Snow day

We have our biggest snow fall of the last six years! Everything is so pretty with a blanket of untouched snow covering it. Unfortunately, because we get snow so rarely, maybe a couple of times a year in any significant depth, we simply are not equipped to cope with it gracefully. The radio is telling me that many motorways and A roads are blocked or traffic is significantly hampered, several tube lines have vastly reduced or no service, and London busses aren't running until further notice.

I still got up and brushed the inches of snow off my car before heading out to get to work. I got maybe half a mile before turning around and coming back to relax under my duvet. It's not that I find driving in snow particularly daunting, I'm okay with it, it's that I remember the immense traffic jams that snow inevitably causes and all the problems and delays associated with them. I know that getting to work this morning—and, with the snow expected to continue to fall all day, this evening as well—will take me considerably longer than normal and I don't see the point in inflicting this on myself.

There is nothing particularly important happening at work at the moment. I can't motivate myself to spend an extra hour or more commuting through hellish traffic just to get to the office and stand around talking about how bad the traffic is. Instead, I'll take a day off and build a snowman.

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Tags: snow, weather

Missiles shoot off the market

Blimey, all my Scourge heavy missiles sell within a day of putting them on the market, perhaps because I undercut the market. I was still careful to make a profit. Considering how many missiles I use on any individual level three mission and how often I am replenishing my supplies I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that they all went so quickly in a station with a good level three agent. Even so, it prompts me to start a third run, again an order of magnitude greater than the previous.

I may have made a profit but the margin is small. Never the less, my wallet sees a net gain even having kept back ten percent of the production run for personal use. Had I sold those extra missiles my profit would have been healthy indeed and equipping myself at cost is better than buying marked-up goods from the market. A larger third run should let me realise the profits more readily, although the slim margin on the production runs so far means I have to finance the costs from my own pocket still.

I make the effort to travel several jumps to get cheap minerals so that I can install the next job, which will produce a huge number of missiles. I am keeping track of costs again so it will be interesting to see what profit I can turn and how quickly this next batch sells.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

This is a local shop for local people

With missiles and modules rolling off the production line I mention my proclivity to buy what I need locally. Rather than jump to a nearby system to save a bit of ISK I will pay slightly more for the convenience of being able to stay in the station, from which I extrapolate my behaviour in to a general rule for the the whole of the galactic population.

Briefly popping in to New Eden I check the market to see if any of my modules have sold, whereupon I remember why I decided to split my production run in to two sell orders. I wasn't simply taking my generalisation for granted. Instead, I had put up half of the production run in one station and the other half in a second station, orbitting the same planet even, but with a 2½% discount. I am curious to see how price differences affect people's decision to travel.

It looks like the small difference in price is not skewing sales too much. Both groups of modules have sold similar quantities so far, despite being in stations less than a minute's travel apart, including docking times. Of course, it probably isn't anywhere near this simplistic. The type of item being sold and whether the station caters to military or industry personnel will have an influence on the likelihood of someone deciding to travel to get a cheaper price.

Selling missiles at full price in a station with military agents and discounted in an industrial station would no doubt work more in my favour than the other way around, as capsuleers looking for missiles are more likely to be in military stations to start with. Some will be content with buying slightly more expensive ammunition if it means they can just undock and blow things up and others will make a small diversion if it saves them a bit of ISK. Pricing the missiles the other way around, with cheaper product in the military station, would probably leave the more expensive batch in the industrial station gathering dust.

The same reasoning can be applied to modules used primarily for industrial purposes. It isn't entirely straightforward, though, as there is overlap between many modules. Mission runners can be based in military stations yet want to buy industrial modules for salvaging and hauling loot, or to mine relatively rare asteroids found in deadspace pockets, for example. This is, of course, all speculation at the moment, although it certainly seems worthwhile to keep these ideas in mind when placing sell orders.

