I’ve only ever really done T2 production. I’ve recently moved into a wormhole though so producing T4s is going to be the best method for me for getting end products out to sell.
I’m trying to determine which would be the best method of doing this (I’ll be producing Integrity Response Drones and Wetware Mainframes).
- P0-P2 on a single planet, then exporting the P2 to a factory planet for P2-P4 production.
- P0-P1 on a single planet, export that to a factory planet for P1-P3, then export that to P3-P4
My end goal is a nice balance between profit and amount of hauling time. I’m just not sure which one is better in that regard. Hoping for advice from some people more experienced in this area. I’ve read some of the better guides that I could find, and some do it one way and others do it another.
I did not make the value but I know you can make p2-p4 on a planet and it fits very close to max capa.
Something like (P3a, P3b, P3c are the 3 processors required ; La, Lb, Lc are the launchpad to hold the P3a, P3b and P3c ; Lo is the final launchpad ; S is storage)
Lo
P4 P4
S
S-P3a-P3a-La-P3a-P3a
S-P3b-P3b-Lb-P3b-P3b
S-P3c-P3c-Lc-P3c-P3c
the feeding was : drop the three P2 for the P3a in the L1, then move them to the storage on the left ; repeat without moving the P2 ; do the same for P3b and P3c ;
all the P3x take resource from the corresponding storage and launchpad, and export in the storage below the P4. the P4 take from the storage below them and export to the output launchpad. This produces 200 m³ per hour IIRC so every 50H (so two days) you need to move out from the launchpad.
IIRC I had to make two trips to fill the storage.
Maybe I made mistakes, that was some time ago.
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So that’s pretty much doing P0-P2 on the extraction planets and then exporting the P2 to a P2-P4 factory planet? Just making sure that’s what I’m seeing there.
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That’s what I did. You need to make the worth of the planet to be sure you are actually gaining something after the taxes.
The production of one P4 requires 180 P2 IIRC. That means, if you have t % tax , ou need t*(90*VP2+VP4)/100 = t * 18480 isk in tax for each P4 cycle( base price is here ).
Then you need to get the price of the P2 you could produce with that planet instead of feeding a specific one into that factory : that’s what actually costs your factory choice.
Then you take what the factory produce over a long cycle (48H), jita buy -5% for buyback, that’s the benefit of the factory per eg 2d.
Extraction->P2 planets are notorious for being troublesome when balancing both the required extraction rates. Extractors themselves require vast amounts of powergrid to the point I would honestly advise against using more than one per planet.
Efficient Extraction->P1 setups can be built with CCU-IV, so you only need one (maybe two) characters with CCU-V for an efficient factory planet setup to crack all the P1s your other PI alts are producing.
In fairness, I have heard of some folk making a hybrid extraction->P1 setup that takes another imported P1 and cracks that with the locally produced P1 to make a P2. I haven’t made such a setup personally.
You’ll also need to factor your tax rates in, so flex that spreadsheet-fu and compare the profitability of producing P4s over selling the P2 or P3 components.
FYI: here’s my basic setups from when I was making Nanite Paste from scratch: Meph's Magical PI Setups for the Interminably Lazy
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Thanks for the response, your link is actually one of the “good” ones I mentioned having read already…it has been extremely useful, thank you!
Tax wise, I’ve got 2% all around, so I’m pretty sure the price difference between P3 and P4 will mean the P4 is still quite a bit more profitable. I’ll check that out though to make sure… And all of my characters have CCU5, though if that turns out to be a waste for the extraction characters I guess I can always just extract that for something more beneficial.
After re-reading your thread about a million times, I think I’m going to go with P0-P1 planets. Think in the long run with 90+ planets it’ll make it a hell of a lot easier to maintain as well. Thanks again!
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I do robotics which I think is P3 , solid 1 - 1.5 bil isk per month depending the price. One omega account 3 characters, 13 planet, null sec.
Super easy to manage, just hit refresh and move all P2 to my 13th planet dedicated only for P3 while other 12 make only P2 require for robotics. 10 minutes every 3 days.
Some P2 can make more but moving it from null becomes much harder because of much higher m3.
