Permanent undercutting

The deep undercutting strategy is usually considered an aggressive, market-PvP way. You destroy the profit for everyone, making them leave. It works wonders on 0.01 ISK-ers as they are utilizing time to get profit. If they are not making any, they lose lot of time for nothing while you lose only a little.

However it doesn't work all the time. Some of them are just persistent. They don't play for the ISK, they 0.01 just for the sake of PvP. To feel like the king of Jita. Others look back later when you'd try to cash in. A third is not a single person but a collective of random guys who are not so dumb to sell to a laughable buy order but not so smart either to do anything more than check market details and type in the current lowerst order -0.01. You clearly can't scare them off. Of course you shouldn't give up the market to such competitors. Behold the permanent undercutting method. It's purely PvE, ignores the other sellers as players, just treat them as factors in an economic situation.

The system is based on the elastic supply and demand curve. In simple terms: if the sell price decreases, the sell volume goes up because people who couldn't afford the old price buy now. If the buy price increases, the volume goes up because more and more people find the item worthy of farming/hauling/buying from LP. Obviously the increases can't go on forever as the sell price can't be below the buy price. We can conclude that the volume is highest when the sell and buy price is the same, which is another economy 101 statement.

Obviously if the buy and sell prices are the same, the trader has no profit. Actually you have no profit if they are within the tax + broker_fee range. But usually they are very far from each other. The permanent undercutting method is the following: when you place a new buy or sell order, set it close to the existing one. Of course not 0.01 but the nearest million. When updating the price, check how many items are undercutting you. One seller with 100 items is more problematic than 10 with 1. Depending on the amount of undercutters (most of them will 0.01), make your cut, about 2-20% of the price difference of buys and sells. So if the sell is 150M, the buy is 100 and I'm undercut by a single guy with a single item, I undercut him by 1-2M. If several undercut me, I undercut by 5M. If I have to scroll to find my order or find a large-volume order above me, I undercut by 10M.

The most important part is that to wait between price updates. At least half day, but a whole is maybe better. You can effectively trade even if you update only few times a week. If you check back in 10 mins, you'll find it undercut by several 0.01, you cut again by 5-10M, few more cycles and you destroyed the profit. The point is not to sell before the 0.01 punks. That's impossible. The point of decreasing the sell price is to increase the sell volume to the point where the buyers buy out all the 0.01 punks above you and you.

You can claim that you won't sell anything since the 0.01 punks are having 0.01 buy orders above you too so they constantly buy and sell. This is technically true, but irrelevant. The buyers and sellers are not constant streams so there are always micro-swings in the market. This hour 10 guys bought and 2 sold, next hour 3 v 7. When the buyers are over-represented, the sell orders are bought out and the buy orders can't keep up. When sellers are over-represented, the opposite happens.

To make it better, the 0.01 punk utilizes his time to gain trades. Your profit/hour is (sell-buy-tax&fee)/10 seconds as you can set up a buy/sell order or update it in 10 seconds. His profit is (sell-buy-tax&fee)/time_spent_camping. As you keep cutting the price you find that after a point you don't need to undercut anymore as they choose to wait you out. Then you sell first. It usually happens with me below 4% sell-buy difference. So Accounting 5 and low broker fees are a must.

Remember, the point is that it's a permanently running strategy, not a campaign. You either make profit or have no losses (besides few seconds of time). The 0.01 punks have no chance against you, even if they are ready to camp 24/7 for no profit because they are fighting market forces and not you.


Tuesday morning report: 38.7B. (1 PLEX ahead, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan alt, 0.1 on Rorqual)
Join the goblinworks channel for trading, hauling, crafting discussions.

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Where The Mittani is right and wrong

The Mittani (the leader of a sov-holding and obnoxious griefing alliance) wrote a valuable and interesting post. He is surprised that players feel entitled for not being ganked in EVE. He is completely right that CCP advertises every possible way that it's a PvP game where you can be shot down by other players. Someone not knowing the key feature of the game he bought is an idiot.

He is also rightfully surprised how big part of the playerbase is completely ignorant about the community aspect of an MMO, despite MMOs are defined as games with community aspect. Someone who plays with a Hulk and never heard of Hulkageddon until the point he is ganked is an idiot.

I also agree with his description of other MMOs: while good skills are needed for the endgame, you can get to the top level and play infinitely in a clownsuit with laughable spell choices. Let me add what I had to experience in WoW at the end: good players were forced to carry bad ones who contributed near-zero but got equal chance to receive rewards.

