Our EvE » calculations

Picking Planet Parts

Kename Fin — Thu, 05 May 2011 08:10:45 +0000

On [Re]-Evaluating the Whole Wormhole Works

Non-Industrialists Must Stop Reading Now and Go Shoot Miners!

For the rest of you – there has always been a small [ok LARGE] part of me that enjoys the industrial side of EVE. I like shooting people in ships, flying around looking for targets, debating how best to fit a ship for a job and if it is even a valid application; however I also like making things. For several reasons I have variously gotten involved in mining ore, making munitions and modules, building ships, inventing Tech 2 items and ships, harvesting gasses, reacting polymers, reverse engineering artifacts, building Tech 3 pieces and putting together planetary colonies for producing various tower fuels, T2 components and raw materials. It is the POS fuels and their production that this post deals with.

There are a multitude of ways to go about this and I will probably forget some along the way, so feel free to point those out to me. In the mean time, the following is a walk-through of how I got to where I am. Remembering how I had started with trying to set everything up in one go I knew that I was going to give it plenty of thought and try and do my homework.

When Penny and I returned to a C4 to live and hunt with a smaller pack, I opted to look at the whole PI process again and evaluate how best to approach it. I opted to see if I could produce enough robotics to keep the tower supplied without having to import them. They are an expensive part of the fuel calculation and would significantly affect what we had to provide on our own. This plan was to use the planets in the system to produce fuel for use and not for sale. The first fuel setup was Robotics as it accounts for about 15% of the total fuel costs and 30% of the non-ice fuel costs. A balanced fuel load [using as much of the fuel cargo space in the tower with all fuels for the same number of days] for our large faction tower means we need 816 units of robotics every 34 days.

In order to do this, we need to be able to produce 24 robotics per day. One Advanced Industry Facility produced 3 [u]nits of robotics per hour given 40u of Mechanical Parts and 40u of Consumer Electronics. This works out to 72u robotics per day if there is sufficient supply of Mechanical Parts and Consumer Electronics. The goal is then to determine how best to go about getting the Mech. Parts and Cons. Elect. supplies necessary to keep the Robotics rolling off the line continuously. The first attempt saw extraction and production spring up on our plasma world for Cons. Elect. and on a Barren planet for Mech. Parts. The second barren planet was then setup to combine the P2 materials into robotics.

One of the things that quickly became apparent when setting up a large scale Planetary Interaction colony was the extreme PG need for a large number of extractor heads. Thus there was always going to be a compromise over the amount of P0 material extracted and the number of basic industrial factories that could convert it to P1. Thus I was able to get about 1,400u each of Mech. Parts and Cons. Elect. This made for about 35u Robotics per day. While this was sufficient for producing the fuel we need for our tower, it was a very depressing return for what seemed like so much work put into clicking, hauling and then clicking again. This also only resulted in 500,000 isk/day in excess revenue which hardly seemed worth the time sink. It is for things like this that I pay people to change the fluids in my planetary vehicle.

Fuzzy Maths

kename — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:18:07 +0000

On Adding, Subtracting and Finding Yourself Happy

Some things are easily quantified and measured. They can be numbered, totalled, divided, analysed and reported. This is basic maths and accounting, in that you know how much of something there is and how much it is worth in time, effort, profit, etc. These are the things that most people aim for and are more than happy pursuing. More and better ships, profit, ore, isk, research, production, flying, etc.

On the other hand, there are the unquantifiables. The things that defy counting and spurn attempts to wrangle them into mathematical formulae. The time spent teaching a new corporation member the way things are done or walking a newbie through basic scanning 101 can be really hard to put a number on/in/by. How do we assign a value to the logistics pilot that kept several millions or even billions of isk on the field longer in a fight? Is there any quantitative measure for the time spent making sure the POS was set up efficiently so that arrays were easily accessed without flying back and forth all over the bubble? How about the amount of energy and resources put into manning a gate camp?

Still another thing to consider is how much isk is enough? The answer ranges from the PVP pilot who like heroin addicts, just wants enough for the next fix, er, ship to the full-on industrialist/trader who needs all of the isk to be satisfied. Most of us fall somewhere in between where we have a comfortable point, varying slightly by our preferred hulls and fittings. We could all use more and could survive on less.

Orakkus recently wrote about what it takes to be a Solid Pilot, and I think it is just as applicable to the discussion of value [and worth a plug as well]. There is a certain value to a pilot that can fully fit a sniper battleship and the one that knows she needs to stick to something else. It is often immeasurably valuable for fleet commanders to know that the the people in the fleet know their roles and can adequately fill them. I am afraid of only two things in EVE: 1) Logging in and finding that my friends have decided to pack it up and move to some other venue; 2) Idiots.