90 planets? I genuinely feel bad for you. I capped out at ~35 odd and that was more than enough.
One other thing to consider is the ISK/m^3 value if you have to haul your goods a long way to market. Higher tiers generally ‘compress’ the input volume down somewhat. While the numbers may look a little off, if you can save yourself several hauling trips, you’ll be better off in the long run. Especially if you’re using a fat, heavy, easy to gank ship like a freighter or jump freighter for your hauling.
When I ran my PI chain in a wormhole, I made Nanite Repair Paste (that 'hole had perfect PI). Nanite Paste squishes the input volume down by a truly amazing amount and a viator full of paste is a very valuable load of cargo.
Yeah, they are all on SP farming alts, figure I might as well use them for something. The setup phase of the 90 planets has been the most tedious part…after that I’m not too fussed with it. If I miss a few days here and there so be it…they’ll at least still be there for the passive income whenever I feel like doing it.
I already planned on doing T4 products for the reduction in m3.
As for hauling, that one is simply get it out of the hole to the nearest highsec, and then public courier to Jita most likely.
if you’re using public couriers to haul your stuff, then ISK/m^3 is a very important calculation to be making.
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hmm, I didn’t think about that one, good point. Maybe I will just haul it myself in that case…since I’ve already chosen the 2 P4s I’m making and setup half the planets now.
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ISK/m^3 will almost always be better with P4s than P1-3s.
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Yeah, it looks like there are a few p3s at the moment that are slightly more than some of the P4s, but those are the lower value P4s so I think I’m good. Thanks for all the advice, it’s greatly appreciated!
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whether you haul yourself or delegate : it’s not free.
Correct, but it’ll be hauled on an afk account that is only used for hauling while I do other stuff on other accounts at the same time…so it’s more valuable to me to do it that way than pay someone else unless I feel like being lazy.
I understand opportunity cost 
That’s not what I mean.
Whether you do it yourself or not, the price of the m³ is not zero.
Doing only one 1m³ trip is ALWAYS better than doing 10 1100000 m³ trips (for the same value )
If your evaluation of the worth means those two are the same, you are doing it wrong.
Even if it’s very small, you need to give a cost to move stuff.
While it’s a moot point because I’m already doing the best isk/m3 I can get, I certainly understand that.
When I said I’d move it myself, I was simply valuing my time as more cost efficient than paying someone else to move it because the character I’d be using would not be doing anything else anyway.
I used to have 4 characters running 24 planets in null sec. 3 characters extracted P0 and refined to P1, the 4th would refine P1 all the way to P4. The ISK was great… 4.5 billion per month or so making Integrity Response Drones. However, after about 2 weeks, I wanted to tear out my eyeballs with all the time invested warping around in an Epithal.
Going P0-P2 on a single planet is a LOT less effort but its also way less efficient. Another setup that I like to do is P2 on 5 planets. So extract and make precious metals, reactive metals, toxic metals, and chiral structures on 4 planets. Then use the 5th planet to make consumer electronics and mechanical parts (8 bifs per extraction planet, 16 advanced facilities on the factory planet). You can stop there or go with 6 BIFs per extraction planet, 12 advanced facilities on the factory planet, and add 3 advanced facilities to turn these into robotics. This setup is doable with CCU IV and IPC IV.
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^that’s what I tried . With three toons, and perfect skills.
P0-P2 on a few planets, P2-P4 on only one . I think I had 3 planets spare after of the 18 total. 2D cycles, one trip per 2 day in eptihal to factory, one trip from P2 planets to factory every one or two weeks.
5 min per two day per toon to restart the extractors (sometimes 10s per planet, sometime need to move the extractors), +10 min max to move the epithal (while reseting the extractor on the factory toon). +15 minute for each toon every week to move stuff to factory system.
total 80 min per week to produce 2 response drone per hours, so 2.3224*7 total bo, *0.9 from BB => ±700M net gain for 80min of work in the week. ie, 521M/h.
Actually was making a bit more because I had by products. I think it was something like +150M from the by-product, per week, so around 630 M/h total.
Never lost an epithal but was very careful.
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