Getting set up in Null

 After a little wait (36 hours) my alt was accepted into Pandemic Horde and I was able to start the setup in null. First things first, set my home station to the nullsec staging (where the market is) and self destructing my pod to teleport out there. 

Next is to set up my Overview etc. so I can travel around safely.

After all that is done I can start looking at the industry. There are more complications to it than in highsec. For one thing, the BPC market is essentially non-existent and limited primarily to capital parts and metenox moon drills. Not something I'm interested in. So I think I'll have to operate from BPOs out here. 

Looking at the maps, there are Azbels/Raitarus with rigs available for anything you can think of, which is nice. I have a couple of choices when it comes to where to set up. There is a basic Azbel for ship building in system, which I use in the industry window to determine profitability, and there are also rigged structures in an "industry park" in another region, in the old home of R10-. I will probably operate out of here long term, it is in another region but with Ansiblex jump gates it's only a couple of jumps so not a big deal logistically. In addition to a greater range of rigged structures this "industry park" also has a lower system cost index by virtue of being ever so slightly inconvenient. 

Initially though I think I'll operate out of MJ while I get things set up.

I looked through a few old favourites to determine profitability. Mobile Depots look more profitable here though the volume is a lot lower. Something to bear in mind. There were a couple of drones and a rig that look good to me as well. So I bought 2 of each BPO, one to use and one to research at the same time. 

I then encountered the other complication with working out here, I have to use a alliance logistics service to transport my items from Jita. In this case it's a few low cost BPOs so the cost is trivial, but I have no guarantee how long it will take to arrive. I guess I'll just have to wait and in the meantime I can buy a Venture and get some mining done and get the lay of the land. Excited to see how this scales versus high  sec!

A second industry account

 So about a month into this new journey I feel I've hit the point where I need more characters. 

My initial character has 10 production slots and 8 research slots which I am mostly utilising, and I have north of 400mil net worth now. I'm starting to see a build up in ISK in my wallet at times so a second character could be usefully utilised, but I don't want to stop skill training on this account. I've been training trade skills including advanced broker relations (the adjusting fees are killing me!) and also improving my piloting and fitting skills to reduce the chance of being ganked going to and from Jita.

Another aspect in this decision is I'd like to start in null and see what that is like. Also my trading is going well this month with me rapidly heading back towards a trillion. 

So I repeated the same process as last time, using a refer a friend link to create a new account and get a free 1 million skillpoints. This time though I skipped the tutorial and career agents and instead headed for Jita and put in an application to Pandemic Horde. Applications can take a couple of days to go through.

I also transferred 50 million from my other industry character to this new one to set himself up and buy starting things he needs. After buying a years Omega time using my trade characters (for slightly over 20Bn, ouch!) I bought a few skills, set up a skill queue and used my 1 mil SP. This got me to 6 manufacturing jobs, 5 science and 5 reactions. In addition to a few other supporting skills. 

I plan to do a few build runs in high sec with this guy while I wait for my app to null to be accepted, at which point I'll jump straight into null and scope out the new world of industry down there!

September Update - Industry

 My first one of these for my new challenge! I've been really enjoying this, it makes a refreshing change. I'm also nearly at the point where I can start scaling this with more characters. My current position:

And here is the the JEveAssets graph:

I currently have 223.8Million ISK, or an increase of 10.2Mil ISK/day. Seems strange to be talking in millions rather than billions! Still, I'm pleased with how this has started. From a 8 million ISK starting point, things began quite slowly as I was severely limited in terms of ISK, slot and skill points. Taxes were high and I was doing a little mining to supplement my industry. I was also initially operating on BPOs, which I've already completely divested from.

Things really started taking off on the 24th September when Cap Booster 400s were going for over 100% margin, and I sold hundreds before the price has come back down. They are still profitable, but I've eased off on producing them now. I've moved more into mobile depots, as they are decently profitable (~15-20%) and they fly off the shelves allowing me to recycle my ISK faster. This has really allowed me to double my ISK in a week, and I'm currently limited by ISK not slots, which is actually pretty surprising and nice. I'd expected to need another character by now.

