EVE New Citizens Q&A

Howdy folks.

Planetary Interaction is a fairly passive way to make ISK while you aren't actively playing EVE. You set up planets to produce stuff, then come back a few days later and collect it. It's pretty accessible to a lowskilled character - you can get going with a 20 million ISK investment and just 10-30 hours of skilling. The stuff you make with PI is a bit bulky but can be carted to market in an Epithal (for a lowskilled pilot), an Occator (a safer alternative for a highskilled pilot), or a freighter or orca (an alternative that's suited to an experienced pilot with a combat escort)

A while ago I paid another player ISK to write a guide on PI which was posted on this forum. My motives were to lower the price of Robotics - the PI good that the guide steps you through producing. However, despite my ulterior motives, the guide *is* legitimately useful.

Robotics are now the most expensive they have been in EVE's history, and so it's time for this guide to see the light of day again. You are of course not limited to using the guide to produce Robotics and if you find more profitable alternatives, go ahead and exploit them.

Sun-Tzu's Guide To Planetary Interaction is here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5620559#post5620559 . The thread is locked due to EVE's forums locking threads after 3 months without comments, but all the information in it is still 100% up to date.

People absolutely can alter the guide with a little research.

Robotics have never been more expensive than they are now but if someone does some research and can make something even more profitable good for them.

(Edit: I might have a vested interest in a slow decline in Robotics prices)

Does the Occator have the same PI bonus as the Epithal? As far as I can see from the reference material, it's noted as "Epithal" class, but has a large fleet hangar rather than a specialised cargo hold for PI materials.

If the Occator can transport large quantities of PI, that would be interesting to know.

Thank you.

Does that mean the Fleet Hangar can accept cargo other than ships?

I have an Occator and I can confirm that the fleet hangar can carry up to 50,000 (60,000 with skills) of any goods, including PI goods, cans, modules, and ships (repackaged). The Occator requires a lot more skills trained than the Epithal, but it has a much stronger tank.

The Epithal is very weak; it only has about 15k hit points (has too little power grid to put a good tank on it), and low agility so you'll take a while to align. You can be one-shot suicide-ganked very easily in high-sec, and if you're carrying 40-80M ISK worth of PI materials in the PI cargohold, that definitely makes it worth a suicide gank.

The regular hauler (Nereus and equivalent) only carries about 10k cargo, but can be fitted with some large shield extenders and shield resistances to about 24-28k hit points, making it slightly harder to suicide-gank. Also can be fitted with inertia stabs or nanofibers to align quite a bit faster, in about 5 seconds. 10k cargo isn't much, but it is good enough to move PI materials between the planets and your station.

So my recommendation for safety, such as is possible, would be to use a Nereus (with a prototype cloak) to move your materials around the planets to complete your PI chains, and use courier contracts once a week to move your stuff to Jita, Amarr, Dodixie, etc. Couriers are much safer than transporting the robotics yourself; and if you pay 500k per jump distance, with a collateral that covers the cost of the materials transported (approx. 100m), they'll grab the contract and move it for you very fast. Try to keep the transported package at less than 60,000 m3, to allow it to fit in all those Occators out there looking for courier missions.

Thank you for confirming the capability of the Occator.

I was confused because the Ship Tree information indicates only a 3900m3 cargo bay, but a Fleet Hangar of 50,000m3 (affected by the 5% bonus from Transport Ships). In the Eve University wiki, it confirms these numbers and explains that the Fleet Hangar is used for moving assembled ships. Though the wiki describes the Occator as Epithal class, it doesn't mention PI at all.

Since other industrial ships seem to be unable to use specialised holds for other materials (ore holds, for example, refuse other kit being put in there) I'd drawn the incorrect conclusion that the Occator was just for moving ships.

This is where it's great having the people in this forum to help - the written sources aren't always clear, so experience remains the gold standard. Thanks again!

Emptied out my PI launchpads last evening as they were full (hisec using 3 day cycles).

Surprised I had to pay tax twice: once to export from planet, once to remove from POCO,

Afterward estimated I had ~36m of stuff (P0 and P1, and a little P2). Figured that's pretty decent for the skill investment (level 4s), and lack of effort. Would certainly pay for several frigates / destroyers, maybe even a cruiser.

So I'd rate hisec PI as still decent for young pilots with limited funds.

Let's assume you clear 27m of that (after taxes, market fees, and the occasional Epithal loss to me and my associates).

That's hundreds of millions of ISK a month for pretty low effort.

Do give Robotics a look in today's EVE economy (and I also believe the 4th tier ones are lucrative at the moment too).