My Current Business Operations

As we enter 2016 it is worth me taking stock of my business on Eve.


My golden rules

I have two golden rules:

• Every venture must have the ability to earn a Plex a month per account.

• I must not take up more than 45 minutes per day doing this and be able to achieve the Plex per month by just operating at weekends if need be.

What i can do

My alts have the skills to trade, manufacture, mine, interplanetary interaction and invent to a reasonable degree.

Of these, i don't mine (i enjoy the relaxation of it all, the the comradery but it is a low ISK making venture and i certainly can't get it anywhere close to a Plex a month), i don't invent (never really got my head around it) and i put Interplanetary interaction on the back burner given it was a bit of a pain to keep going and an uncertain income (and the clicking to set up a new planet is somewhat mind numbing).

I also have a small POS tower in the Sobaseki system - which is doing nothing as i consider what, if anything, i plan on doing with it.  Gives me a sense of owning something in space though.  Sometimes i sit in its shield pondering what could be.

I used to trade Plexes but i found that also a pain to keep on top of.  Made some ok ISK but nothing spectacular.

Furthermore, real life is busy which leaves me with the weekend and perhaps a week night or two to operate with.


What i actually do

That leaves me doing Trading and Manufacturing.

I have narrowed down what i manufacture to some T1 and T2 items.  My aim is to find items where there is low competition (and so low demand and in low volume).  I find that items that meet the criteria of low demand / low volume tend to have high profit margins (i.e. not much price sensitivity).  I can't charge any price but i can charge a high price.

Very broadly, i make about 6bn ISK per month from trading and manufacturing.

Add in the rise in the 94 Plex whch gives me an additional 5bn per month.

In all, my wealth from Trading + Manufacturing + Plex wealth appreciation gives me 11bn per month.


The Center of my Operations - Jita

I don't sell anything in Jita - as always, i buy items from Jita Sell orders to ship to my trading hubs around Eve.  I don't place Buy orders in Jita (in fact, i dont place Buy orders anywhere, i always buy from Sell orders).

All items that i buy from all stations and all items i manufacture get shipped to Jita first.  They are then shipped to their end destinations.  It makes life easier to control that way.

Manufacturing

I manufacture out of Sobaseki.

I have blueprint originals for all my T1 items.  None of them are researched - i don't compete on cost.  For the T2 items, i have BPCs where relevant.

I manufacture if it is cheaper than buying from Sell orders at Jita.
I use my Obelisk to transport the raw materials from Jita to Sobaeski and then to transport the finished items back to Jita.  One jump, so quite easy to do.


Core Trading Hubs

I operate in the four key trading hubs: Amarr; Dodixie; Hek; and Rens.

I find Amarr quite competitive and so i don't tend to stock my full range of products (gets too painful updating the price every time i log in).

Dodixie is my favorite given the competition is low but the demand good.

Hek and Rens are steady income makers - nothing dramatic but the two alts that look after Hek and Rens make at least a Plex worth if ISK each a month.


Peripheral Trading Hubs

I also sell almost my complete range of products in five other regions.

Very little updating to do - i am often the only person selling these products in those regions.

About once a week i need to replenish some items that have been sold.  Slow business but a nice steady stream of income.  For not a lot of work i suspect they all add up to making a Plex worth of ISK a month.


Null Sec Trading

I set up a trading post in H-PA29-1 in the Venal region.  Put about 8 billion ISK into the venture several months ago.

Having sold a princely sum of 600m ISK of goods i can safely say this Null Sec venture idea is not yet working.

Hence, i am now looking for a new place to set up shop.  I want to make a null sec or low sec trading operation work - so i will stick at it.


Hauling

I, of course, don't haul my items from Jita to the end destination.  I contract all my hauling to New Evolution Express.  I use their "Priority" service every time.  Never failed me yet.  Cheaper than the other Hauling businesses on offer (though, i am purely hauling in High Sec).

A good collection of youtube casts for beginners

I came across this collection of youtube casts from Pandemic Horde recently.

