PI.05

I started on my PI Spreadsheet, to work out what is worth extracting and manufacturing.  There are a lot of combinations, so I only got to the end of the Processed Materials list before my eyes glazed over and I gave up on the effort for the day.  There were some strange figures in what I did get through.  Logic suggests that if you take raw materials and convert them into processed materials, the price of the end item should be more expensive than its ingredients.  Instead 5 of the 15 processed materials cost less to buy on the market than the sum price of their ingredients do.  Of the remaining 10 processed materials, the mark up was between 3 and 186% over the ingredient price.  Hopefully in the end this will highlight what areas of PI I should concentrate on.

I still have to finish off calculating the prices of the Refined Commodities, Specialized Commodities and Advanced Commodities.

PI.04

I was away over the weekend, and with busy preparations beforehand, didn’t get a chance to do much in EVE.  My main can now sit in a Black Ops (Widow and Redeemer).  He still needs a bit of work to fly it proficiently though – over 50 days to get Black Ops IV, Jump Portal IV, and Cynosural Field Theory V.  Not sure I will cover all of that off immediately, given my Alt already has all those skills for the Sin.

My PI play continues.  I estimate I have earnt back about 10% of the ISK I have spent so far… The Advanced Industry Facility works – but is wasted due to the low yield rate of the second input.  I’ll have to find better planets, or import goods from elsewhere.  I took the advice from an earlier post, and started to use the Spaceport as the storage location.  That is a smarter approach.  Todays test was putting down 3 extractor control units, and seeing just how far away I could place them from the spaceport.

The resource allocations seem strange.  When I first scanned all the planets in my home system, they were bereft of almost any resources, aside two small hot spots which I placed my play extractors on.  Since then the resources on those two planets have started to increase, and there are now one or two other viable areas to place head units.

Last of all I noticed that one of the (many) recent Titan losses was one I was familiar with.  It was sad to see the death of the very first Titan for an old Alliance of mine.

PI.03

I grabbed half a dozen of my BPO’s for smaller ships that I knew would be half popular, and worked out at current mineral prices what I could make them for.  I then looked at what they were going for on the market.  A number of the higher volume ships were selling for just under my build price – with one example of a bulk sell order of rifters (deep in low sec) selling for 20% under what I could make them for.  I expect it I take the time, I might find a few good examples where it is cheaper to buy items well under build price, and refine them for the minerals.

In the end I found a couple ships with profits of 15 to 40% on good turn over, and kicked off some manufacturing jobs.  I won’t be logging in enough to play the 0.01ISK wars, so I am selling them away from any major trading hub, and somewhat close to a school system.  I put up some buy orders for the same ships at around 80% of the build price, a tactic that tends to work ok.  I limited this to 4 jumps – to keep collections easier, keep them out of low sec, and to lessen the chance of 0.01K ISK wars with the other buy orders (which were currently priced at around 40% of build price, but were region wide).

If I can balance the stocks and effort required, this approach can add another small income stream which adds up over time.  I just have to be careful not to get burnt out trying to maintain too many product lines, as I have done in the past.

I also revisited my PI planets, and on one introduced a new Extractor and Basic industry Facility, to create a different Processed Material.  I then setup an Advanced Industry Facility to combine the two Processed Materials into a Refined Commodity.  Again there was no great thought placed into what I was making, I was just using what was available to me to.  Next I will put down a High Tech Production Plant (one is a Barren Planet), and after buying some extra Refined Commodities, build myself some Specialized Commodities.  I’ll have to go through the process of getting goods from the Customs Office down to the planet.  If that all works out ok, I’ll have to see if any of this is worth doing from an ISK point of view, and if not, is it possibly worthwhile just to stock pile POS fuel.  I also have to remember I have multiple characters who can do PI, which adds options in how to make the process worthwhile.

PI.02

So I revisited my PI installations.  The first day was just getting the basic process and connections working.  Very simplistically…

. Scanned the planets in my home system for pockets of resources with a reasonable density

. Put down a Command Center near one of the pockets

. Put down an Extractor Head, Silo, Basic Industrial Facility, and another Silo

. Created links from Extractor > Silo > Industrial Facility > Silo > Command Center

. Used the Survey option to place Extractor Heads in the resource pocket, and selected an extraction program to run

. Routed the raw material to the Silo, then Industrial Facility

. Selected a program for the Industrial Faclity, and routed the output to the second Silo

. During this process I had to upgrade the command centre and communication links a couple of times to fit the modules or to get the routes working.

