Rate my PI Fuel Production Setup

[Florin_FLynn]

Over the past few months, I have engaged with setting up PI in high-sec to produce the necessary PI materials for Fuel Blocks. Let me know what you think, or ask any questions.

Here is the gallery of pictures to back up the post:
https://ibb.co/album/rkx8DH

To make fuel blocks, the materials I need are:

---- PI MATERIALS ----

• Enriched Uranium
• Oxygen
• Mechanical Parts
• Coolant
• Robotics

---- ICE MATERIALS (I wont be talking about this) ----

• Heavy Water
• Liquid Ozone
• Strontium Clathrates
• Oxygen / Hydrogen / Helium / Nitrogen Isotopes

Skills:

• Advanced Planetology 3
• Interplanetary Consolidation 5
• Remote Sensing 3
• Command Centrer Upgrades 5
• Planetology 4
• Customs Code Expertise 4

Ships I use:

• Epithal, Gallente Industrial (has a 60k m3 PI hold), with basic fittings, nothing worth mentioning.

Self-Containted Planet Productions
Both extraction and production on one planet. Originally I had setup all my planets of this, but it was not very efficient due to lack of resource on most high-sec planets.

1. Coolant
   Gas Planet, 1day45min extractor reset,
   2x Extractors, 3x Launchers, 4x Basic Industries, 2x Advanced Industries
   Launch ~240x Coolant every 2 days

2. Oxygen
   Ice Planet, 1day45min extractor reset,
   2x Extractors, 1x Launcher, 4x Basic Industries, 2x Storage
   Launches weekly, produces too much oxygen

Resource Extraction Only Planets:
Here, I found it best to maximising on extractor heads as possible, and have a single planet to process them.

1. Noble Metals
   Plasma Planet, 1day45min extractor reset,
   2x Extractors, 2x Launchers
   Launch ~1mil of Noble Metals every 2 days

2. Base Metals
   Barren Planet, 1day45min extractor reset
   2x Extractors, 2x Launchers
   Launch ~1mil of Base Metals every 2 days

3. Heavy and Non-CS Crystals
   Lava Planet, 1day45min extractor reset,
   2x Extractors, 1x Launchers, 1x Storage
   (This planet still has enough resource co-located to keep everything together in one place)
   Launch ~1mil of Heavy Metals and ~500k of Non-CS Crystals every 2 days

Processing Planet:

A few interations through. Im not sure how I can improve this further.
Barren Planet (important as Barrens unlike Gas have a lower power usage on links)
12x Basic Industries, 7x Advanced, 4x Launchers, 1x Storage
Seperated into 3 areas for producing:

1. Enriched Uranium
   Refilled every 2 days with:

• 500,000 Noble Metals
• 500,000 Heavy Metals

Launches ~420x Enriched Uranium every 2 days

2. Mechanical Parts
   Refilled every 2 days with:

• 500,000 Noble Metals
• 500,000 Base Metals

Launches ~420x Mechanical Parts every 2 days

3. Robotics

Refilled every 6 days with:

• 750,000 Noble Metals
• 750,000 Heavy Metals
• 750,000 Base Metals
• 750,000 Non-CS Crystals

Launches ~189x Robotics every 6 days

Routing:
It may be obvious to some, but I want to point out a tip on routing. You can route more than 1 storage unit to an industry. Thats why I only need to refill the Robotics cluster every 6 days. Secondly, when an industry depends on another’s resource, directly route the resource to the next industry. Originally I had everything routing back to storage, but this lead to blockages. I have attempted to show in the last picture, where each line is a route.

Outcome:
I produce around ~8mil isk per day, equating to about 240mil per month. Its not really passive income, as I do have to maintain in launches and extractor resets. Except for Coolant, I can produce enough materials to cover more than a weeks PI fuel materials for 1 Station. Others in the corperation I am in help out and together we can keep the lights on, or if needs be I can sell the extra produce to cover the remaining coolant.

Let me know what you think, and if theres any other different setups you have. Im especially interested in how higher order PI materials are setup for different means, and any figures to boot.

FLy safe,
Florin

[Gerard_Amatin]

How I used to have my setup:

• 3 characters on the Omega account with similar skills to yours → 18 planets
• 4 day cycle (reset twice a week)
• null sec
• whenever possible, put it on a single planet
• extra robotics factory on the mechanical parts (barren) planets, import the crystals
• so, no factory planets!

P1 planets: 2 extractors (into one storage), 2 launchers, rest factories
P2 planets: 2 extractors (into two storages) to 4 (2 each) p1 factories, to 1 launchpad, to 2 p2 factories, back to launchpad
P3 planet, same thing but with a single p3 factory. It’s barren planets so you have spare resources to plant it

• Try go balance extraction rates, or you will indeed get stuck on the launchpad.