I fully agree with "Of course, one of the most horrifying lessons of EVE is that the Enlightenment ideals are false; the power of reason doesn’t actually lift the population out of the muck, because they’re too busy AFK mining or undocking Kestrels full of PLEXes.".

There cannot be another solution than his: we must somehow make these people to think. To stop being bio-bots and start being thinking humans. Since I'm more or less completely opposing anything that The Mittani says and does, if we agree on something, it's probably right.

However I completely disagree with the practical plan how to do it: "To prevent EVE from becoming a PvP-optional themepark of the sort that coddles this shameful demographic, something must be done - the players who actually do participate in the EVE community must either educate these people about the nature of the game, or blow them up."

His idea seems solid: offer education and deliver punishment for those who fail to learn. However his horizon is bound by his intelligence: he suggests something that works on us. When I was ganked, I asked around. I was quickly informed about killboards and the fact that I was passing a very busy lowsec gate in a paper-tanked T1 industrial. I wasn't ganked again, mostly because I'm either flying something that aligns under 2 seconds and still have 8K EHP for smartbombs, or I'm flying an Orca with 200K EHP. I found EFT, forums and learned, just as The Mittani hoped. I'm sure it happened the same for him too. If it worked on us, it must work on them too!

No! Being a moron or slacker is not a qualitative state "a bit dumber than me". It's a yes-or-no state. If you apply pressure to an M&S he gives a tantrum or runs away. He is unable to learn in his current state. Ganking M&S and hoping that they start to play smartly is just as good idea as punishing a 2 years old for peeing into his pants. The same thing works perfectly on adults: peeing on the street (along with its usual cause, public drunkness) is punished by law and rarely happens. An adult is capable to understand the demands and capable to control his body. He can avoid peeing outside of a toilet, some just choose to not do so. If we punish them, they'll learn. A child can't. He is simply unable to control his body and must learn how to do it.

The child found it normal to pee whenever he pleased in baby-age and it's a new expectation for him now. Just like the average EVE player might encountered the idea that failure has consequences the very first time in his life. Remember, real life is polluted with "protect children from stress", "no child left behind" and other atrocious things. Just like the 2 years old who used to wet his diapers, these players find it completely normal that the World responded to their failure with acceptance and even rewards, repeating that they are special snowflakes and perfect the way they are and deserve flashy achievements in games for logging in.

However there is a solution, the one that every child psychologist would suggest: don't punish him for wetting his pants, reward him for sitting on the toilet when he needs to pee. If we want EVE to be a place where M&S turn into useful humans by playing, then the advice of the child psychologists must be followed. Terrible players neither shall be punished, nor rewarded for being terrible. They must be rewarded when they show signs of improvement. For this I'd suggest a simple rule: Highsec is completely safe, but all highsec PvE activities (ratting, missioning, mining, exploring) are designed to provide about 10% ISK/hour of what they would in lowsec. The the fact that other players have much-much better ships will make them want to get it too. Also, to prevent them from peacocking in PLEX-ISK-ed deadspace fitted Navy Ravens, design all highsec PvE activities to make battleships/battlecruisers useless. All rats and missions shall be behind warp gates letting only frigates, destroyers and cruisers in, belt rats are small frigates, no incursions in high-sec.

Instead of being motivated by fear (that only leads to childish answers: tantrum or quitting), they would be motivated by positive things: earning ISK, getting a better ship. One by one they would seek out for means to get the rewards. They would fail some times but then they could always fall back to the safety of highsec.

Of course to implement this, we would have to deal with another bunch of forum-crying childish idiots: those who derive their fun from beating up someone who can't fight back. They actually love the M&S for providing them constant reassurance that there are worse failures in the universe than themselves.

Saturday morning report: 35.0B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan alt)
Sunday morning report: 36.5B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan alt)
Monday morning report: 38.0B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan alt)
Join the goblinworks channel to get more tips how to make such money.

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Something MUST be done about non-wardeccable corps

Bloggers and armchair developers often argue over designs they want. They "know" what is the best of the game, which is surprisingly the best for their playstyle, ignoring everyone else. Telling that "CCP must allow players to make corporations that are immune to wardecs" would be such post. But it's not about that.

