1 (edited by Gerrick 2010-12-21 05:20:58)

Topic: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

Are you a new player intrigued by the idea of mining and manufacturing? Maybe you participate in PvP and want to create an alternate account capable of funding your habit? Have you always wanted to build a new prototype weapon that seems to be unstoppable? Do the sight of angry Drones scare the crap out of you? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then the wonderful world of Industry is the place for you!

    The purpose of this guide is to break down the various facets of what comprises Industry in the game of Perpetuum. There are some excellent in-game help pages which I will assume you've already gone over. However, in those pages there is not really anything about day-to-day life as an agent. So, in the following sections I will describe the various ways an agent can pursue a career in industry as well as some tips and techniques. Note that this guide only contains suggestions, personal observations, and knowledge gained from others, so if I am blatantly wrong, try to yell at me nicely.

Where to Begin

    First off, I will assume that you are starting with at least most of your initial 20k EP. The reason this is important is specialization. Just like real life, the economy functions much more efficiently when different people are very good at a limited number of things. The logic behind it is simple: when you combine these people you get an economy that produces everything very well, which raises the overall efficiency. Alright, so this little Economy 101 is all well and good, but the important thing to take away from it is to spend all your EP getting very good at a limited number of things. Just how specialized you want to get is entirely up to you, of course, but I would suggest being more focused the more accounts you may have. If you only have one, which is fine of course, you may want to consider doing two or three things since you can have fun with more of the game that way and still be efficient.

    So you are no doubt chomping at the bit to spend those EP and get down to playing the distilled awesomeness that is Perpetuum Online. You know that specialization is key, but the question now is what to specialize in. In the next few sections I've put together some “professions” that use different methods to generate drool-inducing NIC. These are not official positions or anything, and you don't get your own business cards, so feel free to customize them as you see fit. Also, many of these have extensions that either go well with or are necessary for other professions so some combination will not always result in a lack of specialization.

Mining and Harvesting

    One of the most essential jobs in any decent economy is obtaining the raw materials that make up everything else. This is the miner's and harvester's crucial role in Perpetuum. I've included both of these in the same category because it is very easy to train for both of them with the same character, since both of them require Industrial robot control, as well as Basic and Advanced robotics, to use the various specialized mining and harvesting bots. The actual process of mining (and harvesting, though I'll just refer to them both as mining from now on) is relatively simple and it is covered in the tutorial assignments so I won't go into it. There's also a great start-up guide made by E-Corp during the Beta that can be found here. However, the matter of when and how to upgrade your extensions relating to mining is not always so simple.

    There are two broad categories that the mining related extensions fall under: increasing ore amount per cycle and decreasing the time of each cycle. So, the most common question is which one gives a better return for your EP? The answer is not overly complicated but it does require some math. In essence, you are comparing the effect of each extension rank on your mining efficiency. This is done by comparing time and ore gained using the cycle time and previously observed amounts of ore per cycle. For Basic, Advanced, and Expert extensive mining (those extensions that increase the amount of ore per cycle) just multiply the amount of ore you get in a cycle, it doesn't matter which ore, as long as you're consistent across the board, by one plus the percentage increase. Finally, divide by your cycle time found in the mining module you currently have equipped to get the new proportion of ore gained per second. Similarly, with intensive mining extensions (those that decrease cycle time) just multiply the old cycle time by one minus the percentage decrease and then divide the ore amount by that new time. Comparing these two ratios will tell you which extension rank is the most valuable for you. Note, however, that this is not a fool-proof system since there are many more variables at play here. For example, there is added value in reaching a rank of 4 for both Basic intensive and extensive mining because it unlocks the Advanced ranks which are always a good deal for the first few levels.

    Other useful extensions for mining are also those that are useful for other professions. Extensions such as Navigation will help you get to the ore deposits and back faster. Also, being able to drive a Sequer is immensely useful as a miner, as it is for most industrialists. Simply drop a field container in reach of where you're mining and open it. Remember to keep it open or else it will disappear after ten minutes and also that you are within five minutes of a station with your slowest bot so it won't disappear while you are switching to your Sequer (assuming you don't have the help of a friend or corp member). Using this technique you are essentially creating a limitless cargo for your mining bot to dump it's ore into and using your Sequer to transport it back to the station will save you many trips during which you could be mining. With the Sequer also comes all the benefits of being logistics-oriented, which is covered next. Finally, your efficiency in mining can be greatly enhanced by dabbling in marketing and the Refinery extension. These extensions will maximize the profit you gain from your time mining and who doesn't want more profit?