It is split into two parts:

Firstly, a series of 10 videos going through the basics of Eve.  Starts as if a new player had just logged on and goes through it all.  Also includes some quick guides for flying in null sec and Asteroid Belt Ratting in null sec.

Secondly, there is a series of Pandemic Horde Lectures which includes a talk on Industry by Steve Ronuken as well as a lecture on surviving in Low Sec.

All good stuff and ideal for those just starting or those thinking about heading into Low / Null Sec.

Eve Talk host on Eve Prosper

The Eve Prosper Market Reviews are great to listen to.

The producer, Lockefox, has also started a series interviewing the players who operate businesses within Eve.

His first interview was with Delonewolf who produces Eve Talk - another Market Review youtube cast to watch.

52 minutes long.

Starts with Delonewolf's history and who he got into the market side of Eve Online.

Delonewolf talks about why he does the market side, what motivates him, how he goes about making his ISK.  He also talks about his hopes going forward for Citadels.

And, of course, the price of Plex is discussed.

Well worth a listen.

A Close Call - attacked when about to jump through a gate

As ever, i was being careless.  I wanted to get to Altrinur from Jita and decided to go the route that took me through Low Sec.

I assumed that an empty Interceptor would not be bothered.  So i was warping from gate to gate.

I of course assumed wrong . . . . . . . . 

I warped off a gate, landed on the next gate ready to jump through . . . and wham, i am seeing my shields, armour and hull going red in a hurry.

The good news was that i got away with it (just).

Looks like my attackers got nailed by the gate guns as i made my escape.

In the next system i warped off to a safe spot and cloaked up as my shields repaired.

Not sure why i survived - may have something to do with my recent skill training:

Or my attackers may just have not been too accurate.

It is these little events that give me some confidence that i can operate in Low and Null Sec.

Current fit is:

[Taranis]

'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I

Inertial Stabilizers II

Inertial Stabilizers II

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive

EM Ward Amplifier II

Medium Shield Extender II

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I

Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I

Eve Economic Update September 2015

At Eve Vegas 2015 CCP Quant made a presentation on the Eve Economy, which is below.

CCP Quant also wrote a blog post on the Eve Economy Update in Eve Vegas 2015 with all the relevant charts in it.

Much of the data was relevant to September 2015 unless otherwise stated.

My main takeaway from all this was that the economy is alive and well, players are more active than before and there were some charts that i will use to enhance my business.

The real great news was that going forwards we can expect monthly Economic Reports.

Eve Players

CCP Quant stared with the Peak Concurrent Users (PCU) numbers which are showing a declining trend, as shown below.

Not much was said on this, other than to just put it up there!

Eve Player Activity

Further analysis of what players do when they log in was presented.  The good news is that 83% of players make at least one warp.

Of more relevance to this blog the next chart showed that 73% of players use the market, 22% do some mining (higher than i thought), 15% do some industry (also higher than i thought) and 1% do a courier contract (also higher than i thought).

In contrast to the declining PCU numbers, activity in terms of destruction and production is stable which means that destruction and production per PCU is therefore rising.  Which means we are all more active than we were before.

That is good news for us Business folk in Eve who hopefully are as busy as ever producing and trading with those players.

Region Focus

CCP Quant then produced some charts that looked at how active each region was within the Eve economy.

In terms of Production, no surprise that The Forge (home of Jita) as the leader followed by the two regions next to The Forge (Lonetrek and The Citadel) - i assume players transporting with produced items into Jita.

No Surprises that The Forge towards the top of the list for Destruction - all those ganks i suppose.

Also, The Forge was leader in Mining.

In all, the major trade hub regions were all up there towards the top of the lists.  Domain (home of Amarr) firmly the second behind The Forge (Jita).

No real surprises in any of that though personally i will be looking through them carefully to see where best to relocate my nullsec trading to.  My current location of Venal is slow.

On chart i found really interesting was what i will call the Regional Volume Flow Chart, shown below, which shows the volume (in m3) of items leaving a region less the volume entering that region:

The Forge (home of Jita) is neither the biggest volume exporter or importer (i suppose to be expected given players import items to Jita to sell and export items to take elsewhere.

