Science & Industry

Just coming back to the game and notice the profit margins for reactions can now be more aptly described as loss margins.

Take Dysporite @ ~$36,410 * 200 = ~$7,281,990 per 'batch' value.
Needed Materials Mercury & Dysprosium = $6,624,998 per 'batch' cost.

Profit before POS fuel = $657,320 per batch.

POS fuel : $671,368 per batch run (40 blocks @ $16,784 for Gallente Tower)

Net Profit after Fuel: -$14,084 per batch, or -$10,120,320 per month. You can see a cleaner image of this here: http://grab.by/wxju

Now sure, a $10 mil per month loss is not a lot. But almost ALL (with the exception of Ferrofluid) simple reactions are losing isk, except for in many cases its in the hundreds of millions.

See here:
http://grab.by/wxjI

Complex reacitons are not ALL seeing the same result, some are mildly profitable, but others only make <$50 mil, or lose money (again, some in the hundreds of millions).

So the question is, why are people creating simple reactions that lose money, when they simply could sell the materials for more isk? The last time I saw this anomaly, whereas there was a loss on reactions, was when the POS bug (exploit) existed using no inputs and only creating outputs, therefore the POS owner could care less what the material cost was.

I am sure there is an explanation I am missing, but I simply cannot seem to find it yet. (I have recently come back to the game, so I have been searching as to the "why" this is concurring, but cannot find a reasonable answer yet). If it is readily available, or common sense, I apologize

You forgot the sov bonus.

Yes this does reduce, but still, the majority of simple reactions lose millions.

As for sov bonuses, a lot of the reactions *used* to be done in low sec, and most of low sec is still full of POS's running reactions.

Years ago, simple reactions would net a couple of hundred mil per tower. Now the majority are losing several hundred mil, even with a medium tower.

That's a -$400 mil swing...

Really, the same reason that people build things like jumpfreighters off bpcs invented with bad ME.

Players don't bother to crunch the numbers, or are bad at math. They can't handle adding up the associated costs and expenditures, and simply assume they are making a profit.

It's laziness and stupidity, and it drives the economy, so try not to stop them, too fast.

heh, i do simple reactions because i use the material. The overflow is just an added bonus.

Volume reduction is one of the reasons.

Reaction price changes tend to lag input prices under normal circumstances.

This makes sense, and I had thought of this, but would find it hard to believe that it swings by the hundreds of millions (I don't see that level of volatility in the moon materials which would drive the simple reactions volatility).




I am not asking how to make money, I make plenty. I was just trying to rationalize the why people would make simple reactions to simply lose money on them.

The only real answer that makes sense, is that people don't understand all of the costs that go into building / reacting etc. For instance, these reactions are losing millions, and do not even account for the tax / broker fees that also must be paid.

I don't want people to misread my question, I'm not complaining, just thought that perhaps I was missing something. I just wish that we could reprocess those reactions back down to the moon materials so I could make some easy isk from these people