Engagement Report 7 – Dual Hull Brutix

While roaming in a random region, I end up in CFC space (when the CFC had space). There’s 15 guys in local and 1 Gila seems to be ratting in an anomaly. Weird… Considering I’m flying a Brutix, I hardly catch anything in anomalies, so I always wonder if those guys that are ratting with me in local are bait, AFK or simply overconfident.

 

A Gila, even if bait, is a foe I’m willing to take on and I warp to the site. Luck smiles upon me and it’s really within my scram range upon arrival, so, just need to Scram, Web and shoot. Most DPS from Gila come from Medium Drones so I lock up his drones, and once I finally manage a lock (I have a cloak so my scan resolution is excruciating low), I put my Vespa ECM drones on it to mitigate some DPS. Gila is not tackling me back, so it’s just plain PVE ship.

I also start bringing in my 2^nd Brutix to provide backup case necessary. He was 2 jumps away to avoid intel, meaning he had to jump one system with 20AU and then in my own system he would have to warp more than 60AU. This meant my eventual backup was more than 2 minutes away…

Before my 2^nd Brutix was remotely close, my Gila target got backup from a 2^nd PVE Gila. 2 Gilas hurt and I start getting worried. I don’t want to warp off, but dying without even bring pointed would be humiliating. I press on and try to stick around.

Within a few seconds I see my target moving away from me at a worrying speed… 3km, 4km, 5km… What was going on?! I pay more attention and notice that my own Brutix is bumping some structure or some rock in the anomaly! Not only I was losing my prey, but this whole bumping crap could effectively prevent me from warping away case I needed it! I panic a bit, activate my MWD and start double clicking like crazy in an area of space that looks empty. Not sure how, but I managed to clear whatever was causing the bump and still keep scram on my target.

About this time my backup DPS Brutix lands, grabs my target and I warp off in my Tank Brutix in 8% structure. Sure… 8% structure in a Hull Tanked Brutix with 105k EHP isn’t all THAT dramatic, but still too close for my taste. I only remembered afterwards that in an emergency situation, I would be able to hit my MJD to clear the “features” causing me to bump, and then warp off. Then again, this way I would let my prey escape for sure.

Gila of course dies, and having 1 Brutix pretty much disabled, it was time to bail and find a quiet system to repair. I jump out, and in the next system I see one Vagabond in a ping, as well as 10 or so in local. 

My greed is starting to take the best of me… I can engage decently a Vagabond with only 1 operational Brutix. In fact, if needed my Tank Brutix with 8% structure can even warp in at range and send out either ECM drones or DPS drones, as necessary, while not putting itself in a heavy risk. Ok, so I need to bait this guy fast before he gets some help. I cloak my damaged Tank Brutix and warp my DPS Brutix to a gate hoping for Vagabond to follow. There are 2 gates towards the direction I went and Vagabond shows on scan near the other gate near my location. I hate when this happens! Damn you 50/50 odds. Vagabond was taking it’s time to get to me, so warp at his gate. At same time I see him crossing my overview. He was warping to me as I was warping to him! I hate when this happens too! 

At this point I got +3 in local from inside my D-Scan range: A Malediction, a Rapier named “not a hotdrop” and a Tengu. I also noticed they were CFC but not the local alliance I was messing with. Well… I started to find this a bit suspicious, a Malediction and Rapier would be a perfect combination for a hotdrop (even though the Rapier said it wasn’t!), but the Tengu was a piece not fitting the puzzle…

Nevertheless, considering these local guys were piling up and me having only 1 true operational ship, I decided to get out a few jumps in order to see who’d chase me, and then assess the situation again. I jump out and…. 

Crap!

A fleet waiting for me… Now all pieces made sense. The Malediction and Rapier were sent to catch me, and the Tengu was links from the fleet. How did I fail seeing that?! Anyway, I had to deal with it. They had 15+, including Machariel, Orthrus, Logistics, etc, so yeah…. 

Warping off or trying to MJD away were not options, I’d get pointed/scrammed before fast, so I resorted to my trusty cloak. Overloaded my MWD, tried to burn back to gate and cloaked immediately. This allowed me to approach the gate about 5km and a get surprise effect. No one really expects to see a Brutix cloak. Then again, against a fleet so large, this tactic gives me a limited advantage. Once they understood what happened, the whole fleet came to decloak me, and unsurprisingly they managed. As I get decloaked, I overload MWD once more and try get a cycle towards the gate. I reach the gate with 75% structure with the majority of the fleet aggressed as I jump out.

