Safety is relative

It’s been ages since I last got blown up. And never before did something like this happen to me. Today, I got blown up while moving a bunch of stuff to Jita in my manufacturing alt.

I usually fly with my Blockade Runner (Viator), this is because it’s faster than flying an Iteron and I have a cloak. A cloak that I normally turn on, but didn’t this time. It’s only 4 jumps though, so you think: what’s the worst that can happen.

Well today the worst that could happen is me flying around with about 500 T2’s in my cargo and having it shot out of the sky. According to the kill mail the total worth of this guy’s kill was about 700m, give or take a few.

No big deal in itself, but I just really, really liked my little Roadrunner. I made it myself. Now I need to go and make a second one. Although it still stings a bit, seeing as I had decided to use that bunch of items to be the last for a few weeks. Now I need to start on it again.

Lessons learnt, you’re never really safe when flying around. Most people know that, but when you haven’t had any kills or deaths for over 7 months, you get dulled into a sense of safety.

“Rest in pieces”

Overstocking

I am a manufacturer, a producer of goods, goods that people need in order to do whatever it is they do.
Not just any kind of goods either, I manufacture T2 items. A special branch of items that you in order to create them you need to spend time inventing them first.

But what happens when you produce so many of them, that you have a stock so large that it is almost impossible to get rid of them quickly? What if you try and do this anyhow, knowing that it will flood the market.

That’s right, you crash it, and your sale price will go down quite a bit. I currently have too large a stock of the items I produce to put them for sale. This is bad, seeing as right now all of those items are currently sitting in a hangar, being trickled onto the market bit by bit.

And when things are just sitting there, they’re not making ISK, and when you’re not making ISK, you can’t put it back into your production cycle. Which means that right now, I’m producing nothing, other than a whole bunch of T2 BPC’s of the items I currently have an overstock of.

As you probably figured out, that’s not the way it should be going.

I have been creating these T2 items ever since I first started manufacturing, because I started doing this together with a friend who told me what to do when he still played. He has long since stopped playing EvE while I continued his little business.

The production of these things has made me a bit of ISK, enough to have a pile lying around, just looking at me, and screaming ‘Use me! You need to!’ but I don’t really like seeing that number go down, which, as a manufacturer is a stupid thing. Spend money to make money and all of that.

Maybe I should try something new, something that would need me to invest more ISK but get a bigger margin of it.
Right now I invest 500k-1m to get a profit of 1m-3m.. That’s nice, especially seeing I make a few hundred of those items per day. 

But maybe I should start seeing things a bit… Bigger?

But I might not be able to do that on my own..

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

Update ahoy!

Crius will be deployed today, the only reason I know this is because I noticed the Facebook update post from EvE Online stating that everyone should make sure that their queue is nice and long. You know, just in case.
“Changes are coming”

What does this update mean for people? For some, nothing at all, seeing as there are people out there who don’t really care, or read up on anything and they just play the game, figuring it out as they go.
Others on the other hand will have their way of working in the game changed completely. Just think about how blueprints now have to be inside of the installations instead of safely in station while you’re copying them, or doing anything else related to them.
I have to admit that I myself don’t really know too much about the coming update myself. This due to the fact that the past few weeks I’ve been busy slowly melting due to heat and the last thing in my mind was sitting in front of my computer reading up on things and testing on the test realm.
I do know however, that my POS production will change completely. In the past weeks, the one thing I did when logging in was copying a lot of BPO’s again. Mostly things that I used to invent in the past but haven’t in over half a year.
I figured that with the coming update, it’d be nice to try and go back to my normal way of manufacturing, so right now I’m sitting on about 400 T2 bpcs waiting to be put in production. (See, I did do something productive!)
I can’t wait to try out the new way POS’ work. I’m also rather curious on whether or not we’ll see more of them popping up. I’ve seen people speculate on the fact that there will be a lot more in high sec because there will be no restrictions to put them up (aka standings).
Good thing that I have about 4 months of fuel stocked up just in case the prices will suddenly rise.
In addition to all of this, depending on how that in station invention/manufacturing will turn out, I might just decide to take down my POS. But that’s something that I will have to look into soon(ish). It all depends on what the numbers will say.
As for none industry related news;
I’m still looking for a Low Sec corporation to join. I haven’t been looking that hard but I’ve got my eyes open. If you know someone, or are someone, who wouldn’t mind having me around spinning my ships and joining whatever it is low sec corps do. Feel free to give me a shout.
Stay tuned o7

Launcher issues, let’s play with the skill plan a bit

It’s Sunday evening, I just got home from a little 3 day trip with my girlfriend, and before that there was a business trip.

I want to log in, and notice that my launcher doesn’t work. Well, damn… Right when I’m busy trying to get into a Low Sec corporation.

What does one do when he’s unable to log onto EvE? Work on his skill list of course.

I’ve been working on a ton of different EvEmon plans, and I have, up to this day. Not once followed them.

For some reason I, like many others, always seem to decide on another thing instead of following the skill plan I laid out for myself.

I wonder why that is…

Stay tuned o7

What about wormholes?

Plans, you make them, you break them.

I have so many things in my mind that I’d like to do but I just don’t do them. So many things I want to try out but don’t have the time for them.

A few days ago I was asked if I was interested in joining a Wormhole corporation. Which made me start to think about living in one.

They intrigue me, I love the idea of wormholes, I like the fact that there are no stations and that you need to provide for yourself. And as I said in the past, I’ve actually had a bit of fun in a few already, both PvE and PvP wise.

The one big problem I have with them, is the fact that I’d need to be able to scan. Which is one of the many things in the game that I suck at. 

I have the correct skills, all at IV or better, and yet I can’t find anything even if it meant saving my own life.
A while ago I went into null with a cheetah just to check if I could train and get better at scanning. I knew there were sigs, I knew where to find them. 
And yet it still took me over an hour before I finally scanned down two of them. Two, out of (give or take) eight. While I know that there are people out there who can do it much, much faster. It’s safe to say that the idea of scanning even more quickly turned into disgust.

This, along with some things I hear about them, and the limited experience I have in wormholes, makes me think that I might not be put out for it.

I just don’t have the patience to scan down things, to wait at a wormhole for someone to pop up. Even to go out hunting for ours through different ones only to get stranded when it collapses behind me. Something we all know happens.

“Someday we’ll be together”

But if not wormholes, what am I going to do? I need to get out of high sec because it’s keeping me down, I’m not actually doing anything and haven’t done so in quite a while.

The answer? Low sec.
The new problem that came from this? “What corporation”

So now I’m going to go and search for a corporation, willing to take me on. Maybe one that’s noob friendly, because I know for a fact that if I go out for a kill solo. I’m going to get my ass kicked and my frozen corps handed to me on a platter.

Let’s see where this path I put myself on leads.

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

Humble Bundle unite!

There’s a reason why I love the Humble Bundles. Not only does it allow me to buy games I like for next to nothing. It also allows me to choose how much of the amount I want to go to charity, thus making me feel like I’m not spending all of my money just on games.

Yesterday there was a Daily Humble Bundle containing the EvE Online Starter Pack. Despite me having multiple accounts already and having a few on hold, I bought one.

I can’t pass up on deals like that and for little over 3 bucks I got myself a nice starter pack and a skin. If I had paid a bit over 20 I could have gotten a PLEX from it too but I’m not a big fan of paying for my Plexes with cash. I’d rather use ISK for that.

Now that I have another key, to create yet another account, I just need to decide what I want to use it for. I can train something, I can do something.. But what.

Maybe I should finally do roams in Low with a low SP alt. That could get me some fun, right?

What do you think?