PI Guide Up

I finally pulled together something that has been posted by me in various places at various points and put it into my guides, now plural.  Behold, a basic guide to PI extraction!  It only covers the most effective way to get P1s and briefly talks about running those P1s into bigger PI chains.  You can click the link above, or use the nav bar to get there.  Enjoy!

Industry Expansions Will Never Happen…

Well, I was going to write something about wormholes, but that can wait.  This happened.  That industry expansion everyone assumed would just never come is coming this summer.  Or at least round one.  I can’t wait for the NDA’d minutes to come out and see what level of involvement the CSM had. There is a lot said in the dev blog linked above, and more to come.  I don’t have much to say at this point, because it looks like it will take some time to find out how all of the changes are going to fit together. Off the top of my head the most exciting parts are: Removing wait times on all manufacturing and research. POSes in HS will no longer require god-awful standings grinds. That interface. Again, how this all plays out will be interesting to see, but I think the changes to research waiting will really open up the field to players looking to get into industry.  Now you can trade isk for time without building a POS, something that is currently a pretty big advantage for older players with the skills to research outside HS, or set up POSes to research, or who had stacks Continue Reading →

PI Challenge – Final Results (Edited to Respond to Mabrick)

Edit:  Mabrick responded to this post, and I want to share/respond to some of his thoughts, as I may have not been clear about some things.  I made isk, 134m isk specifically.  I did not lose any money on this.  HS PI will MAKE YOU ISK! In Mabrick’s initial post, he gives a specific skill set.  I DID NOT use this skill set.  I tried to note this below, and in the previous posts, giving my skills, and revised estimates for how much might be earnable. Even given the above, based on my experience, Kao’s results, and Mabrick’s own writing, I stand by my claim: Mabrick’s original and revised amounts per month, and my own revised amount per month, are false given the current state of PI in High Sec. I did wholeheartedly try to make as much as possible, and was in no way trying to sabotage Mabrick’s claims.  I only wanted to test them. I am in no way opposed to the “passive” playstyle.  I have an alt that only does industry, and did this challenge.  It is my opinion that for a brand new player, however, spending the first 2 months of the game training skills that Continue Reading →

Mabrick’s PI Challenge Day 1

I set up all the planets for the challenge, 3 barren, 2 lava, and have the production planet going.  I also have a sheet set up to track the costs by line item.  I loves me some Excel!  Without further ado, here are the costs incurred in buying the command centers, setting up the planets (including a few mistakes in placing and rebuilding PI buildings), and transferring the first production loads from the resources planets to the production planet (also including one mistake): The Customs Office interface is still horrible, and you can easily transfer crap back to a planet when you think you are loading it to your ship.  Why?  Because CCP decided that the CO inventory screen should not be part of the unified inventory.  That’s great.  That cost me about $500k isk.  Remember to open your ship inventory and drag the items from to CO to there, and not hit the Transfer button. The PI interface still leaves important info out of the equation when placing buildings.  So if you click the wrong facility, you cannot check what it makes until after you spend the money on it once you are in that process.  Yes, I could Continue Reading →

Precocious Pod-Dweller Planetary Puzzle Day -1

As mentioned, I am giving Mabrick’s proposition a shot.  From the latest post, there a few things I am unsure of, namely, if his 500m isk/month claim was based in HS or WH space.  But, here are the conditions of my experiment: Skills:   Command Center Upgrades 4  Interplanetary Consolidation 4  Planetology 2  Remote Sensing 3 Production Final Product: Robotics Planets: 2 Barren R0 > P1 2 Lava R0 > P1 1 Barren Production Planet P1 > P3 All planets are in one High Sec system with standard Customs Office rates. A few other notes.  I am not taking up the challenge as presented mainly because I don’t want to move the alt, and it has about 30m skill points.  Those are almost entirely in mining, production, and recently combat. Here are the Planetary Management skills, IC 4 will be done soon: Here are the planets, pending the production planet due to IC 4: Here is the pattern used for all of the R0 > P1 planets: You’ll notice that the extractors are much further from storage than Mabrick indicates.  This is because HS planets have crap for resource distribution, so the R0 > P1 chain is located central to Continue Reading →

My Daddy Was Tritanium Miner Like His Daddy Before Him…

I never thought mining, drones or salvaging would become the hot topic they have lately.  To read the blogs, you would think Eve is going to implode in a few weeks…  But oh what a beautiful implosion it shall be.  A few things about the incoming changes. Short TermBuy you gear now.  I mean it.  I’ve been quietly building a small stockpile of minerals, and the value is increasing just by letting it sit.  Weapons, modules and ammo haven’t caught up yet, ships are already starting to.   Thinking of moving to that WH?  Buy your Drakes, Retrievers and haulers now.  Maybe some fuel…  I think in a few weeks weeks you’ll be wishing you laid in supplies for a hot summer.  Speaking of which… Update Your QueueWant to gank some shiny hulks?  Best get those last few skills ready now.  I predict miners are going to be hiding for most of the summer.  Better get in on the initial kills, because Hulks are already ~50 mil more than they were this time last year.  Can’t wait to see the price on those pop up over 300 or 400 mil.  Want to be ready for the clear(ish) skies after Hulkageddon? Continue Reading →

PI Redux

I recently moved back to the same chunk of space where my PI installations are.  I never took them down, so I decided to visit those command centers, clean out the warehouses and reemploy my minions of production.  Mostly I wanted to see if my predictions of doom and gloom were actually true. Well, they mostly weren’t.  The reactivated planets are pulling in a nice little profit, even with the new taxes.  I think it may even be more profitable than before, but I can’t be arsed at this point to dust of the spreadsheets and try and do the analysis at this point.  However there is still the sticker shock of looking at that export fee!  <<834,456.00 ISK>> to get a small pile of plasmoids, yeouch! The export fees do represent a little bit more of a barrier to casual players who may be cashed-strapped though.  Getting your planet set up costs a few millions, usually, and I wonder how many players have set up a planet and then come to pick up the goods only to be oddly disappointed and discouraged by the taxes…  Perhaps the costs could be defrayed by installing a planetary shuttle structure and shifting costs Continue Reading →

KOTM: Turberfield Edition

Of The 843 Exhumers destroyed in Jan 2012, 409 were in high sec, 10 low, 406 null and 18 wormhole space. – CCP Diagoras If I am reading this correctly, somehow 409 Exhumers were killed by high-sec belt or mission rats in January.  What?  How?  I have a Hulk.  With literally any shield mod you care to throw on that ship, this should not be possible.  You can walk away for fifteen minutes and come back to find a belt full of high-sec rats plinking away at your shields to no avail. I have no further words for this.Update:  Apparently 121 of those were in Incursions, I assume doing that mining thing I’ve heard about.  But that still leaves 288 taken out by other NPCs

Forum: Industrial Might

I’m starting a new feature:  Forum questions, where I ask you to respond to some crazy idea I come up with!  Without further ado, here is my question: What if a new industrial hull was added that had a slight buff to tanking ability and more turret slots with a negative “bonus” to those turrets?  Something like: Honey Badger After years of plying the space lanes, Caldari industrial interests decided to update the tried-and-sometimes-true Badger to take into account the realities of cargo transport in New Eden.  While not intended to pose a true threat, the Honey Badger has a bit more bite than previous versions with the ability  to mount a semblance of firepower, while at a reduced cargo capacity. Caldari Industrial Skill Bonus: 5% bonus to shield resistance 5% bonus to cargo capacity and velocity Role Bonus: -25% turret rate of fire Give it 4/6/3 layout with 4 turret slots, same general stats as the Badger Mk II. Discuss!