I’m still not out yet! On the other side I got 2 Maledictions and 1 Rapier waiting for me…

This is where I made my true mistake. Having used MJDs for some time, and finding myself in this situation more often than not, there are a couple steps that need to be taken, but because I was out of focus I kinda missed it. 

What I did was to quickly align out and activate my MJD. One of the Maledictions quickly scrammed me at 12km range or so, considering the ship bonus to warp scramblers range and Tengu links. My MJD got busted and as I tried to kill the Malediction he pulled range. Now it would have been the time to activate my MJD, but I had already wasted that option. I eventually get scrammed by the Rapier too and whole fleet comes in to finish me.

So what could I have done differently?

1^st mistake was to not realize the Malediction, Rapier and Tengu were tacklers for an already formed fleet nearby. For some reason, I missed the Tengu being links. This is because carebears when forming up to catch some invader, ever hardly bring links. They bring all sort of kitchen sink crap, but support ships like Links, ECM or Logistics are only brought once an FC takes over and tries to form a proper fleet. No one ever brings support unless told to, or unless has an alt that already fills that job most times already. I was more expecting the Tengu to be someone trying to actually engage me with it, but did not fitted the Rapier/Malediction backup pattern from another alliance coming in to help the locals. I was also wondering if Rapier would be a hotdrop or not.

Jumping into the hostile fleet was not a mistake… just plain back luck. If I had chosen gate “B” instead of gate “A” I would have been fine. My tactic to make a few jumps out and then try to engage if I could was a good plan. I was just unlucky on what gate I chose. Happens if you don’t really have eyes around.

My true mistake that got me killed happened when I jumped out from the hostile fleet and into the 2 Maledictions and the Rapier. Here is the proper procedure I should have taken and that works in similar situations. I should have decloaked and tried to align out with MWD on, but NOT activate the MJD. The MJD cannot be activated too soon! I should have waited and see if tacklers would scram me because tacklers tend to commit to scram range upon decloak. If one does comes into scram range, I need to apply all I can into that target, but many times, upon some pressure, tacklers try to pull range, taking the scram off me and providing the needed opportunity to activate the MJD. This procedure might also fail of course, but provides at least a better chance.

Still not terrible, killed PVE Gila, lost a Brutix and had and engagement reminding me I need to learn how to put the several pieces of information better. Eventually I got my Tank Brutix back to Thera and was time to log off.

Engagement Report 6 – Dual Hull Brutix

I log in, and I find myself in Taisy, Low-Sec, with my Dual Hull Brutix. Upon my undock I notice a Deimos from the local pirates warping to M-OEE8, so I follow.

Once I jump into M-OEE8 I realize there’s about 40 C02 fellas in local, but the Deimos is alone re-approaching the gate. There are also 2 more guys from the Deimos alliance in local, but they were not on grid… Not sure if they were afk or not. While I hold my cloak, I also bring my 2^nd Brutix into a better position to provide backup and cloak him too.

Now… There is no point in engaging a Deimos at 0km on a gate. Once he’s in trouble, he’ll deagress, tank me like a boss, and jump out. I try to bait him away from the gate. I start kitting a bit away from the gate to see if he follows, but nothing… he only targets me and just sits there.

His attitude is suspicious. Usually this attitude means that people are calling for backup on coms, and so it was. Not long after, inside Taisy, a Gila shows up on scan, but does not lands on the gate! My guess is that they are also positioning near the gate to avoid long warps, but don’t want to sit on the gate to avoid being easily spotted in case I jump back into low sec, or worse, they know I have 2 Brutix and that one of them is probably cloaked. After all, I’d been in this area for some days, so it’s natural they noticed my act.

 

I would certainly take that fight. Primary the Deimos, put some ECM drones on him, and if needed, bail once the Deimos was dead/jammed using the MJD. There was a good chance I’d be able to kill one of them and then bail. Even with the Gila nearby, the Deimos did not tried to catch me. That only means one thing. They are expecting more backup.

