Carebear Ranch goes Planet Side v2.0

A while back I posted about my 5 original planetary colonies here. At that time I was trying to get a little of each of the 15 basic P1 products from those 5 planets. The goal was to putz around to see what I could build and learn a few things about this new feature. Flash forward ~ 4 months and my goals for P.I. have changed a might bit. Today I make ~ 320M ISK a month of P.I. maintaining 15 HighSec planets across 2 accounts and 3 characters. I shoot for 30 minutes a day where I ritualistically click my extractors back into life and collect all my P1 goods. I drop the P1 stuff onto a manufacturing plant to make P2-3 items. The colonies have changed MANY times but the following is how they look today.

The Manufacturing Planet:

Let's start at the top. with the manufacturing planet. It has 18 Advanced processors, 3 Storage nodes, and 2 Launch Pads. It produces 7 P2/3 products of which on the Jita market on buy orders alone make me 8.2M ISK a day or ~246.5M ISK a month. The biggest drag is getting all the P1 products from 3 different pilots to the appropriate launch pad to start the production run. Here is what it looks like:

The Extractor Planets:

So for my 7 P2/3 products I need 14 of the 15 base items. In some cases I need just 1 extractors worth, or 920 units of P1 X. In others I need 3 extractors or 2760 units of P1 Y. It's all tracked in a handy dandy spreadsheet that tells me what I need to extract and where I need to dump it to make ISK! The extra ~70M ISK comes from surplus P1 products that I truck over to market one day a month. P1 products like Water and Toxic metals are very easy to maintain 4 extractors for a 23H cycle with HighSec Planets. Here are some of my extractor planets. I'd post them all but there are a few like the lava and gas planets that are identical:

Conclusions:

It's possible to almost pay for a 30 day PLEX with HighSec P.I. if you run 3 pilots with 5 colonies each manufacturing P2/3 products. It takes me about 30 Minutes a day to log in and keep it all running, and another 30 minutes a week to get it all to market for payday. The training required for each pilot is ~10 days and includes remote sensing III, Interplanetary Consolidation IV, and Command Center Upgrades IV. Oh and what you choose to do with the rest of your time is up to you, but you CAN make ISK at P.I. even in Highsec.

My next steps are to compare all this to LowSec planets. I'll be sure to post about with the risks and what I do to get around them. With the Winter Expansion claiming "a more dynamic and simplified system for Planetary Interaction." perhaps it will be 5 minutes a day for 600M ISK a Month. We shall see.

Cheers

EVE SOB

P.I. Update

All right the official word right now according to me is P1 products are worth about 15% more than P2-P4 products based on JITA 4-4 buy orders. I net about 170M ISK a month from 14 Highsec making some select P2-P3 products. If I take the same base P1 products and sell them for the current buy orders I’d make 200M ISK a month.

Having said that, hauling vast volumes of P1 products into JITA has a fair amount of RISK and TIME associated to it. So for me the extra 15% is not so much worth the chance to lose a small chunk of it hauling it into Jita, or the extra hours a week it takes to do so.

On a side note I’ve found that I can build all of the products I am currently building on one planet. So I have 13 extracting planets now and 1 very busy manufacturing planet. This allowed me to set up a Highsec Oceanic planet that nets me 2M ISK a day for about 28 double clicks.

If the winter expansion beings the “master” extractor to the UI allowing folks to restart an entire planets extractors with just a few clicks. Then I might have to see how managing 20 planets goes. Right now I am at my daily click quota. So far for the time invested I am happy with the ISK it returns.

Cheers

EVE SOB

P.S. If you are set up to run 23 hour extractor cycles, but can find 1 day a week to run 5 hour cycles. It adds a ton of potential to P1 product harvesting. Just be sure to boost any links as 5 hour cycles push a lot more stuff. I can pretty much not log in for a few days on most of my planets now and know they will be producing P1 products. Happy times.

Super Awesome: The badger Mk1 for PI work.

So its official my real life has truly screwed up my EVE time. I was at the doctors and I have a wonderful case of tendonitis in my right hand. Anything more than 30 minutes of clicking at a time and it feels like a gorilla is trying to hack my wrist open with a butter knife. JOY…not…stupid freaking tendonitis!!!

