Science & Industry

To start, I am 100% a pvp player...so talk to me like somebody who has no prior knowledge of PI and you are welcome to treat me like an idiot.
That being said, I have done some research, and have done my best to understand how everything works.
I understand there are better money making opportunities in EVE, but this is something I can do that has structure to it. I also understand that I will need about an hour of work a day, and I can and happily will do that. (initial setup not included)
inb4: PI is worthless and you should just make isk elsewhere. I know that there are easier ways to make isk, especially considering what alliance I'm in, but I wanna give this a try, and the regular intervals of work needed fit well into my schedule of real life.

EDIT: All my math and equations here are based on this. http://picommodityrelations.comyr.com/pi.html

My goal is to be producing P4 materials using a maximum of 30 or 31 planets.
I will be doing this with 2 accounts and 6 characters (3 toons per account) all trained to level 4 skills throughout Planetary management. The exception will be a possible level 5 planet account to gain 1 extra planet, but I will discuss that later.

My idea from the top down:

• The 31st planet (the only toon trained to level 5) will be solely used for taking in P3 goods. It will be in my main system of operations and will just have P3 pumped in and P4 pumped out.
• I will split up the toons into teams of 2. Each team (10 planets) producing a different P3 material. I will have 1 planet for each team (3 total) specifically used for producing a different P3 material to be used in the P4 production.
• Losing 1 planet to P3 production, I am left with 9 planets. As each P3 requires 3, P2 inputs of equal value, I will split the remaining planets into 3 groups. Each group harvesting 2 materials, turning them into P1, and then converting them to P2.
• All in all, I will have (1) P4 Production Planet, (3) P3 Production Planets, and (27) P2 Production Planets with P1 and extractors.

I'm sure that I'm oversimplifying things, and the initial setup and research will be a nightmare. However just basing it mathematically, this seems like the most efficient way to max out P4 production using the least amount of transport time to the most amount of product being produced.





TL;DR: Read just the plan part and tell me if I'm somewhat making sense in this, or if I'm so far off track that I should give up this venture compeltely.

Thank you and fly safe,
~Sparks

I'll be running my extractors on 24 hours cycles, so from what I understood, aside from flopping planets, I shouldn't have a terrible amount of time for the day-to-day running this.

As far as P2->P4 you've lost me. I have little to no knowledge of how the infrastructure of this works, so I'm trying to do my best to understand.

I'm working solely on math at this point. I have no practical knowledge outside of 3 equal parts to make p4, 3 equal parts to make p3, etc.

There are 3 types of P4 product, I call them Easy, Medium, and Hard.
There are 3 easy ones, 2 mediums, and 2 hards.
The easy ones have a ratio of 1 P4 factory: 4 P3 factories: 16 P2 factories: 64 P1 factories.
The medium ones have a ratio of 1 P4 factory: 6 P3 factories: 24 P2 factories: 96 P1 factories.
The Hard ones have a ratio of 1 P4 factory: 6 P3 factories: 36 P2 factories: 144 P1 factories.

With a small enough planet, you can get 4 easy P4 factories and the 16 P3 factories need to support them. (Import P2 products export P4 products.) (64 P2 factories and 256 P1 factories on other planets.)
You can fit 3 P4 and 18 P3 factories for the other two. (72 P2 factories and 288 P1 factories for the mediums and 108 P2 factories and 432 P1 factories for hards will need to be on other planets, and the associated extractors.)

If you want a planet to make P4s from P1s, the P4 factory will run at 50% time, but save you other steps. But the above lets you use enough storage to run for a couple days or so between visits. This planet will have 2 space ports and run for about 33 hours or so.

You may want to see how healthy your lower level PI market is in your area, try putting up some buy orders if you want to indirectly recruit others to help.

Drox

The P4 factory consume 6 of each input.
The P3 factories produce 3 of each output per cycle. The entire chain is like this, 1 factory produces half of what the next stage needs for that material.
Thus, if your P4 takes 2 P3 materials, you need 2 P3 factories for each.

