Sunday 28 July 2013

OOPS!

I've seen a lot of silly blunders on the market (and made a few myself) but the one I found in my wallet transactions log today was one I've never seen the likes of before.



This guy sold me 3 different modules for 0.01 ISK each, far less than my buy order prices. Making a typo on a sell order I can understand, it happens. But for 0.01 ISK, on 3 orders in a row and all the same type of module (faction BCS mods)?

Really stupid, really drunk, a mean brother/friend and a misconfigured bot are about all I can think of that could have caused fail of this magnitude. Any other ideas?

Thursday 25 July 2013

More on Input Lag

Pursuant to my Input Lag post a few days ago, I entered a reimbursement ticket regarding market order input lag.

My Ticket

I'm getting tired of getting ripped off due to input lag when entering buy orders.

It happened again today, I entered the numbers for a buy order... I double checked the numbers and realized a zero was missing so I fixed it, checked the numbers again and hit enter.

Then the game sort of freezes for a few seconds, the missing digit appears, the order goes through and I wind up overpaying by about 3 billion total for 10 sisters core probe launchers.

Fixing the order system would make order entry errors due to input lag like this a non-issue.

Make it so when you enter a buy price higher than highest sell order it gets filled from sell orders at the sell order price. And just the opposite when entering sell orders, low priced sell orders should be filled at the price of higher priced buy orders.

The way it works now isn't just stupid, unrealistic and annoying, it also rewards cheating bots who reap most of the benefits of such errors since they usually have the lowest sell / highest buy orders and never have to worry about similar input errors themselves, while punishing honest players for not cheating.

That's the 3rd time now this has happened to me for significant losses (the latest 2 were in the billions).

Please fix this crap!

Friday 19 July 2013

Input Lag



Another boneheaded typo... Another 3 billion down the drain... Except it wasn't a boneheaded typo.

It was input lag.

Ever notice how sometimes it takes forever to update the market? Well when the game is getting laggy like that sometimes the market price entry input box suffers from lag too. You enter a price check the numbers and realize it's missing a digit or 3, so you add the missing digits, double check the numbers and hit enter.

Then it sort of freezes for several seconds, the missing digits appear, the order goes in and you wind up overpaying bigtime.

That's the third time now this has happened to me for amounts in the billions. The first time I wasn't positive about exactly what happened but I thought it was lag so I've been keeping an eye out for it since. The next 2 times I'm absolutely certain about it. I checked the numbers, they were short, I fixed them, double checked the numbers, hit enter, then watched it freeze momentarily and then overpay.

I really wish they'd fix this stupid crap. The best and simplest fix would be making it so when you enter a buy price higher than highest sell order it gets filled from sell orders at the sell order price. And just the opposite for entering low priced sell orders they should be filled at the price of higher priced buy orders.

Then it wouldn't matter if there are a few seconds of input lag.

The way it works now isn't just stupid, unrealistic and annoying, it also rewards cheating bots who reap most of the benefits of such errors since they usually have the lowest sell / highest buy orders and never have to worry about similar input errors themselves, while punishing honest players for not cheating.

No doubt there'll be a bunch of replies insisting I must have imagined it, I'm crazy, I'm just making it up or it's my computer but it's not any of that.

What I'd like to know is if anyone else has noticed the same thing?

Thursday 18 July 2013

Moving Stock Away From Major Hubs For Good Prices

Sometimes getting a good price requires trying new items and finding new places to sell them at. Lately I've been selling a fair number of ship hulls (among other things). I buy them on Jita and ship them off to carefully chosen stations to sell at (stations besides the 5 main hubs that is).

Here's an example.


Some buyers even bought more than one at a time!

I shipped another 20 manticores out to the same station today and priced them a little higher since there were no others listed.

Manticores normally go for around 20 million in sell orders on Jita so that's around 33% profit. I've bought stacks of 10 or 20 at jita market sell prices, shipped them off via courier contract and resold them for as much as 40 million (100% profit). Some were only shipped 1 jump away though most were 10-20 jumps.

Manticores, Drakes, Crows, Tengus are just a few of the ships I've been selling.

Ships are slowly but surely becoming a bigger part of my business. Away from the main hubs I find the competition on ships isn't as bad as on most things. When prices are too close to Jita prices I'll often post over market, wait a day or three until the competition sells out and then mine sell at a much better price. I figure the competition isn't as bad because shipping hulls takes a lot of cargo space, many players don't have a ship big enough to move hulls in or can't move very many at once and aren't willing to pay for / wait for courier service.

