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Back to Eve after long hiatus, advice for ISK from trade or industry?
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Thermopylaee
EVE University
Ivy League
#1 - 2013-12-01 18:23:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Thermopylaee
Good afternoon all,

I'm coming back to Eve after 2 yrs away... The first time around drained too much time from real life, and this time I want to find a nice balance of play time and ISK generation. At the time, L4 mission grinding was only earning me about 10M per hour not counting LPs, and that seemed awfully low to me. Therein lies my confusion: do you suggest industry or trade as a better way to generate passive income?

My thoughts are: trade requires good knowledge of market conditions and constant attention to the .01 ISK wars. Though if I could find ways to spend an hour or two each week on this, it would meet my criteria! Industry can be put into the batch and let sit for the required production time, but would require me to source the materials ahead of time. The last time I tried industry, I couldn't quite find the right balance of materials to time and profit margin. I also never got ahold of any juicy blueprints. I'd love to work up to T2 and T3 production, and am willing to spend the skill time, but have had no guidance other than Evelopedia ;-)

Note: I realize that any sort of serious attempt at this will require in-game time, but another variation I wonder about is if there's a "threshold/buy-in" amount that would accelerate things. For example, if I spent a chunk of change on the right BPO or BPC, could a reasonable profit be returned? Say I bought a Warrior II BPO (yeah, I know... wishful thinking), is that in the realm of the possible to shorten my time to profit? I'm not asking for the specific items, just whether/not initial start-up capital makes a big difference here.

Thoughts from experienced industry folks, or would trade skills and some market research be more lucrative given my small amount of in-game time?

Thanks in advance.
SJ Astralana
Syncore
#2 - 2013-12-01 20:54:39 UTC
Medium rigs have a low cost of entry, a short research time, good volume, decent factory profit efficiency, and enough of a margin to allow you to compete. It's a fallacy that you must stay logged in to move product, and in fact staying logged in is 100% guaranteed to minimise your isk/hour.

Hyperdrive your production business: Eve Production Manager

Billy Hix
Dreddit
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#3 - 2013-12-01 20:58:19 UTC
If you like PvE and want to earn decent isk, go do some incursions. You need decent skills but it nets about 100M an hour.
Solai
Doughfleet
Triglavian Outlaws and Sobornost Troika
#4 - 2013-12-01 21:11:51 UTC
Before you throw in on manufacture, you may want to try trading first. For the reason that the process of tracking your costs and profits in manufacture is very similar to what you would be doing in trade, just more complex.
If you haven't already started getting into spreadsheets, you'll definitely want to start. Preferably in bite-sized pieces.

Also, you're incorrect that trading requires babysitting market orders, and .01ing. This may be true of hub station-trading, but it's not strictly necessary elsewhere. You can set up both buy and sell orders in more remote places, and fill empty niches, thus not needing to spend much of any time monitoring it. The item volume is far lower, but you can still make big bucks if you have many order slots working for you 23/7, easily enough to plex an account.

Another reason why trading-only can work great - Imagine you set up shop in a violent region of low-sec. Set up competitive buy orders on common fittings, like damage control 2, heat sink, afterburners, etc. PVPer's get blown up, drop some loot, and the other guy just wants to offload it. In a month, you'll probably have a large stack of DCU II's with which you can then list at extremely cheap prices, winning all the market share, and you still make a huge return. Compare to the guy who had to buy all the components to manufacture the DCU II, who has a minimum investment per module, equating to it's component cost, a price he can't go below. If you use buy orders, you are not constrained by the price floor that all the manufacturer's sit on.

Multiply that by however many modules/etc you're working on, and you've got a really sweet semi-passive income stream.
Thermopylaee
EVE University
Ivy League
#5 - 2013-12-01 21:53:43 UTC
Thanks for the advice so far, all, that new perspective helps! My goal is to be able to PLEX the account with just a few hours a week. Ambitious, but I like the thought and the dollar impact (or lack thereof) on my [real] wallet.

As for the low-sec options, I think that could work. I spent a lot of my former career in hi-sec with a terrible corp. I realized that one far too late and only joined up with a decent one (EDF) shortly before I left the first time. For my fresh start I'll need to get used to the low-sec mechanics.

Do you recommend learning the ferry the goods to/from low sec myself, or to hire someone competent to do it? Unfortunately I transferred my old char before I left, so I'm starting this one from scratch. Would be a pain to train up all those industrial or cloak hauler skills...


Solai: I like the sound of your corp, mature folks 30+, eh? I'll look you up when I have some more time to try my hand at true PvP again ;-)
Solai
Doughfleet
Triglavian Outlaws and Sobornost Troika
#6 - 2013-12-01 22:37:35 UTC
I have pretty much zero low-sec experience - All my time's been spent in Null.
But I would imagine that trade in low-sec requires either:
A) a willingness to absorb the occasional haul loss, and the planning to ensure no loss is ever catastrophic
B) the ability to fly a small-hold, fast-aligning, warp stabilized, cloaky blockade runner
C) the margin planning that assumes freight costs.

