Science & Industry

If you found the planner tool I did, just stop using it. It's worthless. If you didn't find the one I found, stop using it anyway, because I don't think its possible to make a useful one until an API pull for planets is implemented.

Just by reading this topic you seem like you know the basic concept of PI, but never did much research on it.
That is only my assumption, now onto my point.

If you want my honest opinion: PI is complicated, and CCP did not deploy it very well, some updates and patches just added more confusion to the initial launch. I can understand your frustration, as well as your downfall.

You say you want to set up 15 planets, that's fine. But you have to take one step at a time, one planet at a time. Use the forums or a search engine to find PI Tutorials, calculators, and other useful tools, especially posts that give detailed tips and tricks.Take all advise at your own discretion, some may be outdated or incorrect.

I would offer my knowledge, but i fear it would confuse or frustrate you further, as everyone sets up PI differently. I will offer this though, A point that i cant stress enough to anyone, is to research everything you can about something in EVE before you dive into it. Take this from personal experience, iv lost Billions of ISK just by forgetting a small detail or jumping into a project before researching it. If you cant afford to replace it, dont buy it.

Here are a few useful links that i use all the time to set up PI, or at least do some researching.

EVE University PI Guide (YouTube)
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIn8g-K3-Y
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6h-nECuf_A

NOTE: The PI User Interface is outdated in these videos! Do NOT use them to build your colony.

Also note that this is used for POS Fuel, the basic concept can be used for any PI Commodity, even if the PI Interface is outdated in the video.

PI Commodities by EVE University: (External Link)
Link: http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Planetary_Commodities

I use this as my planner after choosing what i am going to make, prices are not included because they are constantly changing. Read the Wiki carefully, it holds some valuable info.

All this being said, i am no master at PI, i just took the time to research it, and like many before me have said, Trial and Error. If ISK is an issue, use the Test Server, if you cant use the Test Server, go mining for a day and stock up about 50M ISK, thats a reasonable amount to set up a single planet with room to make changes.

Extractors have no storage. Anything that is not routed is lost each cycle.

Extractor cycles are easy once you understand them. there is a direct relation between extraction rate and the over all length of the program. as you increase the length of a program two things happen. the extractor heads get bigger and the cycles get longer. You do not just have to look at the total average per hour but each bar on the chart is one extraction cycle.

In the early days of PI this was far more important than it is now, as it used to be easy to overload your links. now links have way higher base capacity.

the cycle times change as the program gets longer. anything 1 day 45 minutes or less gets 15 minute cycles, then it steps up to 1/2 hour cycles, then 1 hour, 2 hours, and 4 hours. as this happens the heads also get bigger. bigger heads harvest a larger area at a slower rate. by paying with the length of the program and the number of heads you have out you can tailor the extraction output to what you need.

1 big thing to remember, higher teir PI is not necessarily worth more. it depends on a few factors. for example a P$ item is often worth much less than the raw P0 that was used to make it. But the P4 takes up much less space. So if you are doing PI in a wormhole, or in deep null, the compression you get from P4 will give you far more isk per load, but less over all value that the 5-6 loads of P1 that went into making the P4.

Every planet can produce at least 1 type of P2 without any importing. I recommend that to start. Personally I prefer POS fuel components as they always have a good demand. other types of PI can change rapidly. So for a basic P2 operation you need a level 4 command center, two extractor control units, two basic factories, an advanced factory, and a launch pad.

Find a place where the two P0 resources have decent nods/hotspots close together.

each planet has at least one type of P2 it can make. But you will not be able to pull any two resources to make a P2, you need the right ones. a few examples;
barren planet > noble metals & base metals > precious metals & reactive metals > mechanical parts
Storm planet > aqueous liquids & ionic solutions > water & electrolytes > coolant
Plasma planet > heavy metals & noble metals > Toxic metals & precious metals > Enriched Uranium

to explain the set up I will use the barren example. First of all you need to find the two P0 materials you need. in this case noble metals and base metals. each basic factory converts a single P0 into a P1. It consumes 3000 units of P0 to produce 20 units of P1, on a 30 minute cycle. An advanced factory consumes 40 units each of two different P1 to produce 5 units of P2, on a 1 hour cycle. So since the basic factory produces 20 units per 30 minutes or 40 units per hour you need 1 basic factory for each input materials for the advanced factory to keep it running. we can already see the compression. 12000 units of 2 different P0 go into 5 units of P2.

All planets do not have all resources. Noble metals are only found on barren and plasma planets. Noble metals are far less abundant on barren planets then base metals. So I recommend scanning for noble metals first, then finding a near by source for base metals. Place your CC and launch pad somewhere between the two area's. set up two basic and one advanced factory as close as possible to your launch pad, and connect each to the launch pad only with links.

You then need two ECU(extractor Control Units) one on the noble metals area, and one on the base metals area. Connect them with links to your launch pad. You want to find a balance between program length and the number of extractor heads to give you as close to 6000 units of each per hour as possible. To much extra and it will just fill your launch pad with material you do not need. I find a 1 day 45 minute cycle works well for me, you will need to find what works for you. You will most likely need more heads out on the noble metals ECU than on the base metals ECU to hit the target 6000 units per hour, so do the noble metals first. Do not forget to route the output to your launch pad.

So you now have two extractors sending two different P0 to your launch pad at a rate of as close to 6000 units/hr as possible. if you have the CPU/PG to go over try to also place an additional basic factory, you can always sell off the extra P1 mats. you now need to set up you basic factories to produce your two P1 mats. one precious metals, one reactive metals, and route the P0 from the launch pad to each factory. You then need to route the output P1 from each basic factory back to the launch pad. You now set up your advanced factory to produce mechanical parts, you then need to route the P1 mats to the advanced factory, and the output P2 back to the launch pad.

You will need to reset the extractors every day, but should only need to haul out the P2 once per week. This is a basic PI operation with zero maintenance costs, aside from export taxes. It will not generate huge income, but requires very little upkeep. I produce POS fuel components and sell POS fuel making about 100 mil per week per account.

Vicata is not in the TEST that holds sovereignty. The mechanics of sovereignty make it impossible for you to place a command center when you are not a member of the alliance that holds sovereignty - no matter how blue you are. He has to mosey on over to NPC null, or lowsec to set up his PI. Like I do.


Sov holder:
http://evemaps.dotlan.net/alliance/Test_Alliance_Please_Ignore
compared to:
http://evemaps.dotlan.net/alliance/Test_Friends_Please_Ignore

I also have a feeling that the OP is trying to place command centers and route everything through them, and destroying them when they're not correct (or good enough). This sort of thing gets real expensive real quick (especially when you add in jump freighter shipping costs that make each command center about 500k-1M before you push it out the airlock) until you realize that the command center does not need to be connected to anything else. None of the extractors/spaceports/factories need to be attached to the command center.

Now i understand your point, Your looking for information, tip, tricks, or anything that can improve on your current PI setup (or future setup)

Well the simple answer is, no.

Nobody has really taken the time to make a tool or something that helps you determine how to maximize a planets potential.

Another reason might be that PI is to dynamic and complex to build a tool around. There are so many planets in EVE that it would take ages to gain data from them all, let alone stuff it into a database and make a program to calculate the best place to put your extractors, structures, and cycle times.

Im getting tired just from thinking about it.

If you find people willing to write programs and spreadsheets and tell you whats most profitable for free, please refer them my way.

Make a simple spreadsheet and answer your own questions. Barring that, make pos fuel. You cant go wrong with pos fuel.

Yes and no. That's part of it. The main thing I'm looking for is maximizing income/month. I'm just looking for the best way to do that. From what I can see there's really no easy answer, and no tools to help find the answer. So I've decided to write my own software to get the answer with, as the answer is really going to be changing from month to month, or even week to week.

The way I understand it is, you don't want to put in the work to maximizing your profit, and you don't want to build spreadsheets to maximize profit. You state that you've had a perfect PI character in the past but it seems this guy right here, with his consolidation 3 and command center upgrades 4 skills knows more about PI and profit than you do. You just want a one-size-fits-all maximum profit answer, and everyone keeps saying, "It doesn't exist. Build the programs to help do the analysis to keep on top, or find someone who will."

If you want to just build useful PI and sell it, you'll get a stable, (albeit lower overall potential) income. If you want profit maximizing, it is going to take an active management of your P.I., and whether you build spreadsheets or not, some scrap paper and a calculator or excel. Get over it. Either build the market profit planetary-commodities conversion excel sheet to do it constantly, or do it by hand every time. But that is the only way to get maximized profit.

And some days, the sell orders on P0 products will be more efficient than trying to mine them out of the planet. Other days, P1 products may be more efficient. Maybe on Saturday, the sale price of the final product will be lower than the sales of the P0 raw material product equivalent. It changes daily, and it changes hourly. And you will want to evaluate profitability at least daily, just like an investor in real life.


Regarding an actual planet setup, for a basic production, you will easily need 2 extractors, 2 basics, and an advanced production. Toss in a spaceport, and some storage facilities and you've got it done. You don't need to connect anything to your command center, it just gives you the buildable radius for where you can place your buildings.

I've already started developing my own software to do just what I'm looking for. The issue isn't that I don't understand how to do it, etc. It's that I don't have the tools available to figure things out. The purpose of this thread was more or less to figure out if there was an easier way, or if I was over-thinking it.

This is the first stage (yes, that's real market data):
http://postimage.org/image/4ihf28935/full/

Eve is popular because it appeals to different people with different play styles. Some people like the rush of PVP. Others want to solve problems and build. PI is meant to be a problem solving endeavor.

You hear that a lot of isk can be made with PI and that you can count on that isk flowing in day after day, week after week etc. That sounds awesome and you want it, but you really have no interest in the work it takes to set it up.

PI isn't for you.