What was interesting to me were the biggest exporting regions and importing regions - nothing comes to mind yet to the reasons but i suspect there are plenty.

ISK Float, Sinks & Faucets

This was interesting.

First interesting point was that there was 870 trillion ISK sitting on active accounts at the start of September 2015.  By the end of September 2015 this was 876 trillion.  That is plenty of spare ISK lying around.

63 trillion came in mostly via bounties / NPC Commodities (wormhole loot), incursion payments and insurance.

30 trillion left due to spend in the LP store, skillbooks / blueprints to NPCs and then the fees / taxes.

And then 27 trillion left with active accounts closing down.

The net interesting point here was that total ISK sitting in player and corporate wallets is a massive 883 trillion - perhaps, then, no surprise that the price of plex is rising!

Plex Prices

CCP Quant moved quickly over this - but main point of interest was the price of Plex on the Chinese server is 6.8bn ISK vs 1.2bn on our server.

Economic Indices

Not that helpful, to be honest.

As CCP Quant commented, there has been so much change in composition of minerals etc per item that they start to lose their meaning over time.

Much more useful for someone who wanted to look through the history of Eve and see its evolution over time - the effect of the introduction of Invention, 

Ganked at the warpgate in my Interceptor

Well, i have been working on travelling safe and fast in Low and Null Sec as i explore the place trying to work out how to make good ISK in there.

First off, i tried a Helios.  Worked ok but broadly i was getting taken out once every 4 round trips i made.  Main issue was not being able to warp off fast enough after a gate jump.  I can deal with the bubbles - being cloaked whilst warping is a big plus.  Never warping gate to gate gives me plenty of time to sort myself out if i hit a bubble in warp.  But, like i said, still vulnerable when warping away from a gate jump, even with almost insta-cloak.  Also, warping from gate to planet / customs office and then to gate can be slow when trying to go 26 jumps!

My Hellios fit was:

[Helios]
Inertial Stabilizers II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

5MN Microwarpdrive II
Scan Acquisition Array I
Scan Pinpointing Array I
Scan Rangefinding Array I
Scan Rangefinding Array I

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Expanded Probe Launcher I

Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I


In a prior post i made about trading in Null Sec i had several bits of advice on what to do.

So, next step was to train up my Interceptor Skills and so i now run around in a Taranis.  In all, pretty good.  Bubbles no problem.  Pretty much inta-warp off gates.  If i have undock points then undocking is seemingly invulnerable.  Very fast travel.  Main risk though is landing on a gate with someone fast off the mark with a smart bomb - which is what happened to me the other day.


My Taranis fit is:

[Taranis]
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
EM Ward Amplifier II
Medium Shield Extender II

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints I



My kill reports (of my alt) nicely list where i have gone down in a one-sided blaze of glory.

In the latest one, the killer picked up a nice 75m ISK for their efforts.

So, my next step is to train enough skills to be able to put two shield extenders on the Interceptor - i suspect that should do the trick.

If that fails, i suspect i will try the Victorious Luxury Yacht.

I have been War Dec'd

Drama and excitement for my corp: Ironforge Commerce Guild.




The Background


So, i log in yesterday to post my sell orders and what do you know, i have been War Dec'd by an alliance called Chicken Wings.  Which is an alliance with one Corp called X-Com.


X-Com has 31 members.


And to be fair, they probably know what they are doing.  Certainly relative to a trader like myself.  I get nervous flying my Interceptor outside of Hi-Sec!


I can easily operate whilst docked and i suspect i could still undock in my interceptors etc.  But lets just say i will not be firing the guns here.


I sent a message to their CEO who politely replied that i would have to wait to see that their aim was.  Held out an option for me to make an offer to avoid all this.




So, what to do?  What offer to make?


It looks like Chicken Wings has War Dec'd a load of other Corps at the same time - so i suspect they are clearing out a system of highsec POS's or something similar.


Personally, i was not doing much with my small POS - just keeping it fuelled really, waiting for some spare time to look into what i can do.  Experimenting on ideas here and there.  Needless to say, i have taken down all the extra items but left the Tower up and fuelled.