The first is mitigated by the communication channels that friends share in and outside of New Eden but the second is something that shatters dreams in fits of screaming nightmares. This is another item of value that is hard to quantify. How long do you invest in people that seem to be unable to learn or at least very slow to pick things up? Almost every cost/benefit analysis argument generally boils down into either a he-said-she-said situation or becomes so subjective as to be meaningless.

Planetary Production Problems

Kename Fin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:07:12 +0000

On Using PI In Our Wormhole

What seems like a sure-win situation with the planets we had available before the release has turned into an annoying state of affairs that will need a lot more work to make it a production reality. Whereas we initially had a fairly good spread of lava, gas, barren, ice, storm – we now have lava, barren, temperate, plasma, storm. This is coupled with the fact that it would appear that any two given resources needed on a planet to manufacture a specific tier 2 product are in fact separated by a fairly large distance. This requires a lot of CPU for links and reduces a given colony’s effectiveness.

After polling the other pilots who are setting up shop in the w’hole, it seems that they are needing about 2-3 million per planet set-up in extractor and refinery costs. This is assuming that you get it right and don’t have to move anything around later. We’re still in the exploratory phase and will likely end tearing down and rebuilding several times before we get it ‘right’. This is also coupled with the fact that we’ll need to start co-ordinating our productions once people have a better handle on the process.

On the plus side, we have more than enough enriched uranium to last out the decade. Too bad we can’t set up a shop out here in the nether world for pilots passing through to buy from us. Corporate Sales Array anyone?

Ducks And Dragons

Kename Fin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 04:25:05 +0000

On the Prevalence of Drakes in Alliance Tournaments

I have noticed that on more than one occasion, the commentators for the Alliance Tournament VIII and in previous year lament the presence of Drakes on combat teams. Reasoning varies from low DPS to just extending the inevitable. Over the years, one thing that has held fairly consistent is the appearance and usage of Drakes by teams in the Alliance Tournaments. There are always multiple teams that field multiple Drakes. They are in fact, one of the most often fielded ships and account for a whopping 44% of all battlecruisers and more isk was spent on Drakes than battleships. Whatever else they might be, they are certainly present on a large number of teams. In the Alliance Tournament VII they were the third most popular ship behind the Rook and Ishkur.

Dead Duck

As the general consensus is that Drakes are poorly suited for PVP combat, why then do they show up so much? The certainly aren’t a requirement for victory as multiple teams have finished well and strongly without any Drakes on the field. Losing teams that fielded Drakes lost every one of them. Winning teams that fielded them lost 2 with a 87.5% survival rate and those were lost in the first match of the tournament. There is a lot of Drake-hate across the board.

This animosity towards the Drake extends far beyond the tournament. If you show up in a Drake for non-Drake fleet roams, you likely face ridicule. If you post a fitting on Battleclinic for a Drake you will get flamed and the fitting locked [more of an endemic problem with using Battleclinic in the first place] and posting to Scrapheap Challenge often results in cries of “Ban 09′s” and now “Ban 10′s” [referring to the registration date of the poster]. People associate the Drake with low-skill, new players who want to run missions and without worrying about anything other than F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7 [though now with grouping it has become even easier] and with Caldari Carebears who can’t be arsed to train for a real ship.

Maybe some of the FC’s with tournament experience can shed some light on this. I fully acknowledge the tournament doesn’t accurately reflect normal EVE PVP play. There are rules, there are boundaries, there are no Caps, there are relatively even numbers, there are no poddings…. Thus the expectations for what to bring may very well differ significantly than for a PVP conflict outside the tourney. In spite of all this, I think there are some valid reasons for their inclusion of the much maligned duck:

Tank
- It will likely take more than one opponent shooting at it to be taken down.
- It can often stay on the field for a long, long time.
- It is not as cap unfriendly as the other tank options.
Incoming!

Damage
- It can still produce a fair amount of damage:
  - Heavy Missiles can generate between 330 [EM/Exp/Therm]-400 [kinetic] DPS
  - Heavy Assault Missiles can generate between 450 [EM/Exp/Therm]- 570 [kinetic] DPS
- It can apply it’s damage over +70 km range for the Heavy Missiles
- Alpha strikes exceed 2,500.
- Drones can add another 80-100 dps with good skills.

Combined, this tank/damage combination causes two things to happen.

Opponent FC’s hesitate to primary Drakes for the relative difficulty in removing them.
Drakes are able to apply their damage over a longer period of time than similar ships.

