that I was fronted has already been paid back and my PI is churning along very well. Now, I wonder if there is anything else that I can do from an industry perspective to make ISK in a wormhole? Hmmmm.
Monday, June 09, 2014
Pioneering in W-Space: Part 4
This is a re-post of my blog from the EVE University forums to catch you up with what I've been doing.
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It's been a while since my last update, mostly because updating with how much new P1 product I have obtained over the course of the past day does not give much in terms of relevant content or interesting reading. However, I have learned some new things that I'd like to share with everyone.
I've been using a spreadsheet to keep track of my PI assets and made over 2m ISK (theoretically) based on the minimum Jita sell prices. However, I had to start getting my ever-increasing P1 products from my planet to my Epithal. I had originally thought that expedited transfers have 5 minute cooldowns. As it turns out, the expedited transfer from a factory to my command center has a cooldown of 20 minutes. This means that it would take over an hour to get my products transferred and launched. This isn't an ideal way of doing things.
Additionally, on the launch screen, I realized that my spreadsheet was incorrect in calculating the export tax. Or, should I say, the information that I read online was incorrect and therefore my spreadsheet was telling me incorrect things. Let me summarize what I thought and then give you the true story. Every planetary resource has a value defined by CCP. P0 are 4isk, P1 are 400isk, etc. Tax rates are a percentage of that value for every unit of P1 (in my case) that you will be exporting from your planet. Command Centers have a 15% tax for launching, meaning that the cost of exporting one unit of P1 is 60isk. I mistakenly took 15% of this value, thinking that my cost would be 9isk/unit. Whoops!
Despite my miscalculation, there is still profit to be made even if you're using Command Center launches. However, the length of time it will take to get my products off of the planet will take a while. However, the tax rates are not the only thing eating into my income. There are only two planets in Frontier, and one of them is a very large gas planet. Large planets are bad for PI because it increases the link cost of placing down buildings. Furthermore, Frontier is still occupied by my Russian friends (the same ones who own the POCOs).
I am starting to think that it is time to get my P1 products into my Epithal and take my high-sec static back to k-space to look for a new wormhole to settle in. The amount of money that I will get from selling my P1 products will mean that I will have broken even on setting up the initial planet. However, I have certainly learned a lot. I think in my search for a new home, I will be looking for the following:
1. A significant number of planets. 6 planets should be the minimum based on how many planets my one alt can handle.
2. Small planets. Gas planets are great but they hurt you with the cost of CPU and powergrid.
3. Unoccupied, truly this time. The good news about having a neighbour is that any attention in the wormhole might be focused on them. The bad news about having a neighbour is that THEIR attention could be focused on you. I know for a fact that after visiting the POS a few times, my neighbours were certainly active. And, judging by their 100% POCO tax, they want to be the only fish in this pond.
4. A C1, still. The advantage to a C1 is still the fact that battleships and higher cannot warp in. The bad thing about a C1 is the k-space static that could mean you will be getting day-trippers or WH corps rolling their C1 static to come run sites or look for PVP opportunities. Still, the ability to have easy access to k-space for selling my PI goods offsets the risk that comes with being in a C1.
5. Low POCO tax rates would be ideal. Anything below 15% would be great for when I decide to build a launch pad.
Hopefully my next update will have some good news on the search for a new Frontier.
---
It's been a while since my last update, mostly because updating with how much new P1 product I have obtained over the course of the past day does not give much in terms of relevant content or interesting reading. However, I have learned some new things that I'd like to share with everyone.
I've been using a spreadsheet to keep track of my PI assets and made over 2m ISK (theoretically) based on the minimum Jita sell prices. However, I had to start getting my ever-increasing P1 products from my planet to my Epithal. I had originally thought that expedited transfers have 5 minute cooldowns. As it turns out, the expedited transfer from a factory to my command center has a cooldown of 20 minutes. This means that it would take over an hour to get my products transferred and launched. This isn't an ideal way of doing things.
