Broken Manufacturing or Broken Expectations?

Over at the blog Eric Shang - The New Pirate of Eve Online, he writes a post titled "Why I Left EVE Online - Manufacturing is Broken" which I read with curiosity as I participated in manufacturing and thought it was pretty solid.

I tried to do manufacturing and created a new alt. I did not want to mess up Eric’s Pure PVP SP so started fresh.
I wanted to find a manufacturing corp and found that most corporations will say they do it but if you speak to them in their public channels they do more missions and PVP. There will be the odd person that does it and I have found they are very secretive about it.
I stopped looking for corporations after about a week of searching and chatting and started hitting the manufacturing channel. I got more response there from the odd individual. They are 1 man bands again.
So my conclusion is that there are no EVE Online Pure 100% manufacturing corporations. If you belong to one. Please leave you corporation name in the comments because I was looking long and hard.

There are no major manufacturing corps because securing assets from theft is near impossible and there is low incentives other than sharing assets for cooperation. More people do not make manufacturing jobs go faster per project, and multi-tiered manufacturing (i.e. one person mining, another refining, someone else manufacturing, and someone else selling) do not offer much in the way of savings compared to unrelated individuals doing that work and selling each stage on the market to a wider pool of buyers for the best profits at each level. If there were more transaction taxes outside of corporations you might see some economy in vertical integration but as EVE's economy works now, there is none (or not enough to overcome security concerns).

This is the outcome of how manufacturing works in t context of the economy and corporation security, but I wouldn't say it makes it broken. It breaks Eric's expectations of a manufacturing corp with many people running many functions and departments, though. In the post, Eric explains:

I struck gold when 1 person took pity on me and started a private chat. He explained that most corporations will have the odd person doing it but no real corporation out there that only focus on industry actually exists.
It’s all to do with ganking. If you make stuff and haul it to jita or where ever you want to sell it and your corporation description is all about manufacturing and industry. Your corporation is a target for merc corporations with war decs.
We only do industry means you have isk and no fight. They war dec you and ask a ransom to end the war dec. You pay and soon after you have more merc corporations and more outgoing than profits and your corporation folds.
So if you looking for a 100% industry corporation that only mines, manufactures T1 and T2 then you not going to find them.
Even if they out there. They not advertising it.

 I don't know if I buy the ganking/war dec reasons for not having industrial corporations, but its the same idea: its EVE's environment and manufacturers have adopted to it. Sorry it does not meet your expectations.

So no corporations then… how about solo manufacturing as a new player?
He said that unless you have isk behind you that you can buy BPO that has some ME and PE done to it, then it is a waste of my time and money. I would also need a POS because if I tried to make stuff in high sec with the manufacturing costs and taxes I would never ever make profits.
Players that have been playing the game for some time have Ammo and T1 frigate BPO’s with perfect ME/PE levels and have a POS.
When you buy a BPC from a BPC seller it will have some ME/PE but never the full researched one. You see they keep that one for themselves to undercut you.
You can’t use a BPO from the market. Your profits are none or a loss on almost every frigate and ammo out there in a new player’s price range.
This means you will have to buy a BPO and do ME/PE until it is perfect and hope that the BPO you bought is actually going to make you ISk by the time you start making things.
You can get an excel document with profits and by the time you have fully researched a BPO the mineral prices have shifted a bit or even the market has shifted a bit and you end up with a BPO that can do no profit.
Time, effort and isk wasted.

 To be clear, this is Eric relating what someone explained to him in a private chat. So its not factual information that Eric investigated, its a second hand story. That being said, there are some truths in this and there are some exaggerations.

First off, yes, its very hard for a new player with no ISK reserves or skill points to dive into manufacturing in EVE and be profitable. Of course, that is true with almost ANY career a new player in EVE tries out, whether its PvP, wormholes, Faction Warfare, etc. Being a new player sucks because EVE's open universe means you are side by side with players who have been playing years and have immense knowledge, ISK, assets reserves you lack. But that's the double edge of EVE's biggest selling point of combined uni-sharded universe.