. I also added a Spaceport.  Not because I needed to, just because I wanted to.

. I think I spent around 7 Mil in total for both installations, although that included a couple items subsequently removed.

I ignored the worth of what I was extracting – I just wanted to get something working.  Because the Industry module could not keep up with the extraction, for the first run I selected a program which would just fill the first Silo.  That could hold 500,000 units, which the Industry module would then take almost 7 days to process.  (I never did check if the Industry Module could be upgraded, I might have to go check.)

On the second day I returned to find myself with some 900m2 of basic raw materials, which a quick check showed might have been worth around 50K in total.  I moved them from the end silo to the spaceport, and shipped them to the Customs Office.   I then updated one of my installations to add another extraction head > silo > basic industry module chain, this time setting a slower extraction rate so that it would run for almost 4 days – not filling the Silo, but easily keeping in front of the Industry Module.

Looking at that picture I realised I should routed the two Industry Module outputs to the same Silo.  Oh well – I don’t consider this an ISK investment at the moment.  I will at a later stage look at all the options I have to create higher tier or more expensive goods on those planets, but at the moment I assume I will lose the ISK I am spending.  This is just playing around.  I suspect however I will have to add a PI tab to my EVE Online Spreadsheet.

PI.01

I was running a mission yesterday (a relatively rare event) when I was surprised to see a mate log in for the first time 5 months or so.  Turned out CCP had let him back into the game for 5 days to check out the new character creation process.  He was impressed.  He then collected some data cores, consolidated some of his assets, and logged.  I asked if he had any plans with his short time in EVE, and he said no.  Without some goal to motivate him, I don’t expect to see him back.

I’ve spent a couple hours on my Alt looking at PI today.  There are 9 planets in my home system.  Not one had any player infrastructure on it – which is a sign of just how limited the resources on them were.  I set up two embarrassingly inept and inefficient process chains on a couple planets just to check out the differences between the old and new versions of the interface.  It seemed slightly more intuitive, and required slightly less clicking.

I have some 700 odd researched BPO sitting on my main, not being used. I might move them to my industry / hauler alt, and start building stuff to amuse myself.  I haven’t gotten into invention like I had planned.  I might look at that also.

In the Blog World

There was a couple interesting Blog posts in my inbox today.

Bphelmet remarked on his lack of enthusiasm for the CSM. [ Link ] As I said in the comments, I don’t believe the CSM has any real power.  It is a mix of public relations exercise and a way of focusing player feedback.  However, while I don’t hold high expectations for it, I can see benefits in it.  There is an active CSM forum, and even a sense of community surrounding it, and it gets players thinking about and discussing the mechanics of the game.  It may even add a level of mystique for players outside the game looking in, and for the people involved, their visits to CCP headquarters would truly be interesting.  If we are lucky, they might even bring in an idea or two, or squash one or two others, that over all make the game better.

DerMuffin spent some time looking at the Hulkageddon killboards at why so many miners still lost their ships in 0.9 space.  [ Link ] As I remarked in an earlier post, you can’t just wander around in EVE totally ignoring what is going on around you.  If you wanted to mine during Hulkageddon you should have downgraded to a Covertor or Retriever, or made an effort to forego your yield a little, and fit a high resists tank to your Hulk.  It wouldn’t have helped against a squad of destroyers, but might have saved yourself against the solo gankers.  It was an interesting post.

Training Rank V

Almost 2 months into the blog, and I am still getting used to WordPress and its quirks.  I assume those people subscribed to the blog only get notified of new posts, and not when I update something 5 times because of foolish spelling mistakes.  I also have a dozen Pingback’s to approve for my EVE Banter post, which I am not sure how to handle.  (I don’t really want long lists of pingback comments against a post, particularly as they were already linked to by the post itself.)  Currently at 33 posts and 15 images, which seems an ok start.

My alt will finish off Kinetic Armor Compensation V shortly, the end of a 28 day queue to get those skills from rank IV to V.  Intrigued to see the impact this might
have on some of his fittings, I brought up his carrier in EFT and adjusted his skills to the new levels.  The result was underwhelming.

The benefit from many skills in EVE at level V can be extremely small for the time taken to train it.  My Alt is at the point where there really isn’t much of pressing need for him to skill up in, so I am just going back and covering off some of these, almost trophy type skills, where the benefit doesn’t really justify the time taken, but they sound nice.

