Greedy Goblin

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Business Thursday: Character sell

I've sold my first supercapital pilot, she can fly a Nyx. Since she was sold while I was in TEST internally, I don't link the actual sell page, but here is the relevant skill list (pre-requisites omitted):

Projected Electronic Counter Measures 3
4x Armor Compensation 4
Fighters 5
Remote Armor Repair Systems 5
Capital Repair Systems 3
Fighter Bombers 5
Capital Ships 4
Cloaking 3
Mechanics 5
Repair Systems 5
Hull Upgrades 5
Science 5
Biology 4
Engineering 5
Energy Systems Operation 5
Energy Management 4
Energy Pulse Weapons 4
Shield Emission Systems 5
Energy Emission Systems 5
Cynosural Field Theory 2
Jump Fuel Conservation 4
Jump Drive Calibration 5
Thermodynamics 4
Cybernetics 5
Capital Remote Armor Repair Systems 4
Gallente Carrier 4 (halfway to 5)
Capital Shield Emission Systems 4
Capital Energy Emission Systems 4
Evasive Maneuvering 4
Advanced Drone Interfacing 4

She was 13 months old, and 26M SP. She was sold for 15B ISK. The costs were 13+2 PLEX (about 8.25B), a set of +5 learning implants (social was 4, together 0.5B) and skillbooks for 1B. All together about 10B costs. So I made 5B by locking down some of my capital for a year and logging in for a few minutes.

While it's clearly a very slow form of making ISK, it's also a very low effort way of making billions. So I continue to sell pilots.



I used to send a mail to every gank target soon after the gank. I choose a more diplomatic method since I usually got tears as reply instead of acceptance. Now I send the mail before I log out, to all pilots involved at once. It both give them time to chill out and also show them that they didn't die alone. Maybe seeing the other bad ship owners will convince them that's it's a serious EVE betterment project and not someone collecting tears:

And people indeed learn, no matter how much naysayers claim otherwise:

The guide page got a Noctis fit, after I found a Noctis in a belt.

PS: the moron of the day is MevNav Hawkens:

24 comments:

Jim L said...

"And people indeed learn, no matter how much naysayers claim otherwise"

Who has ever claimed that people do not need to learn?

Anonymous said...

I'd be curious to know what % of the players that you ganked quit EVE - never to return.

Gabriel said...

Great point about Noctis, always felt too vulnerable on it.
Though it's drone bay can hold only 2 vespas. And personally I prefer 5 tractors + 3 salvagers.

Anonymous said...

"I'd be curious to know what % of the players that you ganked quit EVE - never to return."

Simple logic tell us - it's CCP concern, not Gevlons. And if they did not ban Gevlon or whole New Order, we can be pretty sure they do not see any problems.

So stop counting other peoples money and go fit your tank, miner!

Kree Atreides said...

"And people indeed learn, no matter how much naysayers claim otherwise"

Darius Lorans - no match on zkillboard
Eylene - no match on zkillboard
Tanja Moreen - no match on zkillboard
Trevor Uriel - no match on zkillboard

Seems as if those "proof of people willing to learn" have never been ganked before. There is a difference between "learning (by failure)" and "havn't done it wrong since ever".

Some use a Procurer simply because they can afford it much earlier as it is only 1/3 the price of a Retriever.
That has nothing to do with "safety" or "learning" and therefore can't be a "proof".

You should consider making a nonaggressive and trustworthy Charakter to teach people.

Something like "Hey, I'm hunting Botslayer Gevlon since weeks and I've seen you have been ganked by him earlier this day. Try to fit your ship ... to avoid beeing ganked."

If I would come home and find out a burglar has stolen my valuables, leaving me a message how I could have protected my house in a better way... well... I wouldn't trust him, would you?
Of course he knows what he is talking about - but - why shouldn't his advice contain some kind of "backdoor" for him to come back?

Gevlon said...

