This form of resource mining was a real boon for me. I was probably on the verge of leaving Eve for lack of cash, but then planetary mining was introduced. So all of a sudden there was a completely hands off, hi sec based way of making ISK. Lovely.

There are of course levels of complexity to planetary interaction like everything else in Eve. I, being a completist, like to produce the highest level planetary products using a ridiculously complex chain of planets. I know. Now, there is method to my madness. You could just harvest lots of basic P1 products, like bacteria, but they’re bulky. The higher up the food chain you go, the more compression you get. So I compact down to reduce required cargo capacity, saving me multiple trips to hubs in slow industrials.  I tend to move products within a single system in a Mammoth, then haul the end products in a Prowler (character dependent) for speed.

Places like Eve Uni (see links section) will give you the full breakdown on what can be mined from what planet, and what products make up other products and so on.  Let me just note a few things here to try and give you a brief overview of things to consider.  You will not collect as much in hi sec as you would in low or null sec, but you will lose far fewer ships doing it in hi sec.

• Make sure you can upgrade your command centers to a reasonable extent.  That will give you a degree more flexibility when putting your networks together.
• Train the new Customs Code Expertise skill.  I was slow to pick up on its introduction, and it will make hi sec import/export cheaper for you.
• If starting from scratch, take a long hard look at the tax rates the now largely Player Owned Customs Offices (POCOs) are going to charge you on top of the basic taxation.  Some are just taking the p*ss.  Try and find a system that has what you need and whose POCOs aren’t going to rip you off.
• Stay in one system.  It’s just faster.  Make sure that system has a station to use so you can park stuff there.  I, for example, use an alt to harvest in the same system as another alt, and one can then contract their products to the other in the same station.  Simples.
• Use your in-account alts.  I was very slow to do this.  But you can basically triple your ability to make ISK from PI just by training some very basic skills on your alts, and you also increase the number of planets you have access to.  For the occasional capsuleer, using alts in this fashion is very, very handy and involves no additional expense.  PI will run happily for all your alts while you’re AFK.  Happy happy joy joy.

I’ll outline in a future post how I typically run one of my planets to produce a P2 product, which will give you a more practical view of day to day PI, hopefully.