EvE newb with some questons.

[Yoru]

so you still need to play the research agent angle then

For BPOs, yes - for the time being. The BPO lottery is, if I recall right, being pulled out "soon", and Invention will be the only way to get tech2 blueprints for production.

[Endie]

new question: Tier 2 BPO (origionals).  from previous conversations, i understand you get them from Research agents in a lottery fashion.  With the new Invention stuff, how difficult is it to Invent a BPO?   For example, if i buy a BPO for Tier 1 Nuclear Ammo, and do an Invention on it, will I end up with Tier 2 Ammo BPC or BPO or what?

As yegolev says, you'll only ever get a BPC, and it is waaaay more complex than that.  You need some very expensive stuff to get started.  My advice would be to find a good guide - google is your friend - and read up on it.  You'll need a lot of investment capital and catassish amounts of time.

[Vedi]

I'm doing module invention now, and it does take a bit of work but it is doable and profitable.

For module invention the highest cost is the skills you need to buy. This will typically be in the area of 150-200 million if I remember correctly, and you need at least a 100 million extra capital to buy datacores and stuff you need. The skills take around 2 weeks to train to acceptable levels (level 4) to begin inventing.

It also really helps to have a small POS with a couple of mobile labs, since you will be doing a lot of blueprint copying. You CAN do that at stations, but there is typically a few weeks queue.

For ships, it gets more expensive, and the chances of success is also lower, so you need to invest in more attempts  in order to smooth out the random elements.

[Endie]

It also really helps to have a small POS with a couple of mobile labs, since you will be doing a lot of blueprint copying. You CAN do that at stations, but there is typically a few weeks queue.

I've been wondering about how to turn my billions into more billions, and had thought about a highsec POS (I saw what happened to F13's lowsec POS).  How profitable is a mobile lab?  Or are T2 component reactions a better bet?

[Polysorbate80]

Not "a chance": if you satisfy the standing requirement, then visit that agent and tell him to research for you (ie you have all the neceessary skills) then you can buy datacores at one for every 50 research points.  There is no element of chance about it.

They're not all 50 research points.  I traded 46k Graviton Physics RP the other day, but the return was 1 core for 100 points.

I switched over to Mechanical Engineering instead, I only get about 66 RP/day instead of 130-ish, but the cores go for 10x the price of Graviton.  Haven't tried turning in any Mech E. points for cores yet, so no idea how much they cost.

[dwindlehop]

Mech E is 50.

The cost is 50*n, where n is the multiplier for the number of research points you get per day.

[Vedi]

I've been wondering about how to turn my billions into more billions, and had thought about a highsec POS (I saw what happened to F13's lowsec POS).  How profitable is a mobile lab?  Or are T2 component reactions a better bet?

We (i.e. me and my tiny corp) has had a small POS in 0.3 system for months now without anyone attacking it. We have some defense on it and two mobile labs. I think F13 was just in bad luck, or happened upon an area where someone felt the need to control the local POSes.

We haven't tried to hire out the slots on the mobile lab, so I don't know how profitable that can be. We've just used them internally for ME research, copying and invention. I haven't tried reactions either, but I think you'll need to find a moon with some fairly rare materials to get a profitable reaction going, and even then you need at least a large one and possibly more than one pos. This means bothering with lots of refueling. I don't know if you can even have reactions in high-sec.

[Viin]

The F13 POS wasn't an issue - it was just neglected.

I really like the idea of a POS to earn money, but not until they allow folks to use research slots on it remotely without having to be in the corp. Otherwise it just makes crap you have to try to sell on the market and haul a buncha other crap to feed it.

[Yoru]

The F13 POS wasn't an issue - it was just neglected.

I really like the idea of a POS to earn money, but not until they allow folks to use research slots on it remotely without having to be in the corp. Otherwise it just makes crap you have to try to sell on the market and haul a buncha other crap to feed it.

It would be viable to run it if you had several high-value BPOs (BCs, battleships, etc.). You could then use the research slots to crank out a high-ME version of the BPO and then make and sell large numbers of BPCs.

[Kamen]

I love high sec POS's.  My small corp has 4 large ones up with 3 of them currently online.  TBH I haven't found them to be a pain to keep fueled at all.  Once a week I load the freighter up at our HQ with POS supplies and refuel them.  Takes about 15 minutes every 7 or 8 days as they are in the system we call home.  To stock our HQ POS fuel stash we pick up POS supplies and bring them back to HQ on return trips of taking goods to market.  No point in returning home empty.

