Time To Make New Things

For the past few months I've run a group of planetary interaction colonies in the business of making nanite repair paste.  A very useful product, but in terms of profit, not the best choice.  Then again, I often make sub-optimal choices in EVE Online where making ISK is concerned.  But I've discovered something: I want to spend my time doing other things.

I think the main thing I did wrong was use my main characters to run the operation.  That pretty much tied them down to one area.  But I have two other characters that can run planetary interaction as well.  But I think I'm tired of trying to run that many colonies.  In the future, I'll only have one character run colonies.  I don't really need more than five, right?

I won't stop making nanite repair paste right away.  I still have weeks worth of tier 1 products that built up because I wasn't too efficient in making sure in the early days to make sure I was always checking my colonies.  I figure I have a six week supply for some of the products, so I'll probably stop sometime around Thanksgiving.  The U.S. one, not the Canadian one that just past.

One nice thing about continuing to make repair paste for a few more weeks is that I have time to sit down and figure out what I should make next.  I should probably make things that I'll use in my production runs.  Of course, since I don't make that much stuff for sale, I can then sell the excess on the market.  The question then becomes: what tech 2 items do I want to make?  I'm still trying to figure that one out.

One reason I've delayed making any decisions is the upcoming changes to invention and construction coming in Phoebus.  CCP Ytterbium's dev blog on the changes has me adjusting my skills plans and rethinking my data core farm.  A casual producer in low sec like me can't rely on bidding for teams to stay competitive.  I need to concentrate on building a good data core farm to keep costs down.

Another reason is waiting for CCP to figure out the changes to long distance travel.  CCP Greyscale posted some modifications to the effects on jump freighters, but as null sec industry grows that CCP intends to nerf the distances to fall more in-line with the original proposal.  So should I even begin tech 2 production or should I get back into exploration once Phoebus hits and concentrate on making rigs and other items I find blueprints for, like ancillary shield boosters?  I don't want to get into a business and then see materials shortages.  Heck, in the future, faction equipment might actually rival tech 2 in terms of affordability.  Or does that just mean I should get into tech 2 production more than currently?

I know this post has wandered a bit.  But that's the beauty of EVE.  Moving one piece of the puzzle often affects other things.  Boredom with making nanite repair paste has led to a reexamination of a lot of other areas of my industrial activities.  The changes I make will then lead to hours of new play in EVE as I discover what else EVE has to offer.  That's a lot cheaper than going out and buying a new video game.