PI Commodity Relations tool

Just a short quick post to link a really nice interactive planetary interaction chart I found today.

Planetary Interaction commodities relatiions

You mouse hover over a PI material or product and it highlights the relationships between it and other materials and products. Makes it easy to see exactly what things are used for and what it takes to make  them.

Although I don't do any PI now, I wish I'd had this chart when I was doing it.

Trade Hub Analysis

There are 5 major trade hubs in Eve Online. Roughly in order of market size they are, Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek. In terms of how profitable they are for me it's Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, Hek and Rens. In order of profit vs how much time and effort it takes to make that profit (or iow, how much I like working the markets) I rank them Amarr, Hek, Dodixie, Jita, Rens.

Updated version: http://merchantmonarchy.blogspot.ca/2013/11/trade-hub-anylisis-updated-for-2013.html

Jita

By far the largest of the main trade hubs with a bigger market than all the other main trade hubs added together. Usually has more than twice as many pilots around than all the other main hubs combined too. Far and away the most active and most heavily camped of all the major hubs. Profit margins tend to be smaller than on the other hubs but if you have enough isk to play with you can make more total profit through sales volume than anywhere else.

You'll usually see 1200+ pilots docked and active in Jita, sometimes over 2000.

Jita is very good for buying most items in bulk, especially manufactured items. It's also great for finding things you're having trouble finding anywhere else.

Amarr

The second largest market. Easily the most consistently profitable and reliably performing market in my experience. The market is larger and more active than anywhere except Jita. It's not as heavily camped as Jita or Rens either so it takes less effort to make the same isk here. Along with Hek this is one of my favorite markets.

Usually has 150-200 pilots docked and active, 250+ during peak times.

Dodixie

The third largest market. I found Dodixie a very poor performer at first but as I got more isk and more orders to play with it got better. Now it's almost as good as Amarr for me. I guess Dodixie is just a tough market for smaller, newer players to break into but for larger, more established players it's fine.

Usually has 150+ pilots docked and active, 200+ during peak times.

Rens

Fourth largest market by market order value. The least profitable in my experience. Very heavily camped considering it's the second smallest market of the major hubs and not much bigger than the smallest (Hek). Even some regions without a major hub are more profit for less work than Rens. Definitely, without a doubt my least favorite major trade hub.

Though I haven't any data to prove it I believe Rens is in decline and slowly losing business to Hek. I expect Rens will soon be the smallest of the main trade hubs, though since it's in a different region than Hek it will still be quite a bit larger than any of the smaller hubs and remain a main trade hub.

Usually has 100-150 pilots docked and active, 150-200 during peak times.

Hek

Hek is a boom town that's still growing. It's the smallest market but has probably the best profit margins of all the major hubs. This is one of my favorite markets. The market isn't that much smaller than Rens but Hek isn't camped very much at all, meaning you can update orders less often yet still move items in decent volume and for bigger margins than on the other hubs.

Hek is the newest of the major hubs. I've only been playing for 10 months or so myself so I'm not sure just exactly how long it's been around but when doing google research Hek is never mentioned as a main trade hub in older posts. I figure it's been a main hub for at least 1 maybe 2 years.

Considering Hek hasn't been a main hub very long, yet is already almost as big as Rens, I believe it'll soon surpass Rens as the main trade hub in Minmatar space. In fact due to it's central position among the hubs (close to both Dodixie and Rens and closer to Jita than Rens is) I expect within a year Hek will be as big as Dodixie. Though I wouldn't bet on it (at least not yet) I wouldn't be surprised if it starts pulling a little business away from Jita and eventually grows as large Amarr.

Usually has 100 or so pilots docked and active, 150 plus during peak times.

Smaller hubs

Besides the 5 main trade hubs there are many smaller hubs. Most of the smaller hubs are mission hubs, FW hubs, industrial centers, systems where miners flock and the like. There is a reason why pilots tend to congregate in these systems. If you figure out why they're there you should have a pretty good idea of what they have to sell and what they need to buy too.

Some of the smaller hubs (listed in no particular order) are Arnon, Aldrat, Osmon, Oursulaert, Akainavas, Umokka, Sobaseki, Clellinon, Couster, Deepari, Penigrman. Experienced regional traders will recognize many of these systems as places where a lot of their buy orders get filled. They make great places for new traders to get their feet wet before diving into the deep end with the obsessive overly competitive station traders found on the major trade hubs.

Pretty much any system that normally has 20-30 pilots docked and active is a good place to do business. The more pilots around the better, quite a few of these smaller hubs have 50, 60 or more pilots in system during peak times. A handful frequently have those numbers during off peak times and occasionally hit 100 or more during peak times.