Furthermore, yes, its hard to get a BPO/BPC and just start manufacturing because there are numerous perfectly researched BPOs producing things with no waste already on the market that you can't compete with. That's a result of a fully player driven dynamic mature economy, you can't have a fully integrated universe AND a shallow end pool for new players to wade in.

But that does not mean new players are completely shut out from manufacturing. EVE's economy is not a smooth surface; there are major markets where competition is fierce, and isolated markets where service is sporadic at best and thus prices are higher to reflect the difficulties in getting supplies to them and the lack of competition to drive prices down.

One of the ways a new manufacturer could get started is buying researched ammo BPCs and building in an out of the way station to avoid higher taxes, and then selling in mission running hubs where mission runners always need more ammo. Or transporting it to a low sec hub. Or even NPC null sec. Higher risk, but higher profits. Hell, in low sec I used to bring in frigate hulls and sell at a nice profit so a new manufacturer could try that in the right low sec or null sec hub. It takes effort and research but the profits could easily cover the BPC costs.

In his post, Eric complains about Industrial Missions which I cannot speak to for I haven't done any missions at all in years and then sums up:

- So you can’t join a corp because there is no corporations out there that do it. If they about they in constant wardec so you PVP more than actually do industrial.
- You can’t go solo because your knowledge is way too limited to actually understand the tricks of what to make and how to make it as cheaply as possible and you don’t have 200 mil + for a POS.
- You can’t do Industrial missions because you only really get data cores that FW get as well.

Point 1, agreed, but that's just how EVE works and your expectations of something different does not mean anything is broken.

Point 2, I call BS and think you need to actually do some research and effort to find a niche rather than taking the word of someone else and letting your broken expectations equal broken manufacturing. And needing a POS to do manufacturing is BS as well if you are smart and look for opportunities for your products outside of the major hubs.

Point 3, I cannot say.

Overall, I think this is a case of reality not matching expectations and then calling it broken.

(Also, Planetary Interaction is a form of industry and should be new player friendly and a way to get started, right? Look into that if you are a new player starting out.)

First Step: Alchemy. Second Step?

So, I've had the weekend to ponder over the dev blog from last week (don't worry Ripard, you're still in my crosshairs once you've recovered from your alliance tournament run) and I've had some thoughts beyond the "alchemy is a nice overture but woefully inadequate for the Technetium problems.

First let's look at what CCP Fozzie said:

There are more problems with our current system of moon mining and tech two production than just the price of Technetium, which is why we now have a comprehensive plan to address these issues over multiple releases. The end goal is for the materials for tech two production to come from player activities that require group gameplay and risk taking, and that provide appropriate rewards. This will eventually involve changes to both resource collection and the build requirements for construction of tech two materials and items. A responsible first step in this plan is to ensure that as much as possible the tech two components market is shielded from unnecessary price shocks.

Those of you who have been playing for a while may remember that there was a system introduced in 2008 for this exact purpose called Alchemy. It allows players to replace one moon mineral type with another in a reaction; simulating the innovation that occurs in the real world when supply of a resource is tight (the fuel conservation innovation that resulted from the 1970s oil crisis springs to mind). The details of the system are available at CCP Greyscale’s original alchemy devblog for those who are interested.

Our first step in fixing the moon mineral and tech two production economies is to expand alchemy to every applicable reaction. You will soon be able to create Platinum Technite without using Technetium if you so desire.

(Emphasis mine.)

What's the next logical step? In order to accurately answer this we would need to know what CCP actually thinks the problems are from an official standpoint rather than a personal individual dev standpoint which can vary from dev to dev. We at least have a statement in that dev blog about where they want to go: "[t]he end goal is for the materials for tech two production to come from player activities that require group gameplay and risk taking, and that provide appropriate rewards". From this statement we can draw two conclusions about what they think the issues with moon mining in general is (and highlighted in stark contrast by Technetium). Materials for tech two production:
1) do not come from player activities that require group gameplay;
2) do have appropriate levels of risk involved; and
3) have disproportionate rewards.


