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Low Sec - Planetary Interaction and POS Operation Query
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Halvan Zan
Doomheim
#1 - 2013-06-24 18:06:33 UTC
I am starting to feel my way out of high sec space (finally), after having spent some time learning the PI, industrial, and manufacturing processes. Some others and I will be launching a new corporation and would like to learn how to do these same things in Low Sec for a little more risk and reward. In doing so, I have questions:

Planetary Interaction:
- I have noticed that most (all?) planets in the low sec areas that I’ve roamed have either NPC corp or PC corp Customs Offices. They seem to range in tax from all the way up to 17% (planetary robbery!) to clear below 9%, etc. My question is how do you set one of these up as a corporation? Are there ‘empty planets’ anywhere, do we need to attack and destroy an NPC customs office, and if so will our corp standing with that faction/corp suffer? If it is a player corp, do we need to war dec them to take it out, or can we just attack it? I can only imagine the tit-for-tat destructo derby that this could create if two corps really wanted to have an office on one planet? If I DO find a planet with a PC corp that is charging reasonable tax and I just want to use that, do they see who/when accessed their customs office? Any advice on working with these in low sec in general?

Industrial/Science/Manufacturing:
- As long as the cost isn’t ridiculous, we want to set up a POS just to get a feel for the hows/whys/whats involved, get our feet wet, and experience something new. Let’s say cost isn’t a huge factor right now, we are relatively well funded for our SP levels.
- In Low Sec.. can anyone shoot at your POS at any time? Do you need to be war dec’d? If we aren’t at war with a corp and we wonder too close to their POS, will it start blasting or do they only attack hostile ships?
- Since no one involved has set a POS up, I am curious as to how many defensive arrays we ‘should’ have, and how many some of YOU have that have a POS that has lived a long while in low sec space. A recommended set up from top to bottom would be even better, a discussion between those of you in the know debating one layout over another would be even better!
- What racial type of tower is considered the best, or do they each do ok? Any particular type that holds an advantage over the others?
- Our primary function for this POS would be for BPO research and copying, but we are small and probably won’t need more than one lab. I had considered a corporate hanger, ship maintenance array, and a maybe ammunition manufacturing or equipment manufacturing to fill out the PG/CPU and help subsidize the cost/operating loss. We basically just want something to call our home away from station, and not necessarily the most ISK/hr potential, either.
- How many m3 can a corp hanger hold? Does it vary dependent upon tower size?
- We don’t know jack about moon mining. Is this possible or profitable in low sec? Its not something I am super interested in and I don’t think the partners are either, but if it’s interesting or worthwhile I suppose we’d do that?
- We would appreciate any and all first time POS set up advice as far as combination of arrays, etc. Any other one-off type uses, etc.

How likely, how often is it that a customs office or POS is attacked in a slightly backwater system? If we set up on a crappy moon does it help with those chances?

TL DR; I don’t know anything, do you know anything?
Iosue
League of Gentlemen
The Initiative.
#2 - 2013-06-24 18:45:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Iosue
PI - most planets will have some type of CO on them. Originally, all planets had NPC COs, however, some of these may have been destroyed with no one replacing a Player CO (POCO) in its place.

You have a few options here. if there's an NPC CO, you can destroy it and construct your own in its place. If there's a POCO on site, you can attempt to destroy it as well (keep in mind, there's a 24 hr reinforced mode the POCOs will go into, giving the defender time to coordinate a response), you can just use it as-is and pay their tax rate, or you can contact the corp and try to arrange a special tax rate for your corp (taxes can be set based on alliance or corp standing). The owner of a POCO can see what and when you are exporting goods from their planet, FYI.

For the POS Questions:

  • Anyone can and will shoot at your POS in low/null; be sure the arm the crap out of it. you don't need to be wardecced, someone just has to spend the time to do it.
  • For reccomended setups check this post out. Also, look for posts by Tau Cabalandar (sp?), he's done a few good posts on POS setups. if you're in low or null, i'd suggest you consider a large tower, whatever you do. it will allow for the most defenses and services, though will also cost the most.
  • Tower type depends on its use. If you're doing reactions, you want lots of CPU (Caldari). If you're doing something else, you may want to focus on pg (minimatar).
  • if you run a lab in lowsec, make sure you have a corporate office in system. you never want to keep BPO's in the pos, keep them in station and remote research from the station.
  • corporate hangar holds 1.4 million m3. if you need more, you can use large ship assembly arrays. their production hangars exceed the cargo space of the corporate hangars by a large amount, if i'm not mistaken.
  • moon mining all depends on the type of moon you have. it's not very likely you'll find a valuable moon in and of itself. however, many people run moon mining on the side as a little extra income, while focusing on other activities as their bread and butter to make the POS pay for itself.
  • picking a crappy moon will keep people from wanting to kill your tower because of the moon, however, they may have other reasons to attack it. i.e. if they see labs w/o any stations in office, that's a potential target. frequency of attack all depends on location. if you pick the right location, you can go months/years w/o problems. it also helps if you and your corpies keep a low profile near you pos. don't be pissing off your neighbors and expecting that everything will be peachy.


gl on your endeavor.
Halvan Zan
Doomheim
#3 - 2013-06-24 21:29:24 UTC
Thank you, especially for the tip to store BPOs in a local station and use remotely. I didnt know that was even possible (yikes). I am truly that clueless, which is why I want to set this up for some hands on learning. If there are other little tips like that, I am all ears.

