Following up on last weeks post, I figured I ended up with about $80m isk in extra profit from Hulkageddon II. The strip miners made up the bulk of it, but I got very lucky with mining drones (both I and II) as well.
I was only trading in three regions. I think that if I had expanded a little more I would have been able to get at least a PLEX out of it. To that end, I have Wholesale V training finishing up in a few hours and then I have to shell out $90m isk to buy the Tycoon skill. The extra trade orders will certainly end up being worth it, but I haven't had to spend anywhere near that much on anything before.
This week I read a brilliant post over at Stabbed Up about a disposable pvp frigate. I learned a lot from it and he covered using trading to help in the process. This is primarily about having a PvP toon but recognizes how you can use the default trade skills (or some very cheap and easily trained skills) to maximize your isk. The buy order strategy he proposes is what everyone should do. If you have any open orders, you are cheating yourself.
For example, whenever I am on my combat toon, I put up a buy order for rifters at a little bit below market. Yes, it takes some of my money out of circulation, but when the orders eventually fill, I can end up saving 10-20k per ship. I do the same for fittings. After a while, this does add up to real money. I also have this toon put up sell orders for certain loot. They payout might end up being delayed, but it is so much better getting 200k for something than the 50k from a low buy order.
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This is serious internet spaceship business.
And business is good!
Buy Low, Sell High and Fly Safe!!!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Found Money
If you look at the Eve forums and twitter (especially #tweetfleet and #hulkageddon) you will see a lot of talk about Hulkageddon 2. This weeklong event targets Hulk mining ships in high-sec space. There are debates about all sorts of ways this is wrong and detrimental to the game, etc. My view is that this is a PvP game and it's all within the bounds of the sandbox in which we play.
Do you want to take away my Carebear™ membership card now?
Even if you don't participate in direct PvP actions, your life (and profit) as a trader is impacted.
As of this morning, over 800 ships have been popped. Each of those ships had strip mining lasers and other goodies on them. Some of those will survive the explosion and be grabbed by the killer (or their accomplices.) They can choose to keep them and take them back home or sell them.
Normally, the market for these items is stable. This predictable range of availability and pricing has been upset this week by this event. This is an opportunity for a trader.
Hulkageddon has made me somewhere in the 75-100 million isk range in the past three days. I know this is chump change to the big traders, but as a small time player, it will help pay for the Tycoon skill I need to buy in 11 days!
It took me about an hour to shuttle around and get all my buy orders set up. And, once this is over, I will need to take some time to research the new prices for each item and decide whether to hold or sell.
Why am I telling you all of this?
1) By looking at the market, the full time traders already have their orders up. This won't be new info to them.
2) There are still many places where a good buy order will work really well. You can easily buy T2 mining lasers for under 30% of retail.
3) I made my money and figure this could help one or more of you out.
Tips:
Look at the Hulkageddon killboard. This will show you systems where hunting is happening. Look for location trends. I am guessing that more of the action will move closer to .5 space due to security hits taken earlier in the event. Look for item drop trends. See if fits appear to be changing.
Good luck and please comment if you are also having trading success this week.
----------
This is serious internet spaceship business.
And business is good!
Buy Low, Sell High and Fly Safe!!!
Do you want to take away my Carebear™ membership card now?
Even if you don't participate in direct PvP actions, your life (and profit) as a trader is impacted.
As of this morning, over 800 ships have been popped. Each of those ships had strip mining lasers and other goodies on them. Some of those will survive the explosion and be grabbed by the killer (or their accomplices.) They can choose to keep them and take them back home or sell them.
Normally, the market for these items is stable. This predictable range of availability and pricing has been upset this week by this event. This is an opportunity for a trader.
Hulkageddon has made me somewhere in the 75-100 million isk range in the past three days. I know this is chump change to the big traders, but as a small time player, it will help pay for the Tycoon skill I need to buy in 11 days!
It took me about an hour to shuttle around and get all my buy orders set up. And, once this is over, I will need to take some time to research the new prices for each item and decide whether to hold or sell.
Why am I telling you all of this?
1) By looking at the market, the full time traders already have their orders up. This won't be new info to them.
2) There are still many places where a good buy order will work really well. You can easily buy T2 mining lasers for under 30% of retail.