There is plenty of potential for more experimentation and analysis. The handful of modules already sold are paying for a second run, five times as large as the first, such is the profit margin on that item. I hope I'm not jumping the gun in paying for another run before the costs from the first run are recovered, but as I can recover the ISK with a level three mission or two I won't be looking to the Caldari government to bail me out any time soon, so I think I should be okay.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Rolling off the production line

My first manufacturing jobs in EVE Online finish, with a couple of thousand Scourge heavy missiles waiting ready to be picked up. As I mentioned, it was only after I had started the manufacture of the missiles that I realise the number of missiles being produced would perhaps last for a handful of level three missions. As such, I am keeping this first run for myself. Calculating my costs I can see that I could have turned a profit on the missiles, so this run still turns out profitable in its way as I won't need to buy the missiles off the market for more than I can buy the minerals and make them myself.

With the first job complete I immediately set-up a second run of the missiles. This time I am a little more ambitious, increasing the output by an order of magnitude. I pay attention to the cost of minerals and the quantities I buy, the cost of the installation, and the current cost of the missiles on the market. Doing the sums I can see that I can turn a profit on the missiles, although the margin will be fairly slim in the competitive market. The larger production run also effectively reduces the cost per missile of the facility's manufacturing slot, which is a fixed one-time cost, although the cost per hour remains the same.

The other item fresh off the production line is a module I manufactured in a quantity that is relatively small but still far more than I could feasibly have a use for. It is really cheap to manufacture yet checking the market it sells with a huge price mark-up, even if the ISK value is not particularly significant. I think I will only need to sell half of the production run to recover all my costs, including purchasing the BPO, so if I sell the entire stock I will be able to make more purely from the profits of the first run. I could then manufacture larger runs and fund other research and production. Of course, the modules need to sell first.

I scan the regional market for the module and note price fluctuations in different systems. I use my own experience of preferring to buy more expensive items locally instead of jumping two or three systems away for something cheaper, extrapolating this personal behaviour in to a more general rule. I pick up all my newly manufactured modules and head in to a system that has a few batches of the modules at a more expensive price and, splitting my production run across two space stations, undercut the competition a little. I shall see how well the modules sell.

From this I realise that splitting production runs in to multiple batches to sell on the market uses up more trade slots than selling them as a single batch, which will require more skill training to increase the number of sell orders I can run simultaneously once my manufacturing starts churning out many different modules. I also realise that I need to take in to account brokers' fees and such like when calculating overall cost and thus profit margins.

In other news, my new Badger Mark II only ended up costing me around 150,000 ISK, as I was able to sell my old Badger quickly for a reasonable price. I think that worked out quite well.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Music of 2008: prologue

When I play music on my iPod Touch I really miss the album shuffle mode available on my old third generation iPod. When I got the Touch I didn't realise it was missing a feature that I used extensively and when I saw it was missing I didn't think I would miss it that much. It turns out that I enjoyed not having to pick what music I'm listening to. Every album that comes up in turn on my old iPod on album shuffle is a delight to listen to, but so many of them I would not have picked to play had I had to make the choice.

Too many times I find myself scanning down the list of artists or albums on my Touch wondering what to play next and passing by almost everything, as if I need to be in the right mood to choose what I am listening to. It seems rather that my mood is more often shaped by music than craving anything particular. I often skip past the shorter EPs or singles in my collection as well, simply because I don't want to have to make a new choice again so soon after playing them. Album shuffle serves me perfectly. I mentioned previously, when searching for a hidden switch to turn on album shuffle in the iPod Touch, why I like listening to albums but there is another drawback to missing an album shuffle mode.

I used to create playlists for new music that I bought, generally two playlists each year with all the albums I bought in the six month period collected in the playlist. I would then be able to play the playlist, on album shuffle of course, and listen conveniently to the new music I bought, without having to pick it out from my entire library or having to show a preference for one album over another. It can take a few listens before I become attuned to the music and I don't want to discard an album before I have given it a proper chance.

Since I got my iPod Touch I haven't created the new music playlists, because I am unable to play music back shuffling by album and I would either have to listen to all the albums in a set order or make a choice as to what I wanted to listen to. I supposed that it would be just as easy to select the new albums from my entire library anyway, so there was little benefit in creating the playlist. Trying to review the music I bought last year is a little awkward, because without the playlists I have not kept track of what I bought nor have I listened to the new music as much as would have normally.

