Science & Industry

Loaded question: I wish there was some direct way to find out what Planetology in fact influenced. Right off the bat that would answer my questions! I can Google it, but nine times out of ten I run across out dated information, and when I do find current information it is almost always supposition and well meaning but uninformed advice.


When I'm setting up extractors on a planet the colored zones offer very, very indirect help in my placement.
Does Planetology put the colored zones more in line with the very minute differences in the "good half of red" and the "pretty much yellow half of red?"
-or-
When I've set up my extractors, after moving them around but before actually starting the cycle, I have an estimated total output for the total duration. When I actually start the cycle, the window closes, and when I open it again the number in no way reflects the earlier number- for instance I will jog my extractor nodes around looking for resource hotspots (invisible, see question 1), and see that setting my cycle to a day will give me 150. I will then go "oh, 150? perfect! I need 148 every day so this is perfect!" Of course, once I start the cycle, as I found out to my horror only by re-opening the window after I engaged it, the number changes- suddenly instead of telling me it will give me 150/day it says it's in fact only giving 132.
Is this what Planetology fixes?


I'm pretty unhappy with PI in execution, I love the idea of working it all out and then having to bring my plan in line with reality and the best planets I can find, but lately I've found that all the information I try to get in game is invariably misleading. It takes all the fun out of trying to work out a successful chain when finding resources is made as difficult as possible and there is no information (seemingly) anywhere as to what to do.


Long story short: I don't want to spend a month training AP and Planetology to 5s only to find out what they actually change has nothing to do with this madness.

Thanks, seriously- thank you- for any help you can give me on this. Searching myself for people who have already asked these questions has only made me more cynical of the system and left me more confused than before.

After you start the extractor, the number it shows is the actual output for the first cycle, which can be more or less than the average over the entire run.

Maybe that's true for each head but the total per cycle is not. I have see the first cycle go from 2000 down to 850 and up from 7000 to 12000 (24hour run) after submitting and when I come back like the numbers are much lower than when I started which makes sense as graph is a logarithm. This points to the cycle output not being an average and the figures being very inaccurate at lvl3 which is what I have.

I have also had 2 extractors on the same planet with the same number of heads and some times even though 1 of them is pulling from a less red patch it gets way less than the other on a much redder area.

Either way I think the higher level skills are a waste unless you are doing PI in Low/Null as you could get much for from other 5x skills.

Actually from what I've experienced, when doing PI in hi sec, these skills being 4-5 is necessary if you're trying to extract felsic magma on a lava planet for example, or any other low quantity resources.

Raising these skills will give a more accurate depiction of the concentration of resources, gives more accurate cycle values, and I'm pretty sure that these skills also allow you to extract higher volumes based off the fact they reveal more resources. Meaning you can't extract what your equipment can't find.

Pretty much if you're wanting to make PI a staple of your character these skills are quite useful, but if you have split professions or other interests lv4 is ok.

EDIT: also you may or may hove not read the information here, but it helped me out greatly in learning PI http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Planetary_Interaction

I usually write long posts about this subject, but I am out the door in a few minutes. Search Posts by me for more in depth info I have tested this extensively.

Basically when you place PI on a planet you conduct a survey. This gives you the estimates of what you will yield depending on where you place your extractor heads. The estimate is what you see in the info window. High Planetology skills make this number more accurate. It is not so much the color concentrations but the actual number you see in the window. As you have noticed the colors on screen do not always match up to the best location for your head, or moving the head around on the red/white you can see a big difference.

Planetology skills do make this more accurate, but this the biggest difference is between the numbers you see in the window when setting up your extraction, and the numbers you see in the window if you open it back up after installing the program. For example you have an extraction control unit with 6 heads out, the info says you will get an average of 6700 units per hour, this number is based on your survey skills. After installing the program the number changes, as you have seen. The lower your planetology skills the bigger difference there can be between these numbers. I believe with planetology and advanced planetology both trained to 5 there is no difference between these numbers. I only have them at 4 which had drastically reduced the margine of error, But I assume with perfect skills the error is zero. if not it will be close to it.

My advice would be train planetology to 4 and advanced planetology to 3 and see for your self the difference. then if you want even more accuracy you can add a few more levels, but 4/3 is not a big time investment.