I don’t like hauling stuff between planets and don’t like daily resetting. I have no numbers, but guess it’s less optimised than yours. But it paid decently for little effort (apart from initial setup).

[Florin_FLynn]

P1 planets: 2 extractors (into one storage), 2 launchers, rest factories

Ah, so 2 extractors on 1 raw material type (most of the time), into a storage then launcher, with a seperate launcher to connect the factories?

Has got me thinking about your 4 day resets, I could save some effort by setting my extractors on my resource only planets to 2 days. That would stop me having to reset them daily with no changes.

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Florin_FLynn

Ah, so 2 extractors on 1 raw material type (most of the time), into a storage then launcher, with a seperate launcher to connect the factories?

Something like this for P1:

2 extractors into storage (always put storage behind extractors! ) and from there factories grab the stuff to put into the launchpad.

In my case, cause I want it to run a couple days before I need to do anything, I’ve placed two launchers instead of one.

It mostly depends on your reset cycles (and the amount of goods on the planet)

• Factories process a fixed amount per time
• extractors extract more per time if you reset more often
• Amount of launchers depends on how long you want it to continue without your input

Example 1, resetting and hauling multiple times a day or daily

• fewer extractor heads needed, more factories
• 1 launcher is enough

Example 2, resetting and hauling once a week

• more extractor heads needed, fewer factories (but you need to make sure the factories still process enough to make sure the storage isn’t ‘full’ for a long time, that wastes potential goods)
• may want to use multiple launchers to stock up the goods while you aren’t paying attention

In the picture you can see what I’ve found to be a nice balance for 4-day cycles.

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Florin_FLynn

Has got me thinking about your 4 day resets, I could save some effort by setting my extractors on my resource only planets to 2 days. That would stop me having to reset them daily with no changes.

Find something that works for you. I can find time and the will to reset my PI twice per week at most, sometimes I even skip it if I cannot be bothered.

[ISD_Golem]

Love the PI set up. Makes me want to get back in to it.

When I was doing it ~1 year ago, I was doing it in lowsec for the increased $$$ but I was using a Cargo fit Sunesis to get around since it has ~1400 m3, instawarp and can survive a few smartbombs. Good ship if you ever want to attempt it too

[Gerard_Amatin]

I haven’t thought of using a Sunesis for PI -it sounds perfect to place the command centers at 1000m3 a piece!- but don’t you run into cargo issues with it fast for the PI goods?

I even sometimes have to do multiple hauls when I gather everything in my Epithal, and that one can hold more than 50k m3.

[Epithal, PI truck]
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I

10MN Afterburner II
Medium Shield Extender II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II

Improved Cloaking Device II

Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I
Medium Low Friction Nozzle Joints I

Expanded Cargohold II x3

Is what I like flying around my home. Tank isn’t as necessary in null as it is in high sec, when I’m caught I’m dead anyway so I only need to survive burning back through the gate when tackled. And after swapping to the expanded cargoholds in cargo I can drop command centers.

[ISD_Golem]

I didn’t mind moving around too much as it was usually done when I was studying and such. I would import Data Chips, can move around 200~ and extract the rest to build nanite repair paste to export.

Here is my Sunesis fit.

[Sunesis, Zoom Zoom]
Expanded Cargohold II
Expanded Cargohold II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

Medium Shield Extender II
Medium Shield Extender II
Medium Shield Extender II
Multispectrum Shield Hardener II


Small Cargohold Optimization II
Small Cargohold Optimization II
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I

[Clarise_en_Diavalle]

I’m working on PI in HighSec. Have 8 planets producing T1 resources, 2 planets with T2 resources, one planet with T1-T2, and another one T2-T4. This is good for a start, and I have around 12 mil ISK per day.

I planing to move in nearby NullSec and will reorganise it a bit. So I will go for 12 planets producing T1, 3 planets with T1-T3 production, 1 planet for T4. And additionally there’s still room for 2 planets with slow T0-T3 production each, which can be later reproduced to T4.
Depending on raw resource density this line can produce up to 60 units of T4 commodities per day + additional T3/T4. In theory income should go close to 500 PLEX/month.

T1 producing planets should be managed by two alts, so the basic resources keep coming, while your main character exploring hack sites in some far away systems. Once you back — you can put all your T1 in work with 3 T1-T3 planets, which is capable of producing resources for 2.5 T4 units per hour. All you need is 36000 m3/h average from your extractors.

[Alistair_Atreides]

As someone here who used to make ~100mil per planet per day 5 jumps from Jita, take it from me, whatever anyone told you here is bunk.

And your Pi will never be good enough.

Look, I really was, am and will always be the master of Pi. This factory set-up was and will always be the KING of Pi. Period.

~418 P4 in 30 hours. All profitable. Back when Pi was worth something, now it’s not worth donkey piss.