It has reached the point where I am considering my options on how to listen to new music regularly again. I can start to create the playlists again and use them as a reduced library from which to pick albums to play, but I would like to be able to play them all in a random order with one push of a button, which is not possible on the iPod Touch. I could use my CD player more, but even though it holds six CDs at a time it plays them in order and I like a bit of variety, and it is not an option when I am at work. I started thinking about getting an iPod Classic, solely for use at work so that I could get back the album shuffle mode.

The problem with buying another iPod is that I feel like a mug. Album shuffle is now a basic feature and I don't think I should reward Apple with another iPod sale only because they left that feature off the iPod Touch in the first place. I could buy a new battery for my old iPod, which was an option back when I was thinking about buying the Touch. A drawback to that idea is that it would remain my only iPod capable of album shuffle and I have it playing through my entire library on that mode, which can take a few months to complete. If I also use it to play my new music I will never get around to playing my whole library.

What I really want is for Apple to pull their finger out and implement album shuffle on the Touch. So for now I'll simply create my new music playlists and keep picking albums manually, hopefully in an effort to highlight new albums. It is a shame, because the iPod Touch is a great device. I shouldn't be thinking about ditching it because it is missing such a simple feature.

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Tags: cd, ipod

Ascending Utgarde Keep

I spend so much time in New Eden that it is almost the end of the weekend before I wake up Sapphire in World of Warcraft. My guild is optimistic about getting a Northrend instance run scheduled and I am looking forwards to it myself. The choice is still between The Nexus and Utgarde Keep, as we are mostly lingering in the early-to-mid 70s and in no rush to reach the end-game. I suspect the end-game for most of us will be to play alts, anyway. I don't mind which instance we go to. Utgarde Keep will be new to us all, and I have a bit of experience from my recent run through The Nexus with a pick-up group that could help out the guild group.

We end up going for Utgarde Keep, cautiously making progress in the entirely new instance. The huge fiery furnace in the first room causes some consternation about jumping through flames, but maybe it is my experience with World of Warcraft's dungeon mechanics that means I don't even flinch. I realise that we will have to kill the mobs that are fanning the flames and, in turn, the flames would die out to let us make it to the exit without problems. There is some brief discussion about who will collect the weapons scattered around for a quest and we reach an amicable solution. As I am not overly enamoured with the quest reward I quitely let everyone else collect their items first, in case there aren't enough to share in the instance, remembering the more grindy days of early Azeroth.

We make it to the first boss without problems, but he then causes us to wipe when his summoned skeletons go straight for the healer who is standing at maximum range, which is normally a sensible tactic. The skeletons split the party because as I rush to pluck the aggro off her the caster boss doesn't move. Our second attempt, with the healer standing ten feet away, works much better, as the skeletons are pulled in to the main scuffle easily. The boss drops a nifty new dagger loaded with spell power, which our healer plucks from his hands for our efforts. Without a suitable off-hand item to wield she falls back on holding Old Crafty, which we stole from Orgrimmar last week. It is an interesting sensation to be healed by having a wet fish slapped on your face.

The second boss in the Keep is fairly straightforward, even if there are two of them together. We pick on the caster for being squishy and are a little surprised to see his ghostly form continue the fight, but we prevail without trouble over the both of them.

The final boss, Ingvar the Plunderer, seems quite easy at first blush. He does a few attacks that cause some moderate damage but he drops like an Alliance flag carrier in Warsong Gulch. It is thus a little disheartening when he is raised from the dead as zombie Ingvar the Plunderer and starts hitting everyone for considerably more damage. After the rest of us are raised from the dead, but not as zombies, a second attempt sees us falter before we even get reintroduced to Ingvar the Zombie, and a third gets us back to zombie stage but his dark smash again proves our demise. With a bit more care taken over the positioning of everyone behind the zombie plunderer and a quick pair of heels on me when I see him about to unleash a dark smash our fourth attempt is looking really good! That is, until our healer cannot recover from one of the area-of-effect spells Ingvar casts occasionally. Luckily, she has spirit form and is able to throw a few last heals on the party that are just enough to help us to finish the battle in victory.

