After returning to the game after about 6-7 year break i am considering making a citadel from a Raitaru or Azbel engineering structure for some passive income for myself/my corporation. Now due to this i am considering my options for these structures and was doing some research on this for the past few days.
I have several concerns and questions that i would need answered before i can go ahead with making a decision.
1: What are the running costs like between Raitaru and Azbel?
2: What are the running costs to profit ratio?
3: If you get war decced can they destroy the citadel?
4: What are the best passive profits that can be made off the engineering structures?
Currently my idea for this Citadel is Ore/Ice refining at 52% or 54%, have repair services/docking bay and research/factory plus a trade hub.
Yes, but not in a 1 week war. They need to extend to the second week
You’ll need large volumes of industry inside to see any profits at all
On the issue of killing them, the rate of EC destruction in the game is the highest in highsec:
Stats from 2 January to Monday (33 weeks total).
However, based on the most recent count I did, it’s 3-4 years to turnover even the current number of ECs in highsec, so it’s not like you’ll have it destroyed just for putting one up.
It’s something that we’ve been talking with CCP about (to no result atm. people are kinda busy). In systems where you want to set up for industry (low indexes) you’ll make next to nothing on fees.
This, coupled with the competition of all the other structures which are not getting blown up as per Scipio’s numbers mean it is very hard to make much profit with public structures. There is also the risk you go AFK and stop fueling the thing which can cause players to loose existing jobs meaning players have an incentive to use their own EC which are relatively cheap for all but the most casual industrialist. But given how few are destroyed, the only loss in experimenting is likely the rigs so you can see if there are enough customers to make it worth the fuel but you aren’t going to get rich.
If you do want more passive income from a structure you could try to use a Market Module on an Azbel. Players do use these to avoid market fees although much more near existing trade hubs. They are also more likely to be fought over though, but if you think you can defend a station it could be an option.
Thanks very much indeed all. Especially Scipio. From what i also read. They are considering removing POS’s from game in roughly a year’s time too? Which will make the EC/Citadel side of things a lot more interesting.
Public highsec ECs are a huge loss for the most part, unless you set it up to succeed. That requires going all out with a Sotiyo, and enticing people to build there by stocking it with ore. You’re looking at a 150-200bil investment to get a proper industry hub set up and at least breaking even. ROI is many many months after that.
I didn’t set mine public - primarily for that reason. A Raitaru with T1 rigs and 3 service modules will cost about 2.5 billion and 400 million/month for fuel - a bit less if you make your own.
Expenses are higher than my small POS but everyone else has the same problem so the playing field is reasonably level and the EC is a lot more convenient place to work.
Renting can be less expensive but finding a facility optimized for your business isn’t easy and, in my experience, finding a landlord who is vigilant about keeping the facility fueled isn’t easy either!