Unless something changes significantly to affect the Drake’s tank or its bonuses, we will continue to see a lot of them fielded in the Alliance Tournaments.

Not Building Anything At All

Kename Fin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:11:55 +0000

On Using Alts to Make Life Easier

Keeping up with everything has never been easy. Being 2 billion jumps [autopilot never lies!] from any particular known space system only serves to make it a bit harder. Several of the Wormhole Engineers have left behind not only friends and family, but also productive production lines, mission agents and research jobs to kill Sleepers, harvest gas and occasionally [rarely] mine some ore. Several people have suggested alts, but while they are good at putting up some market orders, I’m really not comfortable yet taking training time away from my pilot just to be able to do some missions, mine some ore or make some stuff to sell. I am jealous of my training time and the mistakes I make with it. It was hard enough to give up the time for some scanning skills.

I recently came across another spreadsheet someone had produced for EVE a long time ago, and it got all my creative number juices flowing again. I took it in and gave it a home and began rewriting some of the information both for formatting purposes and for modernity. It had not be updated in several revisions of EVE Online and needed some tender loving care. So I jumped in with aplomb and started throwing formulae around like there was no tomorrow. It was loads of fun and the results were nothing less than stupendous. It is approximately at this point in time when I realise, “This looks familar.”

I pull up my previous sheets and — baring some formatting and organisational categories — I have pretty much replicated my previous production spreadsheet. This triggered an almost compulsory desire to get out a recipe and stick something in an oven somewhere to cook. A few seconds later and I realised that would require not only killing the current wormhole, but also scanning for another and then tracking down where it went, who might want to kill me along the way and hoping it was somewhere at least relatively close to an oven I could use with ingredients I might need. For those who have actually seen my production output, this might be fairly humorous as they would know I have managed to produce exactly *squat* in the last year. Prior to that I produced a lot of ships and modules and I’m proud to say that I never sold a single thing for profit. For those that don’t know me, just understand I’m in love with the idea of production and spreadsheets, but prefer not to get bogged down with the messy details of actually being industrial on a large scale.

So catching the train back to relevancy, I briefly toyed with the idea of a functional alt to manufacture stuff with and decided to just get back in my pod and recalculate the woman hours involved in building a carrier complete with fittings from scratch.

Industrial Quandry

Kename Fin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:00:21 +0000

How do I balance my own progress with that of providing for my corporation and or alliance? As an industrial character who has spent a fair number of hours learning to build nice things, how do I remain profitable while supporting those around me?

If I produce for the corporation and/or alliance, the expectation is that there is some kind of break in prices. As a conscientious industrialist, I am going to tell them how much it costs me and where it’s more than the market, suggest that they obtain it there. Where it is cheaper to build, I want to offer them the opportunity to get it cheaper and be there for the people that help make it possible. I have found that I am quite horrible though at maintaining the balance necessary between things produced for sales [the market] and those manufactured for consumption [the corporation/alliance]. Often then the result is a complete halt to my industrial tendencies.

This is often further complicated by my relative incompetence and disconnect with the sales and marketing side of things. I am quite comfortable in navigating the market, getting the resources I need, etc, but just as equally uncomfortable putting my wares up for sale. Finding holes, navigating gaps, incremental adjustments, market trends all tend to elude my grasp, leaving me with a very real sense of dissatisfaction with the sheer number of things I could be doing to maximise my profits, but are generally left undone. I envy both the selfless industrialist who is able to provide everything her corporation needs as well as the ruthless profiteer who is able to judge the market, jump into the fray and make obscene profits.

As a corollary to the above, there is also a push to be involved in corporate and alliance activities that are somewhat beyond my level. I am fairly competent at combat in sub-battleship roles, but could always use more experience and training in weapon systems. I’m quite happy to spend the time training for better weapons, drones, fittings, but have to balance this with a desire to also be able to improve my abilities to support my corp-mates with industry. Has anyone else figured out to do it all and do it well yet?

It is certainly something to work and think through.

Bring on the Bistot

Kename Fin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:30:07 +0000

I Am Your New Master

Bistot Is Primary!

Quick note: It looks like Bistot has edged Arkonor out as the mineral of highest refined value. Due in large part to the fact that Zydrine hasn’t fallen in price as much as Megacyte.

How To Fail

Kename Fin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:21:34 +0000

Hip, hip, horrific are the words we sing
Hip, hip, horrific is our thing -(TMBG)

As I look around and back at the posts I’ve written for the last year or so, I am reminded how well things have gone, but also how spectacularly I’ve managed to fail. If you are looking for pitfalls to avoid – you’ve found them. If you want to see how not to train for something; look no further. If you would rather have less isk at the end of the day, then this is your lucky blog!

