Wormholes

I'm probably in a similar position as I use 6 characters to extract from 30 planets and then perform the final two stages of Wetwares production on the 31st planet.

Each of the 30 planets extract P0's and turns them into P1's and then P2's. About once every two weeks I need to collect those P2's to take them to the final stage [31st] planet where the P2's are turned into P3's and then, finally, P4 Wetwares.

Optimally, I find resetting each character daily avoids bottlenecks and maintains pretty consistent extraction rate without draining the planet's resources and requiring big moves on the surface.

As far as income, it's probably around 3b a month, give or take. 1b per character sounds a bit fanciful tbh. I do all of this from a C1 wormhole and a DST is more than capable enough to get it all out in one run, about once a month.

According to my PI spreadsheet, as of today, if you purchase all P2 (at Jita sell prices) to import onto a production planet, you can make a profit of 901,329 isk/hr per planet (minus any POCO taxes and sales taxes) producing Wetware Mainframes. Broadcast nodes are running about the same. With 5 planets, each toon can make about 4.5M per hour. That equates to 108M per day or 3.2B per month per toon. Most times you can't clear more than 300K per hour per production planet by importing P2. That's just a little over 1B per month per toon.

But it requires a large capital outlay and significant work to keep everything flowing smoothly. Also, the profit numbers fluctuate wildly day to day. Don't go into P2 toP4 production without a comprehensive spreadsheet that automatically updates every day. Today you'll make a nice profit - next week those numbers could go negative (especially if you're paying POCO taxes).

If you have a highsec static, I wouldn't worry about the mass limits. Worst case is that it collapses and gives you another highsec static. If you DON'T have a highsec static, I wouldn't even think about importing P2 into a wormhole - the hauling would simply become too complicated. I was generally hauling about 500M isk worth of P2 (in one Epithal) to load ONE production planet up for a 4 day run.

Some people have the patience for P2 to P4 production. The drudgery of it broke me after just a few weeks with one toon. Now I settle for a little wormhole PI on the side that still makes a nice profit. If you live in a wormhole, the isk flows like water anyway.

1bil per character is not absurd at all. I make guidance systems, its worth 40mil per day per character with 24 hour timers.

There is not actually much to say. With skills at IV you can support 3/3 basic and 3 advanced factories on 24 hour cycles if your planet is a good one (small radius, high concentration of relevant resources).

Because you would need to add two basic and one advanced factory (plus supporting extractor heads) to the planet to improve output, 3/3 basic and 3 advanced is basically the soft cap, unless you want to use very short cycles and/or be constantly shifting your building production/routes/extractors around.

Am I right in thinking that is 3 basic factories for each of the two resources, and 4 advanced factories?

If so, that set-up is not actually any more productive than 3+3 basic factories and 3 advanced factories, as 1+1 basic factories exactly supplies the needs of a single advanced factory. At any given time, one of your advanced factories is likely to be sitting idle.

That's the downside to direct to P2 manufacturing; each step up the productivity ladder is hugely resource intensive.

That's right.

Each basic factory consumes 3000 P0 every half hour cycle (so 6000/hour) and produces 20 P1 every cycle (so 40/hour).

It doesn't matter how much P0 you extract, you can't produce more P1 than 40/hour per basic factory.

Each advanced factory consumes 40/hour of each of the two P1 resources it needs to produce 5(?) - am at work, but the number is not important- P2 per hour. So you need one basic factory for each of the two resources (for a total of two basic factories) per advanced factory.

It doesn't matter how much P1 you produce, you can't produce more P2 than 5/hour per advanced factory.

For this reason, it is best to think of the factories coming in sets of 3 - two basic and an advanced - when looking at direct to P2 production. A partial 'set' does not actually produce anything extra, and is a waste of resources. Those resources would be much better spent on more extractor heads (to allow for longer cycle times) or longer links (allowing you to place your extractor control units farther afield when nearby resources have run out).

In practice, for most decent planets the direct to P2 approach maxes out when your skills are at IV (making it efficient to train), and with a total of 6 basic and 3 advanced factories. The main attraction is that it is a very low effort system as you simply swing by to collect your product every so often, and take it directly to market.

Super helpful, any specific layout any better than the rest?

From what I understand you have the following flow:

Extractor -> Storage -> p1 Factory -> Launchpad -> p2 Factory -> Launch pad

Any setup wants to do two things: have the minimum number of links, and the shortest possible links. There are a few approaches to doing this.

For direct to P2 planets, I recommend the following:

E
B
B
B
SAAA
B
B
B
E

Obviously, those letters stand for E(xtractor control unit), B(asic factory), S(paceport), and A(dvanced factory).

The reason I suggest this approach is that a P2 planet has to balance two different resources that are not usually found in exactly the same place. By placing your spaceport between those resources, and stretching the 'arms' towards each resource, you get your extractor control units that little bit closer to the resources you want, without using any additional link. This makes it more likely, as the hot-spots move around, that you will be able to continue to reach them with your extractor heads.

It might be tempting to move those advanced factories into the two arms to make them even longer, but be cautious: links have an hourly capacity, and just as product is lost if you try and put it into a spaceport with no capacity left, product is lost if you try to channel it through a link that has no capacity left. The more active units (of any kind) that you have in an arm, the more product is moving back and forth through those links, and the more capacity is being used.

So a literal straight line? Just linking down on succession which uses each thing as a transit ?

Alright! I'm going to redo my setups tonight. My last question (hopefully) is, you mentioned about hitting the capicity on my links. So if I go:

Extractor -> Basic -> basic -> basic ->Spaceport

This means the first 2 basics are acting as just transit, and I'm delivering the materials straight from the Extractor to the 3 Basics, am I going to hit the line capicity on the link between Basic #2 and Basic #3 because its moving minerals down to it from the extractor AND the finished p1 from basic #1 and Basic #2 have to be transitted down through Basic #3

Does that make sense?