The problem is that non-deccable corporations already exist. They are the NPC corporations. Of course they are far from perfect: members can't own sov or erect structures and you have to pay 11% tax from mission rewards. However not everyone want (or reasonably can) own sov. Many players don't run missions, or consider 11% a fair price for the safety. For them being in an NPC corp is the optimal move. No, it does not force you to play alone. Mining or incursion fleets aren't restricted to corpmates. Also, you can have a friend list and can form fleets or chat with them.

"Can" is OK for someone who is good in opening conversations. "Can" is perfect for someone who prefers to be left alone. But most computer game players are socials but not the most sociable. While I reject the "sits in the mothers basement alone" picture, we have to accept that "geeks" are much less proficient in making friends and engaging in casual conversations than the average population from the same sex/age/country/income group. If you are an a-social or anti-social, this isn't a problem. My ability to engage in casual conversations is irrelevant when I don't want to. When a random "o/" in the chat annoys me. For me, the School of Applied Knowledge is the best corp out there.

For others, not so much. They are there because they know that it's the optimal way. Joining to a player corp is sub-optimal if you play in high-sec, where the new players start their EVE life. Where most of the players spend their whole EVE life. I repeat: If you join with other players, you are doing it wrong!

This is clearly and unquestionably bad design. I mean there isn't a single player group that is rewarded by this. "Carebears" are forced to play alone, not knowing anyone except random players they join for a single incursion or other op. "Griefers" still don't have war targets. To make it worst, the smartest players are those who are staying away from highsec player corps. The less smart fall for the corp invite spam and join a "friendly corp accepting new players" where he meets fellow not-so-smart players, learns nothing and gets ganked. Those who are smart enough to teach him something are smart enough to not be there.

There are two ways out of it. Both are "good design" in the sense of making a certain demographics happy. Which one to make happy is a choice of game philosophy. But to make none happy is simply bad:

1. Allow wardecs on secondary NPC corps. The newbies are booted from the school-corp after a month into the secondary NPC corps. As NPC corps would be the easiest way to get farmable targets for gankers, they would be decced by everyone. Players would get into much better situation by joining a player corp. Fellow players could at least teach them how to avoid being caught. Smaller corps would not be wardecced by everyone, simply because they are too small for anyone to care. Players would meet fellow players. Could learn from each other. They could also socialize. It's important for them (don't ask me why, I can't fathom).
2. Allow creation of safe corporations. These can't own sov or towers and must have tax rate over 11%, where the 11% is not paid to the corp wallet but to the CONCORD. In turn they wouldn't be deccable. They would be like NPC corps, but with people you can talk to. People who know your name.

I'm sure that fixing this either way would greatly increase the new player retention, and the overall enjoyment of the game for people who live in highsec.


Friday morning report: 33.8B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan 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: Commenters warned me that while a Rorqual is only a few weeks of training if you go for carrier (both are capitals), I would only get a big piece of useless debris. Rorqual needs Mining foreman link and Industrial reconfiguration module to be any useful and mercoxite (and other top ore) processing 4 to be able to compress ore which is its top quality. Also, it's shield tanked, while my other ships are armor, another bunch of skills. Learning all these to rank 4 only would take 8 months, which is clearly not acceptable delay in my carrier plans. So I have to say goodbye to the Rorqual.

No way! I started another account for the Rorqual. This ship is top priority for me, since it's the key for nullsec industry. I mean you can only trade where the people are (highsec), hauling profit is everywhere, I don't need to leave highsec for these. To seek profit in null/WH, I must do something that makes null/WH so special that overcompensate the risks of going there. And that's mercoxite and other top ores. I have a fear that many low/null dwellers are making their ISK in highsec (by alts) and only spend in low/null. This would explain why so many people ignore sov and just roam: no point controlling space if it doesn't give you much. I must find out if there is profit in controlling and protecting space. Also, jump freighters fit low/null much better than high, so my main will not learn jump freighters, saving months from his training plan. The Rorqual pilot will be JF pilot too, which is perfect support for null/WH industry.

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May business report

A month ago I posted my first report. It was ambitious as I grew from 3 to 16 B in a month. 460M/day for a 3 months old character is pretty great. At the end there was a chart predicting that I'll be a trillionaire in a year.

