Settling in

I've had a few days to settle in my new home in Solitude.  During that time I also decided that I'd train at least my 2 possible alts (and probably me too ) into Planetary Interaction as an extra income stream.

I've read up on it via the Uni Wiki and a few other articles and it seems that once you are over the initial investment, it should provide a steady, if not spectacular, income.  The Uni wiki also has a plan to train an alt into PI (and not much else) within 12 days.

I paid to have dual training activated on my account for 30 days and set alt 1 to training - this meant I could carry on training my main character at the same time.  A 12-14 day training plan means I can train both my alts into PI in one month, with only one payment.

However, I now see how useful alts can be - whilst I'm in Solitude I've had one put some extra short skills into hauling and trading and he has been tootling around the main empire regions  buying up cheap minerals for me to give Industry a go.  I'm now tempted to train at least one of my alts into some serious hauling / support skills (I'm thinking Orca pilot or Rorqual, or both...eventually).

It costs a plex to have dual character training on an account (about £16) per month.  Or I could create a new account, swap the alts over and then only pay £10 per month.  But the swap service costs £20 each I think.   hmm

I think I'll stick with the single account for now, leave one alt as PI only and train the other into Orca pilot to start with plus some support skills - this looks doable within 30 days (not that I can afford an Orca !).

I've also started putting alt#1s hauling skills to use - he's being doing Sisters of EVE distribution missions.  Level 2 missions were pretty quick and could be done in an Imicus, but he's now on Level 3s which either require more Imicus trips per mission, or a ship with a bigger hold - I've been using one of the free Nereus' I received from the career and SoE arc missions.

Payouts have increased (to about 100,000isk per mission), though some of the missions have taken me in to Low security space.  The first one I split into 7 runs in an Imicus, but the second time I did this local was empty for 2 runs, so I combined the final 5 into 1 Nereus run and still saw no-one.

I do expect to die doing this though.  I'll have to look for a quick aligning hauler fit...or stick to high sec.

In other news, my main has dipped his toe into manufacturing, bought and researched a handful of Original Blueprints and started production.  Even with pretty limited production skills I made a profit (including costing in the price of minerals, none of the 'I mined it therefore it's free' mentality here).

I did spend quite a while poring over market reports and assessing costs Vs prices using a variety of sources (Market window, EVE Central and EVEHQ to name a few).  Improved skills will llead to higher profits.

I've knocked production on the head for a while until Alt#1 can bring me in a decent batch of minerals.