My character has 9 build slots and 5 research, with 5 builds currently running and 0 research. I put up another 2 researched BPOS on contract today, and I've sold 4 BPOs so far with another 7 outstanding. This is a bit of a slow burner but as I get more ISK I should be able to research higher value BPOs that take longer to research, and so I should be able to offload them before the next ones come out of the cooker.

In 18 hours I'll finish training Advanced Mass Production 4 and then in 5 days I'll finish Accounting V. Once I have that this character can arguably be considered "finished" from a T1 manufacturing point of view, and I could create a new one on this account to get some extra build slots, which I may do.

So, how am I doing versus my overall targets?

• Invent a t2 item
• sell a blueprint copy
• sell a researched blueprint original - Success!
• Build my own Upwell structure
• Complete some reactions
• Build a capital
• Build a Super
• Build a Titan
• Earn 1 Trillion

I wasn't expecting to do much more than this this month, but nice to get something ticked off early.

Targets for next month:

• Reach 1 Billion
• start up an extra account
• Move a character to Null
• Build something in Null
• Add an extra high sec character

September Update - Trading

 So, this should be an interesting write up. My current position:

My current net worth is 951.2Bn ISK,  or an increase of -38.8Bn ISK. That works out at -1.29Bn ISK/day.

How the hell has that happened? Weren't you a Trillionaire a few weeks ago? I hear you ask. Well, here's a picture that sums up a lot of it:

The sensible thing to do would have been to try and cash out my HyperCores before the end of quarter in case CCP did another sale. I, however, didn't do that, and as HyperCores are now worth 297,100 ISK and I had 470,000 of them, this sale has hit my net worth to the tune of 69.5Bn ISK. I have since bought more at this new price, and will look to cash out at a much lower value this time. Others have done the same thing, and in a trading Discord I frequent there were others talking about being caught in a similar position to me (I think even Oz failed to cash his out in time). Still I should make this back, I'll just have to be less greedy in future.

In addition to that I used trading funds to buy a years worth of PLEX for my new industry account, which cost me 19.1Bn ISK. So in reality my BAU trading after factoring these two losses amounting to 88.6Bn ISK I come out to having made a regular trading profit of 49.7Bn ISK. This is actually a pretty good month, almost 50Bn profit would make it my second best month ever, so my underlying trade performance is still good. What this whole incident has taught me though is that I should focus on expanding the amount my hub sellers are selling as a priority rather than throwing more money into investments that might blow up in my face.

I have 4 accounts, with 11 characters dedicated to trading:

Rens Seller

128Bn in sell orders and revenue of 41.8Bn. 

Manufacturing character

Did nothing this month, been focussing on my other industry challenge. Not sure what to do with this guys going forwards. Maybe move him to horde and be a market seeder?

Amarr Seller

My biggest performer, he has sell orders of 128Bn and revenue of 86Bn.

Hek Seller

Has 49Bn ISK in sell order and has made sales of 37.5Bn. Essentially half the size of my Rens business but surprisingly close in revenue terms. I think I need to expand the amount of ISK this character is playing with.

Dodixie Seller

Very similar in scale to my Rens business this. Currently 106.5Bn sell orders and income of 70Bn!

Nullsec station trader

Sits in Pandemic Horde's home system and station trades common items (ammo, filaments, minerals etc) and needs surprisingly little babysitting. Money is his own. This character made 3.1Bn this month. Mainly been playing with PLEX trading when profitable, could use a bit more love.

Jita Buyer

My main Jita buyer, and hold some investments. I've taken to buying/selling on my Jita trader character instead as his broker fees are better sitting in a Perimeter. So very little activity here other than buying and then contracting to my other hub sellers.

Tash-Murkon Seller

Currently 94Bn sell orders and 301Bn revenue this month. I haven't touched this character after i hit the Trillion. Seems essentially a waste of a character at the moment.

Amarr station trader

Made 1.3Bn this month, Not a lot of love this month.

Jita station trader

Acts as a buyer for my Amarr seller, and also does some station trading in Jita.  I have moved into buying and selling my investments with this character as well. Main contribution is cashing out of Gnosis's, which I've almost done.

