Science & Industry

When you build or purchase your spreadsheets for your work, what are the things you look for?

How do you prefer things be organized? A single larger page, or multiple tabs for each step of the construction cycle?

Do you prefer API based price pulls, or do you prefer to manually enter price points/


Just some things ive always been interested in, and would love to hear back about.

Manually.

I didn't know one could do market API pulls. Most people do EVE-Central pulls, which are inaccurate.

When Jita sneezes, other markets in New Eden catch pneumonia

[To twist a very old Wall Street saying.]

I acknowledge my conflict of interest, but because I eat my own dogfood each and every day 2 years running, I feel I must point out that writing a spreadsheet for a problem that has been solved for years is just idiocy. It's simply a two-step process: Research what to build, and then manage your business. If you're writing a spreadsheet to manage your business, you're no better than a troglodyte reinventing the wheel.

I don't use big spreadsheets anymore. I made one a few years ago that contained all of the numbers for all of the blueprints I had (or could make) and gave me the one big piece of information I needed..... Which item can I make right now that has the biggest profit margin?

But then life got busy and I couldn't maintain it. I recently threw it away.

What I do now is this. I have a fairly good understanding of the market and a good view on which ships and modules I can sell in my nullsec area. With that as a starting point, I use a couple of webtools to get a rough idea of what it will cost to make things that I know I can push in volume. Normally the numbers are inaccurate and incomplete but good enough to make a decision about whether or not to follow up. To get a correct number, I use a calculator to confirm my manufacture cost and then buy all the stuff to make a "run" of something for several months.

So right now, for example, I'm making a certain ship and 2 modules. I bought enough stuff for a "run" of 3 months. What I'll do with that is set up fully fitted ships that use the hull and modules I'm making and then sell them on alliance contracts. Everything I can make in 3 months will sell... eventually... and for a good profit. When I start building up a large inventory I'll start making a different hull and other modules so I can reduce inventory.

Occasionally I get caught holding a bit of inventory with this approach but it's easy to keep track of what you're doing like this and very low-effort in terms the amount of RL time you have to put into it. Profit margins are not "optimal" but they're good enough and it fits in a busy life style where I would rather be spending my time in EVE getting stuff blown up than grinding isk. The best part of all is that you can make isk AND your alliance thanks you for the service :)


T-

I have my own web application I wrote for manufacturing. The master screen shows the items I can build along with forecasted average weighted volume and profit per character hour in each market I operate in based on a work period I define. The master screen shows the total number of pooled hours across all toons and units per blueprints per set time for building selected item(s). I select from the master screen how much of each item I want to build which reduces the total hours and blueprint runs available. Asset screen allows me to enter my on-hand inventory for both calculating my P&L and buy orders for materials. Work order screen is a matrix allowing me too manually spread the requested products across the eiligble toons. Market order and line haul screen tells me what to buy and from what market including estimated shipping cost along with destination for material. Retail screen is where I enter what products are available and ready for market for which it tells me where to ship it. Final screen is finacials which is driven by my APIs for pulling wallet and character journal and transactions along with manual entries throughout the application with the sole purpose of telling me my income statement up to the current point in my fiscal year along with P&L.

All in all it helps guide me on what to build, who to use, where to buy, and where to sell while accounting for character hours, blueprints, invention, skills, taxes, contract fees, and shipping expenses. It has holes like how to handle BPCs and cant tell me when a market is being manipulated which is where human reseach comes into play. With all that said I started with spreadsheets in 2007 and have migrated from that to web-based over the years. I think at the mininum taking a shot a doing a lot of it yourself using spreadsheets will give you a lot of satisfaction plus learning to build analytics for your VR mfg or trading empire is something you can put on your RL resume.

You're right of course. However, the downside is that spreadsheet jockeys get discouraged and quit before they learn how easy it really can be. *****-slapping my competitors with profit-squeezing tactics, price trends and teams only goes so far, and I had a hope to spread a higher-order view in production success. It is so ******* much more than simply looking at today's prices and going shopping and posting one freaking item to market at a time.

And I'd lay odds that there aren't three spreadsheets in all of Eve that integrate teams as well as I do.

Sure, I don't mind providing pointers. I'm going to be spending some time this coming weekend building a spreadsheet to proof the new invention process which then I'll work into a coding run over the next couple of weeks. I made sure to stack up a bunch of bpcs over the next month

confirming API pulls leave something to be desired.

like, info on compressed ore prices.

Can i have access to this amazing web app?

:)