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.
Citadel Patch is here and along with it the
Carrier rebalance. Long story short, Skynet 2.0 is here and probably more
powerful than its previous incarnation, being a huge candy CCP offered
carebears. I was surprised by them the 1st time I faced a couple,
being pointed by fighters and dying in less than 9 seconds, the time I needed
to activate my MJD… Still, things are how they are, and there is nothing I can
do other than adapt (namely run and hide if even one enters D-Scan as I can’t
even survive for 10 seconds if a carrier lands 300km away) or wait for CCP to
change it...
COMBINATIONS FLOW
Next graph shows how many ships I killed and
lost, using my most usual combinations.
Still addicted to Dual Hull Brutix. Killed 74
ships while losing 18.
Killed a bit less, lost a bit less, but my
usual Kill/rate is still mostly there. Just business as usual. I started
recording some of my engagements in hopes of creating a “Curses!” episode
dedicated the Dual Hull Brutix, but no promises. Usually I only remember to
record once the engagement is over…
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 Svipul, Sabre and then
Myrmidon, Ferox and Crow
My first impression was “What no Gila or
Caracal on top?!” This is probably the 1st month the Gila is not up
there… Not sure why really, probably just luck (or lack of it) involved.
Then again, we got the Svipul there on top of my
kills, so hardly original. Sabre and Crow are usual suspects, as are mostly
used to catch me before a fleet arrives, but the Myrmidon and Ferox are
somewhat a surprise. I still firmly believe that T1 Battlecruisers are slowly
but surely re-emerging and many people prefer to use them over a HAC.
During this month I killed 49 different ship
types, even though mostly only 1 or 2 of each, so people like to bring some
variety to the field.
Following graph shows the Isk value per ship
type.
Largest spike is a 700+ million faction fitted
Ishtar with Legion links and Implants. Meet Mr. Dual Hull Brutix and thanks for
the loot! Then we have the Vagabond, Svipul and Pilgrim. Pilgrim was the real
oddity here, but I did managed to kill one faction fitted.
Generally the month of May was a bad one in
terms of Isk kills, with no ship type really standing out…
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 top preys were Combat Battlecruisers…
Seriously?! Is this 2009 all over again? Cheap, insurable, sturdy and decent
DPS… Sure slow and clumsy, but can’t have it all.
Then we have interceptors and T3 destroyers…
Only AFTER we have Faction Cruisers!! What the hell happened here?! This was
the 1st month Faction Cruisers got so far down behind other
categories… Maybe people are preferring to use a Combat Battlecruiser over a
Faction Cruiser too!
How about isk wise, in what categories I’m able
to inflict more economic pain?
HACs were my top prey isk wise, but even then
it’s a small value, only 1.7 billion. I do enjoy killing HACs and I’m glad to
see them in my top prey isk wise.
Further down we have Faction Cruisers and
Combat Battlecruisers… I’m really curious as to how this will evolve next
month.
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.
1st 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 3 times… This is very acceptable!
I died 5 times to gangs with 6-10 people. Also
not THAT bad…
I died 10 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 the Sabre and Rifter. The
Rifter is easy to explain. I went Pandemic Horde space and died a couple times,
so lots of Rifter and even Merlin too, as other T1 frigates.
As for the Sabre, it looks like people just have
been throwing those at me more than usual… Probably luck is the main factor
here as no Interdictor changes happened
I also died a lot to Caracal and Crow, and that
is completely normal… Every fleet had a Caracal, a Crow and a Svipul… Many
times also a Sabre.
Vexor Navy Issue also shows up a decent number
of times in my death… In fact, this might be due to the geography involved in
my roams. I probably messed with people with less isk, so they only had Vexor
Navy Issues instead of Gila, as it tends to be the “poor people ratting ship”
There are also many many ships that show up in
my Killmails once or twice only. A total of 71 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 T1 frigates (due to flying in
Horde space), Faction Cruisers and Interceptors that killed me the most…
Humm…. Looking at this last graph, it looks
like Factions Cruisers were still largely used against me, but I was just
unable to kill them as much as I did all those previous month. That is most
unfortunate.