Now before all you badass PvP types tell me to HTFU (more than I tell myself). I am not all useless and carebear bound just yet. However the limited use of the of my right hand means I need to do EVE activities that I can with my left hand. This tends to be the less intensive things like P.I. or level 3 missions. I refuse to mine and welcome hulkageddon III to further deter the sport.

Anyhow after my post about the Primae and how it was just another hanger ornament I got a lot of site hits about P.I. Boats on the blog. So I took my new hauler alt, Sister Janice, and trained her for some basic P.I. skills (well advanced Command centers) and started playing around with the humble Badger MKI. The goal was to build out a cheap P.I. boat that aligned and warped quickly, had 4K+ m3 cargo space, and could take a little abuse. I wanted fast and resilient as Janice is the account that takes all the P1 items collected by SonOfBraben and drops them onto a planet for advanced and high-tech processing into P2-4 products.

So with cheap and an unskilled hauler alt in mind I came up with this fit:

***EDIT*** Text Version for Fit for Rantuket***EDIT***

[Badger, P.i. convent]
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Inertia Stabilizers I
[empty med slot]
1MN MicroWarpdrive I
Medium Shield Extender I
[empty med slot]
[empty high slot]

Yeah yeah, before you get in my grill about empty slots and rigs and stuff. Remember this is supposed to be cheap and for brand new pilots. It does align and warp at a deacent rate and its cheap. Like under 1M ISK cheap (sorry cannot do a price check in Jita etc) and any caldari can pretty much fly it with a small amount of training.

So if I was to fit it with say Zombinutz my combat pilot. It would look more like this:

***EDIT*** Test version of fit added for Rantucket ***EDIT***

[Badger, ZombiNutz]
Nanofiber Internal Structure I
Inertia Stabilizers I
Medium Shield Extender II
1MN MicroWarpdrive II
Invulnerability Field II
Shield Recharger II
Small 'Vehemence' I Shockwave Charge
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Core Defence Field Extender I

Now sure cheap and unskilled (flame on you 5 year old accounts, remember ZombiNutz is 8 months old) has gone out the door. However this thing has a fair tank, deacent speed, and align time is snappy. It also has some “teeth” with a small smart bomb. If only to cause the lowsec gate camp folks to LOLZ so hard you get away or catch a really BAD interceptor pilot in range with his MWD on. Oh that would be a shameful kill mail to post.

Either way the humble basic entry level T1 badger MK I is a damn fine boat for High/low sec P.I. Work. I use either it or a Iteron MKI for all my hauling of Planitary products and have no desire to ever undock my Primae again.

If you have a fit for a badger MKI that you would like to share post them up below. The goal here is to help new players with fitting a cheap hauler for P.I. work in high/low security. I am sure even the BBW can set aside his PvP only mind and fit us up a nice badger…

Cheers

EVE SOB

P.S. Once this damn hand heals, I am NEED to shoot something and post about it.

Well this isn’t cool!

Yet another week has passed and my real life continues to kick my ass. The long hours as a professional VMware geek combined with the summer schedule of a house full of energetic sons have me swamped. It’s sad that I once complained about mining and missions being enough to drive me to drink. It seems that my current level of EVE interaction is a daily R&D agent mission and keeping my 7 P.I. colonies going. Yes that’s right, 2 jumps to click request mission and complete mission followed by 10 thousand riveting clicks to start up all my 23 hour cycle extractors. I have even stopped logging into my combat pilot all together as it’s too damn depressing to log in and NOT get to fleet up and kill sods. I use evegate to keep up with his emails and have him set training interceptors V.

So seeing as my EVE life right now is pretty much 30 minutes of RSI inducing P.I. extractor clicking. I might as well use this time to share with you some of my thoughts on the new big awesome addition of Tyrannis.

/RANT

OK let’s start with the sheer amount of goddamn clicking required to do simple and remedial tasks in P.I. shall we. OK a click to scan each resource type. Four more clicks to drop a Command center. 2 more to drop an extractor, two more to drop a spaceport. Six more clicks to link the spaceport, extractor and command center. Three clicks to get the extractor going. Three more to get the P0 items routed some place. Oh and one submit or we do all the clicks again.

