Industry and Trading Matrix

Posted: 2012-06-06 | Author: | Filed under: industry, market, nullsec | Tags: , , | 9 Comments

Numbers > Words

If you can’t tell, I’m a very quantifiable person. Using numbers to guide decisions is a method of problem solving that I have cultivated as my professional career has grown.

I remember this one particular insiadent that really stood out where the numbers really proved valuable.

A few years ago when a group of difficult C-level people were up for a laptop refresh, I sent them a simple survey with a list of considerations for their new machines. Each person had rate weight, speed, storage capacity, ruggedness, maximum resolution, monitor size, etc on a scale of 1-3 (3 being the highest priority).

I then took these results and found the general need of the group. The data told me what machine to buy. I wan’t trying to tailor a machine to their needs, their needs dictated the selection. No fights were had when the machines arrived because they all knew that I had properly weighed everyone’s opinions.

To the Spreadsheets!

Since I have performed a number of industry and trading activities in Eve, I felt that the same type of analysis would offer some insight to the greater community.

I made a list of negative and positive factors and applied a value to each of them. The total value has a little bit of logic built into it to help produce a more meaningful result.

Total =(-(Sum all the bad things)+(Sum all the good things))

The English equivalent of this would be something along the line of, “Considering all the bad and good things, what is the best thing I should be doing to make money in Eve?”

(Yes the scale is 1-3, but the sheer amplitude of risk and profitability of Patch Speculation made me weight it with a 4. The external factor of CCP changing a loot table or rebalancing something on the fly is an enormous risk when speculating)

Note that these weights are based on my experiences and therefore you would most likely apply different values to each activity. Just like with the difficult C-level people, getting a larger survey group would help normalize the data and CYA.

Disillusioned at Eve

Posted: 2011-12-15 | Author: | Filed under: eveonline | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Don’t worry, I’m not disillusioned, but I wanted to highlight a recent topic on reddit.com/r/eve called Disillusioned at EVE. Can we talk, /r/EVE? If you haven’t been exposed to the r/eve or r/evedreddit you should spend some time reading over the content. The discourse is far more productive and insightful than the pitchfork wielding masses on the Eveonline.com Forums.

The poster talks about his experience amassing a lot of ISK, grinding out in PVE sites, and becoming involved in large-scale nullsec fleet warfare yet still not finding anything truly rewarding. When I started playing Eve in 2008, the end game for me was a Nyx Mothership (this was before the name/role change to Supercarrier). It was a beautifully designed hull that seemed to my virgin eyes as the end game of Eve. Once you pilot that ship, nothing could destroy you. How things have changed…

I have lived in highsec, wormhole space, and now I’m making a home in nullsec. I’d like to reiterate the line that ‘Eve is what you make of it’. Right now I am finding solace in managing corporation financials.

The poster talks about how large-scale nullsec warfare is a lot of warping around, blobbing, and hot dropping. I have no rebuttal to that as being involved in nullsec at the moment, this is what we do.

From reading a lot of opinions over the months, I have come to the conclusion that the PVP experience in wormhole space is keeping a lot of people interested in the PVP aspect of the game. If you look at the numbers coming out of CCP, activity in wormhole space has been increasing since it was introduced.

The mass limitations in the lower classes keep capital ships from traveling between spaces while higher classes limit the capital ships that can be brought for an engagement.  The design of this mass mechanic is truly brilliant and it is what has kept the spark in veteran and newcomer PVP’ers alive.

A few people have suggested to the poster that he should find an active WH Corp so perhaps he will go with that suggestion and find a new passion.

Nullsec Alliance Data Transformation

Posted: 2011-09-21 | Author: | Filed under: eveonline | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Messy numbers to some, or a wealth of information for others. Here is a quick rundown of how I processed the data to form the Nullsec Alliance Growth and Decline post.

1. Get raw data from Wollari at Dotlan.

allianceID,date,members
151380924,26.06.2007,622
166439722,26.06.2007,1130
284278305,26.06.2007,252
288377808,26.06.2007,1151
386292982,26.06.2007,412
477769446,26.06.2007,252
628991027,26.06.2007,1062
632866070,26.06.2007,2267
673381830,26.06.2007,416

2. Load Eve Alliance information via API into a table.

3. Import Dotlan data into MySQL table and join allianceID on both tables to generate more human friendly data set that includes Alliance Names and Tickets.

SELECT alliances.allianceID, alliances.name, alliances.shortName, date, members
FROM allianceHistory, alliances
WHERE alliances.allianceID = allianceHistory.allianceID

4. Export data into an Excel readable file.

I spent some time debating about working with this data using a MySQL table and a charting engine such as Highcharts, but settled on using an Excel PivotTable. The time involved with me tinkering with the JavaScript (not my most proficient programming language) would really hinder progress.

Once in Excel, I had to reformat the date from dd.mm.yyyy to yyyy-mm-dd to allow proper chart generation. First, I used the text to column feature with a comma ‘,’ set as the deliminator. Secondly, in a new column, I used a formula to combine the date in my desired format.

=DATEVALUE(F1&"-"&E1&"-"&D1)


Hide the D, E, and F columns and we’re got a good set of data to analyze.

5. Select all 87,543 rows and generate a PivotTable using the Alliance Name as the legend, date as the Axis Fields, and a summation of the Member Count as the Value.

Now the fun part is thinking of WHAT is significant.

Some of the first things that I wanted to show was the rise and fall of the NC, growth of the DRF, and some charting for the larger Alliances like Goons and Test. These charts can be seen in the original post linked at the top.

RipardTeg of Jester’s Trek came to me with idea for a new report that I think will prove rather interesting. I’m going to be working with him to answer the question of ‘whether small sov-holding null-sec alliances are surviving in the last two years, or being folded into the mega-alliances over time’.

This type of Eve Community collaboration with passionate, exemplary individuals is what really keeps me playing. Stay tuned.