The simplest and best way to find smaller hubs is to open the map and set it to Starmap > Stars > Statistics > Number of pilots currently docked and actived. The huge red blob towards top center is Jita, The next biggest circles are Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek (the other 4 main trade hubs) and depending on the time maybe Osmon too. After that are the smaller hubs.

Osmon is a special case, it frequently has 150+ pilots but it's often well under 100 too. Osmon is a major mission hub for level 4 Sister's of Eve agents (the best missions for repairing faction standings) and a major ice mining center that's notorious for botting operations too. It's not a major trade hub though. It's really not any better than other small hubs in spite of it's greater size and activity mainly because it's in the same region as (and very close to) Jita. There are a lot of items sold on Osmon, the problem is you're buying them in competition with regional buy orders on Jita and there are a LOT of buyers on Jita.

Bulk hauling supplies mission runners and ice miners need (ammo, modules, even ships) into Osmon to sell is probably quite lucrative.

Certain null sec hubs can get very busy at times, usually due to being staging points for war operations. When this happens they can rival the best of the smaller hubs. However the busy times tend to be short lived as war fronts move and wars end.

Listing null sec hubs is really beyond the scope of this article, however if you find a war staging hub, it'd be a great place to use remote order skills from a cloaked ship to do a little ninja trading (buy up all their cheap war supplies and sell it back to them for big profits). If you're part of the alliance staging out of the system, don't jack prices up on your main, that'll just get you yelled at and possibly kicked.

Trading T1 Best Named Modules

Best named modules (meta 4 for the most part) are always in demand. Besides expensive faction and deadspace mods, they're the best fittings new players with low skills can use. They're typically as good or close to as good as T2 equivalents while taking less cpu and/or powergrid which makes them easier to fit than T2. Consequently they're often better for players who can use T2 modules too.

The following is a list of some best named modules that sell well. There are others, these are just some of the most popular ones that I've used and traded myself.

Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
F-90 Positional Sensor Subroutines
F-90 Positional Signal Amplifier
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Limited IMN Microwarpdrive I
Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Upgraded EM Ward Amplifier I
Arbalest missile launchers (all types but particularly heavy, light and rockets)
Regolithic Shield Extenders (all sizes large, medium and small)
Photonic CPU Enhancer
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Faint Warp Disruptor I

My absolute favorite T1 module to trade is Limited Adaptive Invulnerability Field I. I've been trading these since my first week playing and I still trade them now. Plentiful supply, they drop everywhere and are in extremely high demand. Prices can be very spiky with sell orders ranging from extreme lows of under 75k to extreme highs of 2 million plus when someone tries to corner the market.

Someone has been trying to corner the market on all best named modules for a couple weeks now. He's camping and throwing an awful lot of isk at the market trying to dominate sales and keep prices propped up high. As a result all the best named modules are extremely high priced lately.

This means right now is a great time for new players to break into trading best named modules. As the little guy your advantage is you can spend more time concentrating on a smaller area, fewer items and smaller orders than the big guys can. Update and renew your orders frequently and transport stacks of modules to sell on whatever nearby hub has the best sell prices. Buy them cheap in out of the way areas and sell them on main trade hubs and/or major mission hubs. If you do it right you can sell well under his prices, make big profits and easily more than double your money every day until your volume gets large enough to start slowing you down.

For a little market pvp fun I like to put up a 10 or 20 jump buy order for 100 or so just a little over the highest priced 40 jump / regional order. That way I get the close ones and the regional buyer trying to corner the market with massive buy orders gets stuck having to travel 10, 20 or more jumps to pick up all the ones he gets.

One caveat, if you engage in this type of market pvp be aware a smart market manipulator would have amassed huge cheaply purchased stockpiles *before raising prices. Assuming he did, eventually he's going to dump those stockpiles so make sure you don't buy too much at high prices now and get stuck with them when prices go down again. Only buy what you can reasonably expect to sell in a few days.

Please feel free to comment on other best named modules that sell well and I'll add them to the list.

Vigil Trader - Post Retribution

Vigils were one of the ships with significant changes made in Retribution.

When I first heard about the changes planned for Vigils I wasn't happy. I'm a trader specializing in small, high value items that can be transported in small fast ships. The Vigil as the fastest, cheap T1 frigate (not counting expensive pirate faction ships) was my ship of choice for transport. I trained all my trader alts into flying Vigils because of it's speed and slot layout.

They were taking away the speed bonus and changing the slot layout. I was pissed! A little later I found out the base speed was being increased too but I wasn't sure if it would still be fast enough and I really didn't like losing a low slot (nano) either.

The cargo space was being increased by 100 m3 (from 150 to 250) but I really didn't care about that. Sure more cargo space would be nice but speed and alignment time were more important to me.