His next 21 days will be spent getting Rapid Firing and Surgical Strike from IV to V.  Probably worthwhile in an incremental way, but certainly nothing you would recommend a 3 month old pilot to embark upon.

I generally get the majority of my skills to rank IV.  If you have the skill, it just seems logical to make sure you can use it properly.  (And many T2 fittings require it anyway.)  The exceptions so far have been for the Large Weapon Specializations.  I normally sit those at rank III.  Each rank gives a 2% bonus to damage to weapons needing the skill.  Rank 4 costs my alt a little over 5 days.  5 days training for 2% damage on three large T2 guns.  I expect the only reason I’ll train that is if it becomes a requirement for T2 capital turrets, assuming they get into the game at some point down the track.

Should it have been a .3?

I patched my EVE client and logged in.  No discernable difference, although expanding a remote station through the Asset window might have been a little slower, and displaying the contents of a container a little quicker.  While there might have been some fundamental changes under the hood, should CCP have really tagged this release with a .3 if there was nothing tangible for the users to grasp at?

(It might not seem that way, but overall I don’t mind CCP.  I just blog about whatever comes to mind, which means my posts can be a meandering mishmash of topics which might question CCP more than praise.)

I renewed my main account last night for another 12 months.  It works out to cost 36 cents a day.  Even if I am only active in the game once a week, that works out to be extremely cheap entertainment.

Narcissist

I’ve spent part of my afternoon browsing the leaked PL forums.  Given the general on field effectiveness of the Alliance, I was kind of expecting to find something, well, more impressive.  Instead it didn’t appear any different than other previously leaked EVE forums.  It had the usual sort of posts, and the usual mix of surly assholes, normal people, and those with the ability to be inherently annoying.  In some areas – such as industry and logistics, they seemed rather primitive (although I guess that makes sense).  One thing I did note was their recruitment review threads, which seemed to have a disproportionate level of derision and self-importance.

I must admit I don’t quite get why people think their adventures in a computer game, set in an imaginary world, counts for all that much.

I am not belittling the effort and, in many ways, skill required to do well in this game.  There are individuals who lead alliances of thousands of people, which in many regards is rather cool.

But when you come down to it – take your EVE context, stories, adventures, and try to share it around with your peers who are not into EVE or MMOs.  Tell your mother in law, your boss, the guy who services your car – and you’ll likely find your geeky ego won’t be showered with accolades.  They will not understand or care.  In real life – your EVE exploits are irrelevant.

It is with that mindset that I just can’t grasp the EVE related narcissistic attitudes.  How do you gain such a high opinion of yourself over something so unimportant?

(Spoken obviously by someone who will never achieve much in game…)

Incursion 1.3

EVE online Incursion 1.3 will be deployed today – a 3 hour down time.  The Patch notes are sparse.  It seems to read “we are trying to reduce the lag caused by Drake armies, and are introducing fundamental and underlying changes to the inventory system which we hope like hell does not include any bugs.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to log in after the patch and find such niceties as tab search views for inventory within the one container, etc.  Instead I suspect at best we can hope for is no visible change and better performance, or at worst, horrible performance and items going missing.

Bases

Sebadai raised an interesting point in his recent blog In Limbo – the selection of home and supply bases within EVE.

I think it is a smart move to think logically about where to place your assets. Obviously location is the most important attribute, but within that you have convenience, accessibility and services.

The first location you want to consider is your own Personal Home Base. This is where you store all the collectibles, relatively worthless faction modules, your mothballed ships such as the Primae, Apotheosis, Zephyr etc. Maybe a collection of skill books, mission trade goods, those POS modules, and so on. The sort of assets you collect over time, don’t really use, but don’t want to just throw away. It might also be where you keep your +5 clone, to park your Toon when you go away on holiday etc.

The second location is your Corporation or Alliance Home. This will normally be dictated to you – and is where you store the ships and supplies required to run with your mates.

The next set of locations depend on what you do within EVE.

. Supply Bases – more for those into PVP, a location with spare implants, fitted ships, ammo, etc, close to your hunting grounds.

. Mission Bases – fly in, mission, fly out. Most likely in a location where you run Level 4 or 5 missions. Contain a mission ship, salvager, hauler (for loot sales), ammo supplies and targeted spare fittings

. Industry Bases – with an acceptable availability of manufacturing, research slots etc, with an NPC corporation you have good standings with. Possibly based around where you have anchored a POS, or do most of your PI.