Additionally, on the launch screen, I realized that my spreadsheet was incorrect in calculating the export tax. Or, should I say, the information that I read online was incorrect and therefore my spreadsheet was telling me incorrect things. Let me summarize what I thought and then give you the true story. Every planetary resource has a value defined by CCP. P0 are 4isk, P1 are 400isk, etc. Tax rates are a percentage of that value for every unit of P1 (in my case) that you will be exporting from your planet. Command Centers have a 15% tax for launching, meaning that the cost of exporting one unit of P1 is 60isk. I mistakenly took 15% of this value, thinking that my cost would be 9isk/unit. Whoops!
Despite my miscalculation, there is still profit to be made even if you're using Command Center launches. However, the length of time it will take to get my products off of the planet will take a while. However, the tax rates are not the only thing eating into my income. There are only two planets in Frontier, and one of them is a very large gas planet. Large planets are bad for PI because it increases the link cost of placing down buildings. Furthermore, Frontier is still occupied by my Russian friends (the same ones who own the POCOs).
I am starting to think that it is time to get my P1 products into my Epithal and take my high-sec static back to k-space to look for a new wormhole to settle in. The amount of money that I will get from selling my P1 products will mean that I will have broken even on setting up the initial planet. However, I have certainly learned a lot. I think in my search for a new home, I will be looking for the following:
1. A significant number of planets. 6 planets should be the minimum based on how many planets my one alt can handle.
2. Small planets. Gas planets are great but they hurt you with the cost of CPU and powergrid.
3. Unoccupied, truly this time. The good news about having a neighbour is that any attention in the wormhole might be focused on them. The bad news about having a neighbour is that THEIR attention could be focused on you. I know for a fact that after visiting the POS a few times, my neighbours were certainly active. And, judging by their 100% POCO tax, they want to be the only fish in this pond.
4. A C1, still. The advantage to a C1 is still the fact that battleships and higher cannot warp in. The bad thing about a C1 is the k-space static that could mean you will be getting day-trippers or WH corps rolling their C1 static to come run sites or look for PVP opportunities. Still, the ability to have easy access to k-space for selling my PI goods offsets the risk that comes with being in a C1.
5. Low POCO tax rates would be ideal. Anything below 15% would be great for when I decide to build a launch pad.
Hopefully my next update will have some good news on the search for a new Frontier.
Sunday, June 08, 2014
Pioneering in W-Space: Part 3
This is a re-post of my blog from the EVE University forums to catch you up with what I've been doing.
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I've decided that my wormhole needs a name. The Wormhole Campus calls its home Innuendo, and I've decided that it would be easier if I named mine. In that case, keeping with the theme of pioneering in w-space, I've decided to call my wormhole Frontier.
Last night was a busy time in Frontier, but not for me personally. I was keeping an eye on EveEye and Wormhol.es, looking for activity before logging in. Sure enough, I saw that people were ratting in my system and there were 3 kills over the period of an hour. As it turns out, one unlucky pilot got blown up and his two mobile tractor units (that I mentioned seeing before) also blew up. These losses were pretty big, totalling over 136 million isk. I'm glad that the two people, from the same wormhole corporation, found him instead of me. I'm guessing that these guys have their home system in a C2 or C3 and have a C1 static that happened to be Frontier. Hopefully that means that today I'll be safe from them, at least, as they will have a new C1 to play with.
My PI is still churning away. Currently I have 1760 P1 products that will net me 670,000 isk based on Jita pricing. I want to talk a little bit about Jita pricing, as I managed to link my spreadsheet to Eve-Central through their API last night. Previously, I was using the median sell price for my Jita price. However, when I went to calculate the difference between filling up my Epithal with P0 resources and P1 resources, I was surprised to see that the difference was only 3 million isk. How could that make sense? As it turns out, the answer is what I'm using as the Jita price. Jita's median price for the P0 resources was skewed pretty high compared to the lowest sell price in the region, which is what I'd most likely be selling at. After making the adjustment to the API, I found that there's a 31 million isk difference between a full Epithal load of P1 compared to P0. That makes more sense.
Since my cloaking finished training, I decided to go out and start scanning down the signatures in the area. The biggest surprise was that there are 14 signatures to scan down, not including the anoms that don't need to be scanned. The second surprise was that I really need to improve my scanning skills on this alt. I was used to my scanning skills on my main, and it was taking me much longer to scan down these sites. Perhaps wormhole sites are harder to scan down than high-sec sites. Either way, I need to find my way to the market to buy some additional scanning skills. I scanned down a few gas sites and a relic site before finally finding a wormhole. Warping to it showed that it was my C1 static, and after bookmarking the location, I jumped out.