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. Make sure to undock and go out there!
TRADING REPORT
MARKET PROFITS
So, this month I made 16,5 billion profit. It
was a nice recovery from last month (when I made only 6 billion profit). Not
only that, it was my 2nd best month ever. Remember that last month
was different for 2 important factors:
1 – World War Bee was raging in the North and
Hek (my hub) was in the south, so it took a great hit as people all flocked “up
North”
2 – I made an experiment to try figure out what
was more important for my profits. “Old Stock” or “New Stock”, so I did not
bought anything to sell during this month, even though I still updated orders
as normal.
Given my low profit hit last month it was nice
to see a good recovery! What do I think were the main factors for this
recovery?
1 – World War Bee ended, so everyone scattered
from the North back to their regular homes (in case they did not found a new
one during the war)
2 – CFC lost and got completely shattered. Many
people probably came back to the game (or just continued playing) in hopes of
living in this free brave new world of opportunities with the last
mega-coalition gone… Probably only to realise, sooner or later, that having the
space belonging to Sov group A or Sov group B or Sov group C, to be pretty much
the same deal…
3 – Citadel Patch hit and along with it, many
people are excited with the new middle term between an Outpost and a POS. I’m
seeing Medium and Large Citadels all over the place, 3, 4 or even 5 per system.
Easy to deploy, safe to undock and wave at hostiles in system, shoots at bad
guys (if manned) and perfectly safe to have all crap in. Hell… a well placed
citadel near a gate with some bubbles can even originate a whole new “station
gate camping” doctrine! Add in a few of the new “balanced” Carriers and you got
a “Station-Carrier” gatecamp that can act with pretty much full impunity! A
carebear dream came true…
4 – Maybe fanfest also brought in some people
back to the game, but can’t really tell.
5 – Recent changes to my spreadsheet, combined
with the “multibuy feature” allow me to buy stuff in Jita at an astounding
rate, so I buy more items to put up for sale before I get bored and need to go
do other stuff. Now only that, my spreadsheet now sorts the items to buy per
potential profit, instead of alphabetically. Before, I hardly bought any “True
Sansha” items because…. Well… “T” is down there in the alphabet and I would get
fed up before getting there… Last letters of the Alphabet, I welcome you and
your profits!! Only took me 3 freaking years to implement the “sort by profits”
change… Even CCP “fixes” stuff faster… Sigh…
Previously stated I’d be investing in Capital
mods and Citadel mods, so how much profit did they made me in this 1st
month of existence?
Capital Mods
Extremely disappointing… I hardly sold any of
those new capital mods in Hek. The only exception is those stupidly overpowered
“new” fighters. The T1 variant is extremely cheap, costing little more than a
drone, and they sell a lot and with decent margins so far. T2 fighters are
rarely sold, probably due to being high skill intensive as they require LVL 5
skills to be used. Plates, Shield Extenders, Neutralizers, Capacitor Boosters,
etc, are rarely sold in Hek for now.
Why? I think these new Capital Mods were
designed in mind for Capital on Capital warfare. The thing is, I bet that 95%
of all Carriers (I never see any dreads around so can’t say about those) are
used to rat, to insta-blap some target at range on a station, or to insta-blap
some target near a gate while the Carrier itself is safely hugging a Citadel or
aligning out 300km away from a gate. These situations don’t require the Capital
mods, but mostly Drone modules for tracking and damage.
Let’s
see how the Capital mods market evolves in the future, but so far I haven’t
noticed any big market changes in Hek, other than Fighters.
Citadel Mods
Oh Baby! Those pretty much went as I somewhat
expected and it was pretty good. I managed to sell some mods 500% overpriced
during this 1st month, and it took a while for competition to
undercut me greatly. Even then, many Citadel mods were still at 100% profit in
Hek at the end of May.
In fact, Citadel mods helped me exceed the “2
billion profits made in a single day” barrier. I made 1,9 billion profit in a
single day a couple times before, but this 2 billion “achievement” had never
been met… That particular Saturday (Saturdays are always the best market day
for me) I made around 700 million profit in Citadel mods.
