As I've mentioned before, I do my own hauling in high security space.
This is largely due to the hauling corp I used to use folding, and the value of my trade shipments being above and beyond what player corps are willing to haul. I'm often carrying 30 Billion in a single Blockade Runner, and player corps don't want that level of risk or don't keep that much ISK on hand for collateral.
Ordinarily people would tell you that transporting that value in ISK is stupid, and basically begging to be ganked, and in a T1 hauler or freighter they'd be right, but I don't use those ships to transport my stuff. As I trade mostly in implants, with a few faction/deadspace modules thrown in, the volume of my shipments is actually pretty small. I have instant undock and docking bookmarks at the main trade hubs to reduce the risk of anyone attempting to gank me.
Until a few months ago, I solely traded in implants, which are 1m3 each. So I could fit an entire trade runs worth of implants in an interceptor. I used the following fit for that:
[Ares, LorRes]
Micro Auxiliary Power Core I
Damage Control II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Medium Shield Extender II
Medium Shield Extender II
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing II
This Ares aligns in 1.9 seconds, has 11k EHP and an 8.8 AU per second warp speed. In high, a sub 2 second align means that even instalocking thrashers cannot catch me warping gate to gate. The EHP means I could survive a casual smartbomb trap if someone were to attempt that in highsec, which is highly unlikely. The 96m3 cargo hold meant I could carry 96 implants, which given the price ranges I was trading in was a lot, so for a time this was my hauling ship of choice.
Since moving into modules though, I require a slightly larger transport. That's where the Crane comes in:
[Crane, Lornor's Crane]
Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
EM Ward Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Medium Cargohold Optimization II
Medium Cargohold Optimization II
This Crane aligns in 4.42 seconds, has 41.1k EHP and a 7.92 AU per second warp speed. It is slower than the Ares, no insta-warping gate to gate, but it can warp cloaked. Warping cloaked makes it pretty much immune to any gank attempts in highsec, and when I can't cloak due to traffic the 41.1k EHP is enough to tank 3, maybe 4 perfect Tornado hits. I have only ever had 1 person try to gank this, and it was a rather futile attempt with a catalyst that didn't even bring me down to 80% shield. Another advantage of a blockade runner is you cannot be cargo scanned. So you could be empty, you could be carrying 50 Bil, no-one can know without killing you. I have heard tales of people playing "blockade runner roulette", ganking BRs to gamble that they're carrying enough to make it profitable, but most gankers would rather go after T1 industrials or freighters where they can see in advance if the attempt it likely to be profitable for them.
Really my main risk with hauling myself is if I go AFK carrying a load of stuff, or if I get wardecced. Even with a wardec though I'm unlikely to be caught, and no-one has decced me yet. If they do I'd probably just dock up for a week and let them be bored, better than potentially feeding them a huge killmail and making my way on to reddit.
So the summary here I guess is that you CAN do your own hauling, but it takes time, and it is really worth investing in a properly fit T2 ship to do it.
Thursday, 9 August 2018
Thursday, 2 August 2018
August Update
So I've played a little bit this month. Not a huge amount, but enough to do a run about once a week, and update my orders here and there. It's been a pretty good month all things considered, with my current standing as follows:
As you can see, I currently stand at 188.8 Billion ISK. This represents a monthly increase of 17 Billion ISK, or 548.4 Million per day. This is pretty good, possibly one of my best ever months, which is all the more surprising given that my PLEX holding has gone down in value (the old days where PLEX was ever increasing in value are well and truly dead).
I have 3 active accounts, with 5 characters currently dedicated to my trading:
Jita Buyer
This is a character that sits in Jita and contracts items to my other characters. This character has no training, and simply buys from buy 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.
Amarr Seller
My main money maker, with ~76.4 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 49.5 Billion in sell orders.
Rens seller/Hauler
Like the other characters, this character takes items bought in Jita and sells them in Rens. Currently has 51.3 Billion ISK in active sells. He also hauls my good from Jita to the other trade hubs in a Crane. This is mostly implants, so high value, small volume items. This means I can fit everything for all 3 characters in a single Blockade runner, which with its current fit has about 50k EHP, and can warp cloaked. For highsec this is basically invincible, so I'm happy hauling like this, for now.
