Clone and Implant Neglect

With the Odyssey 1.1 update next week comes the introduction of the Advanced Infomorph Psychology skill. This allows up to 5 more Jump Clones per character.

I had considered stocking the local market with implants, expecting there to be an increased demand. Given the existing competition and available margins however I ended up deciding against it, but I took the opportunity to review the implants I was currently using.

I have 5 characters that get training time and use implants, split across 3 accounts. These 5 characters have a total of 19 available clones. Each Clone has 10 implant slots, each with very roughly 30 odd possible choices. Some of these options impact the effectiveness of other options. The total number of permutations is mindboggling.

More than once I have sat down to try and optimise a clone – only to give up in confusion, or settle for a suboptimal choice due to cost or availability.

This time around I decided to document them all in a spread sheet, and what I found was rather second-rate.

My Main

My Main Alt

What I need to do is have a use or purpose for each clone, and work on selecting and acquiring a set up cohesive implants for each.  An extra four Clones will help do that – in particular one or two throw away ones for PVP.  I also need to buff my Carrier clones – there can be some real improvements made there.  Another task for the To Do list.

Still logging in

Real Life has been rather busy, but I am still managing to log into EVE daily. I am just not doing anything out of the ordinary.  As such today’s blog is made up of just some random thoughts.

I have noticed that I currently only use the EVE Client Launcher once per day. This is just after down time to check for any updates or news items. Otherwise I am running the client executable directly. It gives me the “log off” option and is faster. While this survey of one lacks statistical merit, I feel the second iteration of the launcher still hasn’t really hit the mark.

(In the unlikely event someone reading this doesn’t know where the executable is, it is called ExeFile.exe, and is in the bin directory of the EVE client install. On my Windows 7 system, it is C:\Program Files (x86)\CCP\EVE\bin\ExeFile.exe)

I’ve been persistently plugging away with my trading, doing one or two updates per day. I seem to be back to only a handful of active competition in the areas I operate, and generally get to spend an acceptable amount of time with my orders at the top. It turns out one of the most important traits for backwater trading is stubbornness. I research and watch list my main trading competitors, and have found most stop logging in / being active in the area after a few months. I am enjoying the current small lull while it lasts.

This month I’ve also been persistently doing my PI runs every second day. Each cycle I process 48,000 Processed Material units (Chiral Structures, Precious Metals, Reactive Metals and Toxic Metals) into Robotics. I started by working on getting my ingredient stockpile down to the point where after I load up my factories I have extracted just enough to cover the next full run. That is the sort of efficiency my wife – who works as an Analyst in Warehouse Management and Logistics, could appreciate. I have got to that point with 3 of the 4 materials, and should have the fourth right in the next couple of days.

I can’t explain why, but the process has made PI a little more interesting again. I am not just mindlessly processing every planet, but instead keeping a running track of what I am picking up, and missing certain planets from the cycle where I have enough materials. Next month I will work to clear up some of my other stockpiles.

The Odyssey 1.1 To Do List

My notes about what to follow up on after the Odyssey 1.1 release.

. Review the new Industrial Hulls (I have 100+ stored away, grab whatever I want to use, and sell the rest). I expect I will set up two Iteron III’s for PI (fit for fast align times with a bit of tank). Check if I will stick with my current Iteron V work horse, or train some of my Traders up for the Bestower. Check the options of the Sigil (largest tank) and Wreathe (fastest hull).

. Consider NOS again on any smaller Combat Ships

. Review medium long range turrets (Rails, Beams & Artillery) on current hulls. (Possibly only have a PVE Proteus.)

. Review Active Tanks after Armor Repair and Shield Boost increases. Can I cut back on the tank of some of my PVE ships, or move to cheaper modules?

. Note Warfare Link fitting requirements for powergrid will drop

. Consider any T2 Mindlinks for purchase once initial price drops.

. Buy and train the Informorph Synchronizing skill on all my Toons.

. Buy and train Advanced Infomorph Psychology skill on my Main and Main Alt

. Review new HAC versions – any PVE / PVP options to play with? (I currently am not flying any.)

. Review new Command Ship versions – any PVE / PVP options to play with? (I currently am not flying any.)

. Be aware of skill name and grouping changes

Pod Hauling

I would like a way of hauling Pods – either in a Ship Maintenance bay, or some sort of Pod Container that can be stacked up in an Industrial.

My initial want was to be able to take a couple Pod choices with me when I go roaming in an Orca. For example, fly in one and have two stored – one for mining, 1 for PVE, and a cheap one if I decide to visit Low Sec or Wormholes.