If you cannot buy P2's from the market, then don't build too much infrustructure.

You need 5000km or smaller radius Barren or Temperate planets for P4 production with Advanced Command Centers (lvl 4) to fit tight setups. With level 5, there are few tight setups. (The links between structures use CPU/Grid based upon linear distance, and the pins are bigger on bigger planets for longer minimum distances.)

Assume level 4 skills:

With 30 or 31 planets, you need to establish what your output rate is.
Each extractor planet will support up to 18 P1 factories, I'm hoping that one extractor maxes these out for you.
18 * n extractor planets, max is 540 P1 factories, but we need some P2 factories.
You can get 22 P2 factories on a planet.
22 * (30 - n) P1->P2 factories, so max is 660.
288/18 = 16 extraction planets.
72/22 = 3.2 P2 factory planets.
1 medium P2->P4 factory planet.
21 Planets, assuming your extraction planets are godly. You'll likely need to double up on some of them.


Good Luck,
Drox

You missed P3s, your numbers are wrong.

I'm assuming that you plan to do one of the three easy P4s:
Nano-Factory
Organic Mortar Applicators
Sterile Conduits
P4:P3:P2:P1:Extractors
1:4:16:64:extractors as needed

I just have in the setup I suggested the P3 factories on the same planet as the P4 factories.

Good luck.

Honestly, I had forgotten they had a 30 minute timer. I haven't used any P1 facilities for a long time. I hate dealing with extractor planets. So, yay that is 1/2 as bad as I calculated out.

Drox.

WWs are hard P4:
1 P4 factory: 6 P3 factories: 36 P2 factories: 72 P1 factories.

The 72 P1 processors are allocated to the extraction planets. I don't know what's available to you or how efficient they will be in producing P0s. Some of the P2s use the same P1s, so some planets will double up what they feed. You will need 18 "P1" chains. So, at least 2 P1 processors per planet if you set up 18 different planets for extraction. (Again, you will have some redundancy you can use to merge these, the key is, you want to keep Every pair of P1 factories you need busy 100% of the time.)
Two planets for P1 to P2 conversion.
One planet for P2 to P3 to P4 conversion.
If you are efficient enough with your raw materials, you will double up everything and add another line to your P2->p4 planet. If you are super lucky, and you may be, you can triple up and use your P4 factory planet to the max. After that, you'll need to let off some stress and go PvP because you'll want to kill somebody.

You should be able to double up on at least 7 different products.

Drox

If you are able to, make P2s on your extraction planets. Not all of them will be able to be made on the extraction planets though, not without transporting one of the P1s from another planet. However, doing P2 on an extraction planet may limit how much you can extract, limiting your over-all process.

For wetware mainframes, all the P2 materials used can be made on individual planets (as they have all the required raw materials). Each P2 materials is below with what planet they can be made on individually.

Biotech Research Reports
- Construction Blocks (Lava / Plasma)
- Livestock (Oceanic / Temperate)
- Nanites (Barren)

Cryoprotectant Solution
- Fertilizer (Oceanic / Temperate)
- Synthetic Oil (Gas / Storm)
- Test Cultures (Barren)

Super Computers
- Consumer Electronics ( Lava / Plasma)
- Coolant (Gas / Storm)
- Water-Cooled CPU (Barren / Gas / Storm)

Your no storage set-up also works really well, and I think I may even go with that as it makes more sense.
As far as fitting in the 3rd setup, I am more than content with just 2 P2 factories producing per extractor planet.


My initial plan is to produce Biotech Research Reports as they are selling for the most. I will add to the infrastructure over time to produce the other P3 and then the P4. My biggest issue now is to figure out the number of planets I need for each.
I know I need 1 planet for the P3/P4 Factory Planet. However, I'm attempting to work out how many extractor-P2 planets I will need for EACH P3 product to figure out how I can start building the infrastructure one P3 chain at a time.