After a couple minutes, Deimos finally tries to catch me, but at this point I already ruled out engaging him. I’m almost sure he sorted more than enough backup to deal with 1 or 2 brutix, even though the only thing I can see in D-Scan is a Gila, probably related to this Deimos. In order to make them draw out their heads, I let him tackle me 10 km off the gate. This way, they’ll come out from wherever they’re waiting in order to try to kill me. It’s a risky move… I can be bumped of the gate and killed without firing one shot, but generally, and if his backup takes a bit time to arrive, I should be able to make it out, gather enough intel and then decide if it’s a fight I can take or not.

Like expected, the Gila shows up, as well as a Dominix and a Loki. Yeah, too much… I jump out and warp station to repair. Same alliance has a couple Cynabals, a Proteus and some Logi outside. This 2^nd batch of guys were probably not trying to actively kill me, but it shows this alliance had too many active fellas right now, so it’s time to go someplace else.

While roaming in CFC space (when CFC still had space), in a system with 15 guys in local I see a Skiff in an anomaly. It’s either bait, because Skiffs have a large tank, or is an AFK miner. Only one way to find out, so I warp and aggress him.

The Skiff pilot asks for help in local and does not tackles me, so it’s not bait. Not long after, 3 bombers decloak right on top of me. I bring in my 2^nd Brutix and try to kill the bombers and the Skiff. Bombers are actually an opponent I need to worry about in a Brutix. They do lots of torpedo damage due to my large sig radius, but fortunately also die fast, as they just happened to be right into my blaster range.

I manage to kill all of them and warp off as Legion warps in. I lost my surprise advantage and don’t want to stick around. As I jump out there is an Ashimmu, Manticore and a Myrmidon chasing me too. Things get a bit blurry as I try to escape but they manage to camp Pleniers, in the severely damaged Brutix. Having low structure left, I don’t want to risk jumping into those 4 guys. All they need is a scram fitted into the Manticore and I’m dead.

Instead, I use this opportunity to repair. I go to a safe, refit, activate my Hull Repair mods and keep an eye for probes on D-Scan. I’m not sure if they’ll call for backup (they probably will) or if they’ll lose interest soon, but if I manage to split them on a gate I might be able to score some extra kills.

After 10 minutes or so I’m all repaired and ready to go! In the meantime, the Myrmidon went away. It’s only Ashimmu, Legion and Manticore. In fact, it’s the same 3 guys I just killed in bombers, along with the Skiff. This makes me think that I’m probably only facing 1 person triple tabbing. This is awesome news for me, because his attention spawn will be low low low. I can take good advantage from it.

My 1^st move was to warp at range on their gate and see what they do. The Manticore came kitting strait at me alone. Good! Just need to pour out light drones, kite towards it as fast as I can, and soon it is in my Web, Scram, Neut, Blasters, Drones range. It dies fast and I warp off. 1 less ship to worry about, but the real prizes are the Ashimmu and Legion. 

This time I warp to the gate at 0km. They are also at 0km. I jump and they follow. Good! Even before I decloak I warp in my 2^nd Brutix. Plan is simple. Primary the Ashimmu to avoid being capped out, and then see how it goes with the Legion. Once I decloak they both aggress me and I easily catch the Ashimmy. 2^nd Brutix lands and provides backup. Ashimmu gets jammed by ECM drones most of the fight and melts. Legion tries to deaggress. At this point I use the Brutix with more capacitor left to try bump the Legion off the gate. Fortunately I manage to bump him 2 times and also dies shortly after.

It was getting late, so it was time to get back to a comfortable station in Low-Sec and repair. While I was traveling I jump into the last Null Sec system in the path, and there it is, a Myrmidon sitting 0km on my gate.

Because I was in hurry to get back to a station, I did not scouted properly and jumped both Brutix at same time, thus the Myrmidon pilot saw 2 gate activations and +2 in local. There goes any surprise advantage I might have had… I hold cloak for a bit more, assessing the situation. He’s the only one in local and belongs to the same pirate group I had try to engage earlier today. The same pirate group that did not engage me until they had more than enough to win any “fight” and that had a considerable number of active people.

Ok then… Let’s burn back to gate and see what happens. I decloak Pleniers in the tank Brutix (although it was damaged from previous engagement), and he immediately aggresses… this is fishy… why would he aggress a similar ship class without knowing what the other guy in local is in? I proceed to decloak Rtb and also burn back to gate. Because Pleniers was 0km on gate, he immediately changes targets from Pleniers to Rtb and aggresses!

