No more trade slots

I suspect I am selling in a lower populated area:

• Skill books in Gicodel, Fricoure, and Dodixie
• Command Centers in Balle and Didoxie
• Veldspar in Gicodel and Dodixie

Markup on on skill books is often 600%, and command centres is about 300%.  I have been buying Veldspar for up to 13Isk/unit and selling it at 19Isk/unit. The pricing seems OK (as in I am not being undercut too badly) doesn't seem to be the problem; simply turnover.

However, I ran out of trading spots (currently 65), and dont yet have the free ISK forWholesale trading. 

Mining is the traditional newbie activity.  Yuk.  Buying Plex is the alternative easy gold activity.  Also yuk.  (It is my aim to be earning at least a Plex a month casually).

I could sell or crush my starter mission quest ships.  However, I am keeping them instead of insurance.

That is OK; An account can have 3 toons; so I am starting the missions on toon 2.  The starter missions give a few million, and I will either sell my new ships, or recycle them and sell the parts.  I will take a few points in trading, but will (try) to save this toon's ISK and books to buy the Wholesale trading skill book (31.5 Million ISK)  (Must not buy more stuff to sell).


I also need to find the high volume trading items (that I can afford).

Processing ore

Raw material + work becomes intermediate material.  Intermediate materials +  work becomes finished product. 

Sometimes you end up with a byproduct that is not needed, but can be deconstructed into usefull material.

Eve and WoW both have these transition. 

You could expect to buy raw material, process it and sell the resulting product at a profit.  This sometimes works; you can spreadsheets and blog discussions on WoW's obsidan shuffle, or the saronite shuffle.

Sometimes it doesn't work; you have farmers gathering material, and selling the resulting product for less than the raw inputs sell for.

To my surprise, Eve's basic mineral Velspar can not (easily) be refined (prospected) at a profit.  At first I thought it was just me.  However, I found an ore calculator that suggests that it rarely is profitable for the basic ore.

Working with optimistic assumptions : level 5 (maximum) in Refining Level, Refining Efficiency Level, and Velespar refining; combined with a large station standing, could I spin a profit?  The best price in any quantity I can find is 14 ISK/unit of Veldspar, and I can buy Tritanium for 4.6 ISK/unit.

So what does my magic calculator tell me my rewards for refining Veldspar will be worth?  13.8 ISK/unit of Velspar processed.

I have been sellling raw Velspar for 19 ISK/unit.

I am still a newbie.  I might be missing something (does the time cost of transporting Tritanium - refined Velspar outweigh the time cost of mining additional Veldspar?), but for the time being no thanks.  I doubt I'll be refinining Velspar any time soon.

Finally finished the starter missions

Well, on one toon anyway. I finished the starter quests (missions whatever they are called in eve).

I ended up with a whole lot of miscelanous junk either from looting NPC ships, the odd bit of mining, and some civilian upgrades. I also bought a lot of items from the market rather than craft them during the starter missions. I also had some books, that I don't intend to use.

My understanding is that only NPC missions allow you to use the majority of 'civilian' tech, and as such it will sell very poorly. However, a lot of it can be reprocessed into useful items. This I have done.

 I also had no intention of selling stuff in the starter area. Established players have ISK, many newbies do not. So I looked for a trade hub, somewhere that the established players hang out. I settled on Dodixie IX. I don't yet know if it is a intermediate or large hub, but certainly has higher prices for a lot of things than Trossere VII.

I have also started to do a couple of basic missions outside of the tutorial.  The tutorial missions really do spoil you with gold in comparison.  Oh well.  I am taking the opportunity to buywhat appear to be NPC items when I am away from Dodixie and take them back.  Not just books either, but things like command centers seems to have a large price markup; and will certainly pay more than doing missions.

I am not doing as well as Gevlon, but I have not started trying yet; enjoying being an absolute newbie.

Case in point: In WoW you have to trade on the market with items in your backpack (or ship in Eve terms).  In Eve, you have to sell out of your Hanger (or bank in WoW terms).  It took me far too long to work out why I could buy stuff but couldn't "Sell this item" on Dodixie but could sell it from Trossere. Put it in the hanger and you can sell it fine.

Now, I have to get a quicker way of working out what is underpriced and what is overpriced.  I have been spoilt by WoW's auctioneer and TradeSkillMaster.  I will work it out.