Don't just sell the same stuff everyone else is selling, a lot of things sell well everywhere. Try some of your best sellers in other places, especially high volume items, they'll probably sell just about anywhere. I've had a lot of success getting excellent prices for things nobody else was selling in the area. In some cases nobody (according to market history anyhow) had ever sold one in the entire region!

Knowing who's in the area and what they do can help you figure out what they're likely to buy and what they might pay a nice premium for but don't be afraid to take a chance on something unusual. Sometimes you'll be amazed at what sells and just how much you can get for it.

Wednesday 17 July 2013

When did CCP sell Eve Online?

"There's a new patch available. Would you like to download it now?"

That message has been popping up at login with distressing regularity lately. Sometimes it seems like there's a new patch/fix every couple days.

The last expansion was really buggy when it was first released and it's been patched repeatedly since. That reminds me of another MMO publisher for another game I used to play.

So the question is did Blizzard buy Eve?

Or maybe CCP has adopted Blizzard's policy of hiring unqualified idiots based on in-game celebrity/noteriety and sycophantic relationships with senior developers rather than actual coding ability or game design experience. There certainly have been an awful lot of well known Eve players hired by CCP, but how many of them are actually any good at writing code or capable of unbiased objective design?

Whatever the real reasons may be buggy releases and constant patches are some of the first signs of serious development problems. I hope they get it straightened out soon.

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Ship Fit - Tengu Trader

I've been working on getting Tengu subsystems skills to V on my main for a couple weeks now. He has 3 down and 2 more to go. For use as a shiny hauler the only subsystems skills that really matter are Defensive (more tank) and Propulsion (better alignment time) so I trained those to V first and bought my first Tengu.

This is a tank fit intended for transporting valuable items in both low and hi sec. My requirements for the fit were simple. I wanted as heavy tank as possible without making it overly expensive and I wanted good speed, in particular alignment time under 4 seconds while flying solo without implants or boosters. And of course a Covert Ops Cloak was a must have. Here's what I came up with.


[Tengu Trader - lowsec]

Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
EM Ward Field II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile
Heavy Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Missile

Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II
Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

Tengu Defensive - Supplemental Screening
Tengu Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Tengu Propulsion - Intercalated Nanofibers
Tengu Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Tengu Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer


254k tank with all Vs (253k with my current skills)
3.61 sec alignment time with MWD off (4.88 with MWD on)
1361 m/s with MWD on (239 with MWD off)

Fully cap stable at 54.9% (all Vs, 52.5% my skills) with everything (including the MWD) on.

472 million ISK total cost as estimated by Pyfa (the in game reality was a bit less than that).


In nullsec you'd want to swap in Tengu Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier. That'll lose you a low slot which means dropping a PDS and about 11k tank but it's well worth the trade-off for immunity to bubbles.

Medium CDFE IIs aren't all that expensive (under 30 mil each) and make a fairly significant difference in the tank, more than enough to be worth using over cheap CDFE Is. The nano is required to keep alignment time under 4 seconds without implants or boosters, with them the nano could be exchanged for another PDS.

I could go with a faction fit. Swap out the invulns and EM ward field for Dread Guristas or Caldari Navy, the PDSes for Caldari Navy and gain another 55k tank (308k total) but the cost would increase by nearly 3 times to 1.33 billion. Not worth it IMO.

Or I could get ridiculous and fit it with deadspace Pithium A invulns, Pithium X EM Ward Field and Caldari Navy PDSes for an additional 83k (426k total) at a total cost of 4.67 billion. Definitely not worth it, the fittings alone would make me a target regardless of cargo.

Sunday 14 July 2013

Blockade Runner - First Impressions

I just got my first Blockade Runner pilot flying a Minmatar Prowler. I finally finished training Minmitar Industrial V yesterday and realized I didn't need Transport Ships IV for my planned fit. III was good enough and I already had that trained, so I bought a Prowler, slapped on my chosen mods/rigs and took it out for a test drive immediately.

So far, I LOVE IT!

It's nearly as fast as the frigates I've been flying all along and it aligns in under 4 seconds just like the frigates too. But it has better tank, far more cargo capacity and can't be cargo scanned.

I do wish Blockade Runners had better tank (another mid, another low and a little more power grid would be perfect) but I feel that way about many other ships too (especially cargo ships). Who knows, maybe my wish will come true and they'll get buffed after the T1 Industrial rebalance is done.

That's just wishful thinking though, my only real concern is that it actually is a ship intended for moving cargo around. As such it'll almost certainly draw more attention from gankers than the ships I have been using for transport. Probably not as safe on autopilot as my old frigates.

On the other hand, gankers can't see what I'm carrying, it can take quite a bit more damage before popping and should be able to survive smartbomb spamming camps easily.

