Obligatory EVE Online thread

Games
1

Figured I’d pass on some experiences…

Last night I bought one of the faster Amarr frigates, the Inquisitor, and loaded it up with cargo pods to use as a fast mover of bought items and for an attempt at trading.

Trading is a big challenge! In the course of about 30 jumps (all up) I made about 600k buying and selling minerals, but boy, what a challenge to make a good buck.

I decided that instead of running around buying and selling it would be better to look for items for sale cheap, buy them up over time, then move them to where they sell better. For example, in my region tobacco was going for 12 (next to some station-only blips), but 4 jumps away in another region tobacco gets bought for 59.

I’ve placed a big buy order covering a 5-jump radius for tobacco at 12.5. I’m hoping I can collect a lot of it over the next week and so fairly passively make a good ammount of cash.

I’ve done something similar with dog tags. The NPC Pirate dogtags can all be recycled for a minimum of about 350 isk, but there is never anyone buying them on the market. I’ve put in buy orders at 50 isk each for a thousand of each basic type and I’m hoping that again, over time, I’ll end up with a stack and some relatively easy cash.

Maybe one day I’ll ply the spacelanes looking for profitable trades, but for now, I’ll just muck around on the fringes of that part of the game. For one, there should be a service to load all those market info .txt dumps and that then works out optimal routes and purchases from your area to wherever. Whoever made that could charge some fantastic isk for real world profit I reckon! There’s one at www.battleclinic.com but it doesn’t let you specify regions or ‘any product’. A smarter tool would lead to very, very rich traders I suspect!

But anyway, anyone else doing anything interesting?

2

this game is about as exciting as turbotax

3

Kunicos, kind of like your post.

4

Trading is good fun, and the real profits involve considerable risk. I have a hoarder outfitted for high speed runs through low sec space, and as soon as I can train up the skills to use MWD it’ll be as close to the millenium falcon as I can get at my newbieish skill level ;)

I find combat missions more fun for now though… I just got my Cyclone and it is a beast! We’ll see how it tackles level III missions, since it cleans up level II ones with absolutely no trouble whatsoever.

5

The thread title had me as far as “Obli,” but then I got confused. Where’s the “vion”?

6

EVE can be fun when you’re first starting out, but a word of warning:

You are never going to get the really good stuff.

Sorry to break it to you man, but like with most MMOGs, unless you are fully willing to sacrifice other prorities and devote many hours (8+ per day) to repetitive tasks, you are not going to see much of the stuff that EVE offers. The game largely caters to highly organized ‘alliances’ of thousands of players. These groups have a virtual monopoly on the real money-making enterprises, so you’re going to be spending your time picking up scraps… if you’re lucky.

I’m not saying the game isn’t fun for a while, just realise that if you set expectations too high, you will be disappointed. The game has virtually zero casual content, and new content is almost always focused on finding ways to get the alliances to spend money (thereby reducing the rampant inflation).

7

Out of curiosity, what is “the good stuff” that I’m never going to see?

8

Carriers, Dreadnoughts, Titans, Outposts, Player-Owned Stations/Moon Mining, Faction ships, High-end modules/weapons/ammo…

Not absolutely essential for enjoyment of the game, but after a couple months of playing, you sort of run into this massive wall of stuff that you couldn’t do unless you dedicated your life (and the lives of about two dozen other people) to the task.

I stuck with EVE for two years, until I realised all I was doing was logging on, chatting with my guildmates for a couple hours and logging off… all while never bothering to leave the station I was docked at. It got to be too much like a real job and I recall times when I absolutely dreaded logging in, simply because I had to for one reason or another and not because I wanted to.

9

I may get to that point eventually, but right now I’m having fun just blowing stuff up real good. Trading and mining are nice to do if I want something different. I also like having a stable of kitted out ships that I can switch between for different tasks.

I have enough trouble with one person flying an enormous Cruiser or Battleship around, so I’m not really interested in anything beyond those. Even though I have larger ships, I get a kick out of cramming the best equipment I can into a tiny, fast frigate and cruising around stirring up trouble.

10

Yeah, frigs and interceptors can be loads of fun. They used to be more fun in the past, but EVE’s gone through an overhaul that’s essentially relegated faster, smaller ships to a support role (‘tackling’ and disabling larger ships). It makes sense in fleet combat, but the actual chance of any one player being involved in a fleet action that requires division of labor is so vanishingly small, you’re better off just fitting a Microwarpdrive on a battleship and running off to scare some newbies.

