Crius release, thoughts so far

Crius was released a few days ago, and I’m loving it. The industry revamp, especially how they upgraded working with a POS is just great.

I’m sure there are people out there that might complain about the fact that their precious BPO’s now need to be inside of the POS. But I, as an inventor and T2 manufacturer, can’t be happier.

I can start my invention runs with a click of a button from my home base instead of having to go to my POS and be within 2500m of the lab. Not only that, but I can do it even when I’m 15 jumps away. 

Next to this, it’s just one click to turn on one invention run. For those who worked invention or manufacturing jobs, they know that this was a pain in the ass.

In the past you needed to decide which line you would put the job on, after which you pressed a button, using said line. Once you clicked, you had to click again to grab the blueprint, click ok once more another ok, and only then you could start the job.

That’s 5 clicks for one job. You can imagine how much of a pain it was if you had about 20 or 30 invention lines running, each day.

Luckily, that’s now in the past, I can start one job with two clicks, one to decide the blueprint, one to start. It’s a lot faster than before, and I can all do it from station, so easier at that. I will happily take the cost of the installation for that.

“You mean, I need less materials? Sweet!”

The fact that I can even install jobs remotely from a dozen or more jumps away, means that I can use my trading alt too. Of whom I found out that he has the necessary skills to do my invention and manufacturing runs too. Guess it’s a good thing I checked my skills on him.

The only thing that was missing was the ability to install them remotely so I did the most obvious thing to do… I bought a PLEX from the market (through a sell order, shame on me!) and activated second character training.

My trader now has a month of training activated for him, which I will use to train him a bit further into retail and allow him to activate remote jobs.

I’m still figuring out the bonuses that my POS can have, and what it does (as far as I’m aware they’ll just reduce the installation cost) but for now, I’m really happy what Crius has offered me as an industrialist.

 Stay tuned o7

World Cup and EvE-Betting

As most of you know, the World cup started last week. Those of you who have no idea what it is and are blissfully unaware because their country doesn’t really participate in the whole soccer thing: Good for you!

I live in a country that was able to qualify itself, which is a good thing because we’ve been waiting on this for for a few years. Or so I’ve been told since I don’t really follow it myself. But it’s easy to get sucked into the whole atmosphere concerning the World Cup.

Which is why I’ve been actually following it quite closely the last couple of days. Saw a few awesome matches and a few that were disappointing.

What does this have to do with EvE you ask? Well, due to a friend of mine betting on soccer, I figured I could try this too, but not with my hard earned euros, but with ISK.
The fun thing about EvE is the fact that almost everything is permitted, even using your ISK to bet on out of game sports. Some people even make a nice amount of ISK on this, so I figured, why not try this out and see what happens.

I haven’t been using my ISK for anything other than the whole Prospect building “fiasco” so it’s time to make a few dumb arrangments and use it on something silly like gambling.

I’ve put 60m ISK on a few matches and nearly tripled that, so I’m kind of giddy with excitement that I actually made the correct bets. But we all know that I’ll lose it all in a while. But that’s no big deal, 60m isk is easily made in an hour or less.

Next to the betting I’ve been browsing the forum and talking to friends to see what I want to do in the game. I made an alt that I’m currently training into stealth bombers only, since I like flying them. And I’m training my main in the use of interdictors.

I’m not sure yet where I want to go with him but hopefully I’ll figure this out one of these days. Low sec is waiting for me and a friend is trying to get me to come into the wormhole.

Might just take him up on that, although I really, really need to practice my scanning if I do..

