Training Report - March 2013

I'm splitting my old "Progress Report" into two new reports, a short regular monthly "Financial Report'" and a lengthier unscheduled "Training Report" that will be posted occasionally. This is the first of the new Training Reports.

Account 1

My first account. This is the account my main started on though he's all by himself on his own account now.

Couster Regional Trader - 269 buy orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Mostly a buyer, she buys a lot of different things and sends them to the Dodixie trader for resale.

Tash Murkon Regional Trader - 269 buy orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Mostly a buyer, sourcing items that wind up being sold by the Amarr trader.

Jita Station Trader #3 - New character learning basic trade skills. She won't do any trading until after she learns Trade IV, Retail IV, Broker Relations IV, Accounting IV and Margin Trading IV. She'll probably wind up working the low end modules market (T2 and meta 4). Currently training basic trade skills.

Account 2

My 2nd oldest account with the traders of Amarr, Dodixie and Rens. Amarr and Dodixie have 305 market orders (the maximum possible) with Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Daytrading V and all other remote order skills at IV. Rens has 13 days of training to go (Tycoon V and Trade V) before they're all finished with trade skills.

Amarr Station Trader - 305 orders (maxed),  Does nothing but station trade. Finished training trade skills.

Dodixie Station Trader - 305 orders (maxed). Does nothing but station trade. Finished training trade skills.

Rens Station Trader - 269 orders. Does nothing but station trade. Currently training Tycoon V.

Account 3

Lonetrek Regional Trader - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Daytrading V and all other remote order skills at IV. Mainly a buyer, he does sell a few things but mostly just buys, flies to Jita and contracts goods to my traders there for resale. Finished training trade skills.

Jita Station Trader #2 -  305 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Daytrading IV and all other remote skills at IV. Does nothing but station trade implants and mods. Currently training Tycoon V.

Account 4

Jita Station Trader #1 - 269 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Does nothing but station trade skillbooks.

Exploration / Scout / Scanning pilot - Flies Covert Ops (Buzzards) and is training Int/Mem support/scanning/exploration skills. Has all Astrometric skills at IV, most shield, navigation, fitting and exploration skills at IV or V. I don't plan on doing any serious trading on this character. He has 29 order slots, more than enough to buy things he needs and that's it. Currently training Energy Management V.

Account 5

My Main - On his own account (no more sharing the training queue) and concentrating mainly on Per/Wil combat skills, especially missile skills. 125 orders, Wholesale IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV and all of the "remote order" trade skills at IV. He hasn't been heavily involved in trade for some time now but does a little low maintenance trading in various places. Currently training Advanced Weapon Upgrades IV.

Account 6

Hek Station Trader - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Daytrading IV and the rest of the remote order skills at IV. Does nothing but station trade. Currently training Daytrading V.

Jita trader #4 - Yet another new trader. Won't do anything until he learns the basic trade skills Trade IV, Retail IV, Broker Relations IV, Accounting IV and Margin Trading IV. Will probably wind up taking over the Jita implants market from the current implants and mods trader allowing me to cover both the mods and implants markets better. Will start training basic trade skills in a few days.

Future plans

Overall I've been slowly working Regional Trade back into my trading strategy. Less work and higher profits per item though total profits aren't as high. I've gotten all remote order skills to IV on all my traders and started placing a mix of both station and regional orders on several of them. I've also gotten Daytrading V on most of them and might eventually get Marketing V on a few too.

Get the Couster  and Tash Murkon traders Broker Relations V and Accounting V. Then remap Int/Mem and work on flying support skills (mainly Navigation, Engineering and Electronics skills) for both characters. Will probably train both characters into Covert Ops too and might train one into Blockade Runners.

My main is mostly concentrating on getting more missile skills to V. I definitely want Caldari Cruisers V, Strategic Cruisers (Tengu), Recon and maybe Black Ops. I hate flying slow ships so battleships are low priority but eventually he'll get Caldari Battleships IV and Gallente Battleships 1 - IV (for Rattlesnakes) too. He'll be staying in the Per/Wil remap for a long time yet and will probably get a bunch of basic Gunnery skills to IV or V too.

Almost finished training trade skills on Amarr, Dodixie and Rens. I'll probably eventually train all three into Covert Ops and remap Int/Mem for support skills training though I might train one into something besides Trade (Industry maybe) first. Or I could transfer one of the "finished" characters to another account and start training up a new character on this account.

Continue training Int/Mem support skills on the exploration/scout/scanning character. Long term this character will continue following the Covert Ops line into Recon cruisers and eventually Black Ops battleships. Sometime soon I'll get Tycoon V and Trade V on the Jita skill-book trader too.

Remap Lonetrek to Int/Mem and start training for Covert Ops. Yes I know Cov Ops is Per/Wil, but the prereqs and support skills needed to fly Cov Ops well are mostly Int/Mem. Weapon skills don't matter, he's a trader not a fighter. Eventually get Tycoon V and Trade V on the Jita implants and mods trader too.