Now that the changes are here, I've changed my mind. The Vigil makes an even better light trade hauler now. While the speed bonus was removed, the increased base velocity makes that pretty much a wash. A little faster with low skills, a little slower with high skills and about the same with mediocre skills. They're still fast enough. I can only fit 2 nanos instead of 3 now but alignment times are still very good so that's ok. In fact, while I'm not certain, I think alignment times might be even better now.

Then there's the extra cargo space. I didn't think another 100 m3 of cargo space was all that great but after flying Retribution Vigils for a few days I've found I like it a lot more than I thought I would.

This is my new standard fit for Vigils

[Vigil - Light Transport]

Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array

Salvager I
Salvager I

Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I.

What's in the highs isn't important, leave them empty if you want. This fit isn't intended to fight or do anything besides fly fast and align quickly while moving small, valuable cargo.

With 4 cap rechargers I almost never run out of cap while warping repeatedly on low skills alts. Higher skilled alts could drop the rechargers for something else or leave the slots empty for even cheaper ships.

The 3 Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizers increase warp speed to 10.4 Au (more than 70% faster) and they're cheap.

For extremely low skills alts that might be having trouble making long warps all in one go you can always replace one or more velocity optimizers with Small Warp Core Optimizers (40% less cap needed to warp).

In conclusion, the Vigil is even better for light transport now than before and the new fit is cheaper too. It's win win all around!

Skill Planning for Traders

There are a total of 13 trade skills,  7 of which I consider important primary skills and 6 that I consider less important secondary skills.

The primary skills are order skills that increase the number of market orders you can place and money skills that affect costs. Trade, Retail, Wholesale and Tycoon are the order skills, Accounting, Broker Relations and Margin Trading are the money skills.

The secondary skills affect remote orders or contracting. They can be useful or not depending on your particular market strategy. These skills are Contracting, Corporation Contracting, Daytrading, Marketing, Procurement and Visibility.

I'm going to assume the reader already knows what the different trade skills are, what they do and how to use them. I won't be describing trading or the skills involved in great detail because that's already been done very well many times before. For anyone who needs those details here's a link to a good article on Trade skills.

Regional Trading vs Station Trading

Before deciding what skills to get and what order to train them in you should decide on a trading strategy first. There are many subtly different trading strats you could use but generally speaking there are 2 main types of trading strategy, Regional Trading and Station Trading.

Station Trading is buying and selling on a single station with no travel involved. Your trader just sits in a station (usually one of the main trade hubs) buying things and posting them for resale on the same station at a profit. He never needs to undock. Your buy orders are limited to being filled on the station you're at. Profit margins tend to be lower than with regional trading but once you find the right price points volume can be very good.

Regional Trading involves a lot of travel, flying to pickup filled buy orders on one station and hauling them somewhere else for resale (typically the main trade hub in the same region). Your buy orders can be filled on many stations within the region, whether it's every station in the entire region or just those within a certain number of jumps. Profit margins tend to be higher but all the traveling takes more time. The bigger you get the more time it takes.

If you're going to do Regional Trading secondary skills can be handy, especially Daytrading and Marketing. I find these two skills particularly useful for reselling items that were sold to me in or behind major gatecamps in low/null where it may not be worth the trouble of transporting the items out. Marketing allows you to post sell orders without traveling to the station the items are on and Daytrading lets you modify orders remotely.

If you're just going to do Station Trading you don't need any secondary skills other than Marketing and you only need Marketing because it's a requirement for other skills.

As the first commenter mentioned Daytrading is also very useful for updating orders while away from the station doing something else like traveling, mining or ratting. Not a must have skill but certainly very convenient. It's great for Regional Traders and characters who do more than just trade. I used it a lot when I was doing mostly Regional Trading. Being able to update orders while flying around in space picking up goods cut the time it took to go through my whole routine nearly in half.

The 5 main trade hubs roughly in order of market size are Jita (by far the largest), Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek.

Most players will do best starting a trading career with Regional Trading. Only move into straight Station Trading once you have some experience playing the markets and a good amount of capital to play with... Or when you find yourself spending too much time hauling all the stuff you're buying around.

Basic Trader

For players who just want good basic trade skills I recommend the following skills.

Trade IV
Retail IV (requires Trade II)
Accounting IV (requires Trade IV)
Broker Relations IV (requires Trade II)
Margin Trading IV (requires Accounting IV)

Regional Traders will probably also want Daytrading IV and Marketing II or III. That'll let you place sell orders from 5 or 10 jumps away and modify all orders (both buy and sell) from 20 jumps away.

These skills give you 53 market orders (out of 305 maximum possible) with lower sales taxes and broker fees. Margin Trading could be considered optional for more casual traders. If you always have plenty of cash on hand you don't need it. If you keep running short of cash when entering buy orders you do need it.

Note: Most players will also want to get Contracting I (requires Social I), it makes moving items between characters a whole lot simpler but it isn't absolutely necessary to play the market.