11

I tried to buy low and sell high once.
I hit the market and saw something (x) for 42 isk and 2 jumps away someone was trying to but 705 units of it for 80isk. So I bought 705 units and flew on over. When I got there the buy order thing was still there but whenever I tried to sell it it would only give me 38 isk or something per unit, not the 85 that was in the bottom half of the right hand market screen …

Anyway - in 10 hours I’ll be a hauler. Want to see (probably should have checked before I started training) how many speed mods I can stick in one of the industrials.
Sticking to secure space for now …

12

I submit that the “loads of fun” == “good stuff.”

That said, with Oblivion eating most of my time and my WoW guild still going strong, something had to give, and that something was Eve. I expect I’ll be back when some comparable timesink has lost, you know, the good stuff.

13

Here’s a few tips. Trading is extremely profitable in the early game if done right.

  1. Stick with Trade Goods. Things like Spirits, Holoreels, and Quafe are very good money-makers to start out. Trading in high-demand items like minerals or raw ores is risky and the market fluctuates wildly in short periods of time. Trade with the more stable goods until you get a feel for what the market is about.

  2. Cargo space. Do anything you can to increase this if you are really serious about trading. Get to the top-tier hauler as soon as you can, and save your money to buy the largest cargo expanders you can get your hands on at the time. Space is money, I cannot stress this enough.

  3. Standard Trading rule: Find trade routes that let you carry something on both legs. Don’t ever fly empty. It takes time to find these routes, but when you find one that lets you make profit both ways, your wallet will explode.

  4. Only trade immediately after server downtime. This seems gamey, but it’s the only way to really make the cash. The prices on NPC sold goods resets at the end of downtime, so all the best buy/sell prices are found at that point. Scout the route, then trade at the right time… hopefully beating the thousands of other players with the same idea.

  5. Get an afterburner for that hauler. Immediately.

  6. Remember this formula ((selling price - buying price) * quantity) / number of jumps = n. Find out what a good n for your capability is and try to increase it by 5-10% every day. If you’re just starting out, I’d say 20,000 ISK per jump is a good target to shoot for, depending on the routes you find. Veteran traders generally won’t take jobs that pay less than 300-400k per jump, so that’s something to shoot for.

Hope this helps. Trading can be a profitable venture with the right skills, and the Trade skill set can allow you to essentially sit in a station and collect money automatically if you train the series up high enough… but every trader has to start out actually hauling goods and getting a feel for the market before that kind of ‘life’ is possible. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. :)

14

Also, you need money to make money in EVE. Trading is not for the light-of-wallet. Expect to have most of your money tied up in active trades and not actually IN your wallet for spending.

15

Good thing Kunikos doesn’t charge $15/mo for his posts.

16

Hey, Roboczar: are there any games you actually like?

17

I’ve known him for years now and I ask him this question very often.

Troy

19

No. It’s not my job to like things.

It’s funny because it’s true.

20

I don’t think you can fit a MWD on a hoarder…

Cyclone can do all level 3s, but until you get your skills up, stay away from (or at least be ready to warp out on) Silence the Informent, Angel Extravaganza, Black Market Hub, Spy Stash, Rogue Slave Trader part 2, Portal to War part 2 (or 3?), and Tech Secrets.

And as for me, I’m kinda burned out on level 4 missions so I’m either trying to get more into production, trading, research, NPC hunting in 0.0, or PvP.

EVE can be fun when you’re first starting out, but a word of warning:

You are never going to get the really good stuff.

Sorry to break it to you man, but like with most MMOGs, unless you are fully willing to sacrifice other prorities and devote many hours (8+ per day) to repetitive tasks, you are not going to see much of the stuff that EVE offers. The game largely caters to highly organized ‘alliances’ of thousands of players. These groups have a virtual monopoly on the real money-making enterprises, so you’re going to be spending your time picking up scraps… if you’re lucky.

You’re probably never going to fly anything larger than a carrier/dreadnought (which you could probably have the money /skills for after a year and a half or so without devoting too much time to the game (assuming 2.5 billion isk for a fully equipped carrier + the carrier skill, if you can make 8 million isk or so per hour that’s 300 hours. Over one year that’s about 25 hours per month or 6 hours/week. A lot, but not terrible by MMORPG standards)) but if you join an alliance you’re going to at least interact with all the high end content.

21

I’ve decided I can’t be bothered flying routes. Khanid is just not profitable enough as a region…

HOWEVER - I am happily able to buy cheap cheap items and then sell them next door or refine them for big profit. Dog tags and tobacco so far, and careful mineral purchases as well.

I am keeping an eye out for items which have a lot of ‘station’ only purchases, but no 5-jump, this indicates a lot of npc interest, but no player. Thus, I put my price just above the nearest player (3, or whatever jump) and then I hope to let the cheap minerals roll in, which I will then upsell to the NPCs or players at a 30% profit… Interesting! Lets see if it works…