Advice regarding PI

[K_aos]

Hi,

I’ve been doing PI for a while now but not very efficiently, at least that’s how it feels.

I need some advice on the best plan of action regarding the toons and planets I have available.

Toons:
5 x Toons with CCU 5.
One of those toons has Interplanetary Consolidation to 5.

Planets (Wormhole):
POCO Tax is 4.5%.

2 x Barren
2 x Plasma
2 x Storm
3 x Gas
1 x Temperate

Toon Breakdown by Planet:
Toon 1 = Toxic Metals (Plasma), Electrolytes (Storm), Plasmoids (Storm), Toxic Metals (Plasma), P2 Factory Rocket Fuel (Barren)

Toon 2: Reactive Metals (Barren), Chiral Structures (Plasma), Reactive Metals (Barren), Chiral Structures (Plasma)

Toon 3: Precious Metals (Plasma), Electrolytes (Storm), Plasmoids (Storm), Precious Metals (Plasma)

Toon 4: 3 x Rocket Factory planets.

Note: Normally I’d use my Plasma planets for my Consumer Electronics mats, but precious metals are scarce on the Barren plants compared to the Plasma ones. My Plasma planets produce more precious metals than my Barren’s.

My Thoughts: I have a few possibilities regarding P4 products. Organic Mortar Applicators, Wetware Mainframes, or Nano-Factories are the ones I’m considering. On the other hand, I could stick to Robotics or some other P3’s, or produce several different P2’s.

My extractors run on four-day cycles, but I restart them every two days, which is also when I haul. Sometimes I have to reposition them, but that’s maybe once every three or four days.

Effort: Even if I add the fifth toon, I won’t have too many planets to manage. I don’t mind hauling every two or three days if I can settle on a setup. I don’t mind the work unless I have to haul every day. If that’s the case, then I will need to decide on something else. Hauling every two days isn’t an issue.

I’m sure this looks horrendous to some of you which is why I’m seeking some guidance. My financial goal is to plex one, better yet two accts, but one is good for now. Anything leftover will go towards my T3C fund.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

By the way I posted the same thing in the Eve channel in Reddit, hope I’m not breaking any rules by posting it here.

Thanks.

[Do_Little]

I find PI works best if you consume it yourself. It’s bulky to haul and worth a lot less than the stuff you can make with it.

I currently make robotics and guidance systems that I use to build T2 drones. I also make supercomputers and a selection of P2 commodities for cloaks and T2 modules. While living in Nullsec I made MTUs - at the time they were selling for close to 10 million - at current prices there are better ways to invest your time.

You don’t need any additional characters if you choose this path, the same ones can invent, manufacture and do PI.

[Oreb_Wing]

Do any of the plasmas contain chiral structures? If not, I recommend a Coolant factory or two, as you have plenty of Gas/storm planets for mass pull of Ionic solutions and water from the temperate if it’s tapped by even just the three slots of a single account. Save some money and inject moderate skills into the 3 alt slots and just alternate between each PI toon and contract anything you have to exchange to the toon that must oversee the Factory Farms. This would benefit you also in that you can provide yourself with cheap fuel blocks. So, Enriched Uranium should be on your list as well. All of these things sell well and will save you a lot too. I don’t see a good setup for Robotics with your spread of planets. I can share my method if you’re interested. It was developed with lowsec pulls in mind, but it should work well with a 4 day or longer pull in WH’s, especially if you happen to be around often for the extractions before the launchers become over full.

[Oreb_Wing]

P2 factory farm. You don’t have to change anything except add a facility or two with all skills to V. Bottom launchers receive each p1 respectively and they expidite to every facility. P2 Outputs go tot he top launcher. Very time friendly setup. Use the POCO as a silo for overflow and p1 stock. Nothing disappears from here.

[Oreb_Wing]

What an extractor planet would look like. Manage the flow of incoming raw by finding the balance with how many facilities you’d need, depending on the initial pulls. Go heavy with the facilities at first. Find your own balance with whatever you’re pulling. This setup is good for any level of PI character. Shift p1 from the launcher to the silo for some extra lazy space and postpone your exports, or pulling, for a while. Can you make contracts in wormhole space? I guess you can just share hanger divisions by having all the toons in the same corp.

[K_aos]

Thanks for all your replies. What about importing mats to build p4 items, or a combination of building p2/p3 mats to feed a p4 factory? The Plasma planets are fine for non-cs p0 the problem I have is noble metals on the Barrens aren’t so good. Well they are good enough they just can’t keep up with the rest of the p0. So I pull Nobles from the Plasma planets which limits how much non-cs I can pull for Chirals.

[Oreb_Wing]

I thought you had 3 plasma’s. Are there no noble metals in any of the Plasmas? This is a helpful sight for anyone hunting for planets. http://eveplanets.com/

As for a p3 factory chain with p1 imports, this is how I do it here. Robotics and a 1 process random p3 for some extra guidance systems up there on the 5th Adv. Facility.