Option C is likely in the cards to some extent. Bringing a large load from low-sec to Jita personally is fraught with risk. But a jump freighter pilot avoids the vast majority of that. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to keep your margins large enough that freight represents an acceptable slice of the potential profits.

Option B is also a large part of things. If you don't fly a safety-fit blockade runner, then you're constrained to buying and selling on one station. You will tend to get much more business if you can cater to the guy who just wants to sell now, now, now, by making the buy orders active in a broad radius. Reason being that if they cannot sell where they are presently are, if they're forced to move just a little ways to sell, then it will not 'feel' as if it's such a large leap to hold onto their goods until they can move it all to Jita or wherever.

Option A is at the same time avoidable yet inevitable.
You could crunch some numbers though. Lets say you fly a fully loaded bestower, 40,000 m3 of goods, worth say 1 billion, and you get unlucky and lose it all. Before you fret, factor in the other costs, like shipping. You could have opted to use a shipping service, for a price, and ensured* its safety. If you skip that, and save the shipping fuel cost, then its possible that your loss does not exceed the extra profit of your choice to do it yourself.

And I'm falling asleep here, forgot what I was saying, so that's the end for now.
Gislin D'ahl
Perkone
Caldari State
#7 - 2013-12-19 22:36:13 UTC
Thermopylaee wrote:


My thoughts are: trade requires good knowledge of market conditions and constant attention to the .01 ISK wars. Though if I could find ways to spend an hour or two each week on this, it would meet my criteria! Industry can be put into the batch and let sit for the required production time, but would require me to source the materials ahead of time. The last time I tried industry, I couldn't quite find the right balance of materials to time and profit margin. I also never got ahold of any juicy blueprints. I'd love to work up to T2 and T3 production, and am willing to spend the skill time, but have had no guidance other than Evelopedia ;-)

Note: I realize that any sort of serious attempt at this will require in-game time, but another variation I wonder about is if there's a "threshold/buy-in" amount that would accelerate things. For example, if I spent a chunk of change on the right BPO or BPC, could a reasonable profit be returned? Say I bought a Warrior II BPO (yeah, I know... wishful thinking), is that in the realm of the possible to shorten my time to profit? I'm not asking for the specific items, just whether/not initial start-up capital makes a big difference here.

Thoughts from experienced industry folks, or would trade skills and some market research be more lucrative given my small amount of in-game time?

Thanks in advance.


CCP is nerfing pretty much every source of passive income they can find.

Manufacturing is good once you get the process down and it doesn't need extreme babysitting. I'm not sure when the T2 BPO lottery went away (I just know it was before my time) but now what you need is T1 blueprints to make most T2 items. Buy some existing T1 blueprints (researched or not) and get cranking. These days you don't luck into a juicy BPO, you just make your own ;D.

Medium/large rigs and ammo are both good choices to start. Also, drones, turrets/launchers, and modules that involve fitting multiples to a single ship. You won't make the most isk possible making these items but you probably won't lose your shirt and you'll learn the manufacturing chain.

You're not alone (or just stuck with evelopedia). Eve University offers a fantastic wiki, full class archives, and existing ongoing classes EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT A MEMBER. That's right, you can attend most Eve University classes without joining our corp. If you don't want to attend classes you can still look through the wiki and listen to old archived classes.

Here is the class archive:
http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/EVE_University_Class_Library

Good luck and welcome back.
Termy Rockling
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#8 - 2013-12-20 02:29:04 UTC
Just forget T2 BPOs, if you can afford one you can plex your account for years alreadyBlink
As for starting T2 you need roughly 500m investment to small pos and labs and random stuff.
Then you need to find out nice item which has nice profit and runtime and go from there.
Boomhaur
#9 - 2013-12-20 10:27:10 UTC
As for plexing your account with a few hours of work, I do it but it required a lot of research. Lots of disposable income, etc.

Closest thing I will tell you is that unlike what most people tell you, you are capable of using autopilot with a decent degree of safety if you are tanked out to the extreme (and of course stay in hi-sec). Augoror Navy Issue is capable of pushing out close to Freighter level of EHP without Slave implants and using just T2 fit and rigs. Damnation can double that. And than there is the uncertainty for suicide gankers whether or not you have Slave Implants so they either take a risk or bring more people and get smaller cuts.