Serious Trader

For the serious trader who wants more diversification, higher volume and needs to shave costs even further.

Retail V

Marketing II (requires Trade II)
Wholesale IV (requires Retail V and Marketing II)
Accounting V

Margin Trading V

Broker Relations IV
Trade IV
Daytrading IV (for Regional Traders only, requires Trade IV)

These skills give you 125 market orders, lower costs a bit more and stretch your investment capital even further. What order you train the skills in depends on how you want to grow your business. You can diversify into more varied items with more active orders, you can lower costs and stretch your investment capital further, or you can do both.

To get more orders Retail V and Wholesale IV are the skills you want. To lower costs you want Accounting V and to stretch your capital further, Margin Trading V.

Personally I'd recommend getting Retail V, Marketing II, Wholesale IV, Margin Trading V and Accounting V in that order. If stretching your capital is more important to you than getting more orders, get Margin Trading V first. I wouldn't bother with Broker Relations V until after you already have all the other trade skills you intend to get.

On most of my traders I actually trained Tycoon IV before Margin Trading V. Having gotten Margin Trading V first on the last couple characters I feel it works a lot better for me and my trading strategy with that training order. On the next trader I'll probably get Margin Trading V before Accounting V. In fact, I'm considering leaving Accounting V until after both Margin Trading V and Tycoon IV.

Master Trader

This is where I consider a character "finished" training trade skills.

Wholesale V
Marketing IV
Tycoon IV (requires Wholesale V and Marketing IV)
Broker Relations V

Acounting V
Margin Trading V
Trade IV
Retail V
Daytrading IV (for regional traders only)

That'll give you 269 active orders with all money skills maxed, able to place sell orders and modify all orders from 20 jumps away.

Additional Notes

There are still more skills you could learn or train further but do you really need them?

If you're a station trader you don't need remote order skills.

Even if you do need remote order skills who really needs Procurement and Visibility anyhow? Maybe a handful of players working unusual market strategies deep in enemy space.

You could always get another 36 active orders by maxing Trade and Tycoon too but is that really worth nearly a month of skills training time? Eventually sure, but most of us can probably find better things to do with a month of training for the immediately foreseeable future.

Character Progress Report - December 2012

Report on the status and progress of all my characters for Dec 2012. Mostly Trade oriented since making ISK is my main focus and trading is how I make ISK.

Current net worth is just over 61 billion with about 2/3 of it in cash and escrow. Most of the rest is in sell orders and stock I haven't posted for sale yet.

Account 1

Transferred my main off this account to his own account.

Couster Regional Trader, 53 buy orders, Retail IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations III, Margin Trading IV. Buys a bunch of different things, transports to Dodixie and contracts to the main trader there for resale. Currently training Broker Relations IV, will get Retail V and Wholesale I - IV next.

Inactive trader. 53 buy orders, Retail IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations III, Margin Trading IV. Currently inactive, sitting in Jita and not doing any trading. Used to trade implants and mods on Dodixie until  the main trader there got Tycoon IV and took over all the business on Dixie.

Account 2

Amarr Station Trader. 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, does nothing but station trade. Finished training trade skills.

Dodixie Station Trader 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV, does nothing but station trade. Currently training Margin Trading V.

Rens Station Trader 273 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV, does nothing but station trade.

Account 3

Lonetrek Regional Trader. 273 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV. Mainly a buyer, does sell a few things but mostly just buys, flies to Jita and contracts most of the goods to my traders there for resale.

Hek Station Trader 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading V, does nothing but station trade.

Jita Station Trader 125 orders, Wholesale IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading IV, does nothing but station trade implants and mods. Currently training Wholesale V.

Account 4

Jita Station Trader, 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, does nothing but station trade and only handles skillbooks. This was the last trader I made but the first one finished training trade skills. I may come back to train Tycoon V and Trade V eventually but for now I consider him finished training trade skills.

Exploration / Scout pilot, newest toon, training Cov Ops and Int/Mem support/scanning/exploration skills. Minimal trade skills, 21 orders, Trade II, Retail I. I don't plan on doing any serious trading on this toon. Has enough order slots to put up plenty of buy orders for things he needs and that's it. Currently training Caldari Frigates V, the last skill he needs to fly Cov Ops, then it's back to int/mem skills.

Account 5

My Main, transferred to his own account. 125 orders, Wholesale IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV and most of the "remote order placement" trade skills at III or IV. Finished transferring his business to dedicated Jita station traders freeing him up to do other things. Hurray, he's not tied to Jita babysitting market orders anymore! Currently training Weapon Upgrades V.

Future plans

Get both toons on account 1 Retail V, Wholesale IV, Broker Relations IV, then work on flying support skills (mainly Navigation, Engineering and Electronics skills). Will probably train both toons into Cov Ops soon. Might eventually train one into Jump Freighters and/or Blockade Runners too even though I hate flying big slow haulers. One toon is back on Couster, I'd like to find another decent regional market (one without a major hub) for the other to work.