Logistics

    Ever see those fat robots called Sequers rolling all over the landscape? If you haven't then you probably haven't gotten this far in the guide. These hulking bots are the lifeblood of the economy and without them, the proverbial wheels would come grinding to a halt. Because almost all industrial professions include the need for large amounts of materials coming or going, the investment of fitting into a Sequer is almost never a bad one. Although transporters are probably the most under-appreciated players of the industrial world, there is no doubt that they are absolutely critical to an efficient industrial process and any corporation would be wise to recruit them.

    The extensions involved in logistics are fairly straightforward: Navigation, Industrial robot control (4), Basic robot control (4), and a few ranks of Parallel assignments. Making money as a transporter, however, especially one who is freelance and without a corporation to rely on for steady work, can be difficult at best. The only viable option, while the economy is still young at least, is to do transportation assignments either for your faction or for all three at once. Essentially there are two methods to these assignments. It is quite easy to take assignments at each of the three alpha terminals (representing each of the three Mega Corporations) and take a cyclical route between the three with your cargo always full with the latest assignment's package. At first glance, this method would appear to be the most efficient and it definitely is if your goal is to make money as fast as possible in the early game as a transporter. However, the net gain in relation to any given Mega Corporation is not nearly as good as it could be. Because you are taking missions from each of the factions, each assignment you take will slightly reduce your relationship with the other factions. This means that your overall gain in relations is very low.

    The other method is much more efficient in the long run, and certainly more useful if you plan on using any of the terminal facilities with your character. Basically, instead of going through all three stations, just take assignments at your chosen faction's terminal. While you will end up “dead-heading” on one leg of your route with an empty cargo hold, in the end you will gain relation with your faction much quicker. Another important aspect of this method is the speed you gain relations with your faction's corporations, specifically those that offer transportation assignments. After you reach at least 1.00 (note that due to rounding errors it may display 1.00 when it isn't quite there) you will start to receive assignments between the various outposts that may pay better and raise your relationships more. Once you've unlocked enough of these assignments you can also do a cyclical route between the outposts on your faction's alpha island, gaining positive relations gains on each leg of the route.

Reverse Engineering

    In order to mass produce anything in Perpetuum you must first have a Calibration Template (CT) to do so. These are really just blueprints that factories use to create your goods each cycle. In order to create one you will require one base unit of the item and a decoder of a level greater than or equal to the base decoder level of the item. The reason I said base unit and not one item is because some goods are produced in batches of more than one. For example, items such as ammunition and mining charges are produced in batches of one thousand. This means you will have to use a full thousand (no more and no less) to create the CT. The base decoder level of an item is found in it's info panel. However, you can and probably should use a decoder of a higher level than the item's base. This will give the material and time efficiencies a boost of roughly five percent per decoder level above the item's base.

    The decision of which decoder to use is purely a cost/benefit consideration. Since a CT's material and time efficiencies degrade by one percent every production cycle, you will inevitably have to create another CT in order to maintain efficiency. Therefore, the cost of a decoder is not just a one-time purchase but rather an investment into a certain amount of production cycles. To give a more concrete example, say a level 6 decoder costs 400k on the market and a level 5 decoder costs 150k. You will have to judge if those five extra cycles of efficiency (due to the +1 bonus difference) is worth the extra 250k. You will also have to factor in the original cost of the item being manufactured, since those five extra cycles mean you have to consume an item for a new CT less often.

    There are relatively few extensions involved in Reverse Engineering: Intensive and Extensive reverse engineering and Calibration template extraction efficiency. The first two are similar to the mass production extensions of a similar name. Basic, Advanced, and Expert intensive reverse engineering reduces the amount of time by dividing the original by one plus the time ratio, where the time ratio is represented by the percentage gained from extensions over the possible ninety. Since the Basic ranks are worth 5% each and the advanced and expert are 2%, just add 5% for each rank in Basic and 2% for each rank in Advanced and Expert then divide by ninety to find your time ratio. Extensive reverse engineering simply increases the number of CTs you can work on at any given time (the number of parallel processes). Finally, the extension of Calibration extraction efficiency reduces the penalty when extracting a template from a production line. The key thing to remember is once a CT has been installed in a production line by a manufacturer it cannot be removed unless destroyed or extracted. This extraction comes with a penalty to the CT's material and time ratios

    In terms of specialization, Reverse Engineering is almost always paired with manufacturing because the way ownership of CTs is currently set up requires the manufacturer to be able to extract his or her own templates. However, there is the opportunity for a corporation to have a specialized Reverse Engineer to cut down on the time required to diversify their manufacturing ability. Just remember that if you intend to move CTs between manufacturers and their production lines often, the penalty against the extraction can only be reduced by your individual Calibration extraction efficiency rank, not the specialist in the corporation.