The Alchemy solution in this blog addresses neither points one nor two but does provide a bit of a relief value on moon goo prices so that helps address point 3. The other two points essentially stem from the same source reason: moon mining is done automatically by harvesters anchored on Player Owned Starbases, requiring minimal human effort (compared to say, mining or ratting for example) and no serious group activity until defense of said POS is called for.

Therefore its safe to say that moon mining will either be augmented or replaced by a new mechanic that requires more player interaction, more players in general, and is probably not tied to a POS since its a bugbear of terrible legacy code according to reports from the dev trenches. Assuming this is very true and developers choose to circumnavigate the POS code for now, some new mechanic is going to be introduced to provide a new source for moon materials.

Enter planetary ring mining. This has been brought up before and now seems like a good time to work on it. Scannable locations near planets with rings that have special asteroids (or ice blocks) that can be mined by new modules (based on new ships or existing ORE ships) and produce moon materials. The types of moon materials that can be mined can be controlled by true security status just like asteroid ores and rat quality. The volume that can be mined per player would be significantly lower than a moon harvester per hours, but you can have as many miners as you want as opposed to a single harvester per moon goo (IIRC). This addresses problem points 1 and 2 by encouraging groups of players to venture out in vulnerable fleets that can be found and attacked by small groups of enemies without the defensive capabilities of a POS.

Then once ring mining is firmly entrenched and contributing to moon material volumes, CCP can start scaling back and eliminating moon mining. As long as CCP does not do something foolish like regionalize the available moon materials to a few select regions (again), the cartels of the few will be broken and material prices will start to reflect the benefits of wider competition.

A Man's Perogative

So I changed my mind about training for and saving up for a jump freighter. Just too impatient I guess.

I got Amarr Cruiser V and realized there were a few support skills I really should train up to be a better capital pilot. So Tactical Logistical Reconfiguration went into the queue, to be followed by Jump Drive Calibration V, Fighter Bombers V, and Capital Ships IV. I know, I know, JDC V should have been a higher priority but it wasn't until recently I felt the pain of not having it. Regardless, I'm doing them now.

For Korannon, I have been going back and forth between several options that I finally decided to just up his basic skills which were lacking. Shield skills, energy skills, and navigation skills for more hitpoints, more cap, and more propulsion mods. Then I have to figure out what to do next with him. I'm leaning towards planetary interaction skills to make another passive income stream.

* * * * *

So what to do with the money I've got saved up if not for the Rhea? I opted to invest in a researched Chimera blueprint original so that I can assist with the corp efforts to start a capital ship building program.


* * * * *

In planetary interaction news, my two robotic resource planets were running afoul of depleted resources for base metals and chiral structures, so I took an opportunity a couple nights back to reconfigure the two colonies from scratch in new locations on the planet. So far only one oops when I forgot to route reactive metals back to the launchpad but I caught that the first day. Looks like volume is up for now and should keep my factories busy.

Colonies Redux

Last week I showed off my two colonies and a lot of feedback showed where I was being inefficient and losing materials. I revamped my colonies and added two more, one on a gas planet to produce Oxygen and another on a Plasma planet to produce Enriched Uranium. Here are the revamped and new colonies.

Storm Planet

I kept the extractors but moved the factories to the new launchpad and route everything into it. I was able to add two more base factories to keep up with demand. I know the whole centre of the complex could be moved to make the links from the extractors more efficient but I couldn't be bothered.









Barren Planet

The advanced factory is so out of place because it was part of the original design without the launchpad. The extractors are also the old ones, but the launchpad and four basic factories are all new as well as all the links. Producing Mechanical Parts here.

Gas Planet

Since Oxygen is a P2 resource there is no need for two types of P1 resources to process, thus the complex is very compact and efficient.

I'm considering the distributed processing methodology where I do nothing but extract on resource planets and ship the P1s to barren / temperate planets in high sec for production. My next phase where I exploit wormhole systems might rely on that type of colony setup to maximize return on investment.




Plasma Planet

This is the rarest planet that I've setup a colony on and it produces Enriched Uranium slowly. I made a mistake when creating the colony and forgot to build a launchpad and instead used the Command Centre. This of course caused me to run out of space pretty darn fast. I fixed this after one day but the resulting re-jiggering has the launchpad and the Command Centre in the opposite locations. Oh well.