Sobaseki Seller

Has sell orders of 19Bn and revenue of 6.2Bn. Not amazing but I gave him very little love.

So looking at last months plans:

• Hit 1 Trillion - Achieved, though I'll need to do some work to get back there.

Targets for this month:

• Hit 1 Trillion. Again.
• Increase the amount invested in my BAU trading rather than investments.

A disappointing end to the month, but I think I'll get back there soon enough. I'll probably also take another hit to open another industry account this month, so it might take an extra month to get back tot he Trillion, depending how HyperCores bounce back after the sale ends (probably tomorrow).

Oh no.

 The day I've been hoping would be a little while has finally arrived:

I had been waiting for hypercores to push towards 490k before cashing out, so as the buy orders disappeared and the price crashed I'm down 30Bn in about an hour. Ouch.

On the flip side skill extractors have spiked slightly, so I'm trying to cash those out to buy more hypercores at a very cheap level.

This might seem like throwing good money after bad but provided I'm more sensible about cashing out it should still be good. And I can use some of the money in more diverse investments as well.

The worst part about all of this is I'm technically no longer a Trillionaire, though that will be corrected soon enough as before this point (and starting my industry character) I was well over 40Bn up for the month so day to day trading is still good.

My first hundred million

So yesterday I passed the first real milestone of this journey, turning 8 million starting ISK into 100mil. According to JEveAssets it was actually 115mil and today I'm up to 146mil. 

That's quite a spike in the last few days, so what's happened?

There's a couple of components to this. First, I achieved a milestone in the opportunities program that awarded 8million ISK and 5 PLEX. I have been accepting these small rewards as they're part of the new player experience these days and they'll soon become inconsequential. I sold the PLEX to fund my Advanced Mass production skillbook, so now I have 9 build slots, rising to 10 in a few days. Once I achieve this I might spin up a new character on this account to get more slots.

The next aspect is I've sold 2 more of my researched BPOs, for 7.5 and 10mil respectively. JEveAssets counts BPOs at NPC value until the contract is accepted, so I only see the profit when I actually sell it. This is quite neat from an accounting point of view. 

Another major part of it, and a large contributor to me logging in with 84mil in the wallet this morning was cap booster 400s. Jita has been almost cleaned out of these over the last few days so I was able to build and sell some for over 100% profit margin! I've got more in build to try and take advantage of this.

One thing that's surprised me is how easy it has been to make money by skimming the first couple of pages of BPC contracts and building from them. I don't know how things will look when moving into null but for high sec industry I think the only reason I would buy BPOs is to research and sell them. Making money with BPCs is just too flexible and easy.

Making money from BPOs

 So as part of my switch to using BPCs to manufacture rather than BPOs, I've been looking to divest my current small BPO collection. As I've put ME research time into (almost) all of them I can't just sell them on the market. What I can do though is research from TE to make them 10/20 and sell them via contracts, which is exactly what I've started doing:

Not pictured is a Microwave S blueprint, which I bought for 20k, spent about another 20k researching, and then sold for 300k.

One thing to note with the contract UI though is there is no way to see at a glance what your total sell contracts are up for. This makes accounting for them quite annoying.

JEveAssets does total them for you, but it calculates the cost of the BPOs at NPC sell price, not at the price you put the contract up for:

That tiny yellow dot on the bottom right is 1.01million of BPOs up for sale, even though I've actually put them up for 31.5million. 

This leads on to a wider question of how I do my accounting for this challenge going forwards. Updating my spreadsheet manually as I have done throughout my trading will likely become too unwieldy with contracts and builds to consider (also not covered well my the UI). JEveAssets does cover items in build as well.

I am going to explore if the Excel addin can get this information, if it can't then I will almost certainly se JEveAssets for the accounting of this going forwards. So long as it's standardised and covers all my activities (which this does) it should be fine. 

Also, I'm finding that since transitioning away from the tiny BPOs to BPCs, I'm more limited by ISK than by manufacturing slots. This is kind of good as it means I can keep expending a little without imminently having to start up second characters/accounts or invest 26mil in advanced mass production. Though I want to do all of those things soon.