Everyone gets the Utgarde Keep achievement and as it turns out there are enough quest item weapons to feed the whole group, although it looks dependent on the group getting near the end of the instance. We also manage to collect a coin for the lunar festival on our run through the keep, bumping in to one of the ancients loitering in a vestibule. We leave with our spirits brimming with positivity about the run, with a promise to revisit The Nexus next week.

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Tags: mmorpg, northrend, sapphire, utgarde keep, world of warcraft

Making test missiles

I spent plenty of time as a capsuleer this weekend. Many thanks go to Kirith Kodachi who gave me a researched BPO for Scourge heavy missiles. I buy some minerals off the market and install a job in to a manufacturing slot to produce a healthy number of initial runs. In retrospect, it looks like the number of missiles coming out of the production line will only really be enough to feed my level three mission running, but as a first run it lets me make sure everything proceeds as I expect. I can also examine the material and production costs, which I can compare with the market to see how profitable selling the missiles may be. I only hope that I have done everything correctly, or the next level three mission I run with the missiles fresh of the production line could end sooner than intended.

I start a second, low mineral cost BPO running in a manufacturing slot as well, which will likely be my first attempt at turning minerals in to ISK on the market. With manufacturing slots apparently costing the same to install and run region-wide I choose to run my production line in the same station as I am performing material research, even though there is a slight wait for a free slot. This is pretty much for the convenience of not having to move items around, although it may end up being preferable to have a station with researched BPOs ready for manufacture and a station with unresearched BPOs, rather than a getting them intermingled. That is something to think about.

Apart from starting the manufacturing jobs I run a few more level three missions to build up my wallet again. I trained my spaceship skills and bought a Badger Mark II for its larger cargo hold and have a new stack of skill books waiting for me at an academy somewhere, so my costs have taken another hit. Making money from missions is quite easy, though, and I make back what I spent and a few million more fairly quickly. I pause my mission running to pursue other interests when I spy a healthy looking chunk of ombre floating around. I know I find mining boring, but it seems like a good opportunity to mine ombre in the relative safety of mission deadspace.

It's a shame that I come away with little ore at the end, because I forget when I first popped the can, but I spend my time doing other activities anyway, with an occasional moving of ore from my cargo hold to the jet-can, so it isn't really time wasted. Anyway, I was only going to store the ore until I could refine it with little waste, which involves more skill training. Despite a positive attitude towards my loss it still pushes me to investigate more efficient ways to bring an asteroid back to a station, but mining will definitely remain a tertiary concern behind industry and mission running for ISK.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Learning a lesson

Forgetting about the time and letting your jet-can expire is not a mistake someone makes twice.

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Tags: eve online, industry, mmorpg, penny ibramovic

Hello four lanes, goodbye M10

The M1 carriageway widening between junctions six and ten has been completed, opening on time at the end of last month. For over two-and-a-half years my daily commute to work was beset with ten miles of roadworks, reduced speed limits, and regular traffic jams, but now it has all cleared. Traffic is flowing freely at all hours, moving at the national speed limit. The extra capacity means that peak traffic doesn't even slow down much let alone come to a standstill, which is what prompted the expansion in the first place and shows the project to be a success. My commute is now bliss!

It is interesting to see how drivers cope with the new lane. It seems that people use the outside lane as a datum point, getting themselves as close to that lane as they dare to based on their self-assessed driving skill, rather than moving away from and back towards the inside lane as traffic dictates. This leads to drivers having to move to the outside lane to overtake others pootling along in the third lane when the inside two lanes are free. Hopefully everyone will get used to the extra lane with time. At the moment, it's almost like we've got a two-lane hard shoulder.