Due to the slow rate of production, this is the only colony I wish I had Elite Command Centre for to increase resource extraction.

Final thoughts
Compared to invention, I find Planetary Interaction much more satisfying as an industrial experience. There were times when setting up invention jobs where I just wanted to scream and die. Only ten at a time and each one was a journey of agonizing clicks.

While I agree that PI is very clicky at least its fast and I'm hopeful that the next iteration will add some shortcuts to the process of setting up extractors for a new round.

My next project is to find a wormhole to exploit and see if the resources are considerably more plentiful than in low sec, and if so, how much more and if it would make it worth the logistic hassle to exploit it and ship P1 and/or P2 material out. If any wormhole dwellers have some info on that topic, I would love to hear it (comment or email).

Live Blogging the QEN - Q2 2009

A new quarterly economic update from CCP on the Eve universe and once again I shall live blog my reading of it.

Page 1 - AWESOME OPENING GRAPHIC

Page 6 - Paraphrased editorial - Blah blah Eve Bank blah blah tiny effect blah blah single shard

Page 10 - "Currently there is more than 300 trillion ISK on all accounts within EVE, of which 170 trillion are on active paying accounts." That means 130 trillion ISK just sitting there locked away. Can I haz yur stuff?

Page 11 - You play more, you have more money. ISK is the grind in Eve people, not levels. Not surprisingly, those in null sec are the richest on average. Is this due to the resources there or the fact that more experienced and established players tend to survive there better?

Page 14 - The Distribution Of Characters in Security Space graph doesn't make sense to me. How can the left axis be system security status and then the first three bars be null sec? Null sec is negative securityy numbers.

Page 15 - Also, the ship types being used chart is very interesting in noting that the Raven is falling fast. I assume this snapshot was taken after Unholy Rage banned 6000+ macro accounts?

Page 16 - The Tech 1 frigate is still king after all these years.

Page 17 - Take freighters out of the capital group, and carriers make up over half of capital ships. Being cheap and flexible has its advantages.

Page 18 - Covert Ops is most popular tech II ship is unexpected at first, but considering its cheap cost and utility in both PvP and PvE-exploration, I can believe it.

Page 19 - Nighthawk, despite its powergrid issues, is the most popular command ship. This is entirely due to its use in PvE ventures I reckon.

Page 22 - Interesting: "Quantity traded is increasing at a faster rate than demand, thus prices are declining in general. The increase in popularity of the Hulk is therefore interesting in this context. There are more mining barges in the game than ever before, in addition to a considerable increase in the number of missions run by players and NPC kills. Since a sizeable part of all minerals in the game come from refined loot, the increased supply of minerals, along with lower prices, is most likely attributed to these two causes."

Page 31 - "To summarize we can state that the EVE economy is healthy. There is mild deflation, but with the increase in economic activity there are good prospects for continued economic growth for the rest of the year."

Page 35 - Id be interested to know how many Tech II BPOs are used to make BPCs for production, or if all BPCs come from invention for this graph.

Page 35 redux - "Excluding drones and ammo, approximately 9.8 million Tech II items were produced in Q2. Out of these, 6.5 million items were produced from BPCs, with the remaining items being produced from BPOs. Proportionally, a third of all Tech II production is executed with BPOs, and the remaining is done with BPCs." Empahsis mine. Holy crap, tech II BPO holders are making a lot of money then since most tech II prices floor around where invention is barely profitable.

Page 37 - "The most popular regions to produce Tech II items in were Lonetrek, The Citadel, and The Forge. They alone accumulate for 49% of the total production of Tech II items." When I see someone complain of full production slots, I assume they are in Caldari space. Sigh.

Page 39 - "We also examined the productivity in each security tier of lowsec space more closely. It is interesting to note that 0.4 security space is the most productive tier, accounting for 74% of total lowsec production as can be seen in Figure 26."