Amarr station trader
I've branched out slightly into station trading. I have a character in Amarr that sits in one station, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders. 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 2.7 Billion. honestly I'm not totally convinced about this, but I think I just haven't approached it properly yet. I need to do more experimenting and research on this character.
PLEX Holding
For a while, I was finding that I was having a lot of ISK lying around, not really doing anything. ISK in wallets can't make you money, so it's a bit of a waste of time having. In order to try and make some money with it I made several purchases of PLEX, most recently last August. For a while this was a nice little earner, consistently increasing, but it's been plateaued for a while now. It might be time to look at better long term investments.
Other investments
I'm increasingly finding that I can't re-invest all of my money after every trade run. Currently I have 24 Billion ISK just sitting in wallets not doing anything for me. That's over 10% of my total net worth! In an attempt to try and use this money, I've been looking at items to buy and hold, then sell when they gain value.
My first foray into this I noticed that the Leopard, a faction shuttle, has dropped in value by over half, overnight:
I don't know why the value has tanked, as far as I know you can't get any more Leopards, no more are being added to the game (unless I missed something). I suspect due to the increased trade volume that this may be a case of someone who was holding a ton of them dumping stock to get some ISK. Either way, I bought a bunch of them, 41 in fact, mostly for about 80 Million, though one or two were up to the 120 Million mark, so that is what I've put down on my spreadsheet as a reference point. As you can see, they've yet to climb above 120 mil consistently (sell orders currently at 94 mil in Jita) but the value is climbing. I'm hoping to get a bit of profit if the value does creep back up towards its old value of 200 mil.
As you can see, I currently stand at 188.8 Billion ISK. This represents a monthly increase of 17 Billion ISK, or 548.4 Million per day. This is pretty good, possibly one of my best ever months, which is all the more surprising given that my PLEX holding has gone down in value (the old days where PLEX was ever increasing in value are well and truly dead).
I have 3 active accounts, with 5 characters currently dedicated to my trading:
Jita Buyer
This is a character that sits in Jita and contracts items to my other characters. This character has no training, and simply buys from buy 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.
Amarr Seller
My main money maker, with ~76.4 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 49.5 Billion in sell orders.
Rens seller/Hauler
Like the other characters, this character takes items bought in Jita and sells them in Rens. Currently has 51.3 Billion ISK in active sells. He also hauls my good from Jita to the other trade hubs in a Crane. This is mostly implants, so high value, small volume items. This means I can fit everything for all 3 characters in a single Blockade runner, which with its current fit has about 50k EHP, and can warp cloaked. For highsec this is basically invincible, so I'm happy hauling like this, for now.
Amarr station trader
I've branched out slightly into station trading. I have a character in Amarr that sits in one station, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders. 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 2.7 Billion. honestly I'm not totally convinced about this, but I think I just haven't approached it properly yet. I need to do more experimenting and research on this character.
PLEX Holding
For a while, I was finding that I was having a lot of ISK lying around, not really doing anything. ISK in wallets can't make you money, so it's a bit of a waste of time having. In order to try and make some money with it I made several purchases of PLEX, most recently last August. For a while this was a nice little earner, consistently increasing, but it's been plateaued for a while now. It might be time to look at better long term investments.
Other investments
I'm increasingly finding that I can't re-invest all of my money after every trade run. Currently I have 24 Billion ISK just sitting in wallets not doing anything for me. That's over 10% of my total net worth! In an attempt to try and use this money, I've been looking at items to buy and hold, then sell when they gain value.
My first foray into this I noticed that the Leopard, a faction shuttle, has dropped in value by over half, overnight:
I don't know why the value has tanked, as far as I know you can't get any more Leopards, no more are being added to the game (unless I missed something). I suspect due to the increased trade volume that this may be a case of someone who was holding a ton of them dumping stock to get some ISK. Either way, I bought a bunch of them, 41 in fact, mostly for about 80 Million, though one or two were up to the 120 Million mark, so that is what I've put down on my spreadsheet as a reference point. As you can see, they've yet to climb above 120 mil consistently (sell orders currently at 94 mil in Jita) but the value is climbing. I'm hoping to get a bit of profit if the value does creep back up towards its old value of 200 mil.
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