If you want to swap pods – dock up in a Station with Medical Services. Install one of your pods into the station for a fee, then Clone Jump to it. You can either leave your old Pod in the new station, or have it uninstalled for a fee and stored away back in your ship.

There seem to be a few interesting game play options.

You can store all your pods in the one station if you wish.

You can carry multiple pods at the same time – useful if you are moving home.

You can lose multiple pods if you have your ship destroyed.

You can pay someone to move one of your pods into a Station you no longer have access to – assuming you can find someone trustworthy.

Corporations can have a fleet of pods moved quietly into stations for surprise attacks or bigger scale Ganks.

The simple approach would be that these pods don’t drop if a ship is destroyed. If it was stored in a Ship Maintenance Bay, nothing drops like the current mechanism. If it was stored in a Pod Container, maybe give a chance of a Corpse dropping.

If CCP ever allow salvaging of Corpses down the track, this adds an interesting element to the idea.

It might also be part of the mechanism used to give Wormholer’s Cloning choices.

I suspect however I am missing something obvious, and this would probably be a very bad idea.

The Clearing Continues

I sold off about 60% of my manufacturing ingredients, dropping stocks from 1,400M ISK to 550M ISK.  These cleared quickly.

The sell off of my speculative stock continues in Jita – a somewhat laborious effort with lots of market updates required.  If I sold to buy orders I would make around a 25% profit on them – so I can always resort to that when I have had enough.  Generally I am making 200% to 800% margins, but you can end up with a dozen sellers competing for one or two sales a day.  I’ve already covered all my costs and have passed 200M profits, so I guess overall it was worthwhile.

I’ve passed 10B ISK in my Trading Corp accounts.  I know the professional traders would see any idle money as lost opportunities – but my operations are really small scale, and there isn’t a need to have it all in play.  I currently have 2.6B ISK of buy orders up.

The Venture is really a fun little ship, even for a High SP Player

Clean Out

I’m in the process of cleaning out my Corp Hangers.  In particular l am selling off some of the speculative buys which didn’t turn out to be quite the cash cows I’d hoped.  I am also sorting through the excess build ingredients laying around that I am unlikely to be use given my current Trading focus.  My Second Industry Alt is in Jita playing the 0.01 ISK game trying to selling some of the more unique items.

I hate dealing with trading bots – which I appear to be in some of these markets, so I resort to pettiness.

Put up sell order on 1 item for 10M ISK

Within a couple minutes a sell order with 40 items undercuts mine by 0.01 ISK

Update order several times over the day, but the 40 item sell order always undercuts it by 0.01 ISK within 5 minutes

Update order several times the following day at random times, but the 40 item sell order always undercuts it by 0.01 ISK within 5 minutes

Cut price by 1M ISK, possibly costing me 1M.

Within 5 minutes 40 item undercuts mine by 0.01 ISK, possibly costing them 40M isk.

Cut price by 1M ISK, possibly costing me 2M.

Within 5 minutes 40 item undercuts mine by 0.01 ISK, possibly costing them 80M isk.

Cut price by 1M ISK, possibly costing me 3M.

Within 5 minutes 40 item undercuts mine by 0.01 ISK, possibly costing them 120M isk.

Cut price by 1M ISK, possibly costing me 4M.

Within 5 minutes 40 item undercuts mine by 0.01 ISK, possibly costing them 160M isk.

Cut price by 1M ISK, possibly costing me 5M.

Within 5 minutes 40 item undercuts mine by 0.01 ISK, possibly costing them 200M isk.

Assuming they also have the winning buy order (they have the biggest stock of this item to sell), they would still be making a profit – but it has been cut by 62%.  I ran out of time – but will continue to drop the price while trying not to have them buy my item out.  I am then happy to leave that item up at the new low point to keep their profits down.  That is just the sort of thing which keeps me amused.

I am also in the process of cleaning up my Main Toon’s hangers, getting rid of ships he doesn’t fly, double checking fittings are still appropriate etc.  I’ve thrown most of his spares and collections in the one container to sort through.

A rough value of 10.7B ISK.  That is going to take me a while…

The current most profitable Ore is available in Empire

After a very busy week, and some extra work on a client’s production instance to start my Saturday morning, I spent the afternoon playing EVE.

I did my first PI run in many months. I am only doing limited extractions, targeted to try and clear some of my stockpile of P1 materials through 3 factory planets.