I ended up being <10 jumps from Amarr, one of the major trade hubs. I was also <10 jumps from stations with NPC seeded skillbooks, so I headed there to grab my scanning skillbooks. On my way to the station with the skillbooks, I passed through Amarr. Having never been in a trade hub station before, I was somewhat surprised to see how many people were in the system (around 600). Luckily there were only a few people sitting on the various gates that I went through. However, it does make me think about how careful I will need to be when I'm bringing a load of PI materials to a trade hub. I'll certainly need to make some insta dock and insta warp out bookmarks for the trade hub stations before I take my Epithal there. Either way, I've grabbed some additional scanning skillbooks which will hopefully help me scan down sites faster in Frontier.
After jumping back into Frontier, I decided to go check out the POS. It's still active and there actually was a piloted Vexor there tonight. Luckily he didn't see me (or didn't care) and I warped to a safe spot, then to my log out spot. On my way there, I created an unaligned safe spot that will be my new log out spot. I'll probably make another unaligned safe spot and move my mobile depot there. Luckily it still has not been spotted, even though I have the reinforcement timer as backup in case someone tries to blow it up.
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I've decided that my wormhole needs a name. The Wormhole Campus calls its home Innuendo, and I've decided that it would be easier if I named mine. In that case, keeping with the theme of pioneering in w-space, I've decided to call my wormhole Frontier.
Last night was a busy time in Frontier, but not for me personally. I was keeping an eye on EveEye and Wormhol.es, looking for activity before logging in. Sure enough, I saw that people were ratting in my system and there were 3 kills over the period of an hour. As it turns out, one unlucky pilot got blown up and his two mobile tractor units (that I mentioned seeing before) also blew up. These losses were pretty big, totalling over 136 million isk. I'm glad that the two people, from the same wormhole corporation, found him instead of me. I'm guessing that these guys have their home system in a C2 or C3 and have a C1 static that happened to be Frontier. Hopefully that means that today I'll be safe from them, at least, as they will have a new C1 to play with.
My PI is still churning away. Currently I have 1760 P1 products that will net me 670,000 isk based on Jita pricing. I want to talk a little bit about Jita pricing, as I managed to link my spreadsheet to Eve-Central through their API last night. Previously, I was using the median sell price for my Jita price. However, when I went to calculate the difference between filling up my Epithal with P0 resources and P1 resources, I was surprised to see that the difference was only 3 million isk. How could that make sense? As it turns out, the answer is what I'm using as the Jita price. Jita's median price for the P0 resources was skewed pretty high compared to the lowest sell price in the region, which is what I'd most likely be selling at. After making the adjustment to the API, I found that there's a 31 million isk difference between a full Epithal load of P1 compared to P0. That makes more sense.
Since my cloaking finished training, I decided to go out and start scanning down the signatures in the area. The biggest surprise was that there are 14 signatures to scan down, not including the anoms that don't need to be scanned. The second surprise was that I really need to improve my scanning skills on this alt. I was used to my scanning skills on my main, and it was taking me much longer to scan down these sites. Perhaps wormhole sites are harder to scan down than high-sec sites. Either way, I need to find my way to the market to buy some additional scanning skills. I scanned down a few gas sites and a relic site before finally finding a wormhole. Warping to it showed that it was my C1 static, and after bookmarking the location, I jumped out.
I ended up being <10 jumps from Amarr, one of the major trade hubs. I was also <10 jumps from stations with NPC seeded skillbooks, so I headed there to grab my scanning skillbooks. On my way to the station with the skillbooks, I passed through Amarr. Having never been in a trade hub station before, I was somewhat surprised to see how many people were in the system (around 600). Luckily there were only a few people sitting on the various gates that I went through. However, it does make me think about how careful I will need to be when I'm bringing a load of PI materials to a trade hub. I'll certainly need to make some insta dock and insta warp out bookmarks for the trade hub stations before I take my Epithal there. Either way, I've grabbed some additional scanning skillbooks which will hopefully help me scan down sites faster in Frontier.