Here I am again with much less ambitious report. The daily income grew to 580M/day. Not bad at all. But it won't make me a trillionaire in a year for sure. Also, the linear fit is almost as good as the second-order, saying that probably I flatted out: However there are two things that suggest that it's not the case. The first is the missing points in the middle, that was a weekend holiday when I did not log in for two days (the third point is missing because I updated on Monday afternoon and I always save the morning results). If we cut out these two days from the chart, both the linear and the second-order fit become better, but the second-order improves much more: Secondly the last points are significantly above the fits. My newest, yet experimental business is starting up, and I also started trading in Hek. While it can turn out to be a bump, I have every reason to believe that it's a trend. Anyway, I plotted the predictions with both first and second order (black and red) fit, with or without (thin and thick) 2-days correction, up to my first birthday: Let me point out how perfectly these charts show the No1 rule of investment: little differences in the start make huge differences at the end. Those two days of slacking can mean 20B+ difference in a year.

How much will I actually have? Like with every prediction, only time can tell. What can surely be claimed is that the last month I made 17.5B which is about the price of a supercarrier. If I wanted to get the same ISK by PLEX, I had to pay 1.5x the minimal wage of my country. Maybe not stellar, but nothing to be ashamed of either. After all I doubled my assets in the last month. A clear proof that trading works and provides very good returns. If we add that I started to post the detailed results of what I was doing, we can clearly see that I'm not a single special snowflake doing something extraordinary. I'm doing something that any of you can do: even with the lowest prediction, have the cost of a titan in a year.

Of course if you love ratting, keep doing it. But if it's just a "must be" activity for getting ISK, start trading already!


PS: someone on the goblinworks channel suggested me that if I want to fly logi, triage carrier and Rorqual, maybe I should start my nullsec life in WH and not K. A WH corp could use a Rorqual much more and WH is less likely to get dropped by someone who just want a random capital kill. What do you think? Shall I consider that route?

The business report of today is not included in the chart, 33.0B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan 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).

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You can barely find battles in EVE

"EVE is unique" and "EVE is not for all" they say. Many people (like Rohan just now) leave EVE without criticizing it. Just finding it "not for their taste". The pro-EVE players claim that EVE is PvP and PvP is not for everyone. They might even hint that the leavers are carebears who just can't stand competition.

It's not true. There are many-many successful PvP games like Counterstrike, League of Legends, World of Tanks and all the real life sports. People play that, despite they have only PvP content and the average player loses half of the time. Many of these games have consequences for losing, like dropping in ladder position, repair costs, or just being defeated front of thousands of spectators including their whole family. Still they keep playing.

Jester pointed me to the right direction. In his post he practically calls a player idiot for trying to fight back. In another post he ridicules another one for not staying docked for a month (which is funny since he criticized a CSM member for suggesting the same).

The solution is that in the mentioned PvP games there are battles between (approximately or on average) equal opponents. You can win by playing better. Obviously you'll lose several times, but you are rarely obliterated. In EVE it's the norm. I'd say that besides battles that take place at reinforced stations and the recent Nulli-PL battles there aren't any battles in EVE. There are only ganks: fights where one side has absolutely no chance to win. This is so obvious to veteran players that they openly call someone idiot who tries to fight. The proper action is watching intel channels, D-scan, watching local or simply staying docked: run and hide.

I'd say this is what makes players feel uneasy about EVE. Not the defeats, they have that in much larger quantities in other games. The hopelessness of their situation that gets to them. There was nothing they could do to win. They could only run.

To make it worse, there isn't even a power-ranking which would give them the hope that they can get out of the ganked situation if they play good enough or long enough. PL titan was killed by "FW noobs". Goonswarm was wardecced by "highsec bears" during Burn Jita. Garmon was ganked by a PL squad when he was exploiting with webs. Not even the largest, most experienced, rich or famed is safe.

If everyone is ganked, who ganks them? The answer is surprisingly: "everyone who cares to". In EVE the players take turns. When they farm ISK by mining, hauling, doing missions or ratting, they are victims. They can only run and hide. When they are out with a PvP ship, preferably in a large fleet, they are the gankers. Granted, they can bump into an even larger gankfleet but otherwise they are the top predators: all the farmers are their prey. Due to the large power difference of PvP and PvE ships, combined with the no limits on fleet size, even the dumbest "carebears" can massacre the best player when their roam catches him ratting.

This is the unique charm of EVE too. No matter how much you suck, if you go out on a roam, you'll get kills. The difference between the best and the worst PvP-er is merely in their ISK efficiency.