Manufacturing

    This role is one of the most demanding in Perpetuum. A good manufacturer can and will make NIC hand over fist, but requires a significant investment in both time and money to do so. Specialization is key for this profession because of the amount of extensions revolving around the operation of the factory. Choosing which extensions to focus on can be complicated so I'll go over each of them and what they do to make you a more efficient producer.

    First off, there is the critical extension of efficient mass production. This will increase your material ratio (found in the top right of the factory screen) and therefore decrease the wasted materials when manufacturing something. Note that the ratio percentage displayed is not necessarily equivalent to the percentage of wasted materials. It is simply an indication of how much of your efficient mass production extensions are trained. To find the actual waste, a reasonable approximation is to multiply the value of each previous rank's waste by 0.98, and do the same for each 10% standing with the Mega Corporation that owns the factory. There is a lot of round-off error involved so the equation for the total material requirements is vague at best, and you won't always get the exact answer you’re expecting. The important thing is to know how much waste you're producing from a given CT so that you can figure out your profit margins.

    Other crucial extensions for manufacturing are Basic, Advanced, and Expert extensive mass production. These increase the number of parallel production lines you can have running at one time, with a different CT in each one. This is very important to have because the time required for more advanced modules or robots can be very long so it's good to have a variety of different goods (and of different complexity) in production to ensure that you're constantly outputting things to be sold. Another series of extensions which are very important is the Factory calibration set of extensions. These improve your time ratio and decrease the time it takes to produce a cycle of a given product. Another thing that improves the amount of time required by a CT production cycle is the level of the factory, about 20% less time per level.

    Possibly the most essential extensions for mass production are Intensive mass production and Programmed mass production. Based on the descriptions alone it's easy to get their purposes confused. Intensive mass production increases the quantity of goods made in each cycle. This means you can make one plus your rank in this extension of an item in one cycle. This is important because every cycle you run on a CT will degrade it by a percentage point, so the more ranks you have extend the usefulness of your CTs. Programmed mass production enables you to stack cycles one after another. Although the CT still degrades with each cycle, this extension enables you to set long processes in motion so that you don't have to be constantly supervising your production lines.

    Now, with all of these under your belt you can begin to choose which products you would like to make. There are many criteria to look at, including volume being sold, potential profit margins, and time required for production and many of them vary over time or with different installed extensions. You will have to judge which goods look the best for you, since there is no one correct answer and the markets are in a constant state of change.

Invention

    Invention, or the production of prototype items from your knowledge base, requires a great deal of effort and investment to pull off successfully. Mostly, the reason for this is the great number of kernels required to develop your knowledge base to a point where making prototypes can turn a profit. The key thing to remember is that standard items cannot be prototyped and the standard item must be researched before the first prototype of the same type can be. There are four tiers that can be researched in total, the standard item and the three prototype versions. The first prototype version is usually lighter and has less reactor and computer requirements. The next two generally cost more in the requirements but have a better overall effect (for example, damage percentage on a prototype weapon). Before choosing this specialization, keep in mind that the number of kernels required to research everything has been reported to be in the thousands (except for the last lightweight frame which seems to be bugged atm) so this profession is usually best paired with a combat alternate or in a good corporation that can provide plenty of kernels at a low cost.

    The extensions involved with prototype production are basically identical to those for manufacturing so I won't go over them all again. The finished products themselves, however, are a part of a rather unique market niche. In the market screen you may see that each prototype item also has an equivalently named item except for the 'prototype' before it. These items are actually mass produced from a CT that has been extracted from a prototype weapon. Although they may have similar names, they are in fact inferior to their prototype counterparts which makes the inventor's role as the sole creator of prototypes a secure one. Because these items are so expensive to make it is not uncommon for them to being missing entirely from the market and judging a suitable price for them is not always easy. Try to make it something that is not so outrageous people won't even bother considering it but also keep in mind that a product is worth whatever someone will pay for it, not what one person says it is.

Marketing

    At it's heart, market manipulation is quite simple to understand: buy low and sell high. However, in a player-driven economy where there are only a certain number of producers providing goods (with the exception of certain seeded items), there is immense opportunity for the economically focused agent to prosper with a more in-depth strategy. To begin with, a minimum level of the extensions which lower the extra costs associated with a transaction are necessary to be competitive with other casual traders. Two of the most critical extensions are Accounting and Tax reduction, lowering the costs involved with the constant buying and selling that a market manipulator is always up to. With these extensions installed you can then select a target product and set buy orders until you've a reasonable reserve of it to play with (depending on the volume being traded). Then set both buy and sell orders that are a reasonable margin above and below respectively. When you make enough capital then add even more buy and sell orders on top of your previous orders, with a difference of 0.01 NIC if you like, to simulate an active and intense bidding war for the product. This will scare away any other traders and if your prices are close enough together other agents will choose to simply buy or sell from you rather than wait for an order to be filled for relatively little gain.