On the main I intend to start doing bombing runs as well as some exploration, mission running and searching for new markets. Finish training Weapon Upgrades V, get Advanced Weapon Upgrades I - IV and start working on T2 launchers.

Finish the Trade skills training for the traders of Dodixie, Rens and Hek by getting Margin Trading V and Broker Relations V on all of them. All of them already have Accounting V, Tycoon IV and most have Margin Trading V.

Get Cov Ops on the new Exploration/Scout toon and then continue training Int/Mem support skills on it. Will probably continue following the Cov Ops line to get Recon cruisers next and eventually Black Ops.

Get Wholesale V, Tycoon IV and Margin Trading V on the second Jita trader. Then get Margin Trading V on the Lonetrek buyer and Broker Relations V on the Hec trader. Finally get Accounting V and Broker Relations V on the Lonetrek buyer.

Character Transfer Costs

I've been planning on transferring my main to a new account for a while now so I can train up the other two characters on the account without losing any training time on the main. I would have done so already except I always thought charging two plex for the transfer was excessive. I figured it should only be one plex especially since I'll need another (third) plex to activate the new account.

Then I realized why it costs two plex.

The problem is combined with buddy invites, one plex transfers would allow you to get 51 days of playing time per plex. You'd simply start up a new account from a buddy invite to yourself, activate the account with one plex and transfer the character to the new account with a second plex. That's two plex but you'd get one back for activating the trial making the cost one plex for 51 days playing time.

When the 51 days are up you'd just transfer to another new account and leave the old account behind.

Everyone would be doing it. CCPs subscription income per active account would be cut drastically and there'd be millions of unused accounts clogging up their servers.

It all makes sense now. There's a good reason why transfers cost two plex after all.

Stealth Bombing - From a Beginner's PoV

From the perspective of one who hasn't bothered with PvP at all yet, Stealth Bombing looks like a lot of fun and a great way to get into PvP.

I've been flying Cov Ops for a while now using them as transports for my high value item trading business and they sure make running gate camps a lot simpler. I've found it really doesn't matter what I fly (Buzzard or Manticore) or how I fit it, the important thing is if it can warp while cloaked doing pickups in low/null becomes much easier... So much easier it's funny.

Bombing sounds like a great way to get revenge on those lowlife gate campers who occasionally nailed me at permanent (or near permanent) gate camps in places like EC-P8R, Aunenen, Rancer and Amamake. Sneak into their own backyards and see how they like having their miners, transports and other soft targets picked off. See how they like having afk cloaked bombers sitting in their core systems for a day or three and never knowing just when they might come out of stealth to pop something. Grief the griefers for a change. Make them start thinking a least a little about keeping their own home systems secure instead of griefing honest traders and poor noobs who don't know any better yet. Oh yeah, now that's my kind of fun!

The last month or so my main focus has been on training up skills for bombing. So far that's mostly been getting missile skills to all IVs (done) and Cov Ops to V (only 4-1/2 more days to go!). Once I have Cov Ops V I'll start working on getting missile skills to V and getting T2 launchers (torpedo launchers first naturally).

I found a channel Bombers Bar that organizes and runs daily regular scheduled bombing ops. They seem like a cool bunch who should be fun to run with. I intended to start doing bombing runs with them long before now but the timing of their runs hasn't meshed very well with my work schedule lately. That'll change eventually though and when it does I plan on joining a lot of their runs. I'm definitely up for roaming deep into null territory and blowing up anything. I'd certainly be up for blowing the crap out of a gate camp anywhere too. Gate camping I'll pass on though, unless it's in a spot where the targets will mostly be members of  the very same alliances manning the usual camps at chokepoints between hi and null.


Here's the Manticore fit I plan on using

[Manticore fit]

Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

1MN Afterburner II
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I, Scan Resolution Dampening Script
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron

Prototype 'Arbalest' Torpedo Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Torpedo
Prototype 'Arbalest' Torpedo Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Torpedo
Prototype 'Arbalest' Torpedo Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Torpedo
Bomb Launcher I, Scorch Bomb
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I

With my current skills (all IVs in missile skills, Cov Ops IV) I do 467 total dps (415 from torpedoes alone). My bombs hit for 7680.

When I get T2 launchers (in another month or two) I'll switch to them and maybe T2 ammo too. I'll need to do something about the increased CPU requirements to fit T2 launchers though. Most pilots seem to solve that problem by dropping one of the BCS for a Co-Processor II.

That's all for now, I'll follow up with more about my experiences as a new bomber as I get experience. Look for the first update after I finally go on my first bombing run.

Character Progress Report

A quick report on the status and progress of all my characters. Mostly Trade oriented since making ISK is my main focus and trading is how I make ISK.