After jumping back into Frontier, I decided to go check out the POS. It's still active and there actually was a piloted Vexor there tonight. Luckily he didn't see me (or didn't care) and I warped to a safe spot, then to my log out spot. On my way there, I created an unaligned safe spot that will be my new log out spot. I'll probably make another unaligned safe spot and move my mobile depot there. Luckily it still has not been spotted, even though I have the reinforcement timer as backup in case someone tries to blow it up.
Saturday, June 07, 2014
Pioneering in W-Space: Part 2
This is a re-post of my blog from the EVE University forums to catch you up with what I've been doing.
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I logged on this evening to check on my PI. My cycle was up and I created 860 P1 products that, at current Jita prices, would sell for around 315,000 isk, not taking into consideration the taxes required to export from my command center. As I mentioned in the first post, using the POCO surrounding my planet is impossible because the corporation that owns it has set the tax rate to 100%. From what I have read, the tax rate is 15% of the taxable value, which is 60 for a P1 product. Based on this, the actual value of my products is around 308,000 isk, which is still respectable. At this rate, I could gain 9.5 million isk per month. A fair start, but I know I can do more. I plan to reinvest my earnings into upgrading my command center so that I can support more factories and extractors so I can grow my little PI empire. I've started another 24 hour cycle and will check back tomorrow.
Speaking of all of these calculations, I have started putting together a PI spreadsheet so that I can keep track of the value of my PI goods. Right now it's very rudimentary. However, I plan to expand it using EVE-Central's API to keep the prices updated and I also want to incorporate a sheet to determine if it's more profitable to try P0->P2 production. Once I get this sheet to look presentable, I'll be more than happy to share it in this thread.
In other news, d-scan picked up a Mobile Tractor Unit somewhere within the max range of the scan near my safe spot. I noticed as well on EveEye that there were a few dozen NPC kills today, meaning that someone (other than me) has been ratting in the WH. I can't be certain if this is someone who came in from the HS static, or perhaps another WH rolled a C1 static that happened to be the one I'm living in. Until my Cloaking skill finishes training, I can't stay around uncloaked long enough to scan for WHs.
Additionally, until my Cloaking skill finishes, I don't feel safe rushing off into k-space to try to sell my commodities. This will have to wait until tomorrow. I will certainly share my experience on my first trip to the market, perhaps tomorrow.
---
I logged on this evening to check on my PI. My cycle was up and I created 860 P1 products that, at current Jita prices, would sell for around 315,000 isk, not taking into consideration the taxes required to export from my command center. As I mentioned in the first post, using the POCO surrounding my planet is impossible because the corporation that owns it has set the tax rate to 100%. From what I have read, the tax rate is 15% of the taxable value, which is 60 for a P1 product. Based on this, the actual value of my products is around 308,000 isk, which is still respectable. At this rate, I could gain 9.5 million isk per month. A fair start, but I know I can do more. I plan to reinvest my earnings into upgrading my command center so that I can support more factories and extractors so I can grow my little PI empire. I've started another 24 hour cycle and will check back tomorrow.
Speaking of all of these calculations, I have started putting together a PI spreadsheet so that I can keep track of the value of my PI goods. Right now it's very rudimentary. However, I plan to expand it using EVE-Central's API to keep the prices updated and I also want to incorporate a sheet to determine if it's more profitable to try P0->P2 production. Once I get this sheet to look presentable, I'll be more than happy to share it in this thread.
In other news, d-scan picked up a Mobile Tractor Unit somewhere within the max range of the scan near my safe spot. I noticed as well on EveEye that there were a few dozen NPC kills today, meaning that someone (other than me) has been ratting in the WH. I can't be certain if this is someone who came in from the HS static, or perhaps another WH rolled a C1 static that happened to be the one I'm living in. Until my Cloaking skill finishes training, I can't stay around uncloaked long enough to scan for WHs.
Additionally, until my Cloaking skill finishes, I don't feel safe rushing off into k-space to try to sell my commodities. This will have to wait until tomorrow. I will certainly share my experience on my first trip to the market, perhaps tomorrow.
Friday, June 06, 2014
Pioneering in W-Space: Part 1
This is a re-post of my blog from the EVE University forums to catch you up with what I've been doing.
