Nothing But Faction And Caps

Sunday night's fleet has to rank up with one of the most successful nights of PvP I've enjoyed in EVE Online in 9+ years.

We were roaming in my Hellraiser fleet (aka Kitchen Sink Battlecruisers) and started really well, catching a travel fit (or something?) Machariel in one system and an Osprey Navy Issue in another. We were setting up for a fight against a frigate/dessie gate camp in Tama when the cry went out over Gal Mil Intel channels about a carrier pointed in Heydieles and DPS was needed.

"On our way!"

We burned to the system and rolled into the other GalMil fleet (which was a Tempest Fleet Issue and Guardian fleet) and comms and found ourselves in a slugfest with two Soul Taker Archons, a Moros, Vindicators, Bhallgorns, Vigilants, and miscellaneous stuff. The fight was pitched and we were making very poor headway against their reps (a single Vigilant) when we got word a Caldari Militia fleet headed by Templis was incoming and they were friendly with Soul Takers (a long time pirate entity operating out of Old Man Star).

We left the field as the Caldari landed in their Tempest Fleet Issue fleet but got reports that the Caldari were shooting Soul Takers so some back channel agreements later, we were back on the field and shooting the Archons and Vindicators. I scored on the killmails of two Vindicators (one and two) and two Archons, including top damage on one.

After that amazing fight, Aideron reformed its fleet and we roamed around again, killing the Navy Osprey pilot again before calling it a night.

Easily the best set of killmails I've had the pleasure of being on in one night. And, two killmarks for my Oracle! Score!

Project Vulcan - Crius Aftermath

So I've completed my initial analysis of how the new industry changes in Crius will impact my Archon building enterprise and come to the conclusion that everything for now will be fine.

The blueprint changes caused my mineral requirements for a single ship to grow:

Old Requirements:

Tritanium	51,869,850
Pyerite	12,696,300
Mexallon	4,716,339
Isogen	740,691
Nocxium	209,801
Megacyte	16,177
Zydrine	37,674

New Requirements:

Tritanium	55,781,078
Pyerite	13,667,030
Mexallon	5,067,414
Isogen	797,995
Nocxium	226,258
Megacyte	17,578
Zydrine	40,593

The actual requirements on the component BPOs went down slightly, but the Archon blueprint required a few extra components. Fortunately, mineral prices have been falling so the impact has only been around 15 million ISK. The factory costs in my quiet low sec system have had an impact, adding an additional 13 million ISK for the component and ship factory costs. So overall my costs have grown 28 million ISK per unit. 

On the other hand, ship prices in my region have been steadily climbing with the last Archon I sold going for 1,395,000,000 ISK which I was quite pleased with, and gave me my highest profit margin yet since it was built with the old costs. 

So right now I plan to continue operation as normal and keep my eye on the mineral prices, factory costs, and Archon prices.

Fear and Loathing in Los Crius

Over at The Nosy Gamer blog the author was talking about how he was going to stick it out in Low Sec with his industrial adventures despite the upcoming changes in Crius expansion tomorrow:

I seriously considered moving back to high sec. Quite frankly, with the changes coming tomorrow, staying in low sec is pretty stupid. But a low sec base is more convenient for my faction ammunition business. Most of the cost of that is the time I take acquiring loyalty points, not manufacturing.

With all of the tears flowing from high sec, I figure I'll do something really stupid. That's right, I'm going to double-down on low. Can a casual industrialist not only survive, but thrive, in low sec operating against the high sec industrialists and all of the advantages they'll enjoy once Crius goes live. The only way to really know is to try, right?

I admit I have not delved seriously into the Crius changes on Sisi prefering to simply evaluate them once they hit Tranquility and how they will impact my casual capital building enterprise. So I commented:

I'm with you Noisy! I'm going to continue to operate my small cap building venture in low sec and we'll see how much things change for me.

Casual Low Sec Producers Unite!

To which a commenter self-identifying as the infamous Dinsdale responded:

Umm...you might want to get onto Singularity and have a good hard look at your "small cap building venture".
I am on Sisi, right now, with my Archon BPO, looking at all the combinations and permutations, and calculating the disastrous changes to the "casual low sec producer".

I used to build Archons, Thannies, and Moros in Carrou, one jump from high sec. It will be utterly impossible to compete with the big boys starting tomorrow. The wastage on a 1 run job is insurmountable compared to a 3 run job, and that is BEFORE the use of the teams, which will be used by null sec, not low sec.
And BTW, high sec is even more screwed than anyone else, regardless of what Noisy thinks.
regards,
Dinsdale

Am I worried? Yeah, I have concerns and I will be documenting here how much hit my margins take after tomorrow. So on Crius Eve, let's record the numbers of the old way of doing things.

The main cost for me right now is raw materials. Here is my chart of mineral requirements:

Click for full size.

Crius is going to change those numbers, probably upwards. The second change of Crius is that the charge for using factories will probably no longer be insignificant digits compared to the materials.

Stay tuned.

Project Vulcan Update: Finally!

I never claimed to be good at this game.

So my move from Orca production to Archon production hit a snag. Not in the actual production, mind you, although I did have a spreadsheet fail wherein I failed to include an entire row of minerals that sent me scrambling back to market for more supplies, but rather in the selling.

You see, I never thought about he fact that when I run into a market where the Orcas are not moving, I can move to another market, e.g. Amarr, Dodixie, Jita, etc. But for the Archons I naively thought I would just sell where I was building them in Essence region.

Whoops.

See that graph? It shows six months of Archon sales in the region of Essence. I put my Archon up for sale on the day after that last two sold (the light green bars at the far right on the bottom). It took 20 days for the Archon to sell with no competition and at a reasonable price. Considering my maximum turnaround for producing Archons is about 12 days, I don't like that math. I got spoiled by the rate at which I could move Orcas and never properly researched my intended market.

Now, judging by the graph a 20 day gap between sales is not typical, but its not overly unusual. Fact of the matter is, I think I'm going to move base to a busier region and compete rather than slow my production down. I will sell the new Archon that's coming out tonight on the Essence region, but I need to set up somewhere else.

Next step, research!

Project Vulcan - Phase III Prototype Underway

Last month I talked about how in Phase III I wanted to get Archon production off the ground. Well, a reader of the blog saw what I needed and dropped a load of BPCs for the cap parts I needed in my lap and that allowed me to actually move on my plan.

I move the blueprints I needed into low and and purchased the extra minerals, leveraging a stockpile of trit and pyerite I had already to speed the process. Meanwhile, I was able to coordinate blueprint sharing of the common parts to impact Orca production only minimally. I had an alt trained up for more production slots and shared the work with my main production alt who's still on the Orca line.

Today the long build of the 44 drone bays comes out and the 11 build of the Archon will go in. I don't know if I will wait for it to build and sell before starting another run, depends on ISK reserves for purchasing the next round of minerals as I don't want to impact Orca production. Yet.

One thing to come out of this prototype test run is that blueprint sharing between the Orca and Archon lines is problematic. Not so much the case of "I need that BPO for this build here but its still in use" and more of "Where the hell did I leave that thing?", not to mention the risk of transporting BPOs from low sec to high sec and back. So, I'll probably consolidate my production in low sec and simply risk the mineral imports via the jump freighter, which, to be honest, is not that big of a risk for certain stations.

The real outstanding question is how much should I put the Archon on the market for and how fast will it sell?