Seriously? You want to engage 2 Brutix with your Myrmidon?

The pilot is either very dumb, or has a backup plan. I personally prefer to not underestimate my foes and I jump out. This is all tooooooo fishy…

Once I jump out there is a “Neutral Alt” Ion Blaster Tengu waiting for me (I looked at his guns). Ohhhhh Now I get it. That explains why he aggressed me. He already had eyes on me with his Cloaky “Neutral Alt” Ion Blaster Tengu and had perfect intel on me.

So another set of decisions… to engage a Tengu/Myrm with my Dual Brutix or not? I could try pull the same trick. Focus on the Myrm, slap in ECM drones on the Tengu, and then bail once I got a jamm cycle, in case the Tengu proved too hard to chew.

Still, my spider sense was tingling hard. I’m the one that jumps onto people! Or if anything, I’m the one that drives people into thinking that are jumping me, when in reality I’m counter jumping their jump, having them realize too late that they’ve been jumped upon! Or something like that…

By living in the area for a week, I noticed those guys like to fly some T3 cyno neutral alts (checked their killboard previously). Even if I put the Cyno paranoia on the side, I’m damaged in one Brutix, my guns are overloaded to 75% and he might still have backup nearby. I had seen several small gangs from his alliance in the last couple hours running around. It was getting late, so playing the mouse and cat game and trying to find out if he was truly “alone” (I believe he could be) was not an option for me at that time.

I warp off, cloak up and eventually log off. It’s one of those fights I almost regret not taking on, but facing a Tengu/Myrm while not being 100% ready was not an option, so there’s always next time.

PVP and Trading – March 2016 Report

PVP Report

This focus into my “Alone PVP” endeavours, using usually 2 tons. I might eventually team up with the occasional friend during my “Alone PVP” roams, but any kills/losses I achieve in a proper fleet are not posted or analysed here.

I’m not even going to lie about my goals as an ”Alone PVPer”. I want to find people, deceive them and kill them. I’m a brawler at heart, so dying is inevitable, but I want to make sure I manage to kill more than I lose. While not trying to be an Isk Efficiency fanatic, I do prefer to use cheaper affordable ships to kill more expensive ones. 

This month I actually did A LOT of fleets. More than last year combined probably! I hardly remembered EVE could be this easy! There’s a Vindicator messing with you, surrounded by intel toons? No worries, let’s get some folks and hotdrop him. There’s a kiting Baalghorn messing with you? We’ll bring a Pilgrim, Falcon, Fast Tackle and DPS. A hostile fleet with what?! We’ll top that with some extra logi… On the downside, I had to abandon my fleets several times to attend to my family and I had my wife coming downstairs from the bed to “SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH” me up while on fleet coms. Yeah… my W-Aggro-O-Meter went up a few notches. I might need to seclude myself back to Thera again to avoid ganging up with other fellas…

COMBINATIONS FLOW

Next graph shows how many ships I killed and lost, using my most usual combinations. 

 

After 3 month I still love the Dual Hull Brutix and it’s still my main go to combination. Killed 80 ships while losing 21.

Solo Hull Brutix engagements are had when one of my toons is truly alone and has no backup nearby (probably because backup got killed). I prefer to use 2 toons, but will not completely avoid fighting just because I only have 1 toon left… Still managed to kill 4 ships while losing 1 in true solo combat.

I brought back the old Gnosis/Augoror combination because of the recent module tiericide. I had 40 Brutix packed that I could not fit due to lack of Fleeting Compact Webs and Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scramblers in both my hangar and local Curse market… This was actually a good opportunity to make a comparison on the Dual Hull Brutix. Main differences:

1- 1600mm Gnosis is WAAAAAAAAAAY slower. 1300m/s against the 1900m/s from the Brutix (MWD Overloaded). I actually missed killing a Rapier and a Vexor Navy because the Gnosis was so slow.

2- The 1600mm Gnosis has a real light tank… Those 64k EHP against the 105k EHP from the Tank Brutix really make a BIG difference.

3- Fighting gangs with more than 3 guys or so is really hard because my Augoror gets primaried. With Dual Hull Brutix I can go balls deep and still take a decent beating.