@Kree Atreides: you don't have to be personally ganked to learn from it. I'm heavily use the local channel, announce every single kill and encourage bystanders to tank their ship.

Anonymous said...

could you comment a bit on the nyx pilot's skill plan? like in which order did you put in the skills, when did you do remap? did you do any at all, or do you think it's more value leaving them untouched as a bonus?

Gevlon said...

Remapped on day 1, started in Int/mem, learning all those skills.

Remapping to Mem/perc, learning all the drone-related skills

Remapping to Perc/will and learning the ship.

Since more than a year passed, the remap returned, so the pilot was ready to be remapped by the client.

Kree Atreides said...

Still you can't use them as a proof until you can proofe they have used Retrievers in the past.
Which you can't.
No proof they have read local or know your blog.

Of course you could say that there are players using common sense and don't need to learn something or have to be teached.

I often help new players who have questions in the ingame help channels - and you won't believe how many new players can't wait to sit in a Procurer.
Because it is tanked and they have learned a Botslayer Goblin lesson?
No... "cauze it haz 200% mining yield bonuz!!11!" (original quote).
200% is far more bonus than those crappy 50% the Retriever comes with. And 350m³ cargo is nearly as much as the 450m³ cargo the Retriever has.
No, please DON'T correct me, I DO know why 200% bonus equals 50% bonus without lowslots and I DO know that cargorigs and cargoextenders on a Procurer don't work the way new players would guess.

Coming back to your proof:
Is it a proof that people can't do math and think 200% is far better than 50%?

Is it a proof that people are afraid of getting ganked and therefore using a tanked barge?

Is it a proof that some people do read guides (not talking about Halada... but yes... at least once a day someone asks how he should fit his Osprey for max yield...) and don't need to be teached by you because they have common sense choosing the Procurer?

You'll have a proof when you meet one of your ganks some days later and he is then sitting in a better ship.
You'll have a proof that people refuse to learn when you hit a guy twice and he still uses the same crappy fitting.

Zax said...

As Kree said...check the price of a procurer, and the price of a retriever, and that may tell you why newbies prefer procurers.

Others figure "Unless I am getting ganked every X hours, it is not a problem to have an untanked mack/retriever/whatever"

Anonymous said...

The more minerals that are mined, the lower the price of minerals becomes. By herding miners into procurers, the amount of minerals mined will be lowered. Thus the price of minerals will increase.

As the price of minerals increases, this in turn raises the price of many other items in the game that require them for manufacture.

Is there a retriever fit, that is shield-tanked, that still allows two mining crystals to be fitted? Or rather, would such a fit be resistant to your solo ganks?

daniel said...

proc vs ret blahblah ...

i don't know what it's like now, but when i started this game (04/12) making isk was easy enough to go for a ret/cov staight away.

i remember (noob as i was) i skilled for the hulk , bought it and got big eyes in local, like, wtf, so young and already in a hulk (it was before the ret/mack buff), and i just thought - what's the deal, two days of mining in a cov...
allthough never being ganked i understood very fast to leave my exhumer in the garage due to shitty tanking skills, and proceed with the barges.
in this game, making money is way too easy, imho.

so everybody who is more than a few weeks old, and can afford a proc but no ret, in my opinion, is doing something very very wrong.
of course with less than a month in the game, one can not know the ins and outs of propper tanking and such - but there's newbie friendly corps in highsec all around.

and for those not wanting to join a newb corp, there is a little goblin giving lectures to everybody willing to donate to his kb :)

btw, probs for diplo-skill +1


p.s. i miss, now that i could defend myself, being canflipped - it made mining much more intresting/thrilling

Lucas Kell said...

I would say whoever bought that Nyx pilot overpaid, by quite a bit.
Sounds good an all, but there's a lot of level 5's missing there, and since you will have used all of it's remaps, it will take a bit of time to get those corrected.

I've seen better pilots that that go for 10b.

Bobbins said...