Seriously, the posts that inhabit these pages are filled with the heartache and misery of a pilot bashing her head against the same asteroid day after day after day. At the end of the day there is a hangar full of veldspar and tritanium, some trash modules and a ship that desperately needs a tune up. Along the way the pilot has learned that you shouldn’t trust another pilot but you have to trust the other pilots until they fail you. You can’t put 4000 m3 in a GSC and there’s no way to get a station container out of a station. Overheating missiles is not so effective and skilling up adequately for boosters is going to be very expensive.

There are a few bright spots along the way. Namely, the ships and modules that have been opened up through a varied training programme that includes tech 2 mining equipment, logistics cruisers and some command ships. This is easily countered by the fail combat skills that barely allow for named heavy missiles on a Drake and some lame, unsupported rails on a Moa. It’s rather comical sometimes to be able to fit a full Tech 2 tank on every ship in the game, but then realize you still only have the equivalent of light weapons for armaments. Fear the fail firepower of 150mm rails on a Ferox! My heavy missile Drake of Dewm causes fits of laughter when people can safely orbit at 55 km and pick off my drones and then me.

Other suggest that I should be proud of the fact that I can invent nearly anything possible on the market, but even that seems to fall flat. I have consistently managed to lose money or break even on Tech 2 invention and production. My volume approach is low and slow, so as to be moving backwards in appearance. I can train people to use the towers, labs, production facilities, but seem to fail in doing so myself. What was I thinking! Science is for smart people. Production is for people who are actually motivated.

So what have we learned from all of this:

Train all the skills you possibly can [let's start with 231]
Train a wide variety of skills to level 5 [53 is a good number]
Science skills help you store lot’s of SP [9.6 million and counting]
Collect ships [So you can collect dust]
Every 3-4 months spend everything you have on one ship setup and then poke a pirate.

And I think I’ve rambled on enough for all of us today. And that is how to fail.

New Orca Work

Kename Fin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:26:35 +0000

Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes

– (TMGB)

Because I’m always a bit distracted and doing 20-30 different things at once, it often means that I hit things hard and hope I get enough to keep the project afloat until I get back around to it again. One of those projects is the ongoing Orca development project that manages to be purely theoretical in nature. All this means, I don’t actually produce Orcas, but I come back and look at their production costs in relation to the current ore/mineral prices. In update to a post of long ago [Orca Production Calculations], the following changes have been made:

An Orca can currently be broken down into its component pieces and then sub-costed into their mineral components. The overall picture doesn’t include any of the manufacturing costs and assumes NO Material Efficiency research. I am putting the picture of the calculations in this post, but I’ll try to summarise the numbers for brevity as well.

To produce an Orca requires 7 component blueprint and one ship blueprint that all average around 1.1 billion each to purchase from the market. Each of the seven components will cost approximately 4 million in minerals on average [3.2 million - 5.5 million]. Combined with the total number of each component, the cost to produce an Orca is currently approximately 310 million. Since I’m not selling Orcas, I feel comfortable in suggesting that market prices ought to be around 350m allowing for profit margins, research costs and capital paybacks.

If mineral costs continue to fall, Orca prices could stabilize as low as 325 million. Adding rigs to them will still push them up over 400 million. The cargohold optimization rigs are still running over 30 million each. The addition of the ore hold has drastically improved the Orca’s flexibility and original role performance.

The Big Big Whoredom

Kename Fin — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:16:32 +0000

No, no, baby I ain’t convinced it ain’t so bad as you paint it
There’s plenty more heads of hair for us out there – (TMBG)

In case you don’t regularly look at minerals on the market and in case you might not noticed the prices of ore across the board have fallen sharply. In some cases, the minerals are lower than they’ve been in over a year. Things like tritanium are now abundantly available and no longer cash cows that they had become. Even the high end minerals that have historically been expensive are coming down. I don’t have a picture for the greater market as a whole as I just don’t keep up with everything, but I do keep a fairly close eye on minerals [the ore chart keeps getting updated].

I’ll refrain from speculating on the causes. Causality is a slippery slope that eventually leads to politicians philandering and your milk turning bad.

The results have not yet begun to filter down, but a cursory analysis [scribbling on back of an Al Abd picture in my pod] indicates that it could affect Tech 1 production costs by as much as 15%. While this good for the producers, I doubt we’ll see a corresponding change in consumer prices anywhere near that much, if at all. Maybe it will finally pay off to make T1 things again?