Of course, that milky cow is now kinda over
with competitors jumping in and prices getting lower, but is an investment
category I’m going to maintain for the future.
Skill Extractors
I also began station trading Skill Extractors
in Hek. Why so, if I stated many times that station trading isn’t my thing, nor
fast moving items?
1 – So far and for reasons I cannot explain,
Skill Extractors have great margins, even considering the new exaggerated
broker fees and taxes. In May, each Skill Extractor provided an 11 million
profit. Not awful considering their moderate sales. Skill Injectors and Plex
end up having less margins, even if they cost 3 or 4 times more.
2 – I don’t mind managing buy orders for only 1
item.
3 – I’m keeping it relaxed… I put 10 buy orders
and once fulfilled I sell those 10 items. Once sold I repeat the process with
no big expectations.
I made around 275 mil profit during the month,
and I suppose it’s not bad considering the huge competition (my orders get
undercut in less than 2 minutes) and the
low margins those items tend to have.
Other Stuff
This month I also invested a lot in the market.
I usually have 20-30 billion idle in my wallet, just because I’m too lazy to
spend it all, but with the latest changes to my Google Docs spreadsheet
(described a couple month ago in my blog), combined with the new Multibuy
feature, I can buy 100 items in less than 5 minutes! And this already includes
some work to avoid buying an overpriced item or scam wannabe.
Now I’m only keeping 10 billion idle, because
you never know when I need to buy more Brutix and ship them to Curse. At the
end of May I had around 120 billion in Sell Orders in Hek… I never had so much
crap for sale…
MARKET HAULING EXPENSES
All my hauling was done by public contracts,
paid 550 million reward for 13 contracts. All contracts are fulfilled in less
than 24 hours and this suits me fine.
PLEX EXPENSES
Paid my 2 accounts with 1 PLEX each, costing me
a total 1,9 Billion. Plex is lowering and I hope it lowers even more! 300
million Plex days where are you?! Come back!!
On the other hand I have no idea how many of my
customers buy market stuff resorting to PLEX funding… I might be, indirectly,
making more profit with expensive PLEX, having more people buying my market
stuff with isk obtained via PLEX, rather than saving isk directly from the PLEX
I purchase to maintain my accounts. Who knows…
BLUEPRINTS
As soon as Citadel patch hit last month, I
spent 13 billion in a Medium Citadel and Citadel Mods Blueprints, as described
in a previous post, so I won’t go into big details here.
So, after 1 month, how is the isk flowing?
Let’s look at the following table:
I made 1,7 billion selling BPCs and 1,8 billion
selling low tier researched BPOs. After considering all expenses, I kept 2,7
billion, sold 176 contracts for an average of 20 million per contract.
This month I managed to break my BPC sales
record, but no surprise here given my 13 billion investment… This is hardly a
“victory” right now… I’ll consider this whole Citadel investment a “victory”
when I get my investment back! If ever…
Let’s take a more detailed look
Medium Citadel BPO.
Alone this one cost 6 billion. I took it to
Curse, in an NPC null station, to be researched and copied. I made 4 copies and
researched it to ME/TE 4/8. All the BPCs combined netted me an income of 210
million. Bear in mind that I only put my BPCs for sale after the 5th
May, so I lost the “several hundred million for a BPC” train, but it’s not
something I was aiming at, as I like to have a more relaxed stance towards my
market/blueprints activities. Most BPCs sold actually quite fast, in less than
24hours. In fact, I should have probably dedicated more time creating BPCs and
less time researching the BPO…
At the end of the month I took a look at Medium
Citadel BPOs for sale on contracts, and got somewhat annoyed… Lots of people
are jumping out of this “new trend” and are selling researched BPOs at 5.5
billion, 500 million below cost. Seriously?!... Why was I annoyed? Because If I
had waited a month, I could be buying a researched BPO from contracts and
saving Isk. Even with the 210 million income I ended up “losing”. Not a big
difference sure, but still… At least, now I know better.
