Science & Industry

What are some of the better commodities to make with PI?

The one that has the highest price in your preferred hisec trade hub. If you don't need it for other industry jobs then just pick one that will give you the most isk. In general the higher you go up the processing chain the more expensive a commodity is.

You being a single char with 5 planet limits how high you can go, p2 is your max i would say, you can go to p3 and p4 but you wont make much because you can't extract enough p0 to run your factories and that means it will take you a long time to make a batch which you can sell.

What is the preferred setup?

The one that keeps your factories running 24/7. If you look at your production chain from top to bottom then you will know exactly how much p0 you need to extract to keep all your factories running 24/7

If you have (or need) a lot of factories then you will also need a lot of extractors and having all that on the same planet is not very efficient cos extractors and links take up a lot of cpu and pg. that's why ppl use planets dedicated to extracting a single material (and maybe processing it to p1 just to save space) and then move everything to factory planets for final processing

You say you are using 1 character with 5 planets max so if you use this setup you will have 1 factory planet and 4 planets for extraction, that means 4 available p0 materials and that would allow you to make some p3 (the ones that only need 2 p2 commodities). On the other hand you can setup 5 planets and make only 1 p2 like nanites on all of them.

Nanites are the easiest example of a single planet with everything on it. Nanites take 2 p1 materials to make and they in turn need 1 p0 each and both of them can be found on barren planets. So you could setup a 5 barren planets with 2 extractors and min 3 factories and just make nanites

Edit: http://picommodityrelations.comyr.com/pi.html
raw materials is p0, processed materials is p1, refined commodities is p2, specialized commodities is p3 and advanced commodities is p4

Not much changed for me, still producing P0->P2 on 5 planets with 46h cycle in nullsec, with harvesting runs about every week, and extraction runs every 3-4 weeks. I'm hoarding the stuff in Jita until my favorite price level is reached, making ~200M per week. Have to admit I became a bit lazy lately sometimes missing the restart, the production lines are much more profitable ...

One that minimises the time you spend hauling planet goo around in an Epithal?

some general PI advice:

1: Always route to and from a buffer storage such as a silo or launchpad.
2: PI chains predicated on mass hauling of P0 products are a road down which madness lies.

Meph'z Awesome Extraction->P1 setup this takes around four days to fill up completely resetting ECUs daily. Route is: ECU->Silo->Industry Facilities->Launchpads.

Meph'z equally awesome factory planet. This takes four P1 products and outputs a P3.

You want to minimise hauling as much as possible. Find a star system with good planets for extraction of the 3 metals and non-CS crystals. Extract those and turn them into the p1 on the extraction world, then use a 5th planet to turn the whole lot into robotics.

I'm not gonna tell you what you should produce, you have to decide that for your self. I will however point out the fact that you have 3 characters on your account. That would mean 18 planets max at your disposal.

Me setup requires Command Upgrades IV and Interplanetary Consolidation IV. (this is a standard in PI.)

The following are my extraction worlds and are all configured like this. This is an aerial photograph of J223650 II, current as of 06JANYC119

J223650 I (Barren) is extracting Base Metals and converting them to Reactive Metals.

J223650 II (Barren) is extracting Microorganisms and converting them to Bacteria.

J223650 VI (Barren) is extracting Carbon Compounds and converting them to Biofuel.

J223650 VIII (Barren) is extracting Noble Metals and converting them to Precious Metals.

I'll roll through with my Epithal and scoop everything from these worlds and drop them off at my P1-P3 factory planet. It looks like this.

J223650 VII (Ice) takes all of the P1 I put in both launchpads, converts to P2 products, then routes over to the P3 Factories, then routes the P3 back to where it started.

Note: These are all Advanced Factories.
Apologies if you are colorblind.

I'm still a student of Eve Online and there might be better setups or other systems offer better products. I'm just using what I have locally. Sites like eveplanets.com don't work very often anymore but you can see the 'schema's' which will give you a few ideas to what to make and you'll just have to check and double check with what's available to you. Also check out the phone app EOPI. (can probably just search Planetary Interaction Eve Online on Google Play Store)

I make approximately 23m ISK a day with this setup. I extract almost exactly what I use. Very efficient! I chose this because of what was available but also makes it very easy for me to move around.

Some of the answers here are so vague or otherwise very stupid. Coolant, Oxygen, and Mechanical Parts worlds are also awesome.

single planet pi is useful for someone who wants to make some cash on the side... its not much but it adds up. the work is minimal, you dont need alts, and your time invested is minimal.

multi alt pi is useful for someone who lives in STABLE space and wants to make ALOT of isk, support his alliance in a large way, or who just wants to get rich quick and is willing to risk a freighter to do it.

Personally, I have a 60 planet capacity running at max right now. Ever since PI came out I was on it. and I have a system that is rather intermediate in investment but heavy on reward due to time invested on each production plant.

I work with cargo fulls rather than counting m3. the customs office fills up weekly with minimal effort. My storage facilities buffer between 1/4 and 3/4 full allowing my processors to run 24/7 without interruption.

If you do pi like this, say, an hour a day (sometimes a little more) you can make very nice isk semi passively. 20 billion isk in 6 weeks for example. thats 200 billion isk a year of you can complete 9 of my programs a year.

You need space that is secure, one that is quite enough at times you can freighter stuff around and drop it in one go, ....

being close to high sec is nice if you want to sell the citadel or components in trade hubs, but they take up a lot of m3... so some planning is required.

Never mind how... but figure out what...

I want to make each of the p4 items. you can pick one.... and start there. pick one item that sells good, like broadcast nodes...

This seems complex maybe, but you only need to extract 15 p0 materials... If you have the alts you can do this 4 times over... like I am and harvest a months worth of p1 product in just one week.

two weeks of that and youll have almost 400k of each p1... that in p4 conversion is 20 billion isk worth of stuff roughly, at est 2,000,000 isk each item. most p4 hang around 2.3 - 2.5 mil each, some 2 mil and just below. so just for ***** n giggles... i estimated.

After your first two weeks of extraction is complete, youll need 24 p2 planets, and 21 p3 planets or.... run 9 p3 planets each making two different items, allowing for enough slots for your 8 p4 planets...

whatever you do, you need to pick what you want to sell, or what you need to make for your alliance,

then sketch the production schematic out in a spreadsheet.

then allocate the planets to your atls... ofc analyze the planets in your area first assessing which ones give the highest for said resource. not all planets types are the same, so do some cross examinations in your area. :)

assign the alts to the planets and start stage one, extract and convert to p1.

bulk up and convert factories for the final stage to make the p2, p3, and p4 items ... and wait for your product to finish.

I dont mind sharing my sheet if you want to see, send me an in game message and I can help you get some SERIOUS pi **** going. good luck and fly safe.

I think it largely depends on how much effort you want to put in. I know some who just do P1 production... but they end up having to do a lot of hauling because of the volume they make. I know others who do the factory planet thing... but you have to invest more time moving PI from your extracting planets to your factories and the set up is more complicated.

I personally wasn't as concerned about maximizing my isk as much as minimizing my effort. T2 single planet production (mostly on Temperate and Barren planets) seems to work best for me. I do 4-day cycles and restart extraction twice a week (with 6 toons it takes 10 minutes or so). Twice a month I haul go to my planets and collect. I focus on nanites, livestock and mechanical goods.

I do low sec rather than null sec on 5 of my 6 characters... and with those 5 I make about 700m isk a month with 5 planets each( do sell at the sell order price rather than to buy orders unless they're very close).

I'm sure others can tell you how to make more... my entire focus is in making it as easy as possible to manage.