So 22 clicks just to get a single P0 resource extracting and routed to storage but that’s not ALL.

So we want to make a P1 product from all that nice P0 product. Two clicks to place the processor. Two more clicks to link it to the processor. Three more clicks to choose what you want to process. 5 more clicks to route the P1 product some place. 5 more clicks to route the P0 product in for processing. Oh and one more click to submit it or we do them all again. So that’s 18 more clicks before we get to a P1 product.

So basically if you want a single extractor and processor with a launch pad and the command center you need ~40 mouse clicks to get it done. Take into account that it’s not uncommon for an Advanced Command center to support 4-5 processors and 12-16 extractors. That’s a metric shit ton of clicks just to get P.I. up and running. Factor in 5 colonies and we are looking at enough clicking to wear down the half service life of the microswitch in the button of a $15 USB mouse.

What’s your problem EVE SOB, you only have to do it once! BULLSHIT once my ass, you jerk. So assuming I use 23:00 hour extraction cycles ('cause they yield the best bang for the buck) then once a day for as long as I choose to partake in this thing called P.I. I need to log in and tell my extractors to extract again. So with 6 colonies running 16 extractors each and 4 click per extractor PLUS a submit click and a double click to switch planets. I need to click ~402 times to tell my P.I. colony to do EXACTLY what it was doing for the last 23 hours. Don’t you DARE tell me to use 72 hour cycles on my extractors. The down time and the output are such that the cost of the colony is not going to pay for itself for a year.

This leads me to my next issue with P.I. in that the output in highsec (and low for that matter) is so bloody slim (don’t tell me I put my extractors in the wrong place) that frankly it’s going to take a looooooooooooooooong as time and a billion freaking clicks before I get any of my costs back and see profit. I am building some P4 products by now and frankly the number of days it takes to make them and the mind numbing clicking required to keep it all going isn’t worth it. Frankly P.I. is not worthy of the AWESOMNESS of a major patch. Insult to injury we get a free P.I. industry ship to click on and spin. MORE DAMN CLICKING! Oh and if you happen to be making P4 products and the processor cycle finishes during downtime. There goes your P3 products and the P4 product into the ether wasting ALL THOSE GOD DAMN CLICKS!

/END RANT

/emote punts house cat through wall /end emote

OK! So now that I’ve had a little sook and bitch season about my life and how P.I. might just have caused me to need surgery for carpel tunnel. Let’s suggest a few things to fix one of my sources of frustration.

1: Extractor clustering. So let’s say you find a nice big fat deposit of P0 type x. You know you want to deploy 5 extractors of Type x in that spot all nice and close together. You right click on that extractor type and choose “Create Extractor cluster”, choose the number of extractors in the cluster click install and then one more click to place them in the fat pocket of stuff. Those extractors are linked so two more clicks and you have linked them back to a storage node. So 6 clicks and you have created and linked 5 extractors back to the world. Now to put the icing on the cake now you click on the cluster of extractors and scan for resources, choose the cycle type, create a route. So in 6 more clicks you have told the extractors to extract and routed the P0 product. So 12 clicks to set up 5 extractors. The Cheery is when you come back on day 2 and see those lazy extractors sitting there doing nothing. You click the cluster, tell it the cycle type and click submit. So 4 clicks a day per extractor cluster. It will still be a crap load of clicks but at least it’s not telling each and every extractor that you want it to do the exact same thing.

2: A repeat previous action button: OK so processors will hang there and wait for stuff to process and continue on their merry way once resources avaliable. Extractors will extract until there extractor cycle is up and then shut down. If we could click on the colony, select “repeat previous actions” button and then submit. The day to day busy work of sucking P0 resources out of the ground and turning them into P1 resources would be 12 clicks not 402.

3: Oh shit I made a mistake when setting that 72 hour extractor cycle. WTF I’ve waited 72 hours and it’s still going. OMFG I need to destroy the extractor to change the extraction cycle time. Hey CCP how many kittens will it save if you add the ability to stop and change a running extractor cycle eh? Stupid

4: Hey you track the materials consumed by processors during downtime, how about you do the same for the output eh? STUPID!