And, anticipating what you Pi noobs are thinking, I blew-up my LP 3 times to load all my silos/4th-LP with the input products.

Everything was routed so that the finished products could be exported in one trip. Otherwise you have to wait 7hours for transportation cooldowns on the silos.

I worked out the numbers so I knew exactly how much input m3 to move to each silo so I could round-robin taking full advantage of each Silo’s cooldowns when loading them full of Pi3/2 inputs.

I used a blockade-run fitted Occator at ~60k m3 cargo hold for runs to the customs offices.

I used an orca fitted for 10s alignment and cargo for ~140k m3 runs to/from Jita with about 280k EHP omni resist, so was pretty secure for hauling up to…give/take ~400mil if I remember right.

---------------------------Robotics-------------------------

Each of my robotics factory planets were producing ~121million isk of Robotics a day.

A DAY.

Each planet.

Fuel was Ice dependent, never Pi dependent, building Pi to offset cost in Fuel blocks is like trying to get a girl pregnant by sending her a tribute.

Ugh…as a side project to burn through extra Pi, I started doing fuel block runs of …■■■■ I don’t know … my sheets are a little cryptic to me now. I think they were batches of ~110mil isk each run?

I was consuming 200 robotics per run and a run was roughly per day.

So one of my Robotics planets produced 10x that per day. 1998 units of Robotics per day to be precise, at a profit.

That’s 60x more productive than the OP.

60 FOOKING TIMES

[Alistair_Atreides]

This post is separate from the other because I want to hammer the point:

You’re not saving yourself any money/time/effort through gimmicks.

Pi is a two lane road.

P1/2’s and P3/4’s.

Either you mass produce the F*** out of a P1/2 setup, and go for maximum extractor heads and no refinement.

Or you go massive factory planets.

Either will get you decent profits, the P1/2 setups are more location dependent, the P3/4 setups are tax dependent.

Nothing else competes.

You’re better off just buying the crap to make fuel blocks than you are wasting time diddling Pi to try and make fuel blocks make sense.

As I said, Fuel blocks are ICE DEPENDENT industries…not PI DEPENDENT.

Meaning making or buying the Pi is irrelevant, you will save no isk.

About 80% of the value of fuel blocks are in the ice products.

Why spend all your hard efforts on cutting a slim margin of maybe 1 or 2% out of a 20% value of the end-product?

That’s like…0.2% or 0.4% savings…You’re literally increasing your margin of profit by that little if you’re making ALL the Pi yourself.

Unless you’re blockaded by gankers there’s ZERO reason to bother doing it other than FUN (which I’m all for…Pi can be fun to work out the systems).

But you’re not understanding that what “Value Added” means.

To simplify my production lines I went for what was profitable, and just bought what was needed for Fuel Blocks. Fuel Blocks were profitable in of themselves, but, the margins were pretty low and I was working with a LS corp so that helped a lot on the margins.

Even then, I was only making about 10mil isk per run (per day).

I was doing a couple runs per day I think? I forget, it was more for the FUN of it than for the profit.

The real profit was in station trading.

[Gerard_Amatin]

You may have made 60 times the profit, but it also sounds like 60 times the effort. Seems fair to me.

[Alistair_Atreides]

@Gerard_Amatin

You may have made 60 times the profit, but it also sounds like 60 times the effort. Seems fair to me.

Actually it’s less effort.

By a long shot

I could spend maybe 45 minutes to earn that amount. Just look up the numbers for the inputs and pump them into my charts (an API would have automated that).

Pick out what was profitable that day.

Buy the goods.

Haul them all for ~6-8 planets in one trip to the staging location.

Shuttle them with an Occator fitted such that I could fill all the factory planets in about 3 runs.

Because I knew the numbers, the runs literally were as fast as how quickly could I load my occator, how quickly could I swipe a few items from cargo into customs.

Had to be fast because was working in LS.

Then it was maybe 5-10 minutes to just sort the items from a safe location into their silos.

The only thing that was time consuming if you could call it that, was retooling a factory planet to a new product.

But because you can have literally…18 planets on one account. I generally just had some factory planets idle when the product was not profitable.

Who cares…at 6-8 planets at anywhere between 50mil profit when things were scarce to 100mil profit when things were fat, that was 300-400mil and 600-800mil profit a day.

Again for like…45 minutes of work.

[Wyk_Bathana]

@Alistair_Atreides

As someone here who used to make ~100mil per planet per day

…

whatever anyone told you here is bunk.

oh my god, Alistair is back on the forum
where can i buy some popcorn?

[Alistair_Atreides]

@Wyk_Bathana

oh my god, Alistair is back on the forum
where can i buy some popcorn?

You can buy from me, everything’s for sale. Even the popcorn maker. Just leave me the popcorn, gotta move that too.