Science & Industry

I have done a lot of PI. I have 4 accounts and PI with at least one character on each account.

I can confirm that planetology and advanced planetology have a huge effect on the difference between what you survey and what you actually get. you need to have these skills to at least 4/4 to get a decent read of a planet. anything lower you are relying way to much on luck.

That being said though the survey gives you an average income not the actual rate. most of the time an extraction program starts out with a high yield per cycle at the start and slowly drops with occasional peeks. you also have to divide this by the number of cycles per hour you will get with the program length you have set.

For example I usually run 1 day 2 hour (26 hour) programs this gives me 30 minute cycles. so if the survey says 12000 units per hour that means I will average 6000 units per cycle. I may start the program at close to 12000 units per cycle but be down to 3000 units per cycle by the end of the program giving an average of 6000 units per 30 minute cycle or 12000 units per hour.

Any variation between what the survey shows and what you actually get after installing the program is from an inaccurate survey do to insufficient skills.

I have tested this extensively using two characters one with planetology 2 and the other with planetology 4 and advanced planetology 4 surveying the same planets across several systems. The surveys were always drastically different. The character with the higher skills always gets a much more accurate survey with the installed yield being close to the survey amount. while the low skilled character occasionally got lucky, but on average got far greater variability between survey and actual program results.

It's hard enough to describe PI issues. Much less describe exactly what's going on. Just doing the best I can with what's presented so F--- off.

Thanks....my point exactly.

And thanks for the info that those slices can increase to 30 minutes with longer total extraction time. I just never use them. But it's the same principle of course.

Actually with even longer extraction programs the slices as you call them can be 1 hour.

Planetology skill do have a huge impact though.

If you look at the estimated yield of the slices in the survey, and compare that to the actual yield of the slices after installing the program. If your planetology skills are weak there is a much higher chance(%) that there will be a significant difference. Some times you will get lucky, and get a fairly accurate survey, sometimes you will be unlucky and get hit the maximum error(%). When I tested this with low skills I saw at times up to a 50% discrepancy. Your survey can sometimes mis-plot the hot spot. Especially if the hot spot is small, resulting in a significant difference from the survey estimate to your actual yield. I have seen what the OP describes where you can survey a 12000 unit per hour program but end up with a 6000 unit per hour program. And I am talking per hour not per slice/cycle. I would say this takes very bad luck as this 50% would probably be the maximum error you can get in a survey. Each level of planetology and advanced planetology skill that is trained reduces the maximum error % in your survey. I would expect that training to 5/5 would give 100% accuracy or very close to it. But I find the error experienced with skills at 4/4 is small enough it does not really affect my bottom line.

I generally run two extractors and process right to P2 before exporting (except for a single O2 planet which exports P1 Oxygen) to keep this running in high sec I need to average 6000 units of each P0 per hour to feed two basic factories which in turn feed one advanced factory producing the P2 products. This really reduces the import/export tax associated with running extraction planets and moving all the P0 or P1 to a factory planet to process. In high sec I get decent returns with little to no risk.

In null sec or on a good low sec planet you can easily extract enough P0 with less heads to have PG/CPU to build and keep 4 basic factories and 2 advanced factories running doubling your yield. Combine that with the reduced/eliminated tax if you use a POCO null sec PI has become much more profitable than high sec PI making the risk far more worth while. With a blockade runner and a little effort into logistics the risk is minimal and the profits can be much, much higher than high sec PI.

So the new storage bunkers do not work with your set up. That does not make them worthless.

I use them on every one of my P2 planets.
extractor > storage >Basic Factory > Starport > Advanced Factory > Starport
Some times only the final P2 goes to the launchpad. Bottom line, only the stuff I actually plan On exporting goes to the launchpad. Since storage has far less requirements than a launchpad and more storage I can run tighter cycles with more frequent resets and less trips back and fourth to pick up products.
New storage equals much higher isk/hour from PI for ME.