With Odyssey launching Tuesday, I'm halfway through my project of comparing my low sec experience pre- and post-expansion. I have altered the parameters because I abandoned my plan to go to high sec and do a level 4 epic arc series. I just couldn't make myself go to high sec, which is good since Tranquility suffered a DDoS attack this weekend. So instead, I will compare five weeks before launch to five weeks after launch. And while the weekend's server issues should have suppressed my profits, I did manage to do a 5/10 complex and get 167 million ISK in drops and bounties, even though I couldn't take down the final boss.
So how did I play EVE in May? Except for the 10th anniversary celebration when CCP broke into the sandbox and had a contest for killing the most ships, I conducted all my activity in low sec. Well, unless a mission took me to high sec or the shortest path took me into high, but I don't include that. Here is the breakdown of the activities:
Exploration - Exploration is how I made most of my ISK in EVE, although I expect mining/manufacturing may surpass that in June. But as exploration is a big part of Odyssey, this is the area most people may find interesting.
Total value: 321.9 million ISK. This amount breaks down to 278.1 million ISK in drops and salvage and 4.2 million ISK in bounties. The amount of drops was calculated by taking the value that appeared in the cargo hold value display when I highlighted the items. The actual values may vary, but as I didn't sell anything that dropped on the market, that seems a fair way to figure out the relative values over time.
Radar sites - I managed to run 12 radar sites in May, gaining 158.7 million ISK in drops/salvage and 3.8 million in bounties. That comes out to an average of 13.5 million ISK per site.
Plexes - I found and cleared two Minor Angel Annex complexes last month, earning 69.2 million ISK in drops/salvage and 48.7 million ISK in bounties. While not rated DED complexes, I found the Minor Angel Annex is soloable in a Cyclone.
Magnetometric sites - I found 3 magnetometric sites in May, yielding 48.3 million ISK in drops/salvage and 400 thousand ISK in bounties for an average of 16.2 million ISK per site.
Gravimetric and Ladar sites - Once again I found no ladar sites in May. I've never found a ladar site. I did find two gravimetric sites last month, but I am putting them under the mining/manufacturing category. I find that keeping all mining together makes sense. Also, I don't consider a site that doesn't require the use of probes to find really belonging to the exploration category. While pre-Odyssey gravimetric sites required probing, in Odyssey that is no longer the case. Since part of this exercise is to compare the Retribution and Odyssey builds, I decided to make this change a month early.
Mining/Manufacturing - 197 million ISK. I combine the two because I'm using a vertical integration model in which I mine all of the materials I build with. I also used minerals only mined in low sec except for some morphite that I used to make orbital bombardment ammunition. I may change this model depending on whether ice mining becomes more profitable. So here's some stats:
Total sales profits: 146 million ISK. This is profit, not gross. I also consider that the cost of minerals is pure profit, as in role playing terms my manufacturing division paid my mining division for the materials. I'm not an accountant though, so I'm sure someone will explain why this is wrong. Also, I have over 100 million ISK in market orders up.
I sell in a station in low sec Molden Heath and I'm able to keep up with the volumes of sales. I should add that I began my production/market selling operation on 14 May, so I did have a lot of startup costs to pay off (like blueprints). Up until now I just mined and manufactured for my personal use.
Ore mined: 581,765 m3. I mined 372,245 m3 in belts and 209,520 m3 in the two grav sites I managed so probe down. I hope you don't mind if I don't go into specifics. I should also add I have not refined any of the ore from the grav sites as I'm waiting for the extra minerals I'll get in Odyssey.
Minerals used in production: This amount is only for the business, not for my personal use. My personal use really didn't change the numbers too much.
Isogen - 25,050 units
Mexallon - 14,850 units
Morphite - 800 units
Nocxium - 1,300 units
Pyerite - 1 million units
Tritanium - 2.2 million units
Yes, I can get all of those, except for morphite, from high sec, although I'd have to travel to a different region to get the nocxium as it does not naturally exist in Minmatar Republic high sec.
NPC combat - 51 million ISK. In addition to the profits from the market is the 40.3 million ISK in drops/salvage and 10.7 million ISK in bounties I received while killing the Angel Cartel ships foolish enough to attack my battle Procurer. After filling up my ore hold, I would switch to a Jaguar and go back and loot/salvage the wrecks. People might consider this ratting, but as the only times I visit the belts is to mine, I put this under mining.
Missions -143.8 million ISK. I did a total of 94 missions from agents located in low sec space.
Storyline - 83.3 million ISK. With that many missions I was able to do 5, and that was after refusing to do a level 4 combat mission. Most of the value came from the 4 +4 implants I received. The implants were valued at 82.1 million while I received 1.2 million ISK in mission rewards.
Courier - 43.9 million ISK, 107,303 LP. I did 84 courier level 4 missions carrying 363,200 m3 of cargo around low sec. In addition to leading to lots of storyline missions, I just like flying around seeing who's out and about. The courier missions in Odyssey will also serve as intelligence as I'll have the ability to scout out ore sites and whether any sites exist to scan down.
Security - 16.6 million ISK, 9,497 LP. I did 5 level 3 security missions at the beginning of the month. Needless to say the payout wasn't that good so I decided to do something else.
High Sec - 43.1 million ISK, 18,034 LP. This doesn't count as low sec, but I did make something from my standings grind in high sec last month. Most of the value came from the two implants I received for doing storyline missions. I did get 13.5 million ISK in missions rewards.
When I do my final calculations I'll have to include the activities I manage to do before launch. Hopefully the DDoS will end and I can add a few more million to the total. But the total of 662.7 million ISK in low sec isn't too bad, right?
