Update on 3/7/2014:  The information in this guide was gathered before the POCO system was implemented.  Taxe rates are different now, and variable.  So make sure to check the tax rates on the POCOs for potential planets.  While most High Sec POCOs have tax rates in line with the NPC rates, some are much higher, and this will impact your profit.

In a series of posts, Mabrick over at Mabrick’s Mumblings claimed that a noob with roughly 2 months of training could make 500m isk in one month using only one high sec system and 6 planets. I decided to give this a shot, as a challenge that will make me isk is a challenge I accept. Bonus points for the fact that it has me creating new spreadsheets!

Below you will find my posts regarding this experience, collected in chronological order for your edification. The first post notes how I modified the challenge and get started. Enjoy!

Day -1

As mentioned, I am giving Mabrick’s proposition a shot. From the latest post, there a few things I am unsure of, namely, if his 500m isk/month claim was based in HS or WH space. But, here are the conditions of my experiment:

Skills:

  • Command Center Upgrades 4
  • Interplanetary Consolidation 4
  • Planetology 2
  • Remote Sensing 3

Production

  • Final Product: Robotics

Planets:

  • 2 Barren R0 > P1
  • 2 Lava R0 > P1
  • 1 Barren Production Planet P1 > P3
  • All planets are in one High Sec system with standard Customs Office rates.

A few other notes. I am not taking up the challenge as presented mainly because I don’t want to move the alt, and it has about 30m skill points. Those are almost entirely in mining, production, and recently combat.

PM-Skills-2

Here are the Planetary Management skills, IC 4 will be done soon:

PM-Skills

Here are the planets, pending the production planet due to IC 4:

PM-Planets

Here is the pattern used for all of the R0 > P1 planets:

PM-Layout

You’ll notice that the extractors are much further from storage than Mabrick indicates.  This is because HS planets have crap for resource distribution, so the R0 > P1 chain is located central to the hotspots I judged to be closest together on each planet.  Notice the bands I used on the scanner, to give you an idea of the resource density here:

PM-Hotspots

Mabrick contends that something around 500m isk is viable each month. Many readers disagreed. Given my skills, I’ll shoot for 50%-75% of his estimate. Thats 250m to 375m isk in one month. I’ll start my timer from the day I get the production planet up and running. I am going to have ~2 days of P1 production already created by the time that happens, but given the nature of resource depletion, I’ll use them and consider it to be a wash.

Initial Costs:

  • Setup of 4 planets with level 5/6 Command Centers: $23,720,000.03.

Day 1

I set up all the planets for the challenge, 3 barren, 2 lava, and have the production planet going.  I also have a sheet set up to track the costs by line item.  I loves me some Excel!  Without further ado, here are the costs incurred in buying the command centers, setting up the planets (including a few mistakes in placing and rebuilding PI buildings), and transferring the first production loads from the resources planets to the production planet (also including one mistake):

PI-Balancesheet-1

 

The Customs Office interface is still horrible, and you can easily transfer crap back to a planet when you think you are loading it to your ship.  Why?  Because CCP decided that the CO inventory screen should not be part of the unified inventory.  That’s great.  That cost me about $500k isk.  Remember to open your ship inventory and drag the items from to CO to there, and not hit the Transfer button.

The PI interface still leaves important info out of the equation when placing buildings.  So if you click the wrong facility, you cannot check what it makes until after you spend the money on it once you are in that process.  Yes, I could right click, show info, and then choose and place it.  Perhaps the Build Panel could include a PX > PY note right on the screen.  So be careful if you are setting this stuff up.

Accounting note:  My production planet came online on Eve-day 3/8/13, so the challenge will run until I sell products made withing 30 days of 3/8/13.

Day 1 Part 2