Plans are made to go down the drain

You win some, you lose some. And the past week I lost a bit.
I had hoped to cash in on Prospects, to make a bunch and have a nice amount of profit. Unfortunately, this hope was linked to the fact that people would keep the price high for at least a few days. 
Back when the venture was released, I made a lot of money in that first week, creating these new mining ships for noobs. I thought I could do this again. But this time, I was ready.
I spent a few hours on the test realm writing down what would be needed for a Prospect. After the file was created I went on my way to Jita and started setting up buy order for the raw material. I already had all the BPO’s that were needed to create a few of these ships so I could save a bit more money on these.
When all was ready I waited for the patch to drop, over 200 venture BPC’s, ready to be invented. The invention of one such BPC takes 12 hours. The fact that I, like many other people, have a job, meant that I could only start an invention run at around 7, when I got home from work. Meaning that some people already had a head start. 
12 hours pass and it’s 7 o’clock, I should have already gone to work but I decided that I’ll just work from home (allowed to do this once a week). 
This was a good decision. Because as it turned out. I made a mistake. No surprise there.
Instead of having an Advanced Ship Assembly Array, I had a normal one. Which meant that once more, despite me thinking I was prepared and wouldn’t have to go to Jita. I had to do just that. 
I bought a few and brought them to my POS. Forward about half a day and I have my first Prospect ready and 10 more in the tubes. These would take a few days to complete, but I went to Jita with high hopes. 
The first 3 I ever made, were sold for a nice profit of around 100m before they went down, and down, and down. 
I was looking at the market and saw them going to around 25-30m and sticking there. With a heavy heart I have to admit once more, that planning is not my strong suite and that I definitely am not made for long term options. 
I’ll still make a profit on what I have, but it won’t be near the profit I had hoped.
Such is the life of an industrialist. You can plan all you want, but your competition will be doing the exact same thing and they’ll make sure that your profit won’t be as high as it should have been.
“At least you’re pretty”

Stay tuned o7

Prospecting and going out of my way to get killed

Today marks the launch of a new release for EvE. New things happening, industry wise and others that I don’t really know much about.

Why’s that? Because I only cared about one thing, a new thing to invent. Namely the prospect. In a few hours when the patch goes live we will be able to invent a new T2 frigate from Ventures. I have prepared accordingly and have about 100 Venture BPC’s ready to put in my laboratories when I get home from work this evening. Hopefully I’ll be able to create a whole bunch of Prospects by the end of this week and sell them for a nice profit.

Because that’s what this is about, profit for me. I don’t use the Venture myself and am not planning on using it any time soon. Unless I suddenly feel like going out to get some gas in a wormhole.

Speaking of wormholes, let’s talk about my lack of doing anything that might destroy one of my ships.

Last night I was browsing Reddit like I usually do when I should be asleep and saw an image linked that was rather fitting to what I don’t do.

I would link it here but I forgot to give it an upvote and I can’t seem to find it again. It basically said something along the lines of “What use is having a ship if you don’t take it out for a spin”. Although I do take it for a spin, I never seem to leave station anymore.

So I need a reason to go out and get killed. I need to stop being a ‘pussy’ and go out to low sec in a frigate to get killed a few dozen times. Or do some killing myself but, let’s face it. I’m a noob, so I’ll more than likely lose ships instead of making others lose theirs.

Unfortunately that means actually taking the time to go out. And that might take a while before I can do this. Maybe I should try out a low sec corp, have people to talk to. People that give me a reason to log in on my combat alt, instead of me just logging in on my Indy alt to update a few queues and stuff on my POS.

Plus the fact that I was gifted a key to Wildstar in order to check it out isn’t helping either. I’m AFE (away from eve) too much for my characters good.

Let’s try and change it shall we?

Stay tuned o7

Plans and Decisions

Last Saturday I spent a few hours making a spread sheet about my invention. Not even all kinds of invention but the invention of 1 kind of item. I’m hoping that said item will bring me a nice profit in a few weeks once I’m done creating copies of my Blueprint Original.

Seeing that you need Blueprint copies to invent them into T2 copies.

The reason why this took me a few hours is because of the fact that I had to make a list containing all the products I need for the invention and creation of this. Then I had to breakdown said list into all the raw material I would need for this.

After doing that I remembered that I already had a bunch of material around somewhere so I had to put those into my calculations too. And let’s just say that it’s been awhile since I had to test my math skills. For some reason I came to amounts of 5m ISK more than I should have, but I accidentally multiplied somewhere instead of making a sum and well, it took me a bit to find said error.

Along with all of this I also made a few additions to my POS. I added a few extra labs for more copies and I asked a friend if he wanted to join me in my little venture. I bet that if it were in any way possible, he would have had ISK signs in his eyes. But that’s a good thing, it’s more fun if you work with multiple people on a project.

And speaking of projects, I have decided to say farewell to null sec. I had tons of fun there but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. Logging in, hoping for a fight and having to wait because fleet command was going to take dreads out first while I was sitting there in my little cruiser was not something I liked. Despite getting a bunch of fun fights, they were too spread out for me to stay there.