Right now Medium Citadels have no competitors
(Large Citadels are a somewhat different structure with other goals in mind,
not to mention the price), but that is probably bound to end next large
expansion. Drilling Platforms have been announced, therefore it’s possible that
all those miners out there won’t have the need for a Medium Citadel, as a
Medium Drilling Platform might fulfil all their needed roles. Too soon to say
as there are no more details available.
Medium Citadel BPCs seems to be going around 25
million at the end of May, and I hope they won’t go further down. This is
already less 0.5 % of the BPO original value.
So… In order to pay out the Medium Citadel BPO
investment of 6 billion (will be more as It gets more expensive to research it)
and if I consider that a Medium Citadel BPC to be worth 25 million for the next
few month, and if I take in account that a BPC takes 3 days to be created, I’ll
need to sell 240 BPCs that’ll take 720 days to copy!!! So… more than 2 years
copying the damn BPO, not taking in account any research. This is a freaking
nightmare… Hopefully the BPO will gain some value itself as gets more
researched, and hopefully I’ll make a decent Isk profit once I sell the damn
BPO, because BPCs alone are probably not going to cut it.
Citadel Mods
Citadel Mods BPCs made me some decent isk, and at
the end of May, their price fluctuates between 5 mil and 20 mil, depending on
competition.
There seems to be lots of competition in the
mining related rigs/services and these BPCs tend to be cheaper than 5 million.
Then again, these BPOs are also cheaper so attract more competition.
The only really disappointing investment so far
was the “Standup Cloning Center I Blueprint” and “Standup Guided Bomb Launcher
I Blueprint”, because thse were the 2nd and 3rd most
expensive BPOs I purchased,
and I didn’t sold any BPC… Why so? I believe it’s because these are suited for
Large and Extra-Large citadels, so they have less clients interested. I might
need to ditch these particular BPOs if no BPCs are sold next month.
On a brighter side, I managed to pay out the
cost of the these original BPOs:
1 – “Standup Ballistic Control System I
Blueprint” as I made 75 million sales and the BPO costs 60 million
2 – “Standup
Variable Spectrum ECM I Blueprint” as I made 357 million and it costs 200
million. Everyone “hates” ECM, but they sure like to put it in their new shiny
toys...
These are the only 2 BPOs that are making me a
“real profit” after one month, but several other close of covering their cost
already… Not too bad I guess.
I already decided that most Citadel BPOs are
going to be researched to ME/TE 7/14. Maaaaaaaaaayyybe 8/16… Should be more
than enough, as I don’t see 10/20 in those mods being worth researching.
Exception is probably the Astrahus citadel that I intend to research a bit
further.
I took a hit this month. Low Tier BPOs have been
selling less, as I sold about 1/3 less this month, only making 1,8 billion
profit
How do I expect my Blueprint endeavor to evolve
next 2 month? I honestly expect it to get worse… This seems counterproductive to
be investing so much and to expect things to get worse on the short term but
here are my reasons:
1 – I been allocating 20 of my 40 research
slots to improve and copy those new Citadel BPOs. BPC prices are going down due
to competition in the near future, and I’ll make less Isk, so it only remains
to see by how much.
2 – By spending 20 of my 40 research slots into
those new Citadel BPOs, I’m researching way way less of my usual low tier BPOs
and soon I’ll have less researched BPOs available and thus, less isk coming in.
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 slowly, so I prefer
to research one of each gun from all races.
My PVP toons can now research BPOs in Curse but
I have no idea what! I do not want to research fast stuff, because I kinda want
to “fire and forget”… but also want a good isk/time ratio. Should I buy 20 T1
Cruiser or Battlecruiser hulls, get them to 10/20 and sell them? Should I try
out those new Capital Mod BPOs? Or should I just go for the "traditional"
Capital BPOs? I’ve been delaying thinking about it for a month…
MISCELANEOUS INVESTMENTS
Did not bought any Capital BPOs in order to
resell them…
Finally, my Overall Graph