Account 1

My Main, one of three traders currently working the Jita station trade. 125 orders, Wholesale IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV and most of the "remote order placement" trade skills at III or IV. Slowly transferring his business to the other 2 Jita station traders so he can concentrate on other things and leave the Jita trade to dedicated trade alts. The only trading he still handles now are faction and deadspace mods and he'll be completely free of the Jita trade when I finally get around to transferring the module business to another toon. Currently training Covert Ops V (love Stealth Bombers!).

Couster Regional Trader, 53 buy orders, Retail IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations III, Margin Trading IV. Buys a bunch of different things, transports to Dodixie and contracts to the main trader there for resale.

Dodixie Station Trader, 53 buy orders, Retail IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations III, Margin Trading IV. Currently transferring all his business to the main Dodixie trader. Handled implants and mods on Dodixie until recently when the main trader there got Tycoon and enough orders to take over all the business on Dixie.

Account 2

Amarr Station Trader. 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV, does nothing but station trade. Currently training Margin Trading V.

Dodixie Station Trader 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV, does nothing but station trade.

Rens Station Trader 273 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV, does nothing but station trade.

Account 3

Lonetrek Regional Trader. 273 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV. Mainly a buyer, does sell a few things but mostly just buys, flies to Jita and contracts most of the goods to my traders there for resale.

Hek Station Trader 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV, does nothing but station trade. Currently training Margin Trading V.

Jita Station Trader 125 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading IV, does nothing but station trade implants (and eventually mods too).

Account 4

Jita - Primary Jita Station Trader, 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, does nothing but station trade and only handles skillbooks. This was the last trader I made but the first one finished training trade skills. I may come back to train Tycoon V and Trade V eventually but for now I consider him finished training trade skills.

Exploration / Scout pilot, newest toon, training Cov Ops and Int/Mem support/scanning/exploration skills. Minimal trade skills, 21 orders, Trade II, Retail I. I don't plan on doing any serious trading on this toon. Has just enough orders to put up lots of buy orders for things he needs.

Future plans

Open a new 5th account, transfer my main to it and start training up the other 2 toons on the old main account. Get both toons Retail V, Wholesale IV, Broker Relations IV, then work on flying support skills (mainly Navigation, Engineering and Electronics skills). If possible I'd like to find or create decent remote markets for these toons to work. Will probably eventually train one or both into Cov Ops, maybe one of them into Jump Freighters and/or Blockade Runners too even though I hate flying big slow haulers.

Finish transferring the rest of my main's business to another toon and start doing more of other things on the main. He won't be tied to Jita babysitting market orders anymore. I intend to use that freedom to do a lot of bombing runs with a little exploration, mission running and searching for new markets mixed in.

Finish the Trade skills training for the traders of Amarr, Dodixie, Rens and Hek by getting Margin Trading V and Broker Relations V on all of them. All of them already have Accounting V and Tycoon IV.

Get Cov Ops on the new Exploration/Scout toon and then continue training Int/Mem support skills on it. Will probably continue following the Cov Ops line to get Recon cruisers next and eventually Black Ops.

Get Wholesale V, Tycoon IV and Margin Trading V on the second Jita trader. Then get Margin Trading V on the Lonetrek buyer and Broker Relations V on the Hec trader.

12 Tips for Eve Beginners

Eve can be a harsh place, especially in the first few days. The game is unlike other MMOs and has a very steep initial learning curve (usually compared to a cliff inclined towards you). Nothing works the way you've come to expect from playing other games as you'll find out the moment you leave the starting station and try to use your usual keyboard movement keys to fly your ship. Which brings us to tip number 1...

1. Eve doesn't use keyboard movement keys. You'll have to learn how to use the UI, particularly the overview and right click menus to control your ship. Actually you can use traditional movement keys inside stations but you'll probably never do that once you become comfortable with the UI.

2. Right click is your best friend. When in doubt about how to do something, try right clicking on the object in question or even in empty space. Right clicking brings up a context menu which usually has the command to do exactly what you want.

3. Do all of the tutorial missions and career training missions. Besides teaching you how to do many different things, they'll provide you with ISK (game currency), loyalty points, reputation, skillbooks, fitting modules and even ships. Read mission descriptions carefully and do exactly what they tell you to do. F12 brings up the help menu, you can access the tutorials and career agents from there.

4. Regarding tutorial/training missions and steep learning curves, the part that gives new players the most trouble are the scanning missions. To save yourself a whole lot of time and frustration go watch this Probe Scanning Tutorial when you get to the scanning missions.

5. There's a Rookie Help channel. When you get stuck on something don't be afraid to use it, the people in that channel are there specifically to answer new player questions and can be very helpful.

