Research: Step-down and cleanup

The markets for capital component and hull blueprints are flooded with people trying to sell well researched blueprints for not very much more than NPC price. I haven't been buying blueprints since the devblog, and I'm selling off researched prints (the ones I can, anyway) and taking everything else out of research as soon as it hits 10/10, to sell post-patch. The tower will come down once all the slots are empty.

Some of my research will continue post-patch. I'll plan to be working on a set of optimal hull blueprints despite the 4 year ETA (I've been playing for nearly twice that long already), and I may as well put some more research on my supercapital prints since I can't do anything else with them.

Another devblog

Keep it up guys. The more obfuscated crap you add to a game the better it is.

Okay, let's do this

Devblog.


Slots:

 Having slots available for everybody may well just straight up sink the research market.

Copying:

Copy time now equals build time, which means my 67.5 billion isk ragnarok blueprint will produce no profits. Oh, and since everybody who copies them will be looking to sell theirs, it's now nyx-BPO-level toxic. We already knew this, but I feel like it bears repeating.

ME/PE:

There are now 10 levels of these. Each level grants the same bonus (1% for ME, 2% for PE), but the time increases logrithmically with each level. Researching level 9 to level 10 takes 2500 times longer than level 0 to level 1.

EDIT: I was wrong about research times for component blueprints. If the market survives they might still be viable.

Under the "converting old blueprints to new blueprints" section, we see that in order to become ME10 under the new system, blueprints must be ME10 under the old system. This means that all my optimal capital ship blueprints are now ME9, except for the thanatos. And, oh, by the way, it takes 4 years to research a capital blueprint to ME10.

tl;dr

I'll be lucky to make zero profit on 200 billion isk of my current investments.

tl;dr tl;dr ccp makes changes to my activities in eve

Le devblog

• Remove the ability for players to use stations to safely store their blueprints without putting them at risk in Starbase structures.

I could keep using a tower, but it would mean logging in twice a day to make sure I haven't been wardecced. Maybe I should just join a renter corp; nullsec stations get the same bonus as pos labs, and it'll be a lot safer.

• Reduce copy time on all blueprints to be less time consuming than manufacturing something out of it. This gives the option to use blueprint copies to build items at Starbases without risking the original.

This drops the copy time on titan prints by at least three quarters. That would be fine if the demand could keep up, but it can't. So that investment just turned toxic.

Suddenly I'm real tired of having to work around CCP.

An hold

Mineral prices are up about 5%, while ship prices have continued to fall. This is bad news for my margins. I've put a hold on both buying minerals and selling ships until they stabilize, because there are two possible explanations.

One: The increase in mineral prices is due to increased demand because of B-R. In this case, it will take prices long enough to subside that ship prices will rise to meet mineral prices in the meantime. In this case I should keep buying minerals, but put a hold on sales until prices rise.

Two: The increase in mineral prices is speculation in advance of the refining changes. In this case mineral prices will subside before hull prices can rise to meet them, and I should keep selling hulls but put a hold on buying minerals.

Refining and compression changes

Devblog.

What this means for me is that I have to use compressed ore instead 425mm railguns to get minerals to my manufacturing station. There's too little ore on the market right now for this, but hopefully that will change after the patch.

Calculating the ores I need to produce a particular quantity of minerals is going to be a PITA, but I can probably do it with a spreadsheet.

I'm going to need a lowsec reprocessing tower. Can probably use a small and leave it offline when it's not in use.

Also, lowsec manufacturers can build for less than highsec manufacturers, and nullsec manufacturers can build for less than lowsec manufacturers. This could be a problem for me if somebody builds capitals in null and exports them to high. Doing that would be quite a lot of work, though, so hopefully it won't force me to shut down or anything.

[Reporting interval] financial report

Well, I guess this is what I get for not logging in for a month.

No, srs -- I let my contracts lapse without making new ones, adjusted market orders maybe twice toward the beginning of the reporting period, and the damn thing still handed me 10 bil. It's getting embarrasing.