. Mining Bases – fly in, mine, fly out. Contain a Hulk, Hauler, possibly an Orca, and an acceptable availability of asteroids that you want to target

. Trade Bases – self defining

. Mobile Bases – primarily an Orca, carrying all the fitted ships, spares and ammo required for whatever type of work you want to do – missions, exploration, mining etc.

. Personal Capital Base – one or two options where you store your capitals in low or NPC null sec, with wide docking ranges, undock bookmarks, spare cyno ships and fuel, access to empire etc. While your capital might spend most of its time with your corporation or Alliance, this is where you jump to for logistics, or park it when all your space has been lost.

You will often combine the purpose of various bases – since maintaining many bases is boring. Just keep in mind that you don’t want to put all your eggs in the one basket.

I currently have a personal home base which combines with Industry, two mission bases, one capital, and one mobile mission/exploration base. All my assets in game are basically in 5 main locations, most with an appropriate jump clone there.

From experience I think it is usually a very good idea to place your personal hanger within 10 jumps of a trade hub, and 15 to 20 jumps from Jita. Generally keep it off the main travel pipes – just one jump out of the way can make a huge difference in traffic, or how safe it is if you happen to get war dec’d regularly. I am cheap, so I tend to have preferences for those with very low rental for my out of Corp alts. Make sure it also has medical clone facilities, and it is nice if you have a school station within a short distance. My current home is within 10 jumps of Amarr, and both Jita and Ren’s are under 20 jumps away. It has clone and industry services, normally houses less than 10 residents, and office rents are 10K ISK. It’s been a perfect little quite corner to base myself out of when I am just twiddling my thumbs and not focused on anything in particular.

EVE Blog Banter on PVP in Null Sec

Alliances and sovereignty

Welcome to the twenty-fifth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic comes to us from @Tetraetc – “Tetra’s EVE Blog” – who asks: “Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modifcation of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?”

The latest EVE Blog Banter raises an interesting question – have alliances and the sovereignty system limited the PVP and RP potential in Null Sec?

For starters I think you can ignore the RP aspect – as frankly if someone is determined enough, that can be done in just about any situation.  I also think that over the last 12 months there seems to have been consistent region sized warfare across Null sec, with common large scale fleet battles.  For all the complaints about the current mechanics, it does not seem to have killed off grand scale PVP.

But I don’t think the question is referring to that sort of PVP.  I think it relates to solo and small fleet PVP.  So what do you want in that regard?  A good population density in the areas you roam, a willingness of those in the area to engage, or at least some chance of catching people off guard.  When you are engaged, you want it to be where skill and ship fitting make a difference, and not just numbers.

I am not sure the current sovereignty mechanics promote that sort of combat.  It encourages very large alliances – which by its nature mean intel channels covering regions, shared jump bridge networks, and large numbers of blues all working together.  Not conducive to small scale PVP.

I think the old Providence was probably a reasonable example of a good PVP hunting ground – but that was in part enhanced by the general inexperience of many of its pilots.  Its replacement – the now defunct Providence Fight Club, or possibly the way Delve is currently being divided might be newer versions of this, although to be honest with non-aggression pacts it seems to be too artificial to me.  There is little meaning to such fights.

You have the old suggestions of having local removed or more recent demands such as having jump bridges and jump freighters nerfed.  All these are designed to force people to use gates, and so jump into camps.  That is not really PVP.

I believe if you want more meaningful and readily accessible small scale PVP, you need to make it much easier to live in 0.0 in small groups.  Make it so that you don’t need to join a huge conglomeration to forge your own little home in space, and that you can earn enough ISK by doing so to offset the dangers and loses you will incur.

I imagine it might be seen counterproductive for those wanting easier access to PVP, but some ideas to start out with for NPC 0.0 to really encourage small groups to migrate:

. Cut down on choke points in and out of NPC 0.0; make it easier to gain entry to the region.  So new gate routes, or even two or three gates between the same border systems.  Smuggler gates, Pirate Gates, etc.  Whatever to make it more appealing for unaligned people to move around.

. New gate routes or methods to cut down on the depth of some pockets, or increase the options so that you are not stuck having to move though a relatively limited number of pipes.  This benefits both hunters and gatherers in moving around.

(Right about now I can hear the pirates screaming…)

. Living out of a POS is frankly not a good option.  There needs to be a new type of habitation module that small corporations can use to live out of.  These can be anchored in systems without stations – call them super POS, or mini stations, or even large ships that can be anchored.  Allow multiple to be anchored in systems, but not for the same corporation.  Require them to be scanned down to be found.

