Hardcore Casual

I lost another ship (Sigil) and my first ever Pod today. The Sigil is no big deal, as it was crap fitted and is itself very cheap. The Pod however is another matter, as the Pilot, our little market mogul, had two +4 implants and three +3. That loss hurts. Luckily his hardwires were a bunch of super cheap crap. So how did it all happen?

0.0

In a brave (read: stupid) move, I decided to check out the closest 0.0 area, Providence, to see what kind of prices they had going. I figured it being 0.0, I could list a bunch of common stuff like ammo and make a good bit of ISK.  Sounded like a good plan anyway. Why I flew out in a slow ass hauler, instead of something with a chance to escape, well I’m not quite sure.

So I hit the final gate out of Empire, load up the grid in 0.0 slowly (uTorrent of the WAR beta was still running…) and see just one ship near the gate, a Drake. My first thought was cool, no gate camp. Stealth broke earlier than I had expected thanks to the lag, and right away the Drake targets me. At this point I of course panic, and instead of warping to the closest align point, I instead try in vein to reach the gate I’m at. Epic fail later, and my pod is floating in space. The Drake ate the Sigil for breakfast, and it was a wreck after just fire volleys. Still in a panic, dumbass me tries to get my pod over to the gate. Drake locks me, two volleys later, I’m in a station back in Empire.

As with most things in EVE, it sends you a cute email when you die. Actually, you send yourself the email, and it reads:

So you died? Well you have a Clone Grade Nu at Emrayur III – Moon 1 – Royal Amarr Institute School station. Enjoy your afterlife.

Afterlife indeed… While I’m not 100% sure I would have been able to align and warp away from the Drake, it would have been a better effort than trying to reach a gate that was some 15km away. As far as I could tell, the Drake did not warp scramble me. I did not catch his name or alliance, and nothing in any email told me who killed me (fairly sure I should have gotten something though…)

It was not the most costly lesson I could have learned, but it certainly stings, and reminds me to stay away from 0.0 for now. Perhaps with a cheap jump clone and a better getaway ship, I’ll once again venture out to that area and try once more to make some ISK. What’s life without risks, right?

I took a quick two day vacation to Maine, just to get away and clear my head a bit after the recent job fiasco. Crap weather aside, it was a very nice trip, especially since it was only an hour away.

I log into EVE to check my market pilot, and what do I find? A extra 20 million ISK in his wallet. Again not an earthshattering amount, but not a bad haul for two days of not logging in. Just like skill training, sometimes the best gameplay happens when you are offline in EVE.

The current goal is to increase volume and sales to the point where they actually matter, which for me will be around 50 million ISk per day. Hopefully once my orders limit is a bit higher, that will be possible. So far however, I’m having a blast just seeing stuff move, seeing what prices work, and how it all flows. Great stuff indeed.

Market Update time.

After a week or so of really focusing on the market, I’ve learned quite a bit, and made plenty of mistakes (which is kind of like the EVE mantra really). The good news is that I now believe my base of operations will do just fine for my little market mogul. Traffic seems high, it’s a minor mission hub, and it even has decent asteroid fields to attract miners.

Now my mistakes. If you produce 500 cargo expanders, don’t list all 500 in one order, even if you put them up for a good price. People buy them 1-4 at a time, and while you might get a few buyers a day, it will take next to forever to move all 500. What I should have done is split the 500 into groups of 50, and list each group at a different station, maximizing on those impulse buys that are too common in EVE. Why fly to the next station just to save 1000 ISK, right?

I also made some mistakes with my buy orders. Being the top buyer is often not enough, you also have to offer an aggressive price to encourage others to just take the offered price rather than list the item themselves. As long as you can make a decent profit, it’s worth getting more aggressive.

It total, I believe I’ve made somewhere around 100 million ISK in profit so far. A low amount compared to other traders, but decent enough for someone still learning and making mistakes. My current buy/sell limit is 53 right now, which is somewhat restrictive. In a week or so it should be much higher, and at that point I can really start to expand and think big.