---
I still remember the first time I scanned down a wormhole. I mentioned in the E-UNI chat that I had found a wormhole and one member suggested that I go jump through and see what happens. Looking back now I think that there might have been some people standing by waiting for the tears to flow as I got blapped by the local residents. Luckily, I didn't get blapped and I was able to explore aroud a bit before heading back to k-space. My first trip into w-space was definitely exhilirating and opened up a new path for me to explore.
Since that first time jumping into a wormhole, I have grown increasingly interested in w-space. After doing lots of reading on the wiki page and various blogs about w-space (these are very useful!), I got the idea into my head that I wanted to find a C1 to settle down in and start making a little bit of ISK with Planetary Interaction. Of course, there were a few problems with this idea. Where was I going to find an unoccupied C1? Once I found one, how was I going to occupy it? I don't have the ISK to anchor a POS and keep it fueled, plus I don't know what the return will be like on my planets. Nonetheless, I was stubborn and continued scanning down wormholes trying to find a perfect new home.
You might be asking, why a C1? I decided on a C1 for a few reasons. First, I read that C1s tend to be less frequented than the popular C2s, which have more opportunities for running sites. Second, C1 entrances have a weight restriction that precludes certain ships from entering (this makes taking down a POS in a C1 more annoying but not impossible to do). Finally, my lack of combat skills means that my primary activity would be PI and as all wormholes from C1-C6 are -1.0 true sec, the planets in a C1 can have as many resources as a C6. However, as it turned out, finding a C1 would be a big challenge.
I scanned down many wormholes in many different areas (near Aldrat, near the AMC, and near Solitude) looking for C1s. As it turned out, I found many C2s and some C3s but very few C1s. The C1s I did find were occupied with very recent activity on the killboards. However, I took every new wormhole I found as a learning experience. From the blogs I read, I discovered that you can d-scan to uncover the location of POSs that show up on a general max 360 scan. The next time I popped into a C2, I decided to practice this and find the local POS. I spotted one on d-scan and proceeded to align myself to one of the nearby planets. I narrowed my d-scan angle and sure enough, the POS was still showing up. I warped to the moon and low and behold I had found the (active) POS, shields up and all. There was some luck here in that there were only a few moons on this planet. This was a nice lesson though, if I were to set up a POS, choosing a planet with many moons would make it more irritating for someone else to scan down my POS. However, anyone with the patience could scan each moon until they found it anyway.
A few days ago I got lucky and scanned down a C1 with a HS static that has had no recent activity and appeared to be unoccupied. I warped in and D-scan showed that there was a POS nearby. I quickly scanned it down and found that it was not abandoned (shields were still up), with three unpiloted ships sitting there. I also noted that were were only two planets in this wormhole, limiting my PI options. Finally, the (one person) corp that owned the POS also owned the POCOs for the planets, and they had set a 100% tax rate. Stubborn as I am, I decided that I could live without using the POCOs and use this C1 as a training ground for living in a wormhole. With the entrance bookmarked, I realized that I had less than 24 hours to get my WH PI alt ready to hop into this wormhole.
I decided on using an alt for this adventure because PI is relatively low-maintenance and between refreshing my extractors and bringing my output to k-space to sell, I'd have nothing to do otherwise. Plus, my main had just set himself up at Solitude and I wanted to continue having fun and learning and experiencing new things. However, I had to decide what the best course of option was for my alt who wouldn't have the benefit of a POS in w-space. One of my Solitude campus mates suggested I take in a cloaked Epithal with warp stabs and a scanner probe. I thought this would be a good idea so I trained up the skills on my alt and ran around buying the necessary components to get the ship ready. I also bought a mobile depot since an Epithal can't hold a command center without 4 expanded cargoholds and I wanted those warp stabs for my trips into k-space at a later time. Also, it would be nice to have a "home" at a hidden location in my C1.
Two trips later I had everything I needed in the wormhole and prepared to settle down. I placed my command center and set up a small P0 -> P1 operation to get started. As the P1s start completing (they're already moving pretty fast with the high extraction rate thanks to the large amount of P0 available on the planet), I'll start practicing trips into k-space to sell my products. Tonight my 24h cycle will be done and I'll have some P1 to sell! That'll be another adventure all together.
