Another Citadel in hull

It's beginning to seem like there's a co-ordinated effort going on. My Amarr station trader operates out of a market Sotiyo in Ashab, and today when I logged on to update my orders I was once again faced with this:

Someone has put the citadel into its hull timer, and put their own up. Once again I'm going to have to tear down my orders and set up elsewhere.

These guys are the ones who've put the new hub up, and I'm guessing they're responsible for the reinforcement of the EVE-Mogul hub. Curiously, EVE-Mogul are the ones who put the Hek citadel into reinforce and threw down their own there. There is clearly an active power struggle going on for the high-sec trade hubs.

The only one that is stable it seems is the Tranquility Trade Tower in Perimeter, largely because it is a profit sharing scheme/protection racket between Pandemic Horde, TEST and Goons.

I may set up in the new trade hub in Ashab to save on broker fees, but this whole episode is making me question the efficiency of citadels for trade in high sec, if I have to move semi-regularly.

Locked Out

So I logged onto my Hek trader yesterday to be met with the following message:

Ah.

This was confusing, as being a public trade hub Citadel I couldn't see me being put on any sort of block list, my corp has never even been at war. When I undocked the reason became clear:

Someone has put the ICY trade hub citadel into its hull timer, turning off any modules, which includes the market. Another Citadel has been anchored in system, this one at 0.3% tax. Presumably they're the ones who are reinforcing the ICY citadel, or at least the ones who paid mercs to do it.

Either way, I don't want to get caught up in these shenanigans in future, as it meant I had to tear down all of my sell orders and transfer everything to a different station. I decided to go with the NPC station where most trading happens in system to avoid being locked out in future, even though it means paying 2.5% broker fee. This meant spending about 1Bn ISK in broker fees up front, but I can never be locked out of this station, and I tend to have a 10-20% profit margin on my items anyway.

If I had logged in later, when the citadel was destroyed, I would have had to pay for asset safety to retrieve my items for sale. AFAIK this is about 10% of their value, which would come to about 4.5Bn. Ouch. Suddenly the broker fee in the NPC station doesn't seem so bad.

This may mean I make slightly less money on this character, but I think from a quality of life point of view this is a worthwhile move. Not sure I can be bothered running missions to bring the broker fee down though.

July Update

A pretty good month all things considered, had a fairly normal amount of playtime, and managed to spin up a 4th account to cover off my gap of a seller in Hek.

My current position:

As things stand, I have 435.6Bn ISK. This is an increase of 36.3Bn on the 30th of May, and represents a daily average of 1067Million per day! Virtually identical daily average to last month. Hopefully this represents a new normal of just over 1Bn a day profit, which would be a fair step up in my race to the big T.

This month has been largely normal, with the exception of spinning up a 4th account to start and train up a seller in Hek, in a Tatara with 0.1% broker fee. I used a buddy invite to give myself 750,000 SP on this character, which was used to jump to accounting IV and 77 orders, a solid start. I also spent 2.2Bn on PLEX for this account, as I'm not sure I can really justify £40 a month on EVE, and I pay for my other 3 accounts with cash.

I have not included the PLEX in the monthly profits (as it's spent and gone), but I will have to factor in buying it monthly going forwards. Paying for all of my accounts with PLEX will cost me, at current prices, 8.8Bn a month. This is a bigger hit than I am willing to take, so this happy medium will do for now. The PLEX on my investment sheet is just that, investments, and won't be spent unless things get desperate.

I haven't done a "trade run" (more on that in  another post) since Sunday, which is why I have 34.5Bn ISK in cash at the moment, normally I'd carry less and more in sell orders, as cash sitting around isn't doing anything for me.

I have 4 accounts, with 9 characters dedicated to trading:

Jita Buyer

This is a character that sits in Jita and contracts items to my other characters. This character has little training, and mostly buys from sell orders and contracts the items to my other characters. I tend to have this character logged in to act as a real time price comparison whilst checking my other characters orders. This character also manages my long term investments, though that doesn't take much work. I am putting excess ISK into this venture, and watch delonewolf's EVE Talk to get ideas for things to invest in. Currently holding about 87Bn in orders and investments.

Amarr Seller

My main money maker, with ~138.3 Billion in active sell orders at the time of writing. Takes implants and faction/deadspace modules delivered by my Rens character and sells them in Amarr.

Dodixie Seller

Very similar to the Amarr seller, he sits in Dodixie, takes receipt of items, then set up sell orders. Currently has 79.3 Billion in sell orders. No news with this character.

Rens seller/Hauler

Like the other characters, this character takes items bought in Jita and sells them in Rens. Currently has 79.8 Billion ISK in active sells. He also hauls my goods from Jita to the other trade hubs in a Crane.

Hek Seller

My new character. Like the other high sec seller characters, he sits in a trade hub (the ICY Tatara in Hek) and sells items brought to him by the Rens seller. Deals primarily in Rigs, faction modules and implants. I started this character off with 16Bn "seed" money and he's currently got 24.5Bn in sell orders. Needs to pay for his own PLEX every month, which shouldn't be too difficult.

Amarr station trader

Sits in a player owned Fortizar in Ashab, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders with a range of 1 Jump to cover Amarr. This character trades completely different items to the rest of my characters. I gave this character 1 Billion to start with, and he's currently on 9.9 Billion.

Jita station trader

My more serious station trader. I have a character in Perimeter in a player owned Keepstar, with 0.3% broker fee that sits in one station, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders with a reach of 1 jump.

Most of my items are bought and sold in the Jita 4-4 station. This character trades completely different items to the rest of my characters. I gave this character 10 Billion to start with, and he's currently on 50.8 Billion. I spent the time to get faction and corp standing up with this character, and this is my attempt to take station trading seriously.

Horde Seller

In a very similar way to the other selling characters, he takes items bought by the Jita Buyer, then contracts the items to "Valhalla Deliveries" (a delivery service for Pandemic Horde) to transport the items to the Horde Keepstar in BWF-FF. He then sells them there for a profit. He trades primarily T2 modules, drones and scan probes. I set him up with 1Bn and he's currently at 2.1 Bn in sell orders.

I largely stopped updating this character this month whilst the staging was ongoing, but I'll start him up again now that Horde are back home and it's business as usual.

Tash-Murkon Region trader

A different strategy altogether. This character sits in a player owned Fortizar in Tash-Murkon prime, and set up regional buy orders for modules, implants and drones. When a lot of orders have been filled I fly around and collect it all to sell in Tash-Murkon Prime. I set this character up with 100mil to buy his own skills and get started, after skills he had 70mil to buy items. Currently at 3.3Bn. Can fly a Crane, which speeds up my collections immeasurably.