New Market Blog - MarketsforISK

Another WoW auction blogger has seen the light. Croda has recently started a new Eve market blog. His old WoW blog has been around for quite a while and he produced good material there.

I'm looking forward to reading his new blog for Eve Online.

MarketsforISK

Croda's already made his first billion in Eve (in 16 days). Though he hasn't been around Eve long yet it looks like he'll be sticking around. He already has a number of good market related posts up including a nice series on how he made his first billion.

Blunder - Easy Money

Sometimes other players make it really easy to make money. A player will buy something from you then a little later sell it right back to you for much less.

In this case he bought a module from me for 31.9 million, then a couple hours later sold it back to me for just 11 million. Doh!

Note I normally don't include player names in these blunder posts because their purpose is to show how silly mistakes can increase or decrease your profits, not to embarrass or make fun of anyone. I made an exception this time to show that the same player was involved in both the sale and the purchase.

Eve Offline - Broken Launcher

A new launcher was released today. Unfortunately it doesn't work.

The new launcher takes forever to load and hangs often. When it does load it just loads up with the following message displayed:

OFFLINE MODE

You are seeing this because no connection could be made to the content server or something went wrong while loading the online content


Supposedly this is due to a server side timeout error when attempting to connect to the web servers.

In addition many of those who can log in have been experiencing a mass local settings reset problem caused by incorrect paths in the new launcher.

More info on the problem here

And this forum post contains instructions from the devs for a workaround to load the game client without going through the launcher.

1) Locate the folder where you installed EVE. If you are not sure where that folder is, see http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/EVE_default_directories
2) From the EVE installation folder, open the folder called “bin” and there you will find the ExeFile.exe
3) Run this ExeFile.exe to start the EVE Online client

Note: I did the above, the game launched and notified me of an update which I then installed. The install failed during initialization so I ran repair.exe (in the main Eve folder) next. Repair.exe ran for several minutes but in the end it also reported failure with the error "WindowsError: [Error 5] Access is denied: 'C:\\Program Files\\CCP\\EVE\\launcher\\launcher.exe'".

However since the error was at the end of the repair process and involved Launcher I tried running ExeFile.exe again and it worked fine. I logged in, didn't lose any settings and haven't noticed any other problems either.

Populating the Quickbar Quickly

There's a quick and easy way to populate your quickbar for some items. It doesn't work for everything but it works great for some things.

Basically it works great for mass adding entire segments of the market to your quickbar. Items that are all in the same market category like for example, skill books. It doesn't work very well for doing things like adding all Caldari Navy modules because they're scattered all over the place in many different market categories.

For example I recently redid the skill book section of my quickbar to look like this:

In the past I'd always added items to my quickbar one at a time and then moved them into folders. This time I decided to do it differently. I simply opened browse, right clicked the "skills" category and added the entire "skills" category to my quickbar.

Then I opened the quickbar and went through all the skill folders, removing all the low priced books I don't deal in. Basically everything priced under 1 mil at school stations.

Note: for a new trader who doesn't have much ISK yet, I'd recommend moving the cheapest books into a "< 1 mil" folder and concentrating mainly on those at first, particularly the ones worth 90k - 1 mil. Delete them later when you have enough ISK it isn't worth your time working the cheap books anymore.

Next, I made 2 new folders, < 5 mil and 90 mil +, for the cheapest and most expensive books. There are 184 skill books I trade. I moved  43 books into the < 5 mil folder and 27 into the 90 mil + folder leaving 114 others in their original market category folders. I left the 20 subsystems books (5 mil books) in their original folder because it makes sense to me to keep them together yet separate from other 5 mil books.

The 90 mil + folder makes it quick and easy to check the most expensive books on any character. The under 5 mil folder makes it simple to ignore the cheapest books on characters that deal with more than just skill books and don't have enough orders to cover all 184 books..

The 2 new folders are incredibly useful, far more so than I expected. They really help streamline my routine and make checking the skill book market on different characters in different locations a whole lot easier. In fact it's working so well I'll probably make another folder for skills worth 5-10 million ISK soon and I might start putting some mods and implants into low and high value folders too instead of grouping them all by faction (mods) or type (implants).

Also see copying market quickbar settings to copy your settings to other accounts.

One Day

To give an idea of the kind of sales volume a single trader can do without camping this is one days' worth of buying and selling on just one character. My Jita skill-book trader.

That's one out 12 active traders, with 6 more training up now and another 2 planned. And the 13th was a Monday, not a weekend.

I haven't done a full update of orders in over a week either. About all I've done on that character so far this month is post whatever was sitting in my inventory (meaning it was bought recently) and if necessary update/re-post buy orders for those items only (maybe 50 items at a time).

Edit: This character handles nothing but skill books and uses station buy orders only.

Stupid Typos

Another dumb typo, mine this time.

At least it was only 1 extra digit and not 2 or 3. Then again 2 or 3 would have been better since the character didn't have enough ISK on him to cover either. Mind you considering how brain dead the code behind this is it wouldn't surprise me if with 2 extra digits it would have sold me 2 for 2 billion each and just failed to buy the 3rd.

Oh well, mistakes happen, it's a cost of doing business. I make more off other's typos than I lose on my own. Still I wish CCP would spend a few minutes sometime to fix this brain dead, ass-backwards code.

Training Report - May 2013

Training report for all my characters dated 03 May 2013

I've worked regional trade back into my trading strategy and cut a bunch of low value items that just aren't worth the time it takes to work them anymore. I've gotten remote order skills to at least IV on all traders now (except the newest traders of course) and have been placing a mix of both station and regional orders on many of them. I've also either already gotten or am working on getting Daytrading V and Marketing V on most of them.