I finished updating my Secondary Trading Alt’s ship hanger, swapping her Mammoth for an Iteron V, and updating her fits on her hauling Probe and Exequror. I will have to revisit the Industrial of choice after Odyssey 1.1.

I grabbed stocks of the T2 Mining Crystals; given my main can now use almost all of them. Someone had cleared out the market and was reselling some of them at a premium. I couldn’t be bothered going to another Trade hub so paid through the nose.

I went and cleared a Small Hedbergite Belt in Empire, which took around an hour and refined down to 21M worth of minerals.

Finally – I sat down and updated my Mining Spreadsheet, for the first time in possibly years, to take into account the changes to yield on some of the 0.0 Ores.  I grabbed the details from here.

The spreadsheet is configured so that I put in the Mineral Buy Prices (in this case, from Amarr this weekend), and it ranks the most profitable to least profitable ores after refining.

Here was the current Top 10:

Hedbergite – Glazed
Hemorphite – Radiant
Arkonor – Prime
Hedbergite – Vitric
Hemorphite – Vivid
Arkonor – Crimson
Hedbergite
Hemorphite
Arkonor
Crokite – Crystalline

So 6 of the top 8 can be found easy enough in Empire via a quick glance of your scanner.  I have to admit I was surprised by that (to the point I re-checked my calculations a number of times).

Here’s the full order, with what percentage of profits you earn in comparison to the best choice.  As you can see above, the full list with the 5/10% variations tend to be more intermingled.

1 Hedbergite – 100%
2 Hemorphite – 90%
3 Arkonor – 87%
4 Jaspet – 81%
5 Crokite – 81%
6 Bistot – 79%
7 Dark Ochre – 76%
8 Scordite – 64%
9 Spodumain – 62%
10 Pyroxeres – 61%
11 Kernite – 56%
12 Veldspar – 50%
13 Plagioclase – 49%
14 Omber – 48%
15 Geneis – 44%

If you mine Kernite and sell the refined minerals in Amarr, you will earn around 56% as much as if you were mining Hedbergite.

Obviously things are not all equal here.  In Empire those special belts often only have a handful of smallish asteroids in each, spread out so you have to slow boat your barge to get into range.  The percentage of the 5 to 10% versions is also low.  In Low or Null Sec you shouldn’t have to retarget or move as often – assuming you are not jumped by Rats or other Players.

I would guess the relatively low value of Zydrine, and high value of Noxcium has thrown the order I would have expected out.

July done

I post these for myself, as a way of measuring and tracking what I am doing in game.

Game Hours & Play

I had around 35 hours of game time, half of which was over one weekend, with one 10+ hour day. About half was spent on my Trading Corp, a quarter on doing stuff in space, and a quarter on upgrading a number of ships with bling.

 

Fluid ISK in the Trading Corp at the end of month

I only keep an amateurish measurement of my Trade and Industry profits – based around fluid ISK.

Cash, Stock & Supplies

9.1B Wallet
0.5B Escrow
0.1B Stock on Market
1.5B Manufacturing Supplies
0.2B PI
0.4B POS Fuel
0.0B Long Term Speculative Stock (Not valued)

Fluid ISK this Month
11.8B

Fluid ISK last Month
10.7B

Position Change
+1.1B

 

Industry / Trade Details

I cut right back on the number of trade items I was covering, down to around 50 at the moment. This should see a drop in revenue of 100-300M ISK a month, but will halve my trading efforts. I also plan to cut back on my Manufacturing Supplies, since I rarely find it worth making things these days.

Competition was moderate this month, while volumes fluctuated from excellent to dismal every few days.

There were no PI runs in the month. I do want to start clearing out some of the excess stock sitting in my hangers.

 

Training

Account 1 (Main) – 128M SP. Finished Tactical Shield Manipulation V, Corporation Management and Diplomatic Relations IV, and currently working through getting all Ore and Scrap Metal Processing skills to IV.

Account 2 (Main Alt) – 121M SP. Picked up Drone Durability V and Fuel Conservation V. Working on Siege Warfare Specialist V.

Account 3 (Industry Alt 1) – 42M SP. Completed her Drone updates
Account 3 (Industry Alt 2) – 7M SP. Covered the base Trade skills to IV. Working on Hull Upgrades IV.

 

Plans

None basically. I will continue with the Hi-Sec exploration. I tried to complete my 16 mining missions but had to abandon it at 11 or 12 – it was just too boring. I also need to go back to my PI installations and try to clear the backlog of supplies I have sitting around.