Train Covert Ops on Hek and train up trade skills on the new character. The new trader might eventually take over the Rens business so I can send the old Rens character (with Cov Ops) out to help with expansion in new regions.

Major Shipping Routes

This is a map I put down on paper for my own use a while back. I find it useful at times so I pulled out Gimp and whipped up a  quick digital version to share with everyone.  The map shows the main hi-sec trade hubs and the number of hi-sec jumps it takes to travel between them. 

I'm not real big on moving stock between hubs but when I do I usually use Red Frog Freight to move stock for me rather than move it myself. With RFF most of my contracts get delivered within 24 hours, shipments between major hubs usually take less than 12 hours and shipments originating from or being delivered to Jita often only take an hour or two.

There are 2 main trade routes I use far more often than others.

Jita is the monster trade hub with a larger market and more pilots docked and active than all other major trade hubs combined. Amarr is the next largest. Looking at the star map Jita and Amarr are quite far apart in absolute distance. One might assume the hisec jump route from Jita to Amarr is a long one with a lot of jumps but it's actually one of the shorter routes at just 9 jumps. It's a very busy route since Amarr is both closer to Jita than any of the other major hubs and the next largest major hub (after Jita) too.

Dodixie > Hek > Rens is just 14 jumps between 3 major hubs. It often makes sense to bundle everything up in Jita and send it to Dodixie first. Post some on Dodixie, send the rest to Hek, post more there and forward whatever's left to Rens. It will take longer routing courier contracts that way but in the end it'll save you 30 jumps over sending contracts directly from Jita to each of Dodixie, Hek and Rens.

Eve is not a PvP Game

Eve isn't a PvP game, it's a tycoon simulator, nearly everything in Eve is all about the ISK. Including most of the so-called PvP.

The self-proclaimed "elite PvPers" aren't PvPers, they're gank farmers who measure their worth in ISK. It's not about who you killed, what he was flying or how good he was, it's all about the ISK value in the kill-mail. Just another farmer.

Eve's so-called PvPers are just bullies preying on the weak. They're like grade school bullies. Grade school bullies don't fight, they just hang out (often in packs) looking for smaller kids (preferably alone) they can beat up easily. Cowards looking not for fights (a real fight is the last thing they want) but for easy prey that can't fight back effectively. Eve players aren't any different, they don't PvP, they camp gates and stations (usually in gangs) looking for someone they can easily beat.

Piracy in Eve is the big kid stealing the little kid's lunch because he knows the little kid can't do anything about it.

You aren't elite PvPers. You aren't elite ANYTHING. You're pathetic little children, cowardly bullies stealing candy from smaller, younger and weaker children.

I will grant that some low-sec and WH dwellers do engage in true PvP, however they're a very small minority. The vast majority of Eve players who call themselves PvPers are really nothing more than risk averse gank farmers and bullies preying on the weak.

Alternative Module Deals

When fitting ships many players just buy the most popular module commonly considered the best option. Usually it's a faction module that originated from the NPC LP stores but many times there's another variation of the same module that's a drop, is just as good and much cheaper. For example take a look at Caldari Navy X-Large Shield Booster and the Dread Guristas version.

As you can see in the screenshot above they have exactly the same stats. Fitting requirements and skill prerequisites are also the same. Other than the name, they are identical. Now let's compare prices.

Roughly 60 million for the Dread Guristas version and nearly 190 million for the navy version. The navy version goes for 3 times as much. Basically the same mod with a different name fetches 3 times the price. WOW!

Volume isn't all that different either, around 10 per day for the Navy version and 20 per day for the Dread Guristas version. It is notable that the Dread Guristas version used to be priced roughly twice as high as it is now but has steadily gone down to present price levels. However, even at it's highest price it was still priced significantly lower than the Navy version.

Why pay 3 times as much for the same mod with a different name? Just buy the Dread Guristas version!

It's really tempting to buy out most of the Dread Guristas ones and reprice them. Timing is bad for me though, a major competitor (who I'm quite certain bots) seems to have taken a break, gotten banned, or changed up his inventory. I've been swamped with cheap bulk buys on multiple items the last few days. It really picked up last night and cash is running a bit low. I made about 4 billion in the last 12 hours alone and still have billions more in cheaply acquired stock to move.

All screenshots were taken today, Saturday March 02 2013 at 6:30 pm, in Jita.

Progress Report - March 2013

Report on the status and progress of all my characters as of 01 March 2013. Mostly Trade oriented since making ISK is my main focus and trading is how I make ISK.

I buy and sell skill-books, faction/deadspace mods and implants covering all 5 main trade hubs (Jita, Amarr, Dodixie,  Hek and Rens) plus a few regions that don't have a major trade hub. I play fairly casually and update orders infrequently. Some characters get updated more often than others and I update sell orders more consistently than buy orders.

In February I slowed down my order posting/updating frequency again. I made another 13 billion, the same as in January.

Current net worth is 106 billion with around 3/4 of it in cash and market escrow. Most of the rest is in sell orders and recently acquired stock I haven't gotten around to posting for sale yet. Very little is in assets I don't intend to sell soon, a few ships and some mods I stock for my own use, maybe 2 billion in total.