OK I feel better about my EVE time now. If anyone can provide me with a way to never have to work, then perhaps I can get some bloody PEW PEW time.

Cheers

EVE SOB

Carebear ranch goes Planet Side! Yeah P.I. BABY!

So it seems everyone is talking about PI. You're not cool unless you blog about the awesome new industrial past time that Tyrannis delivered. So not to be left out of the cool kid club here comes my bit on PI.

***PvP People skip this and go shoot each other***

Let's start with saying I started to skill day 1 towards PI. I am currently into the long haul for Interplanetary Consolidation 5 so I can get me my 6th Command Center. As of right now I've got 5 colonies cranking away on highsec planets producing P1 and some P2 commodities.
Let's take a look at the planet types I have going and what they are currently churning out.

Planet 1 is a nice Lava planet

It produces Transmitters and Construction blocks as well as some left over plasmoids , Toxic Metals, and silicone. I was recently able to add 2 extra extractors and basic processor by nesting my links better. Here is a before and after shot to show you how you can squeeze more out of your CC's CPU and PWG.

Planet 2 is a Ocean planet

It produces all the P1 products I can wring out of it. I actually built this colony last and nested the living daylights out of the links to get 14 extractors, 5 basic processors and a launch pad running off one Adv CC. I'd love to be able to get one more extractor, but sadly at 99.37% CPU this goose is cooked. Perhaps in 52 days I'll get me an Elite CC and make it work but for now this works.

Planet 3 is a Storm Planet

Ok so this was my second attempt at a PI colony and boy does it suck. The first problem is the resources are scattered to the seven winds. The long links kill any chance I have of getting any meaningful levels of output from this planet. It does produce all 5 of the planets P1 items but with only one extractor per processor and set at 96hour extract cycles. It truly does suck. Once the current extracts are done. I'll rip the links a new arse and try and squeeze at least 5 more extractors out of this ADV CC, wish me luck. This is NOT a good colony layout.

Planet 4 is a barren

It was my FIRST ever colony and to be honest it shows. The links are inefficient and the CC placement could have been better to avoid the links to both hemispheres. It's not all bad as It does produce all 5 of the planets P1's and two P2 products mechanical parts and nanites. At some point I'll come back here and nest all the bad links and squeeze out some more extractors. I look at it now compared to my last planet and boy have I got a better understanding of link nesting and CC placement. Here is the one that got me hooked.

Planet 5 is a Gas planet

It was one of the last ones I did and I am not happy with it. I am getting 4/5 of the systems P1 items out of it (5 is one I can get elsewhere). I have the most efficient links I can and I can only squeeze 12 extractors and 4 basic processors out of the deal. It's not a bad planet but I would like all 5 P1 items

Planet 6 will be a temperate

It will extract only 1 P1 item from the planet itself but what it will have is all the advanced and high tech processors I need to make P3 and P4 products. It will not exist for another 26 days so I cannot show you a pretty picture of it or comment on its efficiency. That is another post all together next month.

So what tips can I offer to folks?

1: Scan down all your P0 items and place your CC in the best spot to get them all with at least 3 extractors.

2: Nest your links up to 5 hops (I think you can do 6) and upgrade if you really need to.

3: Set your extractions for 23 hours. With tree extractors you will keep a basic processor happy and busy

4: Use a launch pad - It's just plain simpler and a little less risky. Also it lets you go both ways... ;)

5: A good plan will go a long way. Try to build backwards from the launch pad. Get the first processors and extractors built and then add more extractors until you max out on power grid on your CC.

Handy dandy links:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/lv?key=t3wAXA82wbqy1eLqD4lwqAw&f=true&gid=0

http://www.eve-ivy.com/wiki/index.php?title=Planetary_Interaction#Skills

So if you're still awake after my riveting mandatory post on P.I. feel free to flame my colonies, throw beer cans, try to figure out where to gank me, and have some bloody fun with PI. Even a diehard combat pilot can build himself his Nanite repair paste with a few planets and a daily click or two. NOW if ONLY CCP would do some think like this for manual mining.... OK no rants today!

Cheers

EVE SOB