Market Discussions

Got to thinking.. I've been playing this game casually for the better part of a decade now. I haven't always been involved in any sort of trading, but I've always appreciated the mercantile aspect of EVE, and had it on my mind even when I wasn't actively engaged. It's kinda fun looking back at what I've done.. what's worked, what hasn't, what was financially rewarding, and what felt rewarding. Figured I might as well put it out there, and see if anyone else finds it interesting, or has a similar desire to share.

Made my first billion running components and ammo to Fountain (YZ-LQL, to be specific). I'd been playing for a while, done some missioning, moved out to NPC nullsec (Syndicate) and missioned/PvP'd there, even did some production of ammo and drones, but never really got into trading/hauling/speculating/etc. There was a stretch of a few months where, while BoB was on campaign somewhere or other, Celestial Apocalypse took over Fountain core and invited all and sundry to visit. I did, found the market lacking, and decided I could fill that gap. Running hundred-million ISK loads of gear 30+ jumps through nullsec in an old-style Blockade Runner (they couldn't fit covops cloaks) was exhilarating, and on one occasion quite painful, but when I hit my first major financial goal, it was damned well worth it.

Somewhat later, got into the refining business down around Dodixie when it was a huge missioning hub. Was never quite as lucrative as the spreadsheets suggested it should be, and ended up involving ferrying a lot of stuff around from systems with far, far too many stations, but it was undeniably profitable. Not sure that I ever made more than a couple billion on this, and it wasn't really that fun (figuring out how I'd do it was more fun that actually doing it) but it wasn't terribly risky either. The lack of bubble camps in high sec made things a lot simpler.

Took a few stabs at station trading in various locations. Made a concerted effort to make money in Agil at one point, and more or less succeeded.. but realized after a while that my success was contingent on updating buy orders regularly during my work day, which was tiresome. Not sure I even made a bil doing this, but I at least kinda sorta figured out what I should doing before it got boring.

Did some time in a blob alliance, and tried to build up a decent hub where I was living. That proved to be much more effort than it was worth.. I made money, but account-hopping to do jump chains for my carrier was tiresome, and maintaining the necessary degree of vigilance was even more tiresome. **** that noise.

Did some time in Providence and tried building a hub there, didn't really work out. There were sales, but there was not enough volume.. no reason for inveterate null-seccers to buy in Provi what they could get cheaper in Misaba or Amarr, and the constant harassment from various nullsec entities looking for killboard padding made it impossible for the old style Providence to re-emerge even when the sov was taken care of. Made money, but probably not even a billion.

Did a combination of market trading and PI. Turned out to be waaaay more effort than it was worth, and the factory planets ended up feeling like a superfluous step. All the factory planets in the world were worthless without market awareness and lots of offer updating to get the best sell prices. Spending all the time on straight up station trading ended up making more sense (and money). Nullsec PI was pretty much 'free' money until the time and effort hauling non-trivial volumes of stuff out of nullsec was factored in, at which point chaining rats made more sense. Not even sure I made money on this, after all the different PI setups I tried. Well, yeah I did, pulled in at least 500m from nullsec produced rocket fuel, but I don't think I really count that as a trading profit.

Moved to Faction Warfare and decided that my corps system needed a market with non-******** prices. Made it happen, invested pretty much everything I had in it (a bit over 5b), and it worked. Kept it going for a couple months and not only covered several billion in losses (I soloed a lot) but made a couple billion in profit on top of that. Was lots of effort, both in tracking demand for several hundred ships/modules, and escorting my freighter in lowsec. If I were to do it again, I'd pay black frog to do that 2nd part and soak the cost. Still, it was quite profitable, even with deliberately low markups.

Used some of my profits from that endeavor to speculate on nitrogen and hydrogen isotopes, around when oxygen isotopes spiked. I figured that between the high sec harassment campaigns and the massive botting there was potential for real growth.. the high sec ganking eventually sputtered out, but it looks like the botting crackdown has put a major dent in supply. Just recently cashed out, after roughly six months of holding, and made just short of eleven figures in profit. It's kinda neat.. it's like reaching the top of a hill, looking out over the horizon, and seeing that this is my financial future. Really, nothing else competes in terms of profits per RL hour, and now I've got the resources to explore it.

So I'm curious, what do other people consider the most interesting, notable, parts of their mercantile experience in EVE?

A very nice read..

I think my favorite activity in EVE was back when I was part of founding the stepstone project. This was early in the big T2 lottery, and almost none had been able to effectively get production running. There were a lot of BPOs that was in the hands of people unable to get the liquid and logistics needed to really benefit from it.

So we formed a group to borrow/Lease the BPOs from all these lucky lottery winners. This basically gave us an oligarchical position in the T2 market, and I was responsible for keeping prices at levels we wanted for production in our local regions. I was juggling something above 3000 market orders especially heavy on mineral markets, and pushing and pulling the prices according to where the T2 production line was.

Being a key part of something so social and focused on speculation and strategy was really engaging. Sadly RL got in there and broke these things up, first for me and later for the rest of the core group..

Being back I am hoping that more experiences like this is in the future. :)

The above is ofc a very short chapter version of all the weird things that EVE gave me..

I had 3 Billion isk selling mainly True Sansha medium armor repairer and Dark Blood medium armor repairer, how I grow my cash to 3 Billion from about half a billion null-ratting is because I stockpile on both modules from Jita and transport them to Amarr to resell at a profit of 25-30 million per module.

I did that before it was popular to do so, made a pretty penny doing that before other copycats did it like now. I was looking for a new method to trade after the market became saturated, amusingly my armor repairer turnover dropped after I wear a monocle, and that was the start of the copycat traders deluge also I reckon

So I made a contract with a trader posing as an amarrian RP loyalist, sold me about 8 Armageddon Navy issue for 225 million each, this was when the price was around 250 or so. Over the course of a month the price falls to 210 million, bought another 4 Armageddon Navy issue, so now I have a total of 12 Armageddon Navy issue to sell.

Now my investment potentially more than doubled and funnily my reason at that time was because of speculation (CCP wont stand a ship gimped forever compared to other races of the same ship line), sentiment (what can I say Amarr trailer and lore are the best), and opportunity (the lowest price among the faction Battleship).

Oh and bought 2 Apocalypse Navy issue at 310 Mill isk simply because of the bonus and the price was attractive.

My only gripe was that after that I was dirt poor so I bought 6 plexes to sell at the market for 480 Mill, was attracted to the price at that time, why I didnt take the plunge and bought more Armageddons Now the money sit still because I have to have a cash reserve in trading and because at that time 12 Armageddon and 2 apocalypse is already an excessive risk.

So that's my story, the only reason I share it now is because the rubicon is crossed and the bridge collapsed from the horde crossing it