I'll be starting up 6 or 7 new accounts over the next little while. Each account will have one new trader on it. They'll all train hard for about 3 months, then I'll transfer most of them to other accounts to reduce monthly plex needs. Two of the new accounts were started earlier tonight, hopefully I'll find the time to get the rest done within a few days.

Of the new traders one will go to each of Amarr, Dodixie, Hek and Rens so I'll have 2 traders on each of those hubs. One for skill books and one for mods and implants. Another place might get a 2nd trader too. It'll take a month or so before the new traders are ready to start taking over skill-books and over 3 months before they're fully trained.

The remaining 2-3 new traders will go to secondary hubs I don't currently have traders on. They'll probably be primarily sellers, not buyers.

Though I don't list it below, all of my characters (even the non traders) have Contracting II or III. I only use contracts for transferring items between characters and moving items between regions/stations (courier contracts). None of my characters have Corporation Contracting and they don't need it since they're all in NPC corporations.

Account 1

Couster Regional Trader - 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Currently training Accounting V.

Tash Murkon Regional Trader - 269 orders, Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations IV, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV.

Jita Station Trader #3 - 125 orders, Wholesale IV, Broker Relations IV, Accounting IV, Margin Trading V, DayTrading IV and Marketing IV. Buys inexpensive modules (T2 and meta 4) mostly for my own use. Finished training for now.

Future plans: Get Accounting V on Couster, then get Broker Relations V, Tycoon V and Trade V on both Tash-Murkon and Couster. 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 eventually and might train one into Blockade Runners.

The Jita trader will be fine with the skills she has for now.

Account 2

The traders of Amarr, Dodixie and Rens. All characters on this account have 305 market orders. With the exception of Dodixie (who has nearly a week to go for Marketing V) they also have Trade V, Retail V, Wholesale V, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Marketing V, Daytrading V, Procurement IV, Visibility IV and Contracting III.

Amarr Station Trader - 305 orders (maxed),  Finished training trade skills.

Dodixie Station Trader - 305 orders (maxed). Currently training Marketing V.

Rens Station Trader - 305 orders (maxed). Finished training trade skills.

Unless one of these characters moves to another station in low/nul they'll never need to train Procurement V or Visibility V. If they don't join a corporation they won't need more contracts either.

Future plans: I intend to train all three into Covert Ops and remap Int/Mem for support skills training next. I might train one into something besides Trade (Industry maybe) before getting Cov Ops though.

Account 3

Lonetrek Regional Trader - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Marketing V, Daytrading V and all other remote order skills at IV. Finished training trade skills and remapped Int/Mem. Currently training Covert Ops and Int/Mem support skills.

Jita Station Trader #2 -  305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Marketing V, Daytrading V and all other remote skills at IV. Does nothing but trade officer/deadspace/faction mods. Recently turned the implant business over to a new character.

Future plans: Get Covert Ops and continue training Int/Mem support skills on Lonetrek. Weapon skills don't matter, he's a trader not a fighter. Once he has Cov Ops (less than a month away), I might start training a new trader on this account.

Account 4

Jita Station Trader #1 - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V and all remote order skills at IV. Does nothing but station trade skill-books. Finished training trade skills.

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 Evasive Maneuvering V.

Future plans: Continue training Int/Mem 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. Will eventually start a new character on this account or transfer a fully trained trader to it.

Account 5

My Main - On his own account (no more sharing the training queue) and concentrating mainly on Per/Wil combat skills, with particular focus on 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 (mostly selling) in various places. Currently training Missile Projection V.

Future plans: My main is concentrating on getting more missile skills to V. Other high priority skills are Caldari Cruisers V, Strategic Cruisers (Tengu), Recon and maybe Black Ops eventually. I hate flying slow ships so battleships are low priority but at some point 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. I'll probably eventually transfer a couple other characters to this account (ones that are finished training for good).

Account 6

Hek Station Trader - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Daytrading V and all other remote order skills at IV.

Jita trader #4 - 125 orders, Wholesale IV, Broker Relations IV, Accounting IV, Margin Trading V.  Daytrading III, Marketing III. He's taken over the Jita implants market from the Jita mods trader who used to handle both implants and mods. This allows me to cover the mods market much more thoroughly than before. With a few more weeks training this character will be able to cover implants much better too. Currently training Accounting V.

Future plans: Train trade skills on the implants trader to Tycoon IV, get Marketing V on Hek and then get Covert Ops on Hek. After that get Tycoon V and Trade V on the implants trader or maybe start a new character on this account.

Account 7

Amarr Trader #2 - New character just started training. Currently training Cybernetics IV.

Once he finishes training Cybernetics IV he'll remap Charisma/Memory and plug in +4 Charisma, Memory and Willpower implants to speed up training. He (and all the other new traders) will need about 3 months training to get the minimum skills I want them to have before transferring to consolidate accounts and reduce plex needs.

At minimum they'll all get 269 orders with Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Marketing IV, Daytrading IV and Contracting III.

Once the new traders are done training trade skills two of them will transfer to this account, the other new traders will transfer to open character slots on older accounts and the rest of the new accounts will be allowed to expire... Unless I decide to use them to train capital pilots or something.

Account 8

Dodixie Trader #2 - Same as the character on account 7 above. Will transfer to another account when finished.

Financial Report - April 2013

Financial report for the month of April 2013 (last month). Trade oriented since trading is how I make virtually all of my ISK.

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

In April I made 30 billion after expenses making it my best month to date (7 billion more than last month). Actually there's another couple billion in courier contracts that aren't shown here but that's normal. I never count courier contracts in these reports.

Current net worth is 159 billion (not counting courier contracts) with the majority 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 keep in 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.