Greedy Goblin

Monday, May 28, 2012

The smaller hubs

Jita, the capital of New Eden, a place where trillions are moved every day.
Amarr, capital of the Amarr empire, 9 jumps away from Jita. Less busy, but never without hundreds on the station.
Dodixie, 15 jumps away, deep in the Gallente Federation. Much less busy but still a great place to trade
Rens, 25 jumps from the capital. Sort of "last place of civilization" feeling. Ships come and go all the time.

These are the trade hubs of New Eden, the places where we work. The rest are "rural areas". Places of great emptiness, where only those go who make their income from regional buy orders. And of course those who fill these buy orders: mission runners, miners. People you'd expect in distant areas. You can be rich only in these hubs. You can treat the rest as rural area and pick up only regionals, hauling them to the next hub. But I'm not sure this is the best move.

Let me introduce you Hek VIII - Moon 12 - Boundless Creation Factory. Hek is right on the Jita-Rens "highway", 19 Jumps from Jita, 6 from Rens, 8 from Dodixie, 20 from Amarr. It is in Minmatar space in the Metropolis region, not Heimatar like Rens. It's not just a random station. The statistics that shows pilots active in the system is way above the noise level of the "rural areas". 50+ people on the station. If you open up the market window in the region, you can see most of the buy and sell orders coming from here. It's a hub. Smaller than the big 4. But still.

I chose to give this place a chance. I had an empty slot on my main account (next to the main and his hauler alt). After some hesitation, I paused the training of my main and started the trader alt protocol. Last Friday I started trading on Hek. Last Monday I had 25.0B, Now it's 30.8. It's my highest weekly profit, over 800M/day, which is great even if we consider that some of my new sell orders will need significant decreasing before they sell. Moving to Hek was a really profitable move. Of course the profit will decrease later as others will start to use this place. This post is kind of "blogging my profit away", as I'll surely draw competition to Hek.

There can be other hubs. Even smaller but still. If you operate in a region, you can look around and notice them. You can choose to trade there, making it a bit bigger. These places deserve your support and rewards it with nice profit. These hubs make sense. People don't want to travel 15+ jumps to get some random stuff. They prefer to pay more to get it locally. Of course the smart will get a long shopping list and go to Jita once a week. But most will want to buy and sell stuff now. They need a place to do so. You can find such places. You can make such place. Here is a list based on the number of trades active.

A small tip if you choose to come to Hek. The trader alt protocol suggest to elevate faction and station standings by running distribution missions, making sure to make the 16th next to the storyline agent of the corporation owning your station. Boundless Creations doesn't have storyline agent in highsec. They don't even have distribution agents in highsec. Actually their only station in highsec is Hek itself. So you can do two things: go to lowsec to do the 16th distribution mission or use the security agents in Hek. There is a lvl 1 and a lvl 2 there. They can't be done on autopilot like distribution missions. But the lvl 1 can easily completed by the destroyer of the trader alt. Especially if trained Caldari ships, as a Cormorant can snipe the incoming enemies before they could open fire. However, remember that broker fees are most affected by faction standing and not corporation standing, so I wouldn't bother boosting that up too high. You shall also visit this agent as he gives 1.9 standing increase with the corp (and 0.4 with the faction) which definitely worth the money you'll pay the guy who does the kill part.

Little help needed: in the wallet transaction interface you can give the name of an item and you get the buys and sales of that item, instead of the complete list. Is there an API function to do the same?


EVE Business report: Saturday morning 28.1B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on triage carrier alt)
EVE Business report: Sunday morning 29.3B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on triage carrier alt)
EVE Business report: Monday morning 30.8B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on triage carrier alt)
Don't forget to join the goblinworks channel to discuss trading and industrial ideas and laugh on the morons of the day (50-80 people on peak hours).

PS: I wrote that my Carrier/Titan alt will be ready for nullsec life as Guardian pilot in 70 days. Well, I have to postpone it with 10 as I have to learn the int/mem prerequisites of another ship before I remap perc/will. I just have to fly this. It was love at first sight.
 

17 comments:

golden1978 said...

List of trade hubs:

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/EVE/EveTradeHubs.htm

Anonymous said...

Ahh, Hek. My first home, where I made my first 100M. This was back in 2004, and my first account was only a couple of months old at the end, I did all of it flying nothing better than a Hoarder.

Hek was the place that taught me that Eve markets were hardcore PvP. Not only is it a lesser hub, but there are several regions within 4 jumps, which makes it very good for cross-region arbitrage (which isn't great money, but it's a good way to learn the market game while you're waiting for your skills).

Carson 63000 said...

Tip: if you go to http://eve-marketdata.com/station.php and click through to the various regions, you can see the top trade hubs in each region according to eve-marketdata's figures.

Bremir said...

Re: transactions API

https://api.eveonline.com/char/WalletTransactions.xml.aspx

POST keyID={key}&vCode={code}&characterID={id}

xml => xpath: "//row[@typeName='My Item']"

More info on market transactions API: http://wiki.eve-id.net/APIv2_Char_MarketTransactions_XML

Gevlon said...

@Bremir: that api gives the unfiltered wallet list, which goes 1 week back. Is there a way to get the specific item?

The in-game UI surely don't just load 100K lines to fish out my item.

Bremir said...

Re: wallet API

By default the wallet API web service returns the last 1000 transactions. There is a way to iterate backwards, called transaction walking, by passing a parameter to the service call. Add "&fromID={transaction}" to the POST where {transaction} == the lowest id you got in the previous call.

You can use transaction walking to get data for about a month back. I say 'about', because the API is somewhat inconsistent - I just tested it on my own char, and got 35 days worth of transactions back.