The only real question (which only time will answer) is whether or not the increased survivability and unscannable cargo will make up for the greater attention drawn.


[Prowler fit - 4 sec Align]

Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

Experimental 10MN Microwarpdrive I
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
[Empty High slot]

Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I


My Prowler pilot only has Evasive Maneuvering IV, Spaceship command IV and no skill implants. With Vs in either of those skills and/or an agility implant I could drop one nano or polycarbon and still keep alignment time under 4 seconds.

With Vs in both skills and a 5% agility implant (Rogue Evasive Maneuvering EM-705) I could drop one of each or both polycarbons.

Replacing one of the nanos with a Damage Control II would increase tank by nearly 50%. So yeah, I think I'll train the skills to V and get myself a suitcase.

This thing has oceans of cap and is cap stable with the MWD off. I never worry about running out of cap. I hit warp, cloak and both Invulns for every warp and never drop much lower than 70% cap.

With the MWD on it's not cap stable (50 seconds with medicore IIIs and IVs in cap skills, 60s with all Vs) but that's not a problem since the MWD is mostly for emergency use. It won't be used much and only for a few seconds at a time.

I spent a while flying around low sec looking for trouble to see how it performed while under attack. I wanted someone to shoot at me but unfortunately no-one even targeted me far less attacked. I guess I'll just have to fly out to EC-P8R or Aunenen sometime to stress test it.

Anyhow, though it's too soon to be certain, my initial impression now that I've actually flown a Blockade Runner is they're a whole lot better than I thought they were... But still not quite as good as I wish they were.

Edit: After only a couple days flying the prowler I've changed the training plan for my Amarr trader who had just started training Cloaking IV. Rather than training Minmatar Frigates and Cov Ops next as originally planned she'll be training Industry, Minmatar Industrials and Transport Ships instead.

Training Report - July 2013

Training report for all my characters as of 14 July 2013

My old training report format was becoming a bit unwieldy with so many characters so it's time for a change.

First some numbers:

12 Accounts
19 Characters

18 Traders (all but 2 with 269+ orders)

5 Covert Ops pilots (2 more in training with 1 and 2 weeks to go)
1 Blockade Runner pilot
1 Tengu pilot (another in training with 24 days to go)
1 Recon pilot
1 Rattlesnake pilot
19 Vigil pilots =)

15 PLEX/mo (3 accounts dual training)

I've been working a mix of regional and station trading with a fair bit of hauling / courier contracts between regions for several months now. The Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek and Lonetrek traders have dropped everything worth under 5 million and secondary traders on those hubs are working those items now. Most of my traders have Daytrading V and Marketing V now, the few that don't will have them soon. Most of them also have Procurement IV and Visibility IV.

I started up 6 new accounts a couple months ago. Each account has one trader on it. All of them have Tycoon IV now and are working on either Tycoon V or Broker Relations V. They all have roughly another 1.5 months of training to go before they're finished. At that point I'll probably transfer several of them to other accounts to consolidate accounts and save a few plex.

The original plan for 5 of the new traders was to have them take over the skillbook business on Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek and in Lonetrek. I've already moved all skillbooks worth 5 million or less to the new traders but I've changed my mind about the rest of the plan for them.

I'm going to keep the high value skillbooks on the original traders and only work the cheapest books on the new alts. I'll probably wind up moving all skillbooks worth 10 million or less to them eventually, maybe even 20 million. I've started started buying some other low value items on them too, a few things they'll use themselves and a little dabbling in / experimenting with a few other odds and ends.

That way I'll have all the highest value / most profitable items on one character at each hub and all the low value items on another. The high value traders can be checked on and updated more often while the low value traders can work long term bulk trends with infrequent updates.

Or another option I'm considering is to drop everything under 10 or 20 million and have 1 trader work skillbooks and mods while the other works say implants and boosters.

The remaining new trader has taken over the business on Ichoriya from my main.

I'm getting Contracting IV on all my traders now too because it only takes 14 hours to train and I actually had one of my buyers run out of contracts once while transferring items scattered all around a region to another character for pickup!

Account 1

dual training active

Couster Regional Trader - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Daytrading IV, Marketing IV, Procurement IV, Visibility IV and Contracting IV. Currently training Marketing V.

Tash Murkon Regional Trader - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Daytrading V, Marketing V, Procurement IV, Visibility IV and Contracting IV. Finished training for now.

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

Future plans: Finish training trade skills on all 3 characters. Then remap Int/Mem and work on flying support skills (mainly Navigation, Engineering and Electronics skills) one at a time. Will probably train at least 2 characters into Covert Ops eventually and might train one into Blockade Runners.

