Ice, Ice, Baby...

So it’s been a little while since my last post, and I’m sorry about that. Who knew that coming up with a fresh topic every day would be so tough? Some major industry-related stuff has happened since that last post, by the way. Stuff that definitely changed my daily Eve activities for the time being. The latest dev blog (and what great reads they are!) talked about the upcoming changes to POS mechanics, so I’ve been altering plans as a result.

First up, the BPO changes: with remote researching out of the question once the summer expansion hits, it’s time to really start cranking on the expensive BPOs and get them researched and ready so I won’t have to pay for outpost research. Getting some of the larger hull BPOs researched, even to ME 10, takes weeks. All of the other BPOs cruiser-level and lower I’ve determined will just continue to be researched in the POS labs. Compared to the overall value of the POS itself, even an 80M cruiser BPO isn’t a huge deal. The trick, just like everything in Eve, is to not be stupid. Don’t put everything expensive in the POS at once, and the liability is limited. I know some will say the whole corp theft thing could become an issue, but Kym’s corp is tight-knit and small enough that all the researchers get their own lab division, so there’s no increased concern there. Plus, nobody’s got anything really valuable anyway, so it’d be comparable to robbing a candy store. Wheee.

Second, the larger, game-changing announcement: no more standings requirements for anchoring a POS in highsec. Hooray! I had just started the standings grind, and for once my procrastination paid off. The new plan for ore compression now is to build a “roving compression camp” of sorts. I’m sure others already do something similar, or have plans to do something similar once the expansion comes out. It’s fairly basic and straightforward: highsec Orca, small POS tower, compression array, and some fuel blocks & charters. Haul everything around highsec in the Orca, including a Miasmos, buy cheap ore, compress it, and get it back to nullsec (no, not in the Orca). Why not use a jump freighter? Scale. And cost. I don’t build at the scales that would necessitate using a JF (yet). This way takes longer, but it risks less ISK and the Orca is a multi-use hull, whereas a freighter isn’t.

Speaking of anchoring POS towers… yes, I know everyone’s going to be doing it. I think there will be less of a supply bottleneck than people are predicting, though, for a few reasons. 1) CCP said, in the comments section, that they’ll figure out a way to take down, or make irrelevant, abandoned POS towers. 2) There will be folks who take down their research POSes. 3) There are going to be thousands of new moons in the 0.8-1.0 systems now available. So in totality, things should remain as they are now in terms of being able to find a moon. Fuel costs, however, are another matter.

There’s going to be a vast increase in demand for POS fuel. I don’t see any other way around it. Unless CCP is going to change the mechanics of ice belts and ice belt spawns, the available supply of POS fuel that exists in highsec isn’t going to dramatically increase, though. Surging demand and a topped-out supply only means one thing: a price increase. And, I’m betting, a big one. Can that demand be met? Yep, but only by exporting more ice or fuel blocks out of nullsec. With the refinery changes chronicled in the first blog, it’s now clear that there will be a) way more ice products in nullsec than highsec and b) a cheaper manufacturing tree in nullsec compared to highsec. Suddenly, nullsec fuel block fabrication looks pretty lucrative to me. So that’s been my focus for the last week: mining ice. It’s something Kym is really, really good at, and a cheap, well-fit procurer can mine ice nearly as well as a much pricier Mackinaw. It’s less likely to be targeted, too. So bring on the ice! The plan is to build and sell Amarr and Caldari blocks on the local market (assuming they sell), and try to work on exporting blocks to nearby highsec too, and hopefully capitalize on that increased demand. I say nearby highsec because blocks are bulky, and I bet folks would rather pay a bit more than haul millions of bulky blocks out of Jita or Amarr. I guess we’ll see what happens. It’s Eve, it’s always unpredictable, and that’s what makes it fun.