You know, I find staring at the little “You haven’t written anything yet” notification while I put my thoughts in order to be mildly annoying.
My hesitation and thought process is primarily about FFXIV at the moment, as I just got caught up on Main Story content last night. Unfortunately, it’s not something I can discuss freely for fear of spoiling it for others. It’s such a narrative driven game that it seems cruel to do so.
I see the story’s trajectory, and I’ve seen where it’s headed in the expansion, but the details of how we get from here to there is quite unknown. I’ve already made a few guesses that appear to have been incorrect. That’s good though, predictability tends to make for a lackluster story. Some of the game’s most memorable moments came seemingly out of nowhere. An updated is expected to hit just after the Japanese Fan Fest with additional story content. Hopefully we’ll get a reveal for the other job around then as well, but I’m personally not optimistic. They seem fairly committed to holding most of their cards for May.
Meanwhile, I’m also doing the math and thinking through the process and math of sustaining an EVE subscription through in-game currency only. This would set one back 2B ISK/month, so around 500M/week. I spent a while semi-afk mining on my second monitor this weekend to see how much money I’m capable of generating with a very minor and passive level of effort. That number is around 27M for a 9 hour session, or around 3M/hour. Obviously that level of effort would take around 167 hours/week to pay for just the sub, operating costs and potential ship losses not included.
Now, there are certainly various risk/reward methods to improve this, as I’m mining plagioclase, which is pretty much as good as it gets in the “high sec” mining category. If I’m willing to venture into nul-sec I can improve that quite a bit. If I refit for ice mining I could theoretically double that number. I’ve also got some some processing skills in the works which will improve my yield slightly. I’m currently pulling around 66% refinery yield on most of the high-sec ores.
I haven’t done the math on ice mining. I have the ability, technically, but not the processing efficiency, nor am I familiar with the process anymore. I may look through the gear I have and at least poke it with a stick to see where I’m at with it.
The bottom line, though, is that it’s not currently feasible, with the resources I have, to pay for a sub with in-game currency. I would literally have to do nothing else, including sleep, in order to hit that target. If I want the sub, I’ll have to pay for it the old fashioned way.
On that note, I’ll see my way out. It would take way more time and effort to dig into either of these right now, and I’m disinclined to do so. That said, I’m sure you’ll hear about it again. Probably.
Unidentified Signal Source 
If I try to make ISK in EVE (which I admittedly haven’t done in ages) I run level 4 mission in a Vargur or Paladin. The payout obviously depends on the missions I get, but on average I make about 40 mil/hour I think. This is not just shooting stuff though, I also hoover the wrecks to me (as long as they’re 48km or closer from me) and loot then salvage them. It’s not even close to an AFK activity, unfortunately.
I’ve never paid for my subs with ISK. I too don’t see me putting in that much effort just so I don’t need to pay for the sub. Besides, I want to buy toys for PvP with that ISK. 🙂
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Fair enough. It was just a general thought experiment to see how practical it was. Mining certainly isn’t the most profitable type of activity, especially the kind of mid-sec mining I’ve been doing. The only reason it’s anywhere near the level I’m at is because I have about 3M xp in it.
That is, however, at the expense of combat skills, of which I have very few, and don’t see myself adding many in the near future. My current skill plan is already at 45 days as it is.
Actually trying, I can push the mining to around 5M/hour without changing what I’m actually doing. I want to look into some of my other options, but that’s not something I can multitask, as I’ll have to spend some time in low sec scoping things out. Probably do it this weekend in my much less expensive salvaging frigate.
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