6. Don't forget to keep your skill training queue full. You don't want to waste training time by having the queue finish and not be training anything for a while. Try to make sure the queue is full when you log off for the day and put a skill with a long training time at the end of the queue whenever you'll be offline for more than a day.

7. Security Status. Every system in Eve has an associated security status.

High Security systems range from 0.5 to 1.0 and while no place in Eve is completely safe hi sec is relatively safe. Players cannot attack you in hi sec for no reason without consequences (getting their own ships blown up by Concord). However if you attack them first or take their loot, you become fair game and Concord won't get involved.

Low Security systems range from 0.1 to 0.4, Null Security systems are 0.0 and lower (negative security status). Players can and will attack you in either without provocation or consequences. While there are significant differences between low and null sec new players can simply consider both dangerous places to avoid at first.

On the other hand besides a few specific systems most of low and null isn't as bad as the horror stories claim. Don't let the horror stories scare you from ever entering low/null, just be smart about it and whatever you do, do not go afk or fly on autopilot while in low/null.

8. Don't fly anything you can't afford to lose. Especially not in low/null. Don't carry anything too expensive in cargo either, not even in hi and especially not into a major market hub while on autopilot.

9. Can flipping. Cargo Containers (cans), ship wrecks and so on that belong to you are white. They're your's to loot, nobody else can loot them without giving you the right to attack them if you wish. Cans belonging to other players are yellow. Taking loot from a yellow can or wreck means you have aggressed the owner and he can now attack you without consequences. Blue cans belong to no-one and may be looted by anyone without aggression.

10. Don't forget to train Capacitor, Navigation and Fitting skills. They're important. You really can't go wrong training them all (except jump skills) to III early in your skills training plan. Or better yet, just train all the skills required for the basic Core Competency Certificate.

11. Fitting skills allow you to fit more and better modules on your ships. Engineering and Electronics are particularly important fitting skills and for combat pilots Weapon Upgrades is the next most important fitting skill. IMO if a character is going to be doing much flying around at all, the very first skills you should train to IV are Electronics and Engineering. They should be among the first skills trained to V too. Weapon Upgrades should probably be trained to III soon and IV eventually but you shouldn't need V for a long time yet.

Edit: Engineering and Electronics skills have been renamed CPU Management and Power Grid Management

12. Scams. Scamming (the in game variety, not the real life / real money variety), is allowed and scammers are everywhere. Scammers like to work with contracts and chat channels, especially local chat channels at major market hubs. The simplest way to avoid most scams is a) consider everything in chat to be a scam in the first place and b) read any contract very carefully before accepting it, especially if it's a contract you found in a chat link.

Trade hauling with small fast ships

A major problem for traders is picking up regional buys that have been filled in low or null sec systems. Many such systems are behind a major gate camp like EC-P8R, Aunenen, Rancer, Amamake, etc. These camps are pretty much permanently manned and difficult to run at any time with anything short of Covert Ops ships. The largest camps usually have smartbombing battleships on the gate making them difficult to run even with Cov Ops. Trying to run small gate camps (far less major camps) or undock from camped stations in a slow Industrial ship is basically just suicide.

If you trade in bulky items like ore, minerals, PI mats, or large quantities of fitting modules you don't have much choice. You need plenty of cargo space which means flying slow haulers, Industrials, Transports, etc.. Flying Jump Freighters and/or Blockade Runners takes a long time, a significant skill point investment and though they are better suited for operating in low/null they're still slow and susceptible to ganks.

However, if you deal in small, individually more valuable items like skillbooks, blueprints, faction/deadspace mods or implants you can transport in smaller, faster ships that have far better chances of successfully running gate camps.

Covert Ops frigates are ideal for light transport in dangerous areas. Small, fast, cheap enough to be expendable and the ability to warp while cloaked is huge for running gate camps. About all you have to worry about are large smartbombing camps and undocking. Even then they have to be alert, quick, ready for and expecting cloaked ships to nail you before you're gone. Almost any fit works for this purpose, you can even use a Stealth Bomber fit for standard bombing ops as I often do.

You don't need tank. You can't fit enough tank to survive smartbombs or alpha strikes from larger ships anyhow. Your best chance of running a smartbomb camp is speed, particularly alignment time. Even station campers waiting for you to undock are best avoided with insta-warp bookmarks or failing that, fast alignment times. If anything else nails you, chances are either you got lazy or they got lucky. Standard Cov Ops fits work fine but if you want to fit specifically for transport then fitting for speed, agility and warp speed while ensuring you don't fit anything that reduces cargo capacity makes sense. A MWD in the mids, Nanos in the lows and for rigs I'd go with polycarbons or low friction nozzle jets, though hyperspatial velocity optimizers (warp speed) might be a good choice too.