[Album] Imgur

[Oreb_Wing]

I never really bothered with p4 yet. I found p3 to be plenty lucrative for me. Someone else will have to throw out a layout your way if they don’t mind sharing, or you’ll have to hunt for one. Again, it’s all in the balance of the processing rates and convenience which I mind when I create my own grids.

[Zoltan_Irvam]

Hi,

some remarks:

• I see only one toon with 5 planets and the others with less. I would have expected to see one toon with 6 planets (the one with IPC V) and the others with 5.

• efficiency wise you are probably best off with finding a setup of a few P2 which you can build well. This of course means a bit more hauling… But I found P4 too restricting as you probably will need raw mats you cannot extract at good rates. P3 might work but I found P3 markets to be low volume and thus quite volatile.
  P1 and P2 are bought in volume by people running factory planets to P4 for profit, P3 not so much.

• I tend to just jettison mats at a safe to trade between chars… As long as the safe is not compromised, that’s easier than deliver to in Upwell structures or even contracts. I once had a cloaky Tengu waiting for me there - I escaped but he shot the cans - and it was time for a new safe…

• Using your own PI for a vertically integrated production (T2, deployables or structures) is certainly goldilocks. For structures you need a hole with perfect PI and a massive force of PI toons, T2 means you have to import a lot of moon stuff.

Zoltan

[Oreb_Wing]

@Zoltan_Irvam

T2 means you have to import a lot of moon stuff

He can always drop his outputs in a known space production area, where he can store all the t2 mats and PI and build at whatever stage there.

[K_aos]

Lots of Nobles but Toxics are low. I have 2 x Plasmas. I may stick with p3 (Robotics) or convert everything to p2, not sure. At the moment I’m driving on with what I have setup. Will take a serious look at it when I come back from my trip to the States.

[K_aos]

yep jettison in space to give to another toon I do as well whenever I don’t have access to a station. I may go back to doing p2 exclusively. I thought maybe someone might see more potential with the planets I have.

[PappyFatSac_Spanski (PappyFatSac)]

Little late on the comment here but I personally wouldn’t do anything other than single planet P2 in a wormhole. Like you mentioned some planets are wonky with the resources and there just isn’t the right spread in any given wormhole to pull off meaningful P4. specifically not with poco taxes. Taxes in mind again, unless you’re producing T2 drones or something else with the specific p3 you would be producing then it isn’t really worth it either. Thats just my opinion tho and a lot of it comes from laziness, and some from thinking in terms of isk/hr. Keep it simple, keep it lazy, and then do something else to generate isk. You live in a wormhole, that shouldn’t be hard. What makes those activities hard is finding time for them if you’re doing daily resets or hauling every other day etc.

Just go all single planet P2 production. 5 day cycle times, only gotta pickup from the planets once a month if you’re doing the standard 2 advanced P2 planets. Then spend the rest of your time grinding isk or PvP’ing.

multiple that by as many accounts as you want and then skill those accounts for SP farming. Those accounts fund themselves, and that estimated 1.3b isk just accumulates as profit.

personally i run a 54 planet 4x P4/hr operation out in null sec. But i have the luxury of stable connections to other systems for the variety of planets and 0% tax on my poco’s. Having been in some wormholes myself and looking at the planets, i don’t even think a reasonable setup for p4 is possible in any given hole lol. Unless you import some stuff, but then you’re just eating into the profits and it just drags you back down to doing a lot of extra work for the same profit as just settling with the P2’s.

[K_aos]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I hear ya, I’m a bit lazy when it comes to PI as well. At the moment I’m doing Robotics but I may go back to doing single planet p2.

[Vicky_Vase_Voltian]

four days cycle?

Im using one day cycle. 1D 45 minutes to be precise, so I can get the 15 minutes cycle yield.

6 toon of CCU and IC to V. each toon, Im using 5 planet to extract material from, and the 6th as factory planet. So in total, 30 planets to extract, 6 planet for factory. Making Guidance System to sell on market. My choke point actually are the factories, causing my hangar filled with materials. this cut me some slack and letting me be able to have some material planet being idle.

My routine;

Each day, I resetting the extractor. One account without moving the extractor head, another account with moving it. So it kinda zigzaging cycle of resetting the heads. Its was like 15 minutes each day.

Every three days, my storage and launcher are filled, my factory planet need another material stored in POCO, and Im coming home with two of my main toon to the system. Just get to the system, transfer the stuff to and from POCO, and goes out again.

Every weekend, I hauls stuff from the POCO, to the station, then put the materials on the factory planets.

TLDR, resetting each day, transfers every mid week, hauling every weekend.

The guy who teach me this got three accounts, and he cycles his transfer phase in different days between his three accounts. His hauling phase actually the same duration as mine because we fleet warping with Epithals. I wanted to make the third account but my crappy laptop wont allow it.