---
I still remember the first time I scanned down a wormhole. I mentioned in the E-UNI chat that I had found a wormhole and one member suggested that I go jump through and see what happens. Looking back now I think that there might have been some people standing by waiting for the tears to flow as I got blapped by the local residents. Luckily, I didn't get blapped and I was able to explore aroud a bit before heading back to k-space. My first trip into w-space was definitely exhilirating and opened up a new path for me to explore.
Since that first time jumping into a wormhole, I have grown increasingly interested in w-space. After doing lots of reading on the wiki page and various blogs about w-space (these are very useful!), I got the idea into my head that I wanted to find a C1 to settle down in and start making a little bit of ISK with Planetary Interaction. Of course, there were a few problems with this idea. Where was I going to find an unoccupied C1? Once I found one, how was I going to occupy it? I don't have the ISK to anchor a POS and keep it fueled, plus I don't know what the return will be like on my planets. Nonetheless, I was stubborn and continued scanning down wormholes trying to find a perfect new home.
You might be asking, why a C1? I decided on a C1 for a few reasons. First, I read that C1s tend to be less frequented than the popular C2s, which have more opportunities for running sites. Second, C1 entrances have a weight restriction that precludes certain ships from entering (this makes taking down a POS in a C1 more annoying but not impossible to do). Finally, my lack of combat skills means that my primary activity would be PI and as all wormholes from C1-C6 are -1.0 true sec, the planets in a C1 can have as many resources as a C6. However, as it turned out, finding a C1 would be a big challenge.
I scanned down many wormholes in many different areas (near Aldrat, near the AMC, and near Solitude) looking for C1s. As it turned out, I found many C2s and some C3s but very few C1s. The C1s I did find were occupied with very recent activity on the killboards. However, I took every new wormhole I found as a learning experience. From the blogs I read, I discovered that you can d-scan to uncover the location of POSs that show up on a general max 360 scan. The next time I popped into a C2, I decided to practice this and find the local POS. I spotted one on d-scan and proceeded to align myself to one of the nearby planets. I narrowed my d-scan angle and sure enough, the POS was still showing up. I warped to the moon and low and behold I had found the (active) POS, shields up and all. There was some luck here in that there were only a few moons on this planet. This was a nice lesson though, if I were to set up a POS, choosing a planet with many moons would make it more irritating for someone else to scan down my POS. However, anyone with the patience could scan each moon until they found it anyway.
A few days ago I got lucky and scanned down a C1 with a HS static that has had no recent activity and appeared to be unoccupied. I warped in and D-scan showed that there was a POS nearby. I quickly scanned it down and found that it was not abandoned (shields were still up), with three unpiloted ships sitting there. I also noted that were were only two planets in this wormhole, limiting my PI options. Finally, the (one person) corp that owned the POS also owned the POCOs for the planets, and they had set a 100% tax rate. Stubborn as I am, I decided that I could live without using the POCOs and use this C1 as a training ground for living in a wormhole. With the entrance bookmarked, I realized that I had less than 24 hours to get my WH PI alt ready to hop into this wormhole.
I decided on using an alt for this adventure because PI is relatively low-maintenance and between refreshing my extractors and bringing my output to k-space to sell, I'd have nothing to do otherwise. Plus, my main had just set himself up at Solitude and I wanted to continue having fun and learning and experiencing new things. However, I had to decide what the best course of option was for my alt who wouldn't have the benefit of a POS in w-space. One of my Solitude campus mates suggested I take in a cloaked Epithal with warp stabs and a scanner probe. I thought this would be a good idea so I trained up the skills on my alt and ran around buying the necessary components to get the ship ready. I also bought a mobile depot since an Epithal can't hold a command center without 4 expanded cargoholds and I wanted those warp stabs for my trips into k-space at a later time. Also, it would be nice to have a "home" at a hidden location in my C1.
Two trips later I had everything I needed in the wormhole and prepared to settle down. I placed my command center and set up a small P0 -> P1 operation to get started. As the P1s start completing (they're already moving pretty fast with the high extraction rate thanks to the large amount of P0 available on the planet), I'll start practicing trips into k-space to sell my products. Tonight my 24h cycle will be done and I'll have some P1 to sell! That'll be another adventure all together.
