Science & Industry

Has anyone ever had a successful marketing model for making income from boosting other miners in your system? I have tried to do this a few times, with little to now success - people either don't want to pay anything for a boost, or get it for free... this seems at odds with the capitalist model of the economy... *yes I have been reading Adam Smith of late"

Three must be a matrix that allow someone to charge a nominal fee with success for a win-win boosting/mining... it seems a valid career choose, to be a "mining foreman" in a command and control ship giving out valuable services to miners in barges and exhumers.

Any ideas or success stories? Models? theories? guess? insane-delusions?

Not to argue a point, rather I would like to discuss it. But...

An Orca with max boost and implant is a major investment for any player (even if just an alt, that is alot of ISK and skill time)... so that has a fixed value that can be measured. Next, since the boost from this substantially increases the hourly of any miner in the system in the fleet, that also has a fixed increase in profit and value.

Now my orca sits almost all the time idea for the past year, as I can not mine in it and so am in my own, making my own, and if someone wants to fleet up I get the max mining boost for skills while in my mack and the adding in my HX implant.

So there seems to be something broken in either the practice or the impression of valuation of this as a service.

In strict terms, if these where real individuals, and each had to make a living by his own labor, the many miners would be making more than they could solo or in a group of themselves (all in barges or exhumers) then they can with the the added boost of the foreman who is boosting them (his labor) but not seeing any return on it personally, this is why I think it's a failure of the capitalist model...

If 10 people own cars, and 9 of them drive them around, and the 10th keeps them all supplied with gas, parts and services ad a discount off maket value (they are getting more value then the would normally) while not being paid for such while the then the last person is losing out while the others are taking advantage of him and so there is no incentive to keep doing it, he is better to simply stop doing it and keep to himself and let the others fair for themselves. But if each person pays him a percentage of the cost, so that 1/9th of the cost of each part,gas or serivice is covered, he breaks even, still no incentive but the other 9 get there's at 1/10th the cost of the whole, still a great deal... but if they pay him anything over that amount he then still discounts them (adding value) while he himself starts to see a profit also and so there is incentive to keep doing this for the benefit of all.

my orca pilot (JC) has a Foreman Implant, not an HX the HX is on the active miner... a Foreman Mindlink has a significant cost... so that is something that affect others boost and so is part of the "Prefect/Max boost Orca", w/o it it's not a max boost.

Well what must someone do to have a Orca Alt?

1. you seen a second account, in PLEX terms.. that is 520M per 30 days approx.
2. you need an orca, about 750M last I checked.
3. you need the skills and modules, and then the time spent training (some might not count time).

How much hourly mining profits must one do to hit break even on that, before one seems one ISK of return on investment? - at least a bit in my estimation.

This is much like a person rather than simply using a service, say a hair cut shop, decided to cut his own, and so enrolls himself in school, purchases a cutting business and then sits himself down to cut his hair each month, when it would be much cheaper just to pay the fee for someone already doing this labor for others and keep the costs minimal to the need.

You're ignoring a whole lot of inconvenient factors in an effort to maintain your belief that this is a solid business plan, and that everyone else is wrong for not seeing it as such.

-The orca pilot has resale value. Those PLEX you sink into him aren't a straight cost. They're an investment. Even as a marginally lossy investment (and I've seen plenty of characters sell for more than the time and skillbook cost of their training, so you may even see additional profit from this), this will almost certainly be more cost effective than paying someone else.

-The orca pilot doesn't necessarily need to exist on its very own account. Many people run multiple accounts anyway. If you don't have a pressing need to train another character on an account you're holding anyway , the PLEX is a sunk cost. For instance, I opened a second account to make an invention/RE character. When I finished training the skills for that, I didn't really have any need to train that character any further. It does everything I want and never needs another SP sunk into it. I'm not going to close the account, and I don't need to train the "main" on it. If I want an Orca pilot on it, there is no significant additional cost to me to train one (and, incidentally, this is exactly what I did - though in my case, it was for use as a hauler, not a booster).

You're mistaking investments with costs.

The Orca hull is not a cost. If you lose it, it's a cost. If you sell it, what you paid minus what you received for it is its cost. It may even appreciate with mineral prices. Same goes for the mindlink - if you sell the character, you will factor that into its value.




Er... I run a one-man corp (with two accounts). You're correct that I do not mine, though (it's peasant work).

Seriously. This is a classic case of starting with a conclusion ("This should be a valued service!"), and then trying to beat the facts into shape to fit with that conclusion.

i've 3 accounts (including an orca)
confirming 1bn isk is easily obtained.

you're either poor, terrible at making isk, or both, to think that 1bn isk is a lot of money.

having considered this statement.

dear OP i have a 3 man corp and i'd be very interested in purchasing your service, if you'd like to join my corp and dump ore directly in to my corporate hanger i'd be very happy to reward you handsomely.

well, it means i can use my orca pilot as a third miner. i can't see how this could possibly go wrong.

i did the same. minus the wormhole thing.
they even sold me a hulk at a reduced price in comparison to jita value.

This would be a business model, but we have established that they can simply make an alt and have the profit all there own so they would never contract an outside booster as the 1B+ is and time and skills and all aren't that hard to come by, and being easily obtained, they would never need to do this.