Seems to me my options are:


1) Pack up my tower and leave (happy to do that)


2) Do nothing and see what happens


3) Recognise that i have 241bn ISK and hire someone to fight my corner


Lets see what happens.


All advice is greatfully received.

A possible sink for Plex - ganker get out of jail card

So, i was ganked at the weekend at an undock point in Jita.  My own fault, Obelisk carrying 2.2bn ISK if cargo.  For i am a fool.  Ganker let me go with my Obelisk once i had jettisoned my cargo.

I warped to my undock point but the ganker was all over me before i had aligned.  And the rest, as they say, was history.

So, anyway, whilst i was watching the ganker undock ship after ship from the larger ship (i assume a carrier) to attack me whilst bumping me with another ship i did wonder if Plex could not be used to save my sorry self here.

So, lets say i could use one Plex to cause Concord to web any ship(s) that are bumping me?  For say a few mins to let me get away?

In effect, i could carry up to 5bn of cargo, say, and i would be willing to use up to 4 Plex to protect me on my journey, in an emergency.  Clearly, that is not a good business model - but i still come out on top (given the alternative was to lose 5bn of Cargo and a ship and pod).

Now, it would not be long before people like myself run out of Plex so this would be all the rage for a few weeks then die down as surplus Plex is used up.

And, you know, maybe half the ISK cost of the Plex used could go to the ship being webbed by Concord - as a compensation to the (would be) ganker?

Anyway, perhaps a suitable sink for Plex?

Clearly, could also cause Plex to rise if it is seen as a way of getting away from a ganker in an emergency!

But, more likely, i suspect it will use up Plex sitting in hangers doing nothing.

New Economic Data about to be published in Eve Online

Hat tip to delonewolf at the Eve Talk for spotting this.

CCPQuant was on the O7 show yesterday (18 September) and announced that the project he had been working on was to do with releasing new Eve Online economic data into the community.

Currently, the plan is for a monthly graphical report showing:

• ISK sinks and faucets (i.e. a complete summary of the ISK coming in and out of the system)
• Trade deficit by region (i.e. imports and exports by region)
• Production and Destruction
• Various indices like CPI, Gross User Product
• Total ISK traded daily

CCPQuant is looking for feedback for further ideas.

His part starts at 28:36 in the youtube video below:



Personally, i am looking forwards to this data.

Not yet sure what additional data i would like to see but i am sure there will end up being a whole section on the Plex price!

Edit: corrected to CCPQuant (instead of CCP Guard).

Splitting stacks in the Market Deliveries hanger

If you are like me and you like to set up courier contracts from your "Market deliveries" hangar then you would have come across the problem of trying to split stacks in this hangar.

The advantage of setting courier contracts from the "Market deliveries" hangar is that it is counted as a corp hangar and so when it is hauled it will be delivered to the "Market deliveries" hangar in the target station and so accessible by any member of your corp.  This is a better idea than setting up the courier contract from your own "Item hangar" and so when it is delivered you then have to "item exchange" from your char to either the corp or another char - all very tedious.

However, if you want to split items in the hangar it can not easily be done.  i.e. lets say i want to split my Plex into a stack of 34 and a stack of 60.

For example, in the image below i am unable to split my 94 Plex in my "Market deliveries" hangar - if i try the standard shift+Left click and try to split the stack then i get the Access Denied warning:

The "Market Deliveries" hangar is not technically a corp hangar.  The only way to get items into the hangar is to either buy from the market using corp funds or to set an "item exchange" contact up with your own corporation (and even then you need another char (preferably on another account to do this quickly) to accept the items into the corp and so into the Market deliveries hangar).  You can set up courier contracts from the "Market Deliveries" hangar which will be delivered to the "Market Deliveries" hangar in the station hauled to.

Fortunately, i have discovered how to split stacks in the "Market deliveries" hangar.

• Right-click the item >>>> Create Contract
• On Page 1/4 of the Create Contract window: Select "Item Exchange" and "My Corporation"
• On Page 2/4 right-click the item and select "Split Stack", as shown below

• You can then split the stack as required
• Then press Cancel on the Create Contract window

Job done!

(edit: corrected spelling of "hangar")