3) I made my money and figure this could help one or more of you out.
Tips:
Look at the Hulkageddon killboard. This will show you systems where hunting is happening. Look for location trends. I am guessing that more of the action will move closer to .5 space due to security hits taken earlier in the event. Look for item drop trends. See if fits appear to be changing.
Good luck and please comment if you are also having trading success this week.
----------
This is serious internet spaceship business.
And business is good!
Buy Low, Sell High and Fly Safe!!!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Why Me?
1) You do your market research, plug the numbers into a spreadsheet and find an item that you can make some money on.
Your perfect buy order was .01'd 10 minutes after you logged out, netting you exactly 1 of the item you needed.
Why Me?
2) Forget buy orders. You buy NPC items from cheap sell orders and haul them yourself. After doing the math, you made only 50,000 isk for an hours work hauling construction blocks halfway across the region.
Why Me?
3) Maybe working for someone else is better.
You just realized that the hauling contract you paid a huge deposit on IS GOING TO LOW-SEC!!!!
Why Me?
4) After buying another iteron to replace the one you just lost, you do more market research. You can buy low in another region and move the items to a hub. All in high-sec.
Your perfect sell order was .01'd 10 minutes after you logged out, netting you exactly 1 of the item sold. 99 more to go.
Why Me?
5) One more try.
Find an item you get a lot of in mission loot drops. See it sells for 8,000. Put up a station buy order for 10 at 4,000. See the order get filled quickly!
This is awesome! It's finally working!
Notice in your wallet transaction list that you mistyped and put the order up for 40,000 each.
Why Me?
6) Serious. This last one had better work or you are going to Star Trek Online.
Put up a station order on that same item for 3,000. You aren't going to be taken this time! There is only one other order up and it is a region-wide one for 4,000.
Why Me?
Wait! Before you "Quit Game" for the last time, each of these things is easily remedied.
1 and 4) This happens all the time. Your choice here is to become one of the .01 people or one of those who raises more. The key to dealing with this is some mild swearing and having a lot of items on the market. Yes, you will have periods when you get trumped on some things, but you will still have some activity. Checking your orders on login is always a good idea.
2 and 3) My first trade was hauling water. I was so excited. I even kept a note of it:
1052 units water from dunraelere at 30 per (31,560)
4:28 from INGH - jumps 1
1052 water is 263m3 (running empty basically)
25289 water from metserel (5 jumps)
will require 6322m3 - will be picking up 21900 leaving 3367 for later.
total 22974
7 jumps
109605.26 profit at 42.69 (Goinard IV) 0.3 space!!!!
5:28
Yep, it only took me an hour to make 100k!!!! All I had to do was go to lowsec to get it. I am pretty sure everyone's first haul was equally boneheaded!
When you first start hauling, NPC items are actually a good idea. The pricing is guaranteed. Find someone selling them for less, figure out how much space it will take up in your ship, buy them and move them. Until you are ready for low-sec, try keeping to safe space. Set your autopilot to avoid low-sec.
5) I am sure I have done this before. I took advantage of it just yesterday. Made over 300k for moving items one jump. Not a lot when you consider all the zillions you will make in the future, but I was going that way anyway. This happens all the time. When you are doing your market research, keep an eye out for crazy orders like this and fill them!
6) Also see this one all the time. If you want to place a buy order for something in a station and there is a region wide order in effect, you have to top that order. Eve will let you put in your order, but it won't get any play until the region-wide order is done. Pay attention to that Green bar. If you want to place a buy order, you have to beat that green bar price or else you are just wasting your money.
So, what does this boil down to? You need to pay attention to your surroundings. This isn't limited to trading in Eve. Miners and PvPers need to do this to succeed. Miners get popped, PvPers get popped. While you may not see an eve-mail from Pend Insurance giving you a shiny new Velator, losing 300k on a bad trade is our equivalent of getting popped.
The next time you have a trade go bad, don't say "Why Me?"
Deal with it, learn from your mistake and move on.
This is serious internet spaceship business.
And business is good!
Buy Low, Sell High and Fly Safe!!!
(Video from Planet P Project - "Why Me?" -- I also recommend Tony Carey's "A Fine, Fine Day")
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