The Winter Shopping Season

In much of America, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving (which always falls on a Thursday) officially marks the beginning of the Christmas winter shopping season.  In Eve, why wait for Black Friday though, when you can start making iskies by shopping appropriately now, for the upcoming winter holiday (Dec 4th, of course)?  So what then, should be on your winter shopping list so as to make a profit.  Here is a copy of my list, and also an explanation as to why and how I think you can make a nice profit from each.

As a reference source for all my ideas, I use the most recent tiercide blog.
For Everyone:
1: Support (Logi) Frigates- I think everyone will want to test out the combat ability of the new support frigs, and see if they are over/under powered.  It would be a good idea to start producing/buying these up now while their demand is still low, and sell them on patch day.  I see no reason most players wouldn't want to pay 2-3M for a ship like this, whereas the build cost is in the low hundreds of thousands.

2: Combat & Disruption Frigates: These too will be buffed, and while I don't think their demand will meet that of the support (logi) frigs, I think most people will want to test out what they can do.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them go for 2-3X build cost on patch day.

3: Combat, Disruption, & Attack Cruisers: I would stick with the cruisers that now suck, and will receive a nice buff due to the patch, as their demand will greatly increase, all at once, causing for a spike in price.

4: Support Cruisers: These might not grab the same attention as the new logi frigs, mostly because they already exist, but I do believe they see use after the patch, extensively if they prove to be near on-par with their tech-2 varients, as I suspect.

5: Small/medium remote reps (shield and armor, as well as energy xfer): For every new support frig and cruiser, I would assume 2-4 reps will be needed per ship.  With that kind of demand, all at once, I would assume the price of these will sky rocket.

6: Drone Damage Amplifier mod: While I don't expect a skyrocket out of this item, you can expect a nice price appreciation, both initially (as many of the newly remade ships will be using drones), and over time, as the mod is getting a buff.

For the quick Buck:
7: New Destroyers/mining frigate- If you have access to a manufacturing pos near a market hub, and you're quick, you can take a risk, buy a bpo of these as soon as the patch hits, and build one or two of these babies.  This won't make you a ton of isk, but you might be able to sell for enough over build cost, to recoup the cost of the BPO, and therefore, have a free BPO henceforth.  I remember when the drake first came out, the first 6-7 hours, it was selling for double build cost (as people do not want to wait), before coming down in price.

8: Micro Jump Drive- Once agian, this involves time, and a risk, but it may prove fruitful (if you have a manufacturing pos near a trade hub) to buy the bpo here, and produce a few right off the bat, selling them for massive profit, as I believe this mod will be quite revolutionary.  After the initial intrigue falls away, I would manufacture in npc stations, as the cost is much cheaper.  This bpo should be able to give you consistent returns over time.

9: Salvage Drone- Once again this involves timing.  I would buy the bpo and manufacture these at a pos right after patch.  Rather than looking for a trade hub, I would try and setup shop near a mission hub, as this is the missioners dream drone.

Winter is Coming

Winter is coming, and with it many changes.  The most important change as many players are concerned is the tiercide of the remaining Tech-1 frigates, as well as all Tech-1 cruisers.  For starters, I have to give it to CCP Fozzie (and Friends).  He has shook up eve, in general, for the better, ever since he started using the moniker Fozzie. Technetium, was appropriately nerfed.  Partial Frigate tiercide left me feeling with a "well these ships are almost flyable" feeling, without them feeling overpowered. T1 Cruisers, which were initially not expected to be tiercided until next year, have ALL been added to the 2012 Winter expansion.  Judging by the frigates from tiercide part 1, one thing that appears to be clear from the expected changes to cruisers is more slots, more functionality, more of a role purpose, all of which will make T1 cruisers more apt to be flown, and getting a ship class, which is mostly ignored, to be flown, is a good thing.  So, why then, am I starting to feel pessimistic?  The answer is because virtually all actions have side effects, and Fozzie's many, swift, and well intentioned actions have side effects as well.  Side effects, that will open up a Pandora's box full of unintended consequences.

So what damage could a buffing tiercide of t1 cruisers really do?  It can hurt both large scale nullsec corps/alliances and smaller FW corps/alliances.  But how you may ask?  The answer, dear Watson, is elementary.  You see, the general idea behind tiercide, is that certain ships are better than other ships, and that this must be fixed so that differing ships have different roles, but a more expensive ship is not "better" than a less expensive ship.  To a certain extent, I believe this necessary: HICs have their roles, as do tacklers, logistics, DPS ships and EWAR.  Yet, tiercide attempts to make the cheapest cruisers, viable against more expensive ones.  The problem with making cheap ships viable, is that nobody will pay a 40-200M premium for a faction/tech 2 cruiser, when a tech 1, is virtually as good, if not better in some instances.  When was the last time you saw an Osprey Navy issue or an Eagle in pvp?  The reason you rarely see them is because the cost to value ratio is heavily skewed towards the negative side.  What the winter tiercide will do, is make the Zealot, Cerberus, Vagabond, NOmen, and SFI (etc.), into the red-headed stepchild, that nobody wants to fly because they are only marginally better (if at all) than their tech 1 cousins.  With demand WAY DOWN for these ships, who will be hurt?  Anyone who makes iskies by bringing these ships to market.  Tech 2 Moon Goo based alliances will watch their wallets slim down faster than a Victoria's Secret Model.  Faction warfare players with investments in faction blueprints will be hurt by this as well.  Those, that have LP to spend and have the whits to avoid Faction Ships, should be mostly unperturbed, however, as they can spend their LP on investments that wont sink

Don't Fret, all is not lost, however.  You merely need to stay tuned, as our next blog post will feature ways to make iskies from this upcoming shakeup.  Buy, when there is blood in the streets :)