I used a Taranis/Hull Brutix combination for the 1^st time. It’s a long story really that I won’t tell here, but here’s the main advantages and disadvantages towards the Dual Hull Brutix:

1- The Taranis allowed me to catch the occasional unaware miner/ratter. While funny, it’s not the sort of gameplay I’m looking for (but I’ll take it if I stumble upon the opportunity), so not a major upside.

2- The Taranis allowed me to scout my Brutix, but truth being told, I rarely die to gatecamps. I die mostly because I tend to stay around too long in a particular area and the locals bring too much. Again, although helpful, the Taranis is not indispensable at this role.

3 – The Taranis allowed me to catch a kitter WAY WAY easier. This was the true advantage of using a Taranis… Scram a kitting target and hope for cavalry to arrive before dying. In this particular case was easy, because the target was an Arty Fleet Stabber. Just got under his guns and it was game over for him. Taranis would not have helped against an Orthrus or Cerberus or Ishtar or Gila or a lot other different kiters.

4 – Finally the best reason is because I had to chance to play “Frig Fights” when the opportunity arises. Several times I cloaked the Brutix to just have fun doing some old school Dual Prop Taranis griefing.

5 – As for the worse downside… I had to  let go several engagements because a Single Brutix would not cut it and a 2^nd Brutix would have made a huge difference. Right now my personal objectives steers me away from Frig Fights, so it’s a combination I probably won’t use again soon.

I bought and shipped to Curse 40 Hull Brutix this month…. If I keep dying like a boss, they won’t be enough for the next month…

HOSTILES KILLED

Let’s take a better look on the hostiles I killed. Next graph shows what ships I killed and how many.

Most kills were Caracal, Vexor Navy Issues and Crows. Just a bit behind are Gila, Raptor and Svipul.

Caracals are just popular and show up in every fleet so no bit surprise there, but the Vexor Navy were a bit odd. This happened because I roamed mostly a lot in areas that resort to ratting Vexor Navy and this ship seems to be the “poor man Gila”. 

The reason I killed so many Crows is because I flew the Taranis quite some times, and while the Crow is a ship hard to kill with a couple Brutix, is a ship stupidly easy to kill if you bring a proper combat interceptor like a Taranis. Raptor are a bit of an odd appearance, but people seem to be favouring the Raptor for a scrambler role over the Malediction. Not quite sure why…

During this month I killed 55 different ship types, even though mostly only 1 or 2 of each, so people like to bring some variety to the field. Nevertheless, Caracal, Gila and Svipul are dominating for 3 month in a row. 

Following graph shows the Isk value per ship type.

Top kills isk wise were Gila, again, by far! This damn ship was hit with the nerf bat and is still hugely popular and many times even bling fit.

Next spikes are a faction ratting Rattlesnake that I caught and Pilgrim. The Pilgrim is really weird. It’s a ship I hardly saw some months ago, quite like the Ashimmu, but recently they’ve grown in popularity. The new Energy Neutralizers/Nosferatus mechanics are probably the underlying cause for this popularity allied to the fact that Brutix are cap dependant ships. Surprisingly, I found the Pilgrim an easy ship to kill, unlike the Curse! I think it’s because the Pilgrim is faced more as a brawl ship (so it comes willingly into my blaster range) and has usually less Neuts than a Curse.

Even though many ship types killed might attest for a good variety on the field, I created some Categories in order to understand better the different ship classes I managed to kill.

My 3 top preys were Interceptors, Combat Battlecruisers and Faction Cruisers. Slightly behind are T1 DPS Cruisers and T3 Dessys.

I killed “so many” Interceptors because the Taranis is a great “Anti-interceptor” Wingman. Crow coming at you? Dead...

This month I killed more Combat Battlecruisers than ever and I’m just going to say it: People love a good Combat Battlecruiser brawl. Be it the Brutix, the Hurricane, the Myrmidon, the Harbinger, the Drake or even the Ferox. People mostly like to brawl with them. Kiting Combat Battlecruisers are pretty much dead though… Even though people don’t like to roam in BCs because they are too slow, when their intel channels report a couple Brutix in their space, many people take on the opportunity to bring out their favourite BC for a test drive.

Faction Cruisers, T1 Dps Cruisers and T3 Dessys maintain, as always, a strong presence.

How about isk wise, in what categories I’m able to inflict more economic pain?