Dual training has allowed me to start training the "spare" Jita trader up too.


Account 2

dual training active

The traders of Amarr, Dodixie and Rens. All characters on this account have 305 market orders with 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 or IV.

Amarr Station Trader - 305 orders (maxed),  Currently training Covert Ops and relevant support skills.

Dodixie Station Trader - 305 orders (maxed). Cov Ops pilot. Currently training flying support skills.

Rens Station Trader - 305 orders (maxed). Cov Ops pilot. Finished training for now.

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. After that I'll probably train one into something besides Trade (Industry maybe).


Account 3

Lonetrek Regional Trader - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Marketing V, Daytrading V, Procurement IV, Visibility IV, Contracting IV. Finished training trade skills and remapped Int/Mem. Cov Ops and Blockade Runner pilot. Currently training 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.

Future plans: Continue training Int/Mem support skills on the Lonetrek trader. Weapon skills don't matter, he's a trader not a fighter.


Account 4

dual training active

Jita Station Trader #1 - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Marketing V, Daytrading V, Procurement IV, Visibility IV and Contracting IV. Does nothing but station trade skill-books. Currently training Int/Mem support skills.

Exploration / Scout / Scanning pilot - Flies Covert Ops (Buzzard), Recon (Falcon) 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 Recon 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 - Cov Ops, Tengu, Rattlesnake pilot. All by himself on his own account 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 Tengu subsystems skills from IV to V (3 finished, 2 more to go).

Future plans: My main is concentrating mainly on Tengu and Missile skills. I'll probably get Recon and maybe Black Ops too. I hate flying slow ships so battleships are low priority for me though I'll probably get Caldari and Gallente Battleships to IV (both are at III now) for Rattlesnakes eventually. He'll be staying in the Per/Wil remap for a long time yet and will probably get a bunch of Gunnery skills to IV or V too. I'll probably eventually transfer a couple other characters to this account.


Account 6


Hek Station Trader - 305 orders, Tycoon V, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V, Daytrading V, Procurement IV, Visibility V and Contracting IV. Currently training Minmatar Frigates V.

Jita trader #4 - 305 orders, Tycoon, Accounting V, Broker Relations V, Margin Trading V.  Daytrading V, Marketing IV, Procurement III. Handles the Jita implants market and dabbles a little in boosters. Finished training for now.

Future plans: Finish training Cov Ops + a few support skills on Hek then get Marketing V on Jita.


Accounts 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Six new accounts I started around 2 months ago with 1 character on each account (just before the news about dual training broke). They're all traders following the same training plan with the first two a day ahead of the next two and the last couple roughly a week behind that.

All of them have Tycoon IV, Accounting V, Marketing IV, Daytrading IV, either have or are nearly finished training Broker Relations V and are currently training either Tycoon V or Broker Relations V.

One of them runs the Ichoriya business, the other 5 are secondary traders for Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek and Lonetrek. The 5 secondary traders are currently just handling skillbooks worth under 5 million ISK  plus buying a few mods for their own use. They have plenty of spare orders to start buying other things with.

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Blunder - Another Typo

Many of my most profitable buys come from other people's typos. Here's another example:


The implant is well over 250 million in sell orders and my buy order is for 88 million, yet someone sold me one for just 250 thousand.


Obviously the seller meant to post a sell order for 250 million and forgot the last 3 significant digits.

I posted it for 275 million. I don't expect it to sell for that but who knows, maybe I'll get lucky. More likely I'll have to cut the price quite a bit before it sells. But in any case, since I paid so little for it,  it's guaranteed to bring in a nice fat profit.

I still say CCP has this market mechanic completely bass ackwards. The buyer should have gotten 88 million (my buy order price) rather then me getting it for a ridiculously low price due to a silly (possibly lag induced) typo. Same for buy orders, if you accidently typo a buy order too high, it should be filled by lower priced sell orders at the sell order price.

Seriously, we're flying around in spaceships full of computer controlled toys doing all kinds of impossible things, yet our order entry system is so brain dead it can't even handle the simplest, most basic tasks properly?

Monday 1 July 2013

Financial Report - June 2013

Financial report for the month of June 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 June I made 22 billion after expenses. I made over 16 billion in the first 10 days of the month and broke 200 billion. After that I lost most of my motivation to update orders and make courier contracts. I hardly did anything the rest of the month and only made another 4 billion for the last 20 days of the month. I still haven't gotten the motivation back to spend much time working the market yet and it'll probably be a while longer before I do.




Current net worth is 208 billion 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.