@Lucas Kell
If Gevlon optimised the training as he said then you are saying that it is impossible to make isk by selling characters. If it costs 10billion to train a character and you sell it for 10 billion you have earnt nothing.
Can you tell us where Gevlon went wrong with his training plz. Thx in advance.

Lucas Kell said...

No, what I'm saying is I've seen better nyx pilots for less. And generally speaking the bigger the pilot, the less you make off of it after plex costs. A lot sell at a deficit to the training time costs. For 15b thought I'd expect bothe carrier and capital ships to 5, and the capital repairs and emissions to 5. I don't even see a mention of rig skills, but that's pretty vital too. For subcaps not so much, because any idiot can jump in and rig it. Not everyone has a 2nd Nyx pilot to rig it up though.

Most people are under the impression that characters sell for a minimum of their training time costs + 2 plex, but that's not really the case.

Anonymous said...

The Noctis fit you added is double tanked. Should be one or the other should it not?

Gevlon said...

@Lance: a Noctis is a rare ship which should be double tanked (like orcas), because it cannot be fit for yield. There is no "salvaging gyrostabilizer" or "salvaging tracking computer"

Gevlon said...

@Lucas: Carrier 5 was 2 weeks away, and there were no wasted skillpoints.

The pilot was in Perc/Will remap and was available for remap.

Lucas Kell said...

@Gevlon
That's fine, but still there's a lot of work a pilot would have to do to turn that pilot into a good Nyx pilot. Getting skills to level 4 is fine, but that only takes 20% of the total time to get a skill to level 5. With Gallente Carrier not 5, capital ships not 5, and the repair and emissions systems not 5, there's about 6 skills that still have 80% of the training time remaining. Whoever bought that could have got much better for much less.

Like I say, most pilots don't sell for training time + 2 plex. As pilots are able to be used during training, most sell for considerably less unless its a very rare build of pilot. Nyx pilots are pretty common.

The noctis fit by the way, would you not be better off Shield/Hull tanking it? I don;t have EFT here at the moment but I'm fairly sure 2x reinforced bulkheads II + DC2 + shield rigs/mids would get you more HP, as the Noctis is naturally a hull tank.
Specifically geared to be anti hybrids, you should be able to squeeze 25k-30k out of it with relative ease.

Gevlon said...

Most pilots sell lower because people firesale their generic pilot which isn't better than your generic pilot. The typical buyer of such pilot is the IRL rich newbie who grabs a 50M pilot on day one. Not many of these.

Supercapital pilots are rarely firesaled (rather not logged in) and people buy them because your own pilot can't sit into a super without being locked into it.

While the sold pilot has low SP, none of them were lost SP.


The problem of the hull tanked noctis is that the reinforced bulkheads need 40 CPU which the Noctis can't fit without using one of its rig slots for CPU, instead of Core defense extender.

Lucas Kell said...

It's not about SP count though. It's about how much extra time the new owner has to put in to get him up to being a workable pilot. A Nyx pilot with level 4 skills is in no state to go out, and won't be ready for months. You can pick up an all 5's Nyx pilot for 15b or less.

I'll play about with EFT later, but I'm sure you should be able to squeeze more out though the hull.

Gevlon said...

She can go out on day one. Actually she went out on day one and took part in the Fountain war. She has more skills than the TEST supercapital group joining demanded and (back in HBC) Grath Telkin of PL called those "way too restrictive" to quote him from memory:
I only ask a PL guy before joining our supers:
- can you use FBs?
- can you fit remote ECM burst?
- do you have JDC5?


Lucas Kell said...

So they allow lower skilled pilots. Explains why TEST lost the war really.

Doesn;t change the fact that you can get a better pilot for cheaper. Nyx pilots aren't exactly rare. I'm not even designed to be a Nyx pilot and I can fly a Nyx better than that :p

Anonymous said...

Lucas Kell said: "...a good Nyx pilot. With ... capital ships not 5, ..."

What use has Capital Ships 5 for a Nyx pilot?