Recon cruisers would be the natural evolution to Cov Ops frigates, with greater cargo capacity, capable of fitting 60k or so tank (EHP that is, more like 30k raw) and able to survive smartbombs and more. But Recons are much more expensive and require a lot more skills training to fly. Not exactly expendable and probably too time consuming to train most alts for too.

For new players or alts that need to fly low/null now and can't afford to wait to train into Cov Ops small, fast frigates fitted for speed and alignment time work quite well. They're very cheap, typically under 2 million even fitted with moderately expensive T2 mods. The good part is when you do get nailed in these ships it's almost always on the way into low/null while you're empty so all you lose is a cheap ship and maybe some implants. Conversely, if you get into low/null without trouble you can usually get back out a few minutes later with no trouble too and with your valuable cargo intact.

You will lose some of these ships, count on it, but they're cheap enough you can consider it a cost of doing business. I lost 1 or 2 a month across 9 trader alts on 4 accounts all flying T1 frigates when I was working regional buys and travelling in low/null on a daily basis. Just don't use expensive implants you can't afford to replace occasionally.

My personal favorite T1 ship for trade hauling was the Minmitar Vigil. With it's 5% per level speed bonus and decent skills it's the fastest standard T1 frigate (not counting expensive pirate faction ships) in the game. However that velocity bonus will soon be gone in the next round of ship balancing. Now you might as well just go with the fastest frigate available to your race.

For T1 frigates and assuming a low skills alt will be flying it I like nanos in the lows, cap rechargers in the mids and cap rigs. Cap rigs and rechargers are important for low skills alts to make long warps all in one go. As you get better nav and cap skills this issue goes away. The important skills are Warp Drive Operation, Energy Management, Energy Systems Operation and all the non-jump navigation skills. With all those skills at 3 or better you can use astronautics rigs (or no rigs at all) and start dropping rechargers too.

This is my standard Condor fit

[Condor, Light Transport]

Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array

[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]
[Empty High slot]

Small Capacitor Control Circuit I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I

And this is my standard Vigil fit

[Vigil, Ninja Salvager]

Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Local Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I

Limited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array
Eutectic Capacitor Charge Array

Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I

Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Small Semiconductor Memory Cell I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

I find 2 semiconductor memory cells and one capacitor control circuit gives the best cap performance with low cap skills. As your cap skills get better and depending on exactly what ship you're flying your mileage may differ. What's in the highs isn't important, the ship isn't intended to fight, it's just supposed to be cheap, fly fast and align quickly.

As the alt gets better skills I start dropping rigs and cap rechargers, lowering cost and making the ships even more expendable. Drop rigs first because they're by far the most expensive fittings on the ships. Using T1 best named modules takes less resources and lower skills to fit, making them easier for low skills alts to fit than the T2 versions. They're also quite a bit cheaper and nearly as good as the T2 versions. You could go with lower meta modules to cut costs even more too.

New Blog - First Post

Kicking off a new blog for Eve Online, the following is a re-post of the latest post on my old WoW blog The Gold Mint

I finally got completely fed up with WoW and quit playing near the end of Cataclysm. There were many reasons why I finally quit WoW. Suffice to say it was something that had been building up for a long time already, then along came the news about Kung Fu Pandas to put the final nail in the coffin.

I've been playing Eve Online (much more casually) for about 8 months now. One of the things I like best about Eve is it's completely different from WoW in just about every way.

The player base seems to be quite a bit more mature too though that might be because there is no global chat channel providing a convenient soapbox for the worst sociopaths. Or maybe it's because block (Eve's equivalent to /ignore) has NO LIMIT on the number of players you can block. I love that feature and use it quite liberally!

Another point in Eve's favor is it's very cheap to play. In fact if you're any good at making money in games you can play Eve for free. You don't have to buy Eve Oline, the client is a free download and expansions are free too. All there is is a one time $5.00 activation fee (turns a trial into a full client) and $15.00 for 30 days of game time (less if you purchase multiple months at once).

Then there are PLEX which can be purchased with real money from CCP's website or bought from other players with ISK (Eve's in-game currency) off the market in game. Any PLEX you have can be sold on the in game market for ISK or used to add 30 days time to your account. If you make enough ISK to buy PLEX you can pay for your accounts without spending any real money. I currently have 4 Eve accounts, over 50 billion ISK and easily make more than enough ISK to purchase PLEX for all the accounts every month with plenty left over to keep growing my wallet bigger.

For those who might be interested in trying Eve Online there are 2 types of free trial accounts, 14 day trials and 21 day trials. 14 day trials are available to anyone from CCP's website. 21 day trials are "Buddy" invites from existing players.

Here's a link to a free Eve Online 21 day trial from me via Eve's "buddy program". The link is safe, it leads to a secure "buddy invite" page on CCP's official Eve Online website.

Feel free to give me ( Moxnix Induli ) a shout in Eve Online if you start playing after reading this.