    Another strategy is to place buy and sell orders on a great many different products, especially those that tend to fluctuate in price. By looking in the rates section of the market window you can see the variance in price represented by a line graph. The more erratic this graph, the better off you will be. This strategy is based upon knowing the inherent value of an item (what someone will pay for it) and placing orders above and below that value. In this way your orders will not need to be taken down, so long as the value you've given is accurate, and when the market fluctuates you will generate income with every swing.

    It is possible to implement both of the above strategies entirely while inside a terminal but if you want to have access to the broader market you'd be wise to spend some EP on fitting into a Sequer. Also, although it may seem like specializing in marketing doesn't really require much EP, keep in mind that it is more important to get the high level market extensions early on than it is for other industrial roles. Yet another thing to keep in mind is the constant volatile change of the market during certain hours, followed by a period of relative calm with little or no trade at all. Do not be deceived by the variance though and stick to your strategy. A little patience and a few days can be all the difference in the world for an enterprising market manipulator. There are many paths to success in the markets and you can see more information here.

Closing Comments

    If you have managed to get through this enormous wall of text then I hope you'll forgive me for being so long winded and refrain from bashing your head against your keyboard. I also realize there is a great deal of information missing, especially regarding how the various algorithms and round-off errors work. If you have anything to correct or add, feel free to post it and I'll be sure to edit accordingly. I hope this helps and thanks to everyone on these forums who helps contribute to the ever-growing community of Perpetuum Online.

Useful Links

2 (edited by Neoxx 2010-12-17 08:25:33)

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

This is the worst color to use ever.  At least use something like this thats not so annoying to look at.

Sorry, this is just a pet peeve of mine.  I f*ckin hate those blue christmas lights...

I am Perpetuum's Most Dangerous Agent and an equal opportunity troll.
-> You just lost The Game <-
"Perpetuum sounds like a something I would stick up my *** for enjoyement." -Kaito Kurusaki

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

I can't read anything here, just having that blue in my peripherals destroys me.

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

Edited for color....

If you think this was bad you should have seen what I started with

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

If you think this is bad, just check my signature.

I am Perpetuum's Most Dangerous Agent and an equal opportunity troll.
-> You just lost The Game <-
"Perpetuum sounds like a something I would stick up my *** for enjoyement." -Kaito Kurusaki

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

lol touche

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

besides the odd color comments, no one seemed to mention... good f$%^ job, this is a great read and a great guide. thank you.

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

Thanks for writing this, it's very good.

Small suggestions: If you are a manufacturer in a corp, then you might have a specialized reverser, rather than all manufacturers reversing their own CTs. Calibration Template extraction confuses many newbies - it reduces the wear on the CT from taking it out of a factory, not in any other situation. Improved relations and improved facilities impact efficiency, but you won't see that on your "material efficiency" line - that just measures your impact on the process.
The question of when to recalibrate your lines confuses people; I believe you ought to balance the cost of recalibration against the cost of waste from poor efficiency, but there are practical questions (recalibrating standard vs. recalibrating named, and how decoder prices affect the decision) beyond that.

A guide like this that breaks the heavy industry / research and development focus down into separate roles was greatly needed. Thanks again!

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

Thanks for the compliments, I appreciate it.

Artem, thanks for the suggestion, I've added a section on Reverse Engineering and hopefully clarified a bit of the confusion surrounding it.

If anyone has more suggestions for additions or clarifications, let me know and I'll update accordingly.

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

Sticky this

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

Thanks for putting this together:)

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

Gerrick wrote:

Since a CT's material and time efficiencies degrade by one percent every production cycle

Sometimes CT degrades by 2, 3 or 4 percent by one production cycle. Does anyone know how to calculate how my CT will degrade by one cycle?

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

LLIAXTEP wrote:
Gerrick wrote:

Since a CT's material and time efficiencies degrade by one percent every production cycle

Sometimes CT degrades by 2, 3 or 4 percent by one production cycle. Does anyone know how to calculate how my CT will degrade by one cycle?

you cant. its random. all you can do is guess around these facts:

- above 50% it will degrade more per cycle, lower then 50% it will degrade less
- it will never degrade to zero
- higher tier equipment CTs will degrade faster
- same for robot-CTs
- ammo CTs degrade less

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: Gerrick's Guide to Industry

Annihilator, thanks.