One consequence of the carriageway widening is that the M10 motorway no longer exists. This was part of the plan, as the M10 was pretty pathetic for a motorway. It had to be kept as one as it wasn't possible to join the A414 without travelling a couple of hundred yards on the M1, which prevented some drivers and vehicles form using that route because of motorway restrictions. The slip roads are now redesigned so that drivers don't need to join the motorway to get to what was the M10, staying on an A-road instead, and the M10 has been downgraded and incorporated in to the A414. Wikipedia has already been updated with the change to the M10, but I wonder how much confusion will occur before in-car GPS systems have had time to update.

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Tags: commute, motorway

My first steps with a BPO

I decide not to throw myself in to industry and manufacturing without some instruction from people who know better. There will still be much I need to learn myself and I see no point in hampering my early efforts through mistakes that could be avoided with a little research. To that end, a quick search reveals an interesting introduction to science and industry in EVE Online, written by GC13. Just about every term that I probably need to know about is defined and explained in the guide and it looks to be an excellent initial resource. I have seen the abbreviations 'BPO', 'BPC', 'ME' and others bandied around before and now I not only know what they mean but I can understand their significance.

Deafplasma gives a good suggestion to start some material efficiency (ME) research whilst my skills are still training and to do that I will first need a blueprint. I was wondering where to get my grubby mits on some blueprint originals (BPO), thinking that they might be mission rewards or bought from NPC corporate stores with loyalty points. Of course, I could have just paid more attention to the guide I link to above, which explains how to get BPOs, but I still manage to find out even if it is in a roundabout way.

There are blueprints available on the market but when the information window is brought up for these it isn't clear whether they are BPOs or blueprint copies (BPC). However, when I first became a capsuleer many months ago I wondered if I would be able to make money from manufacturing items and bought a cheap blueprint from the market as a simple experiment. I did nothing more with that blueprint, as I had no idea what I was doing, but I still have it sitting in my home base's hangar. I call up my asset window and look at the information screen for the blueprint and I find it is an original. This could be coincidence or luck but there is a second clue. The blueprints on sale on the market all have selling periods in the hundreds of days and unchanging, uniform quanities amongst many different sellers, both of which point to the sellers being NPCs. If that's the case it is most likely that they are selling legitimate BPOs. With this in mind I buy a blueprint for some useful ammunition and when I pick it up am glad to see it is the BPO I expected.

I can now start a research run on the BPO to improve its ME, which will make each manufacturing run require fewer minerals to compete, making it cheaper to produce the goods. This is probably a necessary step because manufacturers who perform material research are able to undercut the prices of those who don't. Using the science and industry interface I am able to work out that I need my BPO in a hangar before I can try to use it. I also need it to be in a station that has the required facilities and I can use the science and industry pane to help me find somewhere suitable. Requiring the blueprint to be in a certain location is only a minor inconvenience, as there are skills that allow me to start jobs remotely, even region-wide, so I just need to drop it off at some point.

Looking at the various research establishments for my BPO is somewhat disheartening. The earliest I can get an ME research job started is in 25 days time, and that is region-wide! There must be a lot of research going on. I hop a few jumps across to a neighbouring region to check there, just in case I happened to be in the research centre of New Eden, but I got the same result. If I want a researched BPO I am going to have to wait for it. It's a good thing I looked now rather than later, I suppose. It's getting late, so I move the BPO to the station and start up the ME job. I haven't really researched what I am doing with any level of thoroughness, as I am mostly using this BPO to find my way around the process, so I ask for the new ME level to be twenty and agree to the quote to start the job. In a month's time I'll have a researched BPO.

I should perhaps look at getting some more BPOs, ones which I hope to turn a profit on earnestly, and get them in to an ME research slot quickly. Even though I still have much learning and skill training I don't want to be hanging around for weeks when I am finally ready to begin manufacturing. Buying and researching BPOs may require an initial investment that I won't recoup for quite a while, but I already know that I will need to spend ISK to make ISK.

The main question I need to answer is what I hope to manufacture and sell, so that I can get the BPOs for those items in to research facilities soon. Maybe I'll just buy a bunch of interesting items and learn from the process and my mistakes, funding all of this with more level three missions.

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Tags: eve online, industry, penny ibramovic