Go Forth And Conquer!

Today marks the start of the Eve planets coming to life and being used and abused as resource rich celestial objects begging to be exploited for isk gain. I'm talking about Planetary Interaction, a key part of the Tyrannis expansion, which is being launched today.

Planetary Interaction allows players to harvest the many planets of Eve and create vast industrial networks to produce some of the key items used by players ingame. It is a further step along the way to create a fully autonomous, player generated market.

Personally I really like Planetary Interaction as an addition to Eve and I'm really excited to see how it will be developed further. One small thing I should mention though.

I will not be taking part.

You won't find me rushing out to buy command centers or scanning planets to find a fantastic vein of precious minerals. That might sound a strange thing to say, given my support for Planetary Interaction, but it mirrors my viewpoint on a lot of the more industrial features of Eve as a whole.

Here's my take on it. I love the industrial side of the Eve universe. I love the fact that it has an almost entirely player-driven market. I love it that market hubs like Jita, Amarr and Rens are creations of the players rather than the choices of the developers. I love the concept of ships I fly having been created by someone, somewhere and having a history that I know nothing about. I love seeing Freighters moving vast quantities of goods around the universe. I love the sight of market orders continually under-cutting each other. I love the idea of huge spreadsheets tracking profit and squeezing every last isk possible out of consumers like me. And that's the key thing! Maybe you missed it, so I'll say it again in bold:

I am a consumer.

I'm the person that uses. I fly the ships that you took days to make. I shoot that ammo that you transported all across the galaxy. I accept your market-order that undercut your competition. I give you the isk that justifies the effort that you industrialists put in. Because of this, I'm afraid I will never be one of you.

I just prefer to fly space-ships. So while I am very proud of Eve market, while I love the concept, the idea, the vision behind it, I won't be the one doing it. It is the same for Planetary Interaction. I applaud the idea of tapping into those celestial isk-mines, but I won't be doing the dirty work myself. I suspect I'm not alone in my attitude to all things industrial in Eve.

So, industrialists of Eve, go forth and conquer! Spreadsheet like you've never spreadsheeted before! I don't wish that the development time had been spent elsewhere, neither do I envy you for your new feature that I will never use. Just be warned, that if I do happen to have a Planetary Command Center in my cargohold, it will most likely be the one I just looted from your wreck.

So How Much Can You Earn Per Week?

The title of this post is a question that gets asked a fair bit by applicants to our wormhole corporation in the public channel.

Funnily enough, of all the things they could ask, this one question is probably one of the toughest for us to answer. Really the only valid, short answer to the question is 'it depends'. Unfortunately this often isn't enough to satisfy potential recruits and we have to explain why it's so difficult to come up with a salary for wormhole life.

The first thing we try to make clear is that the potential isk stored away in wormholes is massive. Tapping into that potential requires coordination, teamwork and a lot of logistics. So it's important for applicants to realise that, isk will only end up in their wallets after a large concerted group effort by the whole of the corporation.

For your consideration here is a potted summary of what is required in our corporation to convert our wormholes into isk.

- It starts, as many other things in wormholes do, with a scanner. This person will scan our home system to find our static class six exit
- The class six wormhole must then be fully scanned and combat sites will be bookmarked
- Adjacent wormholes to the class six will need to be checked for any possible threats
- A fleet commander has to form a fleet consisting of at least 8-10 pilots
- The fleet commander may delegate different roles within the fleet, such as the logistics pilots, a target caller and a Sleeper frigate killer
- The fleet will begin attacking the Sleepers while other pilots may be asked to keep an eye on the surrounding wormholes for any signs of trouble
- After a site has been completed, salvagers will need to be brought in to mop up the salvage and loot
- The Fleet Commander will then need to submit a report detailing who was involved in the fleet
- Those responsible will then, if necessary, have to begin to process the loot towards becoming T3 components
- Any materials needing to be sold will have to be transported safely to Empire space
- The materials will have to be listed at competitive prices to get the mopst isk for our effort
- The profits must then be divided up between all involved

As you can see, it's not a simple matter of blowing up ships and receiving isk for it. Not only are there multiple people who need to be rewarded for their effort, but the entire process from killing a Sleeper to seeing your wallet flash with the sparkle of isk may take weeks, even months!

So you can perhaps understand the difficulty we have when trying to answer the question. The best thing we can say is, the more effort you put in, the more isk you will get out. But if you're active and part of an active team, then there is no reason why living a wormhole won't make you a billionaire many times over.

It just so happened that today was a payday for me. My wallet flashed and I was 800 million isk richer.

How did it get there? - Some mystical process.
When did I earn it? - Some time recently I guess.
What did I do to earn it? - I couldn't really say.

Was it worth it? - Definitely yes!

All I really know is that for the amount of work I put in, isk seems to appear in my wallet in astounding amounts. And for me, that's all I really need to know.