Science & Industry

I’m cross posting this to this forum and also to http://forum.eveuniversity.org apologies for this but I wanted to get as good a response to my questions as possible.

I've been playing the game for a while, and I've now managed to get all my planetary management skills up to L5.

Until recently, in truth, I've been a bit slack when it came to Planetary Interaction and although I have five planets on the go, up until now I've just extracted the basic raw materials, exported them into the orbiting customs office and then sold them on, as is.

Having had a proper think about how I 'do' PI I realised that I needed to up my game a bit so to speak and that what I ought to be doing is actually turning the raw materials into something useful before exporting them from the planet.

I did some research before diving into to this and changing how the planet’s run and I've read through the various guides on UniWiki (http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Planetary_Interaction) and also watched Seamus Donohue's films on PI on YouTube. I found both sources very useful.

Having done this research, it would seem to me that it's possible to have a colony set-up on a single planet with a workflow that will allow you to:

1. Harvest the raw planetary resources.
2. Move these resources into a basic processor and convert them into P1 products (using a launch pad as a storage buffer).
3. Move two kinds of P1 products into an advanced processor for conversion into P2 products (again, using the launch pad as a storage buffer).
4. Move two kinds of P2 products into a third advanced processor to create P3 products.
5. Finally move the finished P3 products into the launch pad for export into the orbiting customs office.

Based on this, I re-jigged one of my planets (as a test) and set up a barren planet colony with a plan to make the P3 product, Transcranial Microcontrollers.

I've taken two screen shots of the colony I if you want something visual to look at.
The entire structure - http://s101.photobucket.com/user/cloudwalker_3/media/Eve%20Online/Barren-ColonyOverallView_zps7103dc36.jpg.html
Close up of the colony core structure - http://s101.photobucket.com/user/cloudwalker_3/media/Eve%20Online/Barren-ColonySet-Up_zps0b46fdf2.jpg.html

The workflow is:

Basic processor 1 - Micro Organisms -> Bacteria
Basic processor 2 - Base Metals -> Reactive Metals
Advanced processor 1 - Bacteria + Reactive Metals = Nanites

Basic processor 3 - Carbon Compounds -> Biofuels
Basic processor 4 - Noble Metals -> Precious Metals
Advanced processor 2 - Biofuels + Precious Metals = Biocells

The plan was then to build a third advanced processor which would combine the Nanites and Biocells to make Transcranial Microcontrollers.

Unfortunately, This is where I’ve hit a snag.

There's no more power available (even though the command centre is fully upgraded to L5) and only enough to give me one extraction head per extractor control unit.

My questions are as follows:

Am I doing something wrong? Or is it simply not possible to have the number of units that I’m aiming for in a colony? As far as I could I’ve placed them as close as possible to each other to minimise the strain on the grid, I’m assuming that this is optimal.

Should I just adopt a different approach and have a single advance processor, which changes production to allow for more extraction heads and work on the basis that I gradually accumulate the right commodities to eventually make Transcranial Microcontrollers?

Is there another strategy completely that I should adopt?

I’d welcome any tips, hints and suggestions, thanks.

I think there are one-two things among the P3-stuff you could theoretically make on the right planet, if that planet is small enough. But even in W-Space the output would be rather low with all the factories and extractors you'll need.

P1 extraction + factory planet for P3/P4 and direct P2 production is the way to go, normally.