HELLLLLLLOOOOOOO FACTION CRUISERS! Yet again… By a long shot, way way over any other category, yet again! I maintain what I said my previous months about Faction Cruisers.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see HACs as a second spike. I hate HACs… This whole class is a nasty thorn and a pain in my rear. They are better at everything over a BC, with exception to the capacitor. Even though on paper ehp and dps wise they might seem similar or weaker, they can avoid most damage due to smaller sig radius and can usually apply DPS very well. One of the 1^st things I noticed when flying the Hull Brutix is that I need to be very careful against HACs (no matter which one), so it’s with great joy that I see so many HACs, isk wise, destroyed.

HOSTILES KILLING ME

Equally important is the notion on what ships are being used to kill me. Solo players always complain about being “blobbed” all the time. Well… I WANT for my foes to try to “blob” me, I WANT to fight outnumbered, I WANT for them to bring their best, so that I can outsmart them and kill them, just before I bail out teasing them!!... or die trying… Of course, once my foes bring too much it’s time to safe up and let them vent in local on how I’m a coward because I’m not throwing myself at their 15/20 men fleets for their leisure. This is my main source of daily adrenaline.

1^st thing I checked was how large were the fleets that actually killed me, or in other words, how many people are in my losses killmails.

Generally speaking, if I died to a gang of more than 10 people I was probably simply ganked.

If I died to a gang with 5-10 people, I was probably surprised by unexpected backup.

My preferred targets are mostly gangs with less than 5 people, and if I died, it probably means that I made serious mistakes and/or assessed the situation very badly and that there is a lesson to be learned around on how to make better next time.

Looking at the graph, I was ganked by large fleets 6 times… This is more than It should happen.

I died 8 times to gangs with 6-10 people. This is definitely too much and it tells me that I simply don’t know when to quit and call it off XD. Usually 5-10 man fleets do take some time to form, so I’m pretty sure I’d have ample opportunities to get safe. I should be more careful and not be caught by fleets this size at all!…

I did died 11 times to 1-5 man Fleets… These are my intended targets and I seem to find these a lot, so I still believe there are good opportunities to a solo player/small gang out there.

Let’s take a look to the ships that actually managed to kill me.

Largest spike are Thrasher, mostly because I got caught by a fleet of 20 of those. It was a fast death…

Same reasons explains the popularity of the Scythe Fleet Issue. I got caught by a fleet of those and puff. Unlike the Thrasher fleet, it was a slow painful death, where I almost reached the gate to jump out.

Next more relevant ships are Svipul, Gila and Crow. People will use their PVE Gila on PVP situations as well, and I can understand why. As long as someone else keeps me scrammed/pointed, they apply DPS pretty nicely. The difference of a PVP Gila and PVE one is usually pretty small, residing mostly on having equipped a Warp Scramble or Warp Disruptor.

There are also many many ships that show up in my Killmails once or twice only. A total of 72 different ship types were used to kill me. I pretty much think this shows that EVE is healthy when it comes to variety and small gang PVP. Let’s look at the Categories used to kill me.

This month it’s Faction Cruisers and Interceptors that killed me the most, followed by T1 Dessys (explained above why) and HACs. HACs showing again as a big source of trouble for me… Did I said I hate HACs? I hate HACs… Need to be more careful with those around.

Ships that completely dominate solo wannabe PVPers, like ECM Cruisers and Logistics, aren’t really used all THAT much. I find that extremely good news for me and other solo guys out there.

That’s all I remembered to take a look at in a PVP Report. Send me out a mail if you think I overlooked something, and make sure to undock and go out there!

TRADING REPORT

MARKET PROFITS

This month profit was around 10.8 billion. As long as profits maintain themselves more than 10 billion, I’m happy for time being.

Also a recent, but discrete, patch allowed a huge, HUGE, HUUUUUUUGE change to my google docs spreadsheet, as well as improvement of my market life style (read it as “allows me to be even more lazy”).

So, the new Multibuy window allows us to buy several items at once. Whenever I needed to restock, I’d look at my spreadsheet for potential profitable items and would drag those items from EVE’s Market Quickbar into the Multibuy window. Assuming no “socket closed” happened, after 1 hour of picking potentially profitable items from my list, I’d buy them all at once.

Recently CCP added the option to “Import list from Clipboard”. A small discrete icon at top left corner of the Multibuy window. Now, one can just copy paste a list of items and respective quantities! 10 Seconds after I understood how it worked, I wet my pants! My Google Docs Spreadsheet told me what items were profitable, but did not told me how many to buy. I decided on how many items to buy using “instinct” and some general guidelines.