What do I need for those anti matter charges

I'm still an Eve newbie.

I have a 'mission' (or quest) as part of the tutorials:
To be sure you understand the basics of business and production, your agent has asked you to build 5,000 units of Antimatter S, using the blueprint copy provided. The rest of the production runs on the blueprint are yours to do with as you please.

Now, it is a tutorial, but it has a time completion bonus.  Admittedly the time should be overly generous, assuming I can sit in front of the PC for the time required.  I also like to try to understand what I am doing.

Looking at the blueprint in game, it seems to produce 100 per 'run'; and takes in material 1 Nocxium, 20 Pyerite, and 248 Tritanium.  Woo hoo. It also tells me that if I had better something or other, I would only need 17 Pyrite and 202 Tritanium (gee thanks for rubbing it in; I already know I'm a newbie).  Oh well, at least I know what I have to look forward to if I ever do this again.

So, assuming I manufacture it all, and don't just sell the recipe (apparently worth 90,000 ISK) I will need 50 manufacturing runs; each costing

• 1 * 700 ISK (buy for Nocxium)
• 20 *  5 ISK (buy for Pyrite)
• 248 * 4.18 ISK (sell for Tritanium - have lots of this from earlier missions)

or roughly 2,800 ISK per 100; or 28 ISK each.  However, it only costs me 20 ISK each to buy the items premade; so I would be better of just to buy it, and sell the blueprint from a purely economic viewpoint.

What I don't know at this point is if it will simply let me buy the items of the AH to complete my quest, or if I am required to make all 5000.  So I will split the difference; make 2500 and try to buy the rest.  This allows me to try out both the manufacturing tutorial and an ISK saving theory.


What I didn't factor in was the installation cost (1000 ISK, and cost per hour 330 ISK), so buying would really have been the better way.  Oh well, it happens - part of the cost of doing the tutorial this time around; or the cost of picking up Industry Level 1. 

Yes I know that I am playing with chump change.  Starter gold.  However the same rules that apply at this low level also apply to higher level skills.  In World of Warcraft, I am one of the major manufacturers and sellers in a couple of markets, where the costs of materials make a huge difference; and the decision whether to make your own material or buy the surplus goods of others matters.


After all this, I discovered that it will take roughly 90 minutes to process the charges, and I can find plenty of buy orders for the charges.  So I just bought all 5000 charges, and the mission could be completed. 

Regardless, a new ship to play with and some cruft I have accumulated.

It is great to be a noob again

I play a bit of World of Warcraft, but have been curious about Eve for a while.  Gevlon's recent Eve posts were the final push I needed to have a look.

I am a newbie.  I have almost no idea.  In Warcarft, I know a lot, and know where to get the information I am missing.  My problem's in that game are how long it will take me to down a boss, and when will I start on heroic raiding.


In Eve, I struggled to get into a ship and out of the airlock.  I struggled with Aura's (an NPC that starts you off) tutorials.  If in doubt - follow the Acceleration gates.

I was doing the tutorial 'mining and refining mission' for 'balancing the books'.  Have a mining laser (picked up a cheap civilian laser - no idea if it will work), and equipped my gun fstruggled on my first mining mission for the 'work off the others back' trainer.  I picked up a civilian mining laser of an AH - crap I know - but cheap and hopefully good enough for the mission. 

I went to the zone and found a Barren Asteroid and a Hollow Asteroid.  I cant mine then. Mmm.  Hollow Asteroids caused by being mined out according to the in game info.  So is the problem that:

• Someone else was there first? 
• Civilian stuff can't be used for this tutorial mission?
• I haven't been able to find the asteroid?

I go and buy a real but stilll cheap mining laser and head back to the zone.  Mmm.  This laser doesn't work on the asteroids either.  Off to do some research and I find an item about mining in general.  I follow this and find a real asteroid to mine outside of the tutorial and get lots of Veldespar.  Easy.  Hand in the mission.  Can't. I didn't do the mining in the tutorial area.  WTF? 

Head back to the mining area and this time I find a proper asteroid to mine.  I see off the two bandits with no problem.  Have extra ore, and finish the mission this time with no problem.

I find a sense of wonder not even knowing what I still have to learn.  Frustrating sure, but that is part of the attraction.

It is great to be a noob again.