It's not a bug to be fixed, it is the unique EVE. Play it if you like it and don't if you don't. There are two kinds of personalities that can like EVE: one is the lolganker who just wants kills and tears at any cost (even if he is ganked more than he gank or if he can only sustain his play by PLEX). The other is the strategist who plays the big picture, considers being ganked merely and ISK loss and enjoys the growth. Of course I'm not saying that every player belong to these groups. There are many others, but they are like the competitive arena PvP-ers in WoW. Their money is welcomed by the developers, but they aren't the focus and won't get much support.

For the above reasons I have doubts now that The One Empire can be made. I'm afraid that CCP would somehow sabotate it, just like Blizzard did when I started winning Wintergrasp by kicking bad players. While neither one was impossible or against the current rules, they were against the will of the target audience. In WoW it's the "casual player" who want to "have fun" without doing any effort. Kicking him for sucking was telling him: "make effort or no fun for you". Most of them would go away from WoW PvP if my model would become widespread. In EVE, I'm afraid there aren't 400K strategists. Most of the players are lolgankers who just want to experience beating a helpless, chance-less human being. The One Empire would tell them "act as a disciplined soldier or go back to highsec", which would make them leave. CCP would do something about it to protect the bottom line.

Does it mean that you can't do anything to be safer? Of course not. To be relatively safe, all you have to do is playing better than the average target, and it's not hard. For haulers simply "don't autopilot" is enough, as my transport interceptors proved it. Not because it would be hard for a good pirate team to catch them, but because no one will bother to do so when they can gank two dozen autopiloting untanked T1 industrials with 500M+ on the Perimiter gate in the same time.

I think this is the reason nullsec is so deserted. The optimal gameplay for getting and keeping sov is simply incompatible with the will of the target audience. They don't want fleet battles against a prepared enemy, they want gank-roams. Maybe CCP should change the sov mechanics to something like this:

• All mining towers and stations are NPC operated and indestructible.
• The system starts with no sov holder, the system is NPC null and the moon goo belongs to no one, no cyno jammer is present.
• In "NPC null" state, the sov-number is calculated as the ratio of ISK destroyed (not looted) in kills by your alliance. If your alliance destroyed 32% of ISK in the system in the last 30 days, you have 32% sov points.
• (after 30 days of data available) if your alliance is over 30% and has 10% more than the second highest you become the sov holder. You get the moon goo, you control the station and can erect a cyno jammer. The sov number resets.
• If the sov is held by an alliance, the sov number is calculated as "ISK destroyed by owners vs ISK destroyed by everyone else against the owners (not on randoms) in the system in the last 30 days".
• (after the 30 days grace period) if the sov number goes below 50%, you lose sov and NPC null state returns.

EVE Business report: Wednesday morning 32.5B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan 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).

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Cosmos agents: money for fighters, standing for traders

The COSMOS agents are living in the space, in their ships and habitation modules. They can be found by their beacon which is yellow in the overview, unlike the white beacon of the "Giisti Depot" and similar farming sites. Each faction has a constellation where there are lot of them. You can check the detailed guides for them, for example here is the Minmatar.

These agents are very useful for traders: they provide faction standings which greatly decrease broker fees. They have only a few steps, so can be completed fast. They can be completed only once. However they have combat parts. Some of them are in a deadspace pocket with ship restrictions. It's impossible to do them without good combat ship. It's slow and annoying to find someone to do it for you.

However, the point is that you don't have to find anyone for these missions. Most of them are not encounter missions, they are trade missions that require a specific item from the combat (like the insignia or DNA signal of a pirate). You can buy these items. Some are available on the market, others only from contracts. You can right-click on the item in the mission description and see "view market details" and "find in contracts". These items are in the 1-10M range. You buy them, turn them in and receive the rewards.

This isn't just an opportunity for traders to get faction standings. It's also great for combat pilots to make money. Those items on the market must have been placed there by someone. There are two kind of missions. One is in a complex that is marked by a beacon. You go there and farm the locals for their items. They are moderately cheap.

The other part is trickier: they belong to mission deadspace pockets. You have to be on the mission to get in. If you sell the item, you can't complete the mission, so you lose standing. How can you get these items for sale? You start an alt who gets the mission and jump there in a capsule. You follow the alt and kill the mission NPC, sell the loot, the alt loses the standing for failing the mission.


PS: Ekdit Spitek is designed by some really evil developer. Just decline his mission. Doesn't worth it

EVE Business report: Tuesday morning 31.6B. (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on Logi/Carrier/Titan 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).
 

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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.
 

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