Thursday, June 05, 2014
Hi, I am an EVE Altoholic
Hi, my name is Jeff Kione and I am an EVE altoholic. Welcome to my blog.
The purpose of this blog is to give the reader a new player's perspective on EVE Online. My blog will primarily focus on my interests, which at this time are wormholes, trading and the economy, and industry.
One of the best things about EVE is that there is such a wide variety of things to do and to try. As someone who has a lot of interests, it was not long before I started creating alts to try out different aspects of the game. I have a WH PI alt, a trader alt and a manufacturing alt at this time, in addition to my main character.
I started playing EVE a few months ago when I heard about one of the big null-sec battles on Reddit. As a big MMO player, I was surprised that I had not heard of EVE Online before and I was excited to try it out. I did some research on the game and heard about it's incredibly difficult learning curve. The more I researched, the more interested I became, and I was incredibly happy when my download finished. After I joined the game, my first priority was to join EVE University because I was using its Wiki as my primary source of EVE information.
My first goal as a new player was to get into mining because I had read much about mining being a good way to start the game. While mining does generate ISK, it was not long before I grew incredibly tired of shooting asteroids in high-sec. I participated in one (and only one) shared can mining fleet that lasted for several hours. The ISK I made from that fleet was nice, but the process was so mindnumbingly boring that I needed to find something else to do.
Exploration had been something that I was interested in after doing the exploration tutorials at the start of the game and hearing of the vast riches that could be obtained by doing it. I remember quite clearly scanning down my first wormhole and mentioning what I had found in the EVE public chat. Several people encouraged me to jump in, perhaps hoping that I would be met with a fleet of wormhole denziens on the other side. Lucky for me, I made it out of that wormhole alive, but I got bit by the wormhole bug and became very focused on gaining the skills required to live in w-space.
Fast forward to the present and I am still with EVE University. I am a member of the Wormhole Campus and I'm living full-time in w-space. I have learned a good deal about what it takes to live in w-space, and hopefully I can pass some of that knowledge on through this blog.
My next several blog posts will consist of posts that I've already written and published on the EVE University forums. They detail my initial foray into w-space, prior to my main character joining the Wormhole Campus. Once I have caught up, I will begin posting about my current endeavours.
Until next time!
The purpose of this blog is to give the reader a new player's perspective on EVE Online. My blog will primarily focus on my interests, which at this time are wormholes, trading and the economy, and industry.
One of the best things about EVE is that there is such a wide variety of things to do and to try. As someone who has a lot of interests, it was not long before I started creating alts to try out different aspects of the game. I have a WH PI alt, a trader alt and a manufacturing alt at this time, in addition to my main character.
---
I started playing EVE a few months ago when I heard about one of the big null-sec battles on Reddit. As a big MMO player, I was surprised that I had not heard of EVE Online before and I was excited to try it out. I did some research on the game and heard about it's incredibly difficult learning curve. The more I researched, the more interested I became, and I was incredibly happy when my download finished. After I joined the game, my first priority was to join EVE University because I was using its Wiki as my primary source of EVE information.
My first goal as a new player was to get into mining because I had read much about mining being a good way to start the game. While mining does generate ISK, it was not long before I grew incredibly tired of shooting asteroids in high-sec. I participated in one (and only one) shared can mining fleet that lasted for several hours. The ISK I made from that fleet was nice, but the process was so mindnumbingly boring that I needed to find something else to do.
Exploration had been something that I was interested in after doing the exploration tutorials at the start of the game and hearing of the vast riches that could be obtained by doing it. I remember quite clearly scanning down my first wormhole and mentioning what I had found in the EVE public chat. Several people encouraged me to jump in, perhaps hoping that I would be met with a fleet of wormhole denziens on the other side. Lucky for me, I made it out of that wormhole alive, but I got bit by the wormhole bug and became very focused on gaining the skills required to live in w-space.
Fast forward to the present and I am still with EVE University. I am a member of the Wormhole Campus and I'm living full-time in w-space. I have learned a good deal about what it takes to live in w-space, and hopefully I can pass some of that knowledge on through this blog.
My next several blog posts will consist of posts that I've already written and published on the EVE University forums. They detail my initial foray into w-space, prior to my main character joining the Wormhole Campus. Once I have caught up, I will begin posting about my current endeavours.
Until next time!
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