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3 Months of a 3% POCOpire

The idea of owning items in space is appealing. It helps us sink deeper into the world of Eve. In any game, owning stuff draws people in. There is something appealing about this place being my own, be it a system, a POS, or a POCO.


Player Owned Customs Offices are one of those interesting items in Eve. It is easy to never deal with or interact with them at all. Yet, they are landscape features and bits of the terrain. They are warpable objects in space. They are sources of revenue. They are a reason for combat.


My acquisition of a POCOpