Science & Industry

I once warped into Mahnagh for pick-up and every single POCO was under siege and gone the next day.

Goon-Work it was and most indeed.

if you want to make robotics with that setup, you'll have 1 planet making consumer electronics from scratch, and 1 making mechanical parts from scratch. Extracting two types of p0 and combining it to p2 on one planet is simple, but it has some issues.

Pros: simple. Each planet can operate independently, and you can sell the p2 product for a profit with or without a factory world to make p3.
low hauling volumes. Keep reseting extractor heads and your good.
Low tax burden (however if the p1 materials are valuable, the tax of exporting them is less significant, because an expensive PI gets the same flat isk/unit tax that a cheap one does, thus the tax is smaller relative to the value)

Cons: Low efficiency. Your colony will support 2 extractors with only a few extractor heads each. This is a big problem (they have high base pg use and you're paying for 2 that you're not using to their full effect).
Storage capacity. Your extrators are starving for pg for more extractor heads. You won't be able to spare much for an extra silo. Without one your extrators may waste p0 material early in the cycle when it gets full, and your processors will be running below optimal capacity later in the cycle. You'll end up doing shorter cycles and needing to manage the planet more to keep the processors running.
You might be able to solve the storage/pg problems using 1 advanced and 2 basic processors instead of 2 advanced and 4 basic. This saves you some pg for a silo and/or extra extrator heads, allowing you to keep your fewer processors running at capacity, while using longer extraction cycles for less maintenance. Of course, you'll theoretically produce half as much p2, but it may still be worth it for the aforementioned benefits.
Choice of planets restricted.

I can also tell you that if you're making consumer electronics on a single lava planet and mech parts on a single barren planet, you will in no way make enough stuff to justify having a third dedicated factory planet. Lets say you have 2 advanced processors making electronics, and 2 advanced processors making mechanical parts. Your third planet would only need 1 advanced processor (for robotics) to keep up with those 4, hardly justifying a factory planet.

Better setups: 4 extractor planets each making p1, then a single factory planet converting p1->p2->p3. I would find a video/image of someone else's planet. It works nicely with 2 launchpads and 2 silos. Import the p1 for the silo first to the first launchpad, then expedited transfer it to the silo, then import the other p1 good to the launchpad. Ditto for the other side. Your p1 extrator planets will be much much much more productive this way, and chances are your factory planet will still have enough processing speed to keep up, which nicely gives you some wiggle room in how often your refil/empty it (or you can use the extra capacity on p1/p2 items purchased from the market). The other problem is you'll need 2 lava planets instead of 1, but you can also just use an alt.


For a smaller, easier p2 operation, find the more valuable/rare p0/p1 item, and set up a dedicated extraction planet here. Since you're only looking for 1 thing, you have a wider range of planets to choose from. Then put down a colony on a planet with the more common p0/p1 resource. On this planet run both an extrator and some advanced processors (and a silo). Here you save import and export tax of the cheap p1 material (remember taxes hit cheaper goods harder), you need less extractors to get the same amount because its more abundant, and you use the difference to make p2.

Finally, make spreadsheets. Use them to keep track of your planets, use them to calculate taxes, use them to calculate volumes, use them to calculate how long before you need to refill your factories. I generally don't worry about p0 in my spreadsheets, I just assume that for a given extractor planet, I can keep it running X number of p1 reactors constantly, and work from there.

Since the Crucible expansion all custom offices outside of Highsec, including Lowsec, are either Interbus NPC owned or destroyed/replaced by player owned ones.

Details from the EVElodpedia;

source: http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Customs_Office

Yes there are Interbus owned custom offices still around though once destroyed they do not respawn so less and less remain over time. They have a higher rate than the Concord ones in Highsec (10%). Player owned ones can still be used if set this way by the corporation owning it. They can set the tax rate to a limit (20% I believe) so expect to pay more in taxes in Lowsec.

Also, even if you find a customs office there is never any certainty it will remain there over the longer term given that they can and will get targeted and destroyed.

All the above then need to be considered against the potentially higher extraction rates, hauling and operating in Lowsec etc.

Time spent researching systems to find quieter ones and checking the customs office situation will pay dividends. Sites such as EVEPlanets really help in this as they allow you to check what planets are in what systems and details of what you can produce etc. You still need to research and visit before committing though, including to check the current status of the customs offices in system as I don't think there is any other way other than physically checking in system who owns them.

In the system's I've looked into, they all seem to have player owned at a 5% tax rate. I must contact the ceo to see if i may access these?.

Yeah that sounds good. I noticed the systems with no stations seem to get a lot less grief or player flow. May not be the most optimal or safest in hauling but it's worthy risk given the alternitave.

None the less I'm gune mess around with some high sec tonight to get a grip on the interface. Cheers for your help.

I'm toying with the idea of setting up my PI in lowsec, too. So far this thread has ben very helpful, so thanks everyone! My question is this: what actually happens if the original POCO gets destroyed and some other corp builds their own one? Do I just use that one? Is it necessary to contact the new owners? Provided they don't set the taxes at an exorbitant rate, of course.

Yes, your facilities and POCO access will restart after the new POCO is up.

......IF a new one is built. Could be awhile. Quite awhile.


edit: Always remember almost everything in EVE is PvP. When that total wipeout occurred in Mahnagh (see post 22), I just threw in the towel and started over in 2 other systems. But that's the only time that's happened in over 2 years of Low Sec PI for me.

You fly in and out hauling in a CovOps Blockade Runner. No big deal.

Never caught once in 2 years. Across 4 Toons. In 3 different Regions.

Just keep factory planet in High Sec as one must often loiter at the POCO.

I'm a bit confused by this. Are you getting p2 by alternating p1 production? (described in sola mercury's post). If not I think you're labeling your stuff wrong. The basics turn p0 into p1, and the advanced turn p1 into p2 as well as p2 into p3.

Anyway, regarding the factory planet, I import 4 types of p1 to my factory planet, where I have 8 advanced processors doing 1 p2, 8 doing the other, and 4 doing the p3 material. The ratio here is 1 p3 processor for every 2+2 p2 processors, so if you really are importing p2 to your factory to make p3, you will be able to process much much more p2 than your 4 planets can provide. A dedicated p2->p3 factory would only be an efficient use of the planet if you were buying lots more p2 from the market or getting it from other people/characters.

If you are importing the p1 in a setup similar to mine, then with 6 basic processors per planet, you would want 6+6 advanced processors on your factory making the p2, with 3 advanced making p3. This will keep up with your factory planets. You can use extra pg for more storage or as flexible extra processing capacity.

i don't have a screenshot atm but my factory world looks like a barbel (or like this), with the p3 processors vertical in the center, launchpads on the left and right, silos outside of the launchpads, and groups of 2 p2 processors branching off from the silos. P2 is stored in the silos before going to the p3 processors, in case one side of the factory runs out of material (chiral structures are my limiting reagent).

Also, regarding the use of POCOs, if you're willing to trust that they won't be destroyed, you can use them for storage. For example, i produce metals faster than i can turn them to mechanical parts, so I have a bit of a buffer at the moment. I can take that huge buffer to the factory planet in an itty 5 and leave it in the POCO. Similarly, while that buffer gets eaten by the factory planet, I can just do occasional exports from the p1 worlds that make that stuff, and not pick it up until there's a lot there. Of course, this doesn't save you that much time if you're stuck with a viator that has about the same cargo capacity as a launchpad anyway. But if you're doing multiple planets in a quiet system and can use something with more space...

Chiral structures and Toxic metals are P1 materials. If the 5th planet is producing consumer electronics, that is a P2 material. Consumer electronics + mechanical parts = robotics, which is a P3. Having all 5 planets produce p2 is viable and saves on hauling/taxes, plus any planet can make at least one kind of p2. You can do two methods. With two extractors its a pretty inefficient but requires little management besides occasionally moving the extractors. Using 1 extractor is efficient but you have to re-configure all of the basic processors every few days. My long post from last week addressed the problems of doing p2 on one planet with two extractors.