Page 40 - Most tech II ships are produced by BPOs (56%). This is due to the pain of failed invention tries for expensive ship BPCs, datacores, and decryptors to make it worth it. It also suggests that ship Tech II BPO holder are still raking in vast gobs of ISK, maybe not as much as before, but too much. I'm of the opinion that its time for Tech II BPOs to go away.

Page 42 & 43 - Its interesting that HACs are produced mostly by inventors while interceptors are vastly more produced from BPOs. Probably due to the profit from invention for HACs being sufficient enough to justify the hassle.

Page 48 - "The five most popular types of Tech II ammo account for roughly 34% of all produced units, with the most produced ammo type, Scourge Fury Heavy Missiles, accounting for about 12% of the total amount of Tech II ammo produced." The guys with the Scourge Fury BPOs are laughing all the way to the bank. The guys with BPOs that are not of the 5 most popular are probably disenchanted.

Page 50 - Blockade Runners and Stealth Bombers getting Covert Ops cloaks really drove the volume of those items through the roof, but supply kept up with demand and we still saw a price descrease. Sucks for me.

Page 55 - It may look like a complete reversal of fortune for the Falcon and Rook at first glance, but look closer: the volume of sales for the Falcon is still 1000 units more per month than the Rook.

Page 57 - Prorator graph is actually stealth bomber information.

Page 60 & 61 - We see with the Seige Missile Launcher II and Concussion Bomb volumes that the stealth bomber changes were well received.

Page 63 - I love see Icelandic names in the native character set.

See you next quarter!

Hot Markets

The cloaking devices sold quickly for decent ISK, and there was lots of sell orders for the Invulnerability Fields over 2 million so I sold them as quickly as possible. That is about 190 million ISK profit. Not bad, eh? The production of the Widow is going well with the parts all due out of the factories in a few days. Next I might build some interceptors and assault ships.

With some ISK in my pocket to burn, I decided to buy some cheap faction modules.
Domination 100MN Microwarpdrive - For a blaster Rokh I'm planning for small gang warfare
Domination Invulnerability Field - Not as good as Tech II, but half as much cap per second and easier to fit, good for Assault Ships
Domination Warp Scrambler - easier to fit AND 11.25 km range compared to 9km for Tech II

I also broke down and started training a level in Signal Acquisition to improve scan times. It was only a 23 hour skill level and will help a lot. Might even do the fourth level of that skill so I can track down those damn Amarr captured complexes faster.

Shooting for the Stars

Once you have a goal, you need a plan to get there.

Since I started Derranna down the path of Jump Freighter pilot, the skill training was easy but the hard question is how to get a Jump Freighter, specifically the Minmatar Nomad. Just like get a cake for a birthday party, there are three ways to do it: buy it premade, buy the mix in a box and bake it, or bake it from scratch.

Premade: Easy enough. Get about 6 billion ISK together and find it on the market or on contract and bam! You own a jump freighter. Downside is that you are paying for all the middle men who had a hand in its construction, from the inventor to the haulers to the constructors.

From Mix: Buy an invented Nomad BPC and built it myself. The BPC is about 1.1 billion ISK, and I would need Capital Ship Construction skill for 75 million, and a rough estimate of the parts is around 4 billion ISK. Not to mention the construction time and hauling that would need to be done. Still, I could potentially save myself 500-750 million ISK for the effort.

From Scratch: Basically the same effort as the previous method except I would try and invent a Nomad BPC myself. I would need Minmatar Encryption Methods and Minmatar Starship Engineering skills and a Cryptic Ship Data Interface but their cost could be absorb as long term investments into invention in general. Consumables would be the Fenrir freighter BPC, 64 Mechanical Engineering and Minmatar Starship Engineering datacores each per attempt, along with a Decryptor to improve ME and perhaps number of runs. Assuming 50% success rate I'd need at least two attempts and the Fenrir BPC runs about 300 million itself so guesstimate 400 million ISK per attempt and another 200-300 million ISK for the invention skills and interface.

Summary: About 6 billion to simply buy the ship, about 5.5 billion to build it from a BPC, and about 5.5 billion to invent it and get the Minmatar invention skills and interface for future efforts.

So the question is, how much is my effort to do the work worth in the long run?