I mention this because depending on what you do you may end up having to transfer a small but decently valuable cargo and a ship such as one of those will prove invaluable. I am not saying AFK with 1bil in an Augoror Navy Issue but a couple 100mil is nothing to worry about. Not to mention having an AFK ship that will get you from point A to B safely is quite handy in the manufacturing/trading side of things, those industrials come pre-installed with a target painted on the side.

The difference between 15min of manually jumping your ship vs 40min autopilot adds up quite quickly how much you enjoy your game and how often you play. I generally use the Autopilot and do further research on goods I'm dealing with, listening to music, working, cleaning, cooking, etc.

For me it takes probably 1-3hours worth of actual work depending on how much research I do that month to plex my account, not including AFK autopilot. If we included that it shoot up another 3-5hours. In general I carry well less than I recommended in my cargo hold and if I need to move a large bulk order I may move it myself very quickly to the nearest trade hub than setup an courier contract to have it moved to Jita. I find doing things this way I can pay people very little and generally the order is picked up and done extremely quickly as freighter pilots like to maximize their profits along trade routes. That or if your uncomfortable with the risk or the value of the goods just setup a courier contract for a few mil and if it doesn't require a freighter people seem to jump on it in my experience.

Welcome to Eve. Everyone here is an Evil Sick Sadistic Bastard who is out to get you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either trying to scam you or use you.
Batelle
Federal Navy Academy
#10 - 2013-12-20 15:51:17 UTC
you can't be an industrialist without being a trader, unless someone else is selling your product for your and sourcing your materials. You can definitely be a trader without being an industrialist. Also "knowing market conditions" is overrated, as long as prices don't tank while you sit on stock, you'll come out ahead with buy low, sell high. Just gotta know what goods people sell in bulk, and which ones are worth putting up buy orders for.

"**CCP is changing policy, and has asked that we discontinue the bonus credit program after November 7th. So until then, enjoy a super-bonus of 1B Blink Credit for each 60-day GTC you buy!"**

Never forget.
Malorado Pinuchi
Liberation By Annihilation
#11 - 2013-12-25 19:54:03 UTC  |  Edited by: Malorado Pinuchi
Keep a check on your ambitions. I may have scanned the thread too quickly but what is the time frame you've allotted yourself to be setup in such a way to plex w/ minimal face time in game?

Here's my take on what I know.

Trading:
-Buy orders take time
-Sell orders take time
-Volume takes a lot of time

t2:
-Slot babysitting a tower can give massive iskies/hr, but that's contrary to your goal
-Amassing a single or two of one type of t2 mod (say Tracking enhancers) is a once a day login at minimum, but then to offload to market [edit: quickly] w/o absurd hauling see "Trading" above.

t1:
-None of the slot issues of t2, nor tower upkeep/investment
-Ammo for the generation you're after is hauling/freighting intensive, outsourcable of course, and not too shabby
-mineral supplies see "Trading" above.

To reiterate what's been mentioned by others, Trading is the key, with time as the door.
Thermopylaee
EVE University
Ivy League
#12 - 2013-12-25 20:06:07 UTC
Malorado Pinuchi wrote:
Keep a check on your ambitions. I may have scanned the thread too quickly but what is the time frame you've allotted yourself to be setup in such a way to plex w/ minimal face time in game?

Here's my take on what I know.

Trading:
-Buy orders take time
-Sell orders take time
-Volume takes a lot of time

t2:
-Slot babysitting a tower can give massive iskies/hr, but that's contrary to your goal
-Amassing a single or two of one type of t2 mod (say Tracking enhancers) is a once a day login at minimum, but then to offload to market [edit: quickly] w/o absurd hauling see "Trading" above.

t1:
-None of the slot issues of t2, nor tower upkeep/investment
-Ammo for the generation you're after is hauling/freighting intensive, outsourcable of course, and not too shabby
-mineral supplies see "Trading" above.

To reiterate what's been mentioned by others, Trading is the key, with time as the door.


Thanks for all the replies. I'm going to start with the trading route, and see how that goes. I've also been working to identify some good T1 starting items, since it will be easiest for me to do with limited time. My fear is that I won't be putting enough ISK into the market for danger of losing it if my analysis is wrong. I have about 1.5B liquid ISK ready to go, but want to be able to keep a decent buffer against catastrophic failure in my trades!
Thermopylaee
EVE University
Ivy League
#13 - 2013-12-25 23:27:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Thermopylaee
Hehe, I just put about 680M out in buy orders, and will watch to see how quickly they fill and how quickly I can sell them. Here's to profits!

I got rid of my original character years ago, transferred him to a friend in hopes he would get used. And get used he did! I'm glad the new owner is finding a good use for that char, but I would like to be able to buy him back some day. At this rate, I'll need at least 12-15B just to make a bid, and I doubt the individual would sell him at that. I'm going to need to be doing this for a while to turn that kind of ISK.