So I went back to High Sec and am currently sitting in my Machariel wondering what to do.
I’ve been thinking about maybe going to Low Sec. I just need to find someone willing to take me in. A Noob with little experience in PvP. Because, let’s face it. The only reason why I survived so many fights is because I followed people around and was pretty lucky most of the times.

A few days I went on a Talwar roam, my last roam with the alliance I was in and after a few hours I decided to head home. I have no idea how, but I was able to get past a gate camp in my Talwar with about 80% hull left. That’s what happens if you go home alone, instead of breaking up gate camps, you are their victim. 
“Breaking up a party”

Lucky for me everyone had engaged me so nobody could jump after me to finish the deal. So I made it home safely, only to put the destroyer back on contract, grab myself a Claw and head 22 jumps back to my High Sec home.

I guess I’ll be running missions while I wait for something to drop in my lap.
Or maybe I should go out searching actively, if only I knew what it is I want.

Guess time will tell

Stay tuned o7

Making it work

Well, that’s it for me, I not longer have any T2 BPC’s to manufacture.

One of my biggest problems due to lack of time in EvE is that my T2 manufacturing is taking hits from it too. I’m making a profit, but my profit isn’t big enough, I made about 500m after expenses in April. That’s not nearly enough to make me happy.

And unfortunately I don’t see it changing in the near future.

I need to find some new way to make ISK. Something that’s easy and doesn’t take too much time…

The answer to that is Trading. But I don’t feel like trying it again. Despite the fact that if you’re good at it, you don’t have to spend too much time a day doing it (ten minutes or so). But that’s if you’re good at it, and I wasn’t. I made a profit, but I made it slowly, it took me about 2 months to make 1b out of 100m and another month to turn that 1b into 2b.

Those numbers aren’t bad, to the contrary even. But I spent way too much time to get there. Instead of spending a few minutes, I spent a few hours a day updating orders, checking what to buy, what to sell. And I relocated four or five times in that timeframe. It wasn’t the fun I envisioned it should have been.

But maybe I’ll try again, I have 600m on my trader that I’m not using and 14b on my industrialist. Guess I should make the ISK work.

Stay tuned o7

Another milestone with PLEX

PLEX in EvE makes the virtual world go round. You can use it if you’re strapped for cash, by buying some with your Dollars, Euros, Yen, …Whatever it is you use, and then sell it on the market for ISK. 
The ISK worth of it right now is 710million, give or take a few.
If you have the ISK for it, you can use it to pay for your subscription, one PLEX being the equivalent of 30 days of game time. 
You can even buy them and just put them someplace until they’re worth more than they are currently. Which is something that a lot of people have been doing since they just keep going up. I myself am guilty of this too.
PLEX has other uses, there’s the Aura store that I know absolutely nothing about. There’s the dual training that’s rather new. 
And since a few days you can also buy the collector’s edition with PLEX…
I’m sure I left out a few things but there’s not many other games that allow you to use in game currency to buy things like this.
Which makes me come to my little milestone. For the first time in my EvE carrier I have used a PLEX to prolong my game time. 
I’m pretty proud of myself. Not only have I used my ISK, I have stepped away from me not wanting to use said ISK on something for myself.  
“PLEX going to a good cause… Me”

Speculations for everyone!

I’m sure that by now, most of you have already read the Dev blog. And if you didn’t you just don’t care or didn’t know there was a new one out there.
If it’s the latter, here’s a link for you so you can read up on it.
Reading the Dev blogs for the upcoming summer changes are making me gleeful, Industry is getting a work over and the things they showed us are already looking good. Or at least not too bad.

I’m not that good with numbers, and I couldn’t make heads nor tails about the reprocessing changes, but that’s because I don’t use reprocessing, at all. I have a POS, I invent stuff and I manufacture them. If I’m lucky I even get them sold. That’s about all I do industry wise.

Being an inventor means copying, a lot of copying. So I can tell you that I had somewhat of a smile on my face when I read said change in copying, making it last a tiny bit less long as it does today.

The rest of the changes had me smiling too, but I don’t know why yet, I just think it’s because of the fact that there’s probably going to be some other good stuff incoming, or at least I hope so.

