Science & Industry

I've been setting up PI colonies since they've been introduced, but I never really put much thought into how I am setting them up. I just kinda get to the point where I click a cycle, and maybe haul stuff out once a week (if I even remember I have a colony set up).

But now I am setting up a Tier 3 production, whereas for years I have been just setting up Tier 2 colonies. There is quite a lot to consider and the jump in complexity leaves me wondering if I could improve on efficiency and whatnot, or if I am totally organizing my colonies Wrong(tm).

I minimized my number of planets to 3 for extraction and T1 processing, and a 4th planet just for T2/T3 processing (good? bad?). I don't care about tax, though I do care about human time (hauling between planets, mainly), especially because this is not in safe space.

The extraction planets are all set up in a similar manner to this one: http://i.imgur.com/py0ZSZB.jpg
2 extractors with 8 heads that feed into a buffer storage, and 4 T1 processing facilities which output to the launchpad.

And this is the production planet: http://i.imgur.com/7WSpp6e.jpg
The production planet uses the launchpad as the input for the 9 T2 processing facilities, and the T2 processing facilities send their products to a buffer storage for the lone T3 facility, and the T3 facility outputs to the final storage for launch at my leisure.

The powergrid on the extraction planets is tight, and I'd like to step up the processing facilities from 4 to 6, but some of the planets have hotspots that aren't close to eachother, and the length of the planetary links sucks up too much grid to allow for the 6 processing facilities. Any suggestions for the way my chain is organized, or should I just relocate the "too tight" colonies to planets that have better positioned hotspots?

The extraction planets combined can make 11520 T1 units (4378 m³) per day as is. The production planet can consume 17280 (6557 m³) but has plenty of grid to expand upon this. I am thinking I should probably step it up to 10 T2 facilities and 2 T3 facilities if I can somehow keep them fed by better optimization on the extracting phase.

Thanks for any input, and others feel free to hijack this thread for optimization of your own colonies!

Oh wow I didn't know it was possible to have multiple Launchpads! Nice :-D

My CCU IV extraction planets run one extractor head feeding to a silo. Those ECUs chew up powergrid, just run one and you might have enough left over to upgrade the head->silo link if needed.

From the silo, eight basic facilities make P1 and feed to a Launchpad. Keep all your facilities bunched up tight together to minimize the powergrid hit from the links.

Factory planets are another thing altogether and CCU V becomes very, very handy.

P1-P2 I use three launchpads, two silos and ~20 odd factories. One launchpad is the buffer for the P2 product, the rest are input storage for the factories. Again keep everything built up as close as possible to minimize link length. The input buffer holds enough for just over two days between refills.

P1-P3 planets follow the same path. One Launchpad for each pair of P1 inputs, then balance out the factories. So my Data Chips plant has four facilities making Data Chips and eight each making the P2s. FYI: 13,157 is the magic number for splitting one launchpad (10,000m^3) evenly between two P1 inputs.

sorry, don't have the screenshots handy just now.

Finally had time and willpower to revisit this. With the kind suggestions provided, I was definitely able to increase optimization. I changed essentially three things:

1. Only consider a location for a colony if it at least has the hotspots you want in proximity to eachother so as to minimize planetary link distance
2. Place structures as close as possible to eachother, again to minimize planetary link distance
3. Daisy-chain the overall design so as to "re-use" planetary links, as opposed to a spiderweb design where links could be consolidated

So now my extraction colonies all look more or less like http://i.imgur.com/EJuDnAK.jpg. For reference they used to look like http://i.imgur.com/py0ZSZB.jpg, although that one was an exception with spare grid, most of them were maxed out on the grid with that crappy design.

So it's an upgrade from: 2 extractor facilities (8 heads), 2 storage buffer, 4 basic processing facilities to: 2 extractor facilities (10 heads), 2 storage buffer, 6 basic processing facilities. The extra heads can net 20k raw materials per 30 min, 9k of which is immediately consumed by the processing facilities which leaves a nice buffer of extra material in the likely event that I dont check on stuff for a day or two.

My production planet I didn't bother optimizing because I don't think I could possibly keep it fed with enough T1 materials on just one account, I would need at least one more account to do so. But then the maintenance and hauling would suck the fun out of it I think.

Updated my production planet a few weeks ago: https://i.imgur.com/FpyQgRF.jpg

That is 18 Advanced T2 processors which feed in to 3 Advanced T3 processors, with the launchpad as input, one intermediary storage facility and one final-product storage facility.

In theory it can eat through 6566m³ of T2 materials per day, and produce 432m³ per day, so that means ~15x less crap to haul out of hostile space, than if I was just producing T2. This translates to an isk loss, but a human-time gain and less risk, which I appreciate a lot.

In reality I don't keep it fed aggressively, and one of my planets has had unfavorable hotspots lately. My planets (http://i.imgur.com/EJuDnAK.jpg) fill up a launchpad in about 6 days, and I feed the production facilities 2 or 3 during the weekend, which isn't enough, but I'm lazy so it is what it is. It's about 75M isk per week with my lazy method on the product I chose, and I'm happy with that since it's only 4 planets.

I'm still not sure what I should use the other 2 planets for. If I address one or two of my material bottlenecks, then it'll just make the other 4 materials the bottleneck. If I just make them profit planets pumping out an isk favorable T1 or T2 material, then I am looking at a lot of hauling again which is what I was trying to get away from in my T3 setup.

"My product".

Why do people do this? Do you think you're being crafty? Protecting valuable market intel which, btw, is available in bulk via the API?

Once the price has spiked, the intel is already long past its expiration date. The ENTIRE MARKET knows.

If you want a useful answer, ask a useful question.

e.g.

Q: Why has the price of sterile conduits spiked to almost 2 million in the last few days?

A: As the build costs for certain station components will be changing for the citadel patch, there is currently a massive, speculative buildout of the items that will be effectively more expensive after the patch. These components use PI products as raw material. This has caused a relatively sudden increase in demand for PI products, and the demand distribution is not quite the same as it was before, so some previously underdemanded components are now comparatively in greater demand. This has caused a lot of cyclical price volatility: The price of a product spikes, many people retool to build that, and flood the market back down to sanity. During this time, other products go under-produced, leading to shortages in those which, in turn, cause price spikes.

This is sustained by virtue of the fact that it is speculative, and there's no clear market indicator that "enough" structure components have been built.

I realise you are enjoying the end to end process, but if your aim is profit look into ditching harvesting all together and just set up farms to push product up a tier.