. Change exploration sites so that while in them, local is not available.

This apporach is not about forcing people into PVP – it is designed to greatly increase the number of people living in 0.0, and thereby increasing the number of targets.

The habitation modules should be a target for small gangs.  Something like…

. They should be able to be destroyed by gangs of as little as 10 to 20 people in 15 to 30 minutes – but need to have 3 or 4 cycles over a week to allow the owners to evacuate assets, or try to mount a defense.  (Or maybe un-anchor…)

. I am thinking along a limited station – allows docking, but only a certain volume and size of ship.  (Think Carrier Ship Maintenace Bay Capacities per user).  It might allow jump clones, but only limited numbers and range.  Have personal hangers, but limited volumes in each, and a maximum number who can have them.  Limit docking to corporation members only.  Limit the number of people who can dock concurrently, etc.  Maybe have different sizes, one to accommodate up to 10, one up to 25, and one up to 50.

. You could consider some level of customisation – less docking space makes the module harder to scan down, less personal hanger space, but an extra industry slot, and so on.

. Like Stations, have some aspects that can be disabled by very small gangs – 2 to 5.  Make it annoying, repair, industry or fitting services, etc.  Have it so they can be disabled in 5 or 10 minutes.

Forcing people to fight just builds resentment, and reduces the number of people willing to live out of empire.  Basically if you want target rich fields of smaller groups, you need to make it a viable, attractive and enjoyable option for small corps to live in Null Sec.  Be that with this type of mechanism or something different.  Get that right, and you might end up with something a little like the providence of old.

Participants:

1. CrazyKinux’s Musing: EVE Blog Banter #25: And by Alliance you mean…..?
2. BB25 What sov changes will come? | A Mule In EvE
3. Confessions of a Closet Carebear: Alliances and Sovereignty
4. Blog Banter 25: Nerfing Nulsec « OMG! You’re a Chick?!
5. Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? | Nitpickin’s
6. Blog Banter #25: Alliance and Sovereignty Limiting PvP in 0.0? | Sarnel Binora’s Blog
7. Blog Banter #25 – Mad Haberdashers
8. Alliances and sovereignty | Eve Online Focus
9. …Shall we not Revenge?: BB 25: What if the Alliance vanished?
10. Blog Banter: Alliances and Sov
11. EVEOGANDA: BB25: Sov ‘n Go!
12. » TBG:EBB#25 – Alliances and Sovereignty To Boldly Go
13. Freebooted: BB25: Leviathans of the Deep
14. Wrong Game Tetra ~ Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
15. EVE Blog Banter #25 – Human nature what art thou? | Way of the Gun
16. Who cares about Sov? – Hands Off, My Loots! ~ well sorta like an entry! :p
17. The 25th EVE Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty – The Phoenix Diaries
18. Achernar: The space commute
19. Wandering the Void…my EvE musings. – Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty
20. (OOC) CK’s Blog Banter #25: How To Break EvE. « Prano’s Journey
21. Captain Serenity: Blog Banter #25 – Crappy mechanics
22. Helicity Boson » Blog Banter #25 Nullsec and sov.
23. BB #25 – “With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?”
24. Boom! Hull-Shot?: It’s the End of the Eve as We Know It
25. sered’s lives: EVE Blog Banter #25 – Size does matter
26. 25th EVE BB – Medieval Solutions to Spaceship Problems | Inventions of a New Eden Industrialist
27. Eve Blog Banter #25: “Have Alliances and Sov Limited PvP and RP in 0.0?” « Align Outbound
28. Banter 25: Sovereignty, Alliances and Power Blocs | TheElitist
29. Blog Banter 25 – But I just left all that! « A Scientist’s Life in Eve
30. Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
31. >>>Vigil Ant: Alliances and SOV by Munny’s eyes.
32. Latro’s Bunker: Blog Banter 25 -Nullsec and Sov
33. A “CareBears” Journey » Blog Banner #25: Alliances and Sovereignty, and their affect on PVP and RP
34. Blog Banter #25 – Unstoppable « Roc’s Ramblings
35. Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
36. EVE Blog Banter on PVP in Null Sec « Evehermit’s Blog
37. Sleepless in Space: Blog Banter #25: Moar Low Sec!
38. Escape Velocity: BB#25: The Condition of Mere Nature
39. Imagine a Null Sec…. « the hydrostatic capsule
40. Blastrad tales » Coagulation
41. More to come…