I can’t help but wonder what all of the factory changes will bring about though. No more waiting in line to do something in a station, no more standings needed to put up a POS. What exactly does this mean for the current POS owners? Will they have more people coming over to fight them, declaring wars in order to kick them out of their POS, will the fuel suddenly rise in price, or will it just be a little skirmish for a few weeks like the POCOS and then be quiet(ish) again?

Part of me is even wondering whether the station changes mean that I might be able to shut down my POS and do everything through a station.

Due to the fact that I’ve been slacking in the past few months I don’t use all the slots I can use, I pay for my fuel and I put some work in from time to time, but my POS is not working at 100% capacity.
“Should I stock up on you?”

Maybe the upcoming change will allow me to drop it and save a few hundred million ISK in fuel each month.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the next dev blogs say.

Stay tuned o7

Four step plan

When people ask me questions, I tend to answer them to my best knowledge. 

For some reason I get a lot of questions about industry, I bet it’s because I own a POS and dabble in manufacturing a bit. 
I say dabble because as most of you know, I make way too many runs to Jita when starting my jobs for the coming few days. And a real industrialist wouldn’t be doing it as much as I do. 
I go to Jita to get my materials, go back to my home system, try and start the job only to notice that I forgot a few things back in Jita. That’s one of those things I should have grown out of ages ago.
A friend of mine decided that it was time to start a new alt and try out manufacturing himself, so he asked me and a few others for hints/tips. 
I told him the four step plan that I kind of use or should use;
1) Gather material
2) Bring material to place of manufacturing
3) Start manufacturing
4) Profit 
I admit that this makes it sound easy, but in general, manufacturing isn’t all that hard. You just need the correct skills, a few bpo’s, the materials and the place to manufacture.
Once you want to go to T2 manufacturing it gets a bit harder and the skills you need take a bit of training, but in the end it’s all pretty straight forward.
Just make sure that if you do go into manufacturing, try not to flood the market. I’ve done it a few times when I first started, and that kind of thing eats quite a bit of your profit. 
Stay tuned
o7

Patience is a virtue

Patience is a virtue. But it’s not one of mine.

“Patience, young padawan”
Unfortunately, from time to time, this game is all about having patience. Your skill queue, your invention queues, manufacturing, waiting for fights… Everything you do in EvE needs some amount of patience in order for you to actually start enjoying the fruits of it.

Most of the time I can do other things while waiting. There’s enough to do in the game that you shouldn’t actually be bored any time at all. Shouldn’t being the key word here. Because as most, if not all, of you know, station spinning is something we do quite a lot.

These days I spend the time I can spare to play EvE looking at my queue, skill plan and deciding whether or not I want to do a trip to Jita in order to get myself some more materials. All of this because I manufacture and invent T2. My combat alt gets shoved aside for this, priorities and all that.

The other night I had some free time, something I usually do not have on a Saturday evening. So I decided to help out my alliance by joining a fleet that was going to go out in defense of a small tower. I asked in alliance chat if someone could loan me a Typhoon because I haven’t gotten one myself yet, and joined TeamSpeak. It was supposed to take about 10 minutes of forming up and then going out there. 

“Fear my rustyness!”

How wrong I was. Bear in mind that I know absolutely nothing about how Null Sec is supposed to work. I have done a few roams with my new alliance but I’ve been quite busy so haven’t actually done anything else yet (working on that).

While I was on TeamSpeak, people started talking about Carriers and Dreads. I was just listening with half my mind occupied on whether or not I’d be dying in someone else’s ship. Not knowing what was going on or what everyone was talking about I just sat and listened, suddenly hearing the faithful words: “Everyone that can fly a dread or carrier X up. We’re going out with them, the rest of you can wait in the station but stay in fleet.”

This was bad news for me, I didn’t feel like waiting a certain amount of minutes/hours while other people were going out in Dreads/Carriers. I had logged on hoping for a fight, not to spin my ship some more. I do that enough on my industry alt.

After waiting 30 minutes I gave back the borrowed Typhoon and logged out. Cursing that I spent about 50-60 minutes doing nothing at all, because I thought I’d be getting in a fight.

In the back of my mind, I know that this is something that happens, you need to wait, need to be patient. But not everyone has the patience to do so for too long. I decided to log out because I knew for a fact that I could be doing better things than waiting while I had no idea why I was waiting.

It’s a shame really, because experiences like this is what makes people decide not to join in other operations, not to try out other things. Because they don’t like wasting their precious time.

Stay Tuned o7