Planetary interaction for beginners

Planetary interaction isn't a really profitable enterprise. However the "newbie-version" is a "printing money" scheme more or less. You set it up, you let it run, you collect money. It need very few skills, so it's something I'd happily suggest to a real newbie, one who just finished the career agents:

• Remote sensing 3 (x1 int/mem)
• Planetology 3 (x3 int/mem)
• Command center upgrades 3 (x4 cha/int)
• Interplanetary consolidation 3 (x4 cha/int)

All these skills take 192K points which can be gained in 4 days. Even they are not necessary, as the last one allows creation of 4 colonies, you can run with 3 if you only have rank 2 and with a bit lower output you can run with command center rank 2. The official video tutorial shows very well how the colony UI works. You should watch it or you'll have problems with scanning, placing the items and so on. The price of creating a full colony is below 5M ISK.

In short: you build command center to produce energy and CPU. You build the extractor to get raw materials. You build basic factory to refine the raw to level 1 product. You build advanced factory ...

Except you don't. The problem is on the following graph: As you can see on low level command centers you have relatively more power than CPU. So you shouldn't build items that eat your little CPU. You must build one, the launchpad to be able to get your products. Therefore you are better off building just an extractor and basic factories, despite the pro guides all advice for high quality products. They are right, except they use top level command center. You simply can't follow their advice. Instead use a colony like this: It features one extractor (the top), which is connected to a storage (the box icon). The raw material comes here. The storage is connected to the basic factories (the yellow ones) which refine it. They are connected to the spaceport that collect the product. So you set this up, let it run for a few days (make sure that the extractor program is longer than your expected return) and you collect the product.

Don't jump on the first planet! The planets differ in material availability a lot. Scan several planets. Also the prices of the P1 products differ a lot:
Bacteria 160
Biofuels 150
Biomass 460
Chiral structures 400
Electrolytes 500
Industrial fibers 500
Oxidizing compound 350
Oxygen 200
Plasmoids 320
Precious metals 400
Proteins 450
Reactive metals 180
Silicon 500
Toxic metals 320
Water 250
Note: the above are Jita prices from Monday, they are just for guidance, check the prices before you make your choice!

So make your choice, scan planets, find the one with a good hotspot featuring your material and build your colony. Low maintenance, low profit. The colony pictured above creates 2.5M income every day (2 more factories were placed after making the screenshot). Since you can have 4 colonies with Interplanetary consolidation 3, it's 10M/day. 300M/month, so this beginner colony pays more than half of you subscription.

One more thing: the spaceports I mentioned. You can get your products by approaching the customs office of the planet and interacting with it. At first you have to move the items from the launchpad to the office, you have to pay tax for that, then simply move the item to your cargo like you'd loot a box.

The beginner colony is not just a free money print, it's also an introductory for the "pro" PI. We will get to that soon.

EVE Business report: Wednesday morning 17.9B (2 PLEX behind for second account, 0.3B spent on Titan project)
Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations on the "goblinworks" channel (60-80 people on peak time) and your UI suggestions are welcomed.