Missions & Complexes

Caldari COSMO missions. From the agent Akemon Tolan.

and after you've done the mission line and get the implant it's still costing you billions btw, it's wonderful how the concept escapes most people

Its an Amarr cosmos agent called Akemon Tolan in Ottomainen system.

Nothing is ever free there always an opportunity cost.

In this case the "cost" is the potential billions you lost when you decided not to sell it.

Opportunity cost means you have an opportunity to make a lot of isk. You run the mission, it's a one time thing and then you have the item. You now have the opportunity of selling this item for billions of isk. If you do not do so, you've LOST a couple of billion isk you would have had, had you taken the opportunity to sell it.

So yes, the item still costs you billions of isk if you choose to use it. This is the exact same thing that happens to miners who mine minerals, then produce ships or modules and then sell those ships and modules at LESS than what the ore was worth. You 'think' it's free but it's not. It's a relatively simple concept so it's fascinating to see the kinds of people who completely fail to grasp it.

You are completely right here. But I'm from the other side. I wanted to buy this implant of the market but thought it was very expensive, so i wanted to know if I could earn it so it would be less expensive. It's actually a tradeoff between my regular income source. Would this cosmos mission cost me more or less than my regular isk fountain.

Getting the items required to complete the 3 part mission series for Akemon Tolan is fairly easy. The hard part is getting the items to his location - Prison Stage of Guristas Complex - Otomainen system.

First of all, in order to access the agent you need to have +7.50 Amarr Faction standing. His location in 3rd stage of Complex in Caldari high sec system can only be accessed by going through a low sec system (usually camped by player pirates).

The Cosmos Complex is occupied and guarded by NPC's on a 15 min respawn timer. The gate to the 2nd stage is unlocked but the gate to the 3rd stage requires all NPC's to be destroyed to unlock it.

Required Items
Mission 1 = One unit of Jakon's Head (0.1 m3)
Location = Complex Otitoh VII - Moon 19th

Mission 2 = One unit of Myrkai's Data Chip (0.1 m3)
Location = Otomainen Guristas Complex - Officer's Quarters

Mission 3 = One unit of Guristas Shuttle (500.0 m3)
Location = Otomainen Guristas Complex - Supply Depot (Guristas Crystal Tag)

As you can see, a small transport ship will be needed to carry the last item. I collected up all the required items first before I actually spoke to the agent. I used a Blockade Runner fit for speed and stealth to carry the items.

I entered the Complex and used stealth mode to navigate to the first gate, upon entering the 2nd stage I did the same thing but couldn't access the gate due to active NPC's. While I was sitting there cloaked trying to figure out how to accomplish this agents missions, 2 players in Battlecruiser ships came into the 2nd stage, destroyed all of the NPC's and accessed the gate to 3rd stage.

I couldn't believe my luck and quickly accessed the gate as well. I entered the 3rd stage, cloaked and watched the 2 players destroy all of the NPC's. After they left the complex, I thanked them in local chat for unlocking the gate which helped me to complete Akemon Tolan's Cosmos missions.

So besides having the Faction standing and getting the required items, it will also take some outside help as well to actually complete the mission and get the Implant.



DMC

How do you figure, though. You either use the item, thus gaining it's benefits as an implant, or you sell it for ISK. Either way, you're benefiting somehow. The only question is which of the two options matters to you more, ISK or an imp's stats.

Rewording your example, it's actually more like either getting paid for the work or getting free help from a fellow co-worker around the house...maybe you happen to be moving and could use the extra hand rather than slave over the packing alone. Depending on what you're looking for, it's one or the other. The odd catch here is that your example does seem to insinuate that you didn't get a choice in the matter of getting help or a check, which is not the case for the implant.

There are many ways of looking at it, but I think what some people here are trying to explain is like this,

1. A Player usually makes 10million ISK/hour in his game time (doing whatever)

2. Player wants to buy Item X, which costs 100 million ISK

3. In order for him to buy this, he needs to 'work' 10 hours to afford the item cost

4. Player digs into some information, and finds that he can get the item X if he goes through 5 hours of game play doing this particular cosmos mission

5. Player spends 5 hours to do the mission, and gets the item X.

>> In the above case, if the player wanted to buy the item X off market, he would have needed to 'work' 10 hours, but here, he acquired the same item through 5 hours of 'work'. He then spends remaining 5 hours doing what he normally does.

A. Even before he sells X, his Net Asset Value is item X valued at 100 million ISK + 5 x 10 million isk he earned later, so in total it's 150 million ISK NAV increase over 10 hours.

B. If he 'worked' 10 hours to make 100 million ISK, and then used all that 100 million isk to buy X off market, he now has only X in his possession with no extra ISK, so his NAV increase for 10 hours of game play is 100 million isk.


This is how you calculate. So basically, the player here actually increased his NAV at higher rate/amount than he would have if he did something else than doing the mission himself. You CANNOT possibly say he suffered a 'loss' by doing the mission himself and through opportunity cost when his NAV has increased MORE than it would have if he did his usual thing.

What you could challenge here though is - maybe he could have done another activity that earns him higher ISK/hour, e.g. 30mil/hour and use that ISK to buy the item X. Then yes, you could say that he would have been better off doing something else and buy the item X off the market.

However, when you look at it this way doing pretty much anything in eve is meaningless, because you can sit in station and commit to full time trading/order placing/modifications/contracts setting up & make more ISK than anything you can achieve by actually flying a space ship in a space ship game. Expand that to running an industrial empire, if ISK is your only goal, there is no reason to fly anything at all, because pretty much everything can be out sourced (such as couriers) or done remotely.

So unless this is the way you think game should be played or the way you actually play & enjoy for yourself, it's silly to point fingers at someone doing what he wants in game and laughing about the lost opportunity cost.

It's because A) you don't have any basis for calculating opportunity cost for other players (do you know his ISK/hour doing other things?), B) traders/manufacturers/scammers can equally tell you you are doing it wrong by even trying to fly a space ship, because you can make so much more sitting around doing market/industry/scamming/etc.