I havn’t played in years, but when i did i had a 72 planet operation across 4 accounts for doing PI. Back then it was a simpler time, and I could just run battleship skill training on each account, and extract skills at end of month to basically cover the omega costs for the accounts.
Looking at it now, it seems everything is relatively the same price – except PLEX which seems to be the only thing that inflates in this game.
So that same 72 planet operation use to produce like 7-8b a month in t4 PI. and i had to pay maybe 1-2b for omega costs which was basically negated by skill extracting the accounts. Now it would cost 7-8b a month in plex just to keep the accounts active… and the skill injectors still only provide a small fraction of that.
So is there any other updates I missed that makes this viable still? LIke maybe planets spit out 8x more resources than they use to? lol. Just wondering… if this is looking how i think its looking, the days worth of hours i spent setting all that crap up was for nothing because plex inflation just drowned out any potential profit.
Rules of the market. The more people are ‘grinding ISK to plex the accounts’ with whatever method, the higher the demand for PLEX. More ppl needing Skill Extractors, prices rise. More people selling Skillinjectors, prices fall. More ppl flooding the market with PI mats, prices fall. It’s inevitable. So you are simply part of your own problem because your ‘setup’ drains PLEX out of the market for a bunch of farming alts that you wouldn’t even need if you would pay the regular sub for just 1 or 2 accs actually playing the game.
There were hundreds of ppl setting up farms like u did when it was very profitable and the current situation is just the result of that. Either shut down the altfarm and play regulary or look for a more profitable business for them.
Consider adding another link in your value chain. T2 drones, for example. The material cost is roughly 70% PI - robotics and guidance systems - easily produced, even in highsec, and the drones sell quickly at excellent margins - even if you were purchasing the PI. Of course you need additional skills - T2 invention, production and trade, up to you to decide if it’s worth it. Demand for PI should pick up with the new structures in the upcoming expansion.
I haven’t done any skill farming myself, but there are two things I picked up from watching The Oz’s show on Twitch that might have affected its viability in recent times:
There were some sales where large-scale skill farmers stocked up on half-price skill extractors.
There are new cerebral accelerators in the NES store that work out better value than buying skill injectors from the in-game market.