We used to mine ice to help get fuel until we figured out that there are many other things we could be doing with that time that were more profitable, and then just buy the ice products with the revenues from our more profitable corp op (usually omber mining a mission).  I also set up some buy orders to let the less mathematically inclined players of Eve work and bring us ice and ice products for less than we could buy them off the market.  It never ceases to amaze me what people will sell their crap for.

As for researching and making money with the labs (I guess we have 30 or so) we crank out BS and BC BPC's for contract sale, and do ME research on raw BPO's and then sell them.  BPO sets that sell well: Ammo sets; complete rig sets; and low end ship sets.  You should also research and then sell individual high end BS and BC BPO's - Caldari and Galente especially.  Avoid Amarr BS and BC's.

The margins on tech 1 BPO, BPC, and ship production is getting thinner as more and more people put up high sec POS's.  It's still profitable, and always will be for people who know how to run an industrial operation properly, but it's no longer insanely profitable.

[Endie]

I love high sec POS's.  My small corp has 4 large ones up with 3 of them currently online.  TBH I haven't found them to be a pain to keep fueled at all.  Once a week I load the freighter up at our HQ with POS supplies and refuel them.  Takes about 15 minutes every 7 or 8 days as they are in the system we call home.  To stock our HQ POS fuel stash we pick up POS supplies and bring them back to HQ on return trips of taking goods to market.  No point in returning home empty.

We used to mine ice to help get fuel until we figured out that there are many other things we could be doing with that time that were more profitable, and then just buy the ice products with the revenues from our more profitable corp op (usually omber mining a mission).  I also set up some buy orders to let the less mathematically inclined players of Eve work and bring us ice and ice products for less than we could buy them off the market.  It never ceases to amaze me what people will sell their crap for.

As for researching and making money with the labs (I guess we have 30 or so) we crank out BS and BC BPC's for contract sale, and do ME research on raw BPO's and then sell them.  BPO sets that sell well: Ammo sets; complete rig sets; and low end ship sets.  You should also research and then sell individual high end BS and BC BPO's - Caldari and Galente especially.  Avoid Amarr BS and BC's.

The margins on tech 1 BPO, BPC, and ship production is getting thinner as more and more people put up high sec POS's.  It's still profitable, and always will be for people who know how to run an industrial operation properly, but it's no longer insanely profitable.

Thanks for that, Kamen: that's a ton of really useful help.  Do you need a freighter to handle the necessary fuel for a small POS?  I think I can take about 15,000m3 in a Badger 2 with T2 expanders, and more with rigs if needed: would that still involve soul-destroying trips to-and-from Jita with fuel?  I'd rather not blow the cash on the skill and the freighter (I have all the pre-reqs anyway), given how long it would take to make back.

Also, do you know if you can do reactions at a high-sec POS, with the right modules?  I know you can't mine, but how about the later stages of the chain?

Aside: Remedial (may his name be forgotten) used to sell bookmark sets with full sets of entirely valid instas, except for one busy gateway system in lowsec, where the BMs would warp the user to a moon where he had set up a POS, complete with shiny guns.  Pop.

[Miasma]

I have an old newb question.  Years ago I was trying the trial and had just bought a badger (I think that's what it was called) so that I could move cargo capsules, I think they're called "cans".  Anyways I was in the newbie zone using my frigate to mine into the can and then coming back with the badger to scoop it up and sell the ore.  I clicked on anchor, and I tried to set a password but I guess those didn't work as some asshole came by and stole the can out from under me as I was mining.  I quit the game right there and never looked back.

How the hell was I supposed to secure that thing?

[Kamen]

Thanks for that, Kamen: that's a ton of really useful help.  Do you need a freighter to handle the necessary fuel for a small POS?  I think I can take about 15,000m3 in a Badger 2 with T2 expanders, and more with rigs if needed: would that still involve soul-destroying trips to-and-from Jita with fuel?  I'd rather not blow the cash on the skill and the freighter (I have all the pre-reqs anyway), given how long it would take to make back.

Also, do you know if you can do reactions at a high-sec POS, with the right modules?  I know you can't mine, but how about the later stages of the chain?