But now…. Now I could change my Spreadsheet to tell me how much to buy from what, and save 1 or 2 weekly hours of market stuff. That’s all fine, but my real problem was writing down the criteria for the Spreadsheet to use. “Instinct” doesn’t really works on Excel and I was having a hard time getting my head sorted out properly in order to achieve the results I wanted.

I won’t get into big details, but here’s the criteria I came to use:

1- I had to define that items missing from the market in Hek are a priority to buy. Having no competition means I can set items ridiculously overpriced, even if for a limited period;

2 – I had to define what % of profit makes an item viable to invest in. Harder said than done. I don’t mind investing in a 400mil item with 16% profit, but for a 5mil item I’ll want 50% profit.

3 – Defined a relation between the % profit of an item and the quantity I want to buy. The more % an item nets, the more items I’ll want to buy.

4 – Defined a maximum quantity of items to buy, depending on its cost. I really don’t want to buy five 400+mil something something item because it makes a theorical profit of 50%, when I’m probably lucky if I sell one of those in a month or two.

Anyway, after I got the numbers tuned up I took it for a test drive. Sorted my spreadsheet by “Best potential profit”, copy pasted into EVE’s new import option, and saw it getting filled in less than 10 seconds, with pretty good results. I wet my pants again… EVE has never been so comfortable for spreadsheet lovers and I hope it improves even more!

Anyway, as usual, all market profits were made resorting to Regional trade, buying in Jita Sell Orders, and selling in Hek Sell Orders. Supplies were brought from Jita once per week and orders were updated once per day or once per 2 days, depending on my patience.

I use a Google Spreadsheet with Steve Ronuken Script in order to pull prices from the items I trade. Currently, my Google Spreadsheet tracks about 600 items that I’m interested in trading.   I also use the free site EVE PROFIT to keep track on my profits, and EVERNUS to update orders fast. I trade mostly Faction Mods, Implants, Capital Mods, Large Rigs, POS Structures and T3 Subsystems.

 

HAULING EXPENSES

I use only public contracts to haul stuff from Jita to other Hubs, giving 30 Million reward for a 2 Billion collateral, putting 1,8 Billion worth of stuff in each contract. I spent a total of 1,5 Billion but this includes 2 contracts of 380mil each, to Black Frog, to take 40 Brutix to Curse.

PLEX EXPENSES

Payed my 2 accounts with 1 PLEX each, costing me a total 2,35 Billion. Plex is lowering and I hope it lowers more.

BLUEPRINTS

This month I had 3 billion profit, by selling 98 contracts with an average of 32,5 million profit each contract. 350 million were BPC profits and rest are BPO profits. This was the month I earned the most in BPOs, ever!

I currently research around 300 different BPOS… this means that when I finish up a “research cycle” I won’t have much stock lying around, as stuff already probably sold. As an example, I see no advantage in researching 10 “Neutron Blasters” at once they sell very slow, so I prefer to research one of each gun from all races.

...Nevertheless, I been tracking profit from BPO research for almost one year now, and I’ll probably make a small change. I’m thinking about defining a “Priority BPO to Research” list to try focus on most profitable BPOs. More on this in the future.

I’m also thinking about finally training my PVP toons to research BPOs in Curse, but I want them to be medium tier BPOS, instead of those low tier BPOs I already research in Hi-Sec. I have no idea what… Maybe those new Citadel service thingies?....

MISCELANEOUS INVESTMENTS

Did not bought any Capital BPOs in order to resell them… Didn’t had the patience to look for good deals.

Also Citadels are coming. What are my plans for them? For one, to add all those new mods to my Sell Items List (this includes new capital mods too), and then we’ll see. In the Blueprint department, I might want to buy some popular services BPOs and sell copies, kind of like I do with Sov Upgrades and such. I think some will be cheap enough to be researched in hi-sec. More on this topic when I’ve figured out what to do.

I’m also thinking about to stop training my PVP toons, and instead, train toons to extract SP and sell on market, in order to pay for PLEX. Do I really need this? Not if Plex prices and if my profits remain stable, but then again, I also won’t need “Irrelevant skill lvl 5” either. Right now I’m going to aim for a 1 year skill plan and next year I’ll think about it.

Finally, my Overall Graph