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.
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.
Amarr Trader #2 - New character just started training. Currently training Cybernetics IV.Account 7
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.
You might wish to consider character selling. It looks as if you'll always have a just about finished trader ready at any point in the future and there's good passive isk on skill training.
ReplyDeleteI have thought about that. I'm not sure how well traders would sell though. It takes about 3 months and 1.5 billion ISK to train one up.
DeleteI did a little bit of checking on the character bazzar before starting the new characters. I only found one that was a pure (nearly anyhow) trader and it sold for 3 billion.
Then of course it cost the seller ~1 billion or so (2 plex) to transfer the character. That transfer fee would be a real kick in the nuts for anyone trying to sell characters with only a few months training.
Not worth it IMO but if I ever wind up with more traders than I can use effectively I'd sell some. I doubt that'll happen though. With enough ISK I could run an awful lot of traders, logging in on a couple a day working mid-long term cycles almost passively on most of them. In fact I read something once where the writer said that's exactly what he does with over 100 traders scattered all over the map.