If all you plan on putting up is one small POS then a Badger II is more than sufficent.  Especially if the POS is in your "home" system.  Just buy a full load of one of the POS fuels whenever you are out and about and heading home until you have a stockpile you are comfortable with in your hanger.  Refueling the POS once a week shouldn't be hard at all.  If you like, you can also put up a corporate hanger array AT the POS to store the fuel you haul in and then simply transfer it to the POS once a week.  It would take about 30 seconds to refuel it if the fuels are available.  If you do put one up, snuggle it up right next to the tower so that you can open both windows and move the fuels from one to the other avoiding putting it into the hauler at all.

I don't know if you can do reactions in high sec, but I would be very surprised if you could.

[Yoru]

I have an old newb question.  Years ago I was trying the trial and had just bought a badger (I think that's what it was called) so that I could move cargo capsules, I think they're called "cans".  Anyways I was in the newbie zone using my frigate to mine into the can and then coming back with the badger to scoop it up and sell the ore.  I clicked on anchor, and I tried to set a password but I guess those didn't work as some asshole came by and stole the can out from under me as I was mining.  I quit the game right there and never looked back.

How the hell was I supposed to secure that thing?

Standard jettison containers (what you get when you eject crap from ships) are temporary (usually 1 hour lifetime), non-anchorable, non-secure containers. They hold 27,500m3 though, so they're popular with miners.

Secure containers ("small secure container", "standard secure container", ... "giant secure container") you have to buy on the market, are substantially smaller (up to about 3,600m3), and can be anchored (never disappear), if you have the Anchoring skill at the right level and are at least 5000m away from any other stationary object (i.e. station, POS structure, other anchorables, asteroids, etc.). If either of these conditions are violated, you should get a small error message.

If it's anchored, you can set a password on the secure container. But if someone scooped the can, then chances are it either wasn't a secure container in the first place or that you couldn't anchor it for some reason.

[Miasma]

I'm sure it was secure, I did buy it off the market and it allowed me to enter a password.  I guess it didn't work because it was so close to the asteroids then, I was literally just mining and then transferring from my hold to the container right beside me.  Perhaps they didn't have error messages back then because I never got one.

[Endie]

I'm sure it was secure, I did buy it off the market and it allowed me to enter a password.  I guess it didn't work because it was so close to the asteroids then, I was literally just mining and then transferring from my hold to the container right beside me.  Perhaps they didn't have error messages back then because I never got one.

Don't you have to train Anchoring I to do that?  I really don't know.

I always jetcan because I use another alt to immediately move stuff into a cargohold: since the badger can only hold a couple of cycles from my three strip-miners with upgrades and mining-foreman mad l33t skillz, it really isn't a big deal.  That said, I only mine when I have something else to do: staring at a POS on my main, reading, watching TV or the like.

[Morat20]

I'm sure it was secure, I did buy it off the market and it allowed me to enter a password.  I guess it didn't work because it was so close to the asteroids then, I was literally just mining and then transferring from my hold to the container right beside me.  Perhaps they didn't have error messages back then because I never got one.

Anchoring is a specific step, takes something like 60 seconds to complete, and requires anchoring I. You can jettison a GSC and enter a password without it, but the anchoring option will not be on the menu.

[Ravandor]

I'm sure it was secure, I did buy it off the market and it allowed me to enter a password.  I guess it didn't work because it was so close to the asteroids then, I was literally just mining and then transferring from my hold to the container right beside me.  Perhaps they didn't have error messages back then because I never got one.

IIRC, you can't anchor secure cans in 1.0 and 0.9 space, either.  Not sure if that was the problem, but you said "newbie zone" so I thought it was worth mentioning.

[SurfD]

Back to my earlier question however: Either way, being able to use reasearch agents is going to be needed if you want to do any kind of inventing, correct.  Either for the datacores you can get from them, or to get lucky with BPO seeding untill they pull that system out completely.

Time to go find out what skills will be usefull to get running research agents.

[dwindlehop]

You can buy the datacores without running an agent. It is profitable to buy the datacores off the market, invent a BPC, then use the BPC to build something to sell on the market.

While invention is profitable and has really increased the T2 supply and lowered T2 prices, it's not actually that much fun. It can be frustrating to fail an invention multiple times in a row when the die just won't roll your way. Probably not something you want to do as a new player?

[Endie]

It is worth noting that it is even more profitable, if you log in a few times a day, to put up buy orders for datacores then immediately sell them, playing the spread.  nurse the orders and churn the cash several times a day.  Only try this in Jita, and only on high-volume, high order-count cores.  I did it for a while until I amassed the capital for bigger plays.