Once you have as many transactions as the API is willing to let you have, you can use xpath (or parse the XML any other way you like) to get the transactions for a specific item, like I said in my previous post: "//row[@typeName='Item Name']"

Also, keep in mind that the in-game UI has very little to do with the way the service API works. The client loads transactions one way, the API another. For one thing, the client loads them immediately, whereas the service API is cached once per hour.

Ardent Defender said...

It's really no great secret to many Traders that operate across various regions of EVE or Inter-regionally as well like PVPers that live in that region that Hek System in that part of space is indeed a major hub trading system. Hek for me from my home system and region would be over 24 jumps as its on the opposite side of space to me. I know its a good mini regional trade hub for various reasons and i don't even live in that part of space. For me It's not the region i operate in, though aware of it as well.

You may have just discovered that Hek is a decent place to do business but nothing really new in that information. Quite a few people in Jita and other hubs as well as traders that operate elsewhere are even aware of that. But those that choose to stay in the 4 main hubs do so for their own reasons whatever they might all be. Some people just want to Trade in the 4 main trade hubs and never ever have to undock again.

Some people can't be bothered in EVE to jump around to different places to do business. Some just like to be lazy and stay in one place and have it come to them and it works for them at some level they ok with. I for one as a Trader like to move around and see the regions and figure out how or what is profitable to sell here or across the border at X for whatever reason I find advantageous. However good that your now making profit there in Hek as a new place of business.

Not every Trader in New Eden Trade or choose to do all their business in or at the 4 major big Trade Hubs. Traders in EVE come in many different types in how, what or where they do business. There are many Traders in EVE who do business in the distance regions or Inter-regionally across the various regions and distant regions from any the major Trade Hubs. They may do some business in few the Major Trade Hubs but do more their business in the rural areas of EVE high sec space for their own reasons or profit motives. And business in those areas can be very good without having to deal with all the Trade sharks in places like Jita.

As a Trader I do most my business just doing regional and Inter-regional trade, just fun for me to do. I don't go to Jita for everything nor I go there all that often. Jita from my home system and region is about 10 jumps. I may visit Jita once a week maybe for something I really need lots of. But thats because I can usually go 2 Jumps and be across the regional border in Domain region and get anything i need in Amarr which is only 3 jumps away. My usual system is one system from the regional trade hub, but I helped make my own system a somewhat mini hub of its own next to the regional mini hub just by doing lots of business in my system vs one jump over to the regional hub.

Lots of those places are good places to do business in EVE as part of the regional economy. Jita might be the financial capital of EVE or spoken of to the outside world where the vast volume of Trade takes place in one central location. But trade happens in EVE in and across all regions and with different regional economic dynamics. You can trade at local regional smaller markets at profitable prices or you can trade right close to low/null sec corridors at profitable prices as well, far from any major Trade hub. As long as what you do works for you profitably.

Hivemind said...

Out of curiosity, what is it you're planning on using the Rorqual for once you've got it? I can't exactly see you coordinating a mining op in lowsec space.

Foo said...

For me a 'trade hub' is any place prepared to buy what I have to sell.

At the moment tritanium prices and volumes are a good proxy for that.
http://eve-central.com/home/quicklook.html?typeid=34&setorder=volremain&setdir=1#buys, or just use the in game market browser for Tritanium buy orders.


Also most of the starter career agent missions work well as minor trade hubs.

Stations that I end up selling in include Odixie, Scuelazyns, Dodixie, Hek, Harerget, Rens, Eystur, Hadaugago.

Gevlon said...

@Hivemind: not lowsec, nullsec. My logi/carrier/titan alt will seek a sov-holder nullsec alliance to join.

Hivemind said...

@Gevlon I know about your long-term goals, I'm just not sure where the Rorqual fits in. The Logi, Carrier and Titan are all combat support or direct combat boats, whereas the Rorqual is purely an Industrial support ship. It even requires a completely different branch of leadership skills to use effectively compared to the other ships you're planning towards.

Gevlon said...

@Hivemind: a random Orca can do the fleet boost. The Rorqual is best in collecting and compressing the ore

Hivemind said...

Actually a deployed Rorqual has better boosts than an Orca, as well as the ability to run more links at once (yes there are only 3 mining links, but running things like shield links as well can allow miners to tank the rat spawns in belts and not have to interrupt the mining when they appear). That does come at the cost of consuming fuel, but then so does the ability to compress ores. As for collecting ore, I really hope you're referring to it being used as a dropoff point for haulers rather than being in belt with the miners, but even then a Corp Hangar Array at the POS the Rorq is deployed in serves a better job.

My point was more that your plan never included mining boosts before, so I was curious what's changed if you now want a Rorqual for null as well as logi/carrier/titan, or if you've got a use for it outside of your long term goal of buying your way into nullsec then what that use is.

Anonymous said...

A rorqual puts an orca to shame boosting. 104s strip mining cycles on a max skilled rorq pilot. Sit in the POS and compress away.

Also handy in being able to carry. Death star POS & fitting in 1 trip.

Anonymous said...

Rorqs also get used to create new jump clones.

But for sov holding alliances that's not really an issue i think. It's handy for those of us living in npc null though.

Anonymous said...

I'd echo the comments about this being out of line with your other training - what on earth are you going to do with mining foreman skills once you get into a titan? unless you're planning on being like chribba and have a fleet of veldspar-shooting capital ships.......

Anonymous said...

oh another thing sorry:

one of the reasons hek is a trade hub is that most of the other trade hubs are in 1.0 or very high sec space.

hek is 0.5, meaning those with low sec status can feel free to pop out of nearby lowsec and buy stuff without the faction police shooting at them.

This also means that you need to be more diligent when moving stuff. Often I've been targeted and one time blown up (thankfully an empty hauler) when emerging from the station.