That's my actual current total net worth, I don't pad the numbers by counting ISK I've earned but have since spent and no longer have. That'd be like calling myself a real life millionaire because I've earned over a million dollars during my life when the reality is I've never had anywhere near a million in total.

Account 1

My first account. This is the account my main started on. I've since transferred the main to his own account so he never has to share the training queue again and these two can train harder.

Couster Regional Trader, 269 buy orders, Tycoon IV, Wholesale V, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Buys a bunch of different things, transports to Dodixie and contracts to the main trader there for resale.

Tash Murkon Regional Trader. 125 buy orders, Wholesale IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Just started working this area, she'll probably wind up up mostly buying and transporting goods to Amarr for sale. Currently training Wholesale V.

Account 2

Amarr Station Trader. 305 orders (maxed), Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Does nothing but station trade. Finished training trade skills.

Dodixie Station Trader 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Does nothing but station trade. Finished training trade skills.

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

Account 3

Lonetrek Regional Trader. 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V Daytrading V and the rest of the remote order skills at IV. Mainly a buyer, does sell a few things but mostly just buys, flies to Jita and contracts goods to my two traders there for resale. Finished training trade skills.

Jita Station Trader 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Marketing IV, Daytrading IV. Does nothing but station trade implants and mods. Currently training Tycoon V.

Moved the Hek trader to a new account so Lonetrek can hog the queue for a while without holding back Hek's training.

Account 4

Jita Station Trader, 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Does nothing but station trade skillbooks. Finished training trade skills for now.

Exploration / Scout / Scanning pilot, flies Covert Ops (Buzzards) and is training Int/Mem support/scanning/exploration skills. Has all Astrometric skills at IV, most shield, navigation, fitting and exploration skills at IV or V. I don't plan on doing any serious trading on this character. He has 29 order slots, more than enough to buy things he needs and that's about it. Currently training Energy Management V.

Account 5

My Main, all by himself on his own account now and concentrating mainly on Per/Wil combat skills. 125 orders, Wholesale IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading IV and all of the "remote order" trade skills at IV. He's not heavily involved in trade but does a little low maintenance ninja trading and lowball purchasing in various places. Currently training Energy Management V.

Account 6

Hek Station Trader 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Does nothing but station trade. Currently training Tycoon V.

Yet another trader. New character, trained Trade III, has Retail injected (but not trained yet) and already bought Broker Relations, Accounting and Margin Trading books to learn later. Won't train any further until Hek learns Tycoon V, Trade V and Daytrading V.

Future plans

Overall I've been slowly working Regional Trade back into my trading strategy. Less work and higher profits per item though total profits aren't as high. I've gotten all remote order skills to IV on all my traders and started placing a mix of both station and regional orders on several of them. I'll get Daytrading V on several characters and maybe Marketing V on a few too.

I might start a 3rd Jita trader to use as a price capper to stabilize prices on certain high volume, absurdly heavily camped items and hopefully chase some of the no-lifers and bots off those items. I could always use more traders to work a few more regions I'm not currently working too.

Get the Couster trader Broker Relations V, Accounting V, then the same for Tash Murkon. Then remap Int/Mem and work on flying support skills (mainly Navigation, Engineering and Electronics skills) for both characters. Will probably train both characters into Covert Ops too and might train one into Blockade Runners.

My main just got Shield Management V and will learn Energy Management V soon too but mostly he'll just keep working on getting more missile skills to V. I really don't care for flying big slow ships so battleships are rather low priority for me but I'll eventually get Caldari Battleships IV and Gallente Battleships 1 - IV so I can fly Rattlesnakes. The skills I need for ships I really do want to fly are Caldari Cruisers V, Strategic Cruisers (Tengu), Recon and maybe Black Ops. He'll probably stay in the Per/Wil remap for at least another 6 months and get basic Gunnery skills to at least IV too.

Get Tycoon V and Trade V on Rens. Get Daytrading V on all 3 characters and maybe Marketing V too. Train Covert Ops and remap Int/Mem for support skills training. Eventually I'll probably train something besides Trade (Industry maybe) on Amarr or Dodixie. Or I might transfer one of the "finished" characters to account 1 or 5 and start training up a new character on account 2.

Continue training Int/Mem support skills on the exploration/scout/scanning character. Long term this character will continue following the Covert Ops line into Recon cruisers and eventually Black Ops battleships. At some point I'll get Tycoon V and Trade V on the Jita skill-book trader too.

Remap Lonetrek to Int/Mem and start training for Covert Ops. Yes Cov Ops is Per/Wil, but the prereqs and support skills needed to fly Cov Ops well are Int/Mem. Weapon skills don't matter, he's a trader not a fighter. Eventually get Tycoon V and Trade V on the Jita implants and mods trader too.

Train Tycoon V and Trade V on the Hek trader. After that train Cov Ops on Hek and train up trade skills on the new character. The new trader will probably eventually take over the Rens business so I can send the old Rens character out to help expand into new regions.