One additional question came up while reading FAQs and guides.. do I need corp standing for a .4 system? It seems that some guides say yes, that we would need 4.0 standing as a corp.. though others say that is only required in high sec (which wouldnt be .4)

Can anyone clear that up?
Makton Kelevin
MAK Industries
#4 - 2013-06-24 22:29:23 UTC
To my knowledge, you can put a POS in .4 without the faction and paying the charters. My POS is actually in .2 so I might be off.

Also, from my little experience, expect to loose you POS sooner or later. When the new Expansion came out and the moons got the minerals mixed around, the moon I was on ended up winning the lottery. I had a small research POS and it wasn't 4 hours after that update and my POS was in reinforced. I didn't even try to safe that thing.

Now I'm running a Medium POS with moon mining to help offset the extra fuel cost of the POS. It's doable in low-sec, but can be a pain.

-Mak
Bennet Am
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#5 - 2013-06-25 14:09:29 UTC
Don't forget you can copy over to the test server and practice setting your POS and getting your systems in place. Its much cheaper and its kinda fun.
Eric Raeder
No Fee Too High
#6 - 2013-06-26 02:50:21 UTC
In lowsec planets don't sit without customs offices for long. If an existing office is destroyed and not replaced, a new Interbus office with 17% tax will spawn at the planet. I am not certain of the timing, but I am told by other players that this happens the next downtime after the existing customs office is destroyed.

I am less familiar with customs offices in nullsec, but I think they work the same way as in lowsec. In wormhole space, there are no NPC customs offices. If a planet doesn't have a customs office, you cannot use a launchpad on the planet until you put one up. If a player owned customs office in wormhole space is destroyed, nothing automatically replaces it.
Halvan Zan
Doomheim
#7 - 2013-06-26 12:39:52 UTC
Thanks for the tips. How big of an undertaking is destroying a customs office, and are there differences in ehp between npc and player offices? Does the owning corp get notified when a poco is attacked or destroyed?

For those of you that may own a poco, how often are they destroyed?
Jori McKie
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#8 - 2013-06-26 19:04:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Jori McKie
I don't have the actual hitpoints for a POCO but what i can tell you is you need about 15 to 20min with 5-8 Tier3 BCs. 2 Dreads needs one cycle, i think.
POCOs won't be shoot randomly very often, most times it is to generate a fight. You have to check who you are dealing with before you shoot a player POCO, in Black Rise and most Gallente/Caldari FW regions Shadow Cartel owns/owned most of them. (i think there was a little fight over them with a FW corp)
Anyway most "good" Planets within 3 jumps from highsec are taken and you can be sure most owners can deal with your corp easily.

Your option:
You need to find a very very remote lowsec with no real traffic at all, you will need a jump freighter to get that stuff out later on. Seriously you don't want to haul PI stuff in a cloak hauler from your system back to highsec often. What you do, check local for unfriendlies, warp to the POCO get the stuff out warp to station or POS store it until you have enough to bring you JF in.

If you really want to PI, look for a C1, C2 or C3 wormhole (C1 WH always have a static high?) with the planets you need. Far more safe and as good as any nullsec space.

About your POS setup, you need 1scram+1web+3 or 4 SMALL Guns (maybe 1 or 2 neuts). Do not use any missile thingies, all other defence is ECM. That setup is to kill any dumb player warping to your POS and to "scare" random roamings gangs. If someone wants to kill your POS no guns will safe it.

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths." - Abrazzar
Vincenzo Arbosa
Locust Assets
#9 - 2013-06-26 19:28:51 UTC
I've been looking at POCOs myself, just because I was curious and found this resource to be fairly thorough:

https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Customs_Office

Can anyone vouch for its accuracy?

I haven't worked out the math yet, but it seems that it would be a moderately costly endeavor that would take some time to pay itself back without some fairly heavy PI taking place. I guess I dont know how well-worn most low-sec planets are, how much exporting is done, etc. I have only thus far dabbled in high sec PI and I usually only see a few to a small handful of other entities with structures in place (and who knows how many of those are really active). I am wondering whether it is worth looking into further, but havent really made that decision myself.

I also noticed that in the description at the above link it states that "Customs Office ownership can be transferred to any player corporation, as long as the transferring character has the "Director" role or is CEO.

Does anyone sell these things in-place? Any idea of market value? 



"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." 
Korvus Falek
Depraved Corruption
Lux Inter Astra
#10 - 2013-06-27 01:43:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Korvus Falek
Halvan Zan wrote:
Thanks for the tips. How big of an undertaking is destroying a customs office, and are there differences in ehp between npc and player offices? Does the owning corp get notified when a poco is attacked or destroyed?

For those of you that may own a poco, how often are they destroyed?


3 Oracles with meta fittings can kill an interbus poco in an hour or two. Player POCOs go into reinforce for 48 hours though, not the 24 mentioned; unless I just got unlucky with their settings. Stupid things.

Also, pocos cost about 100-120 total to put up, so with a nice tax and a few people using it, will pay for itself over time. Or if you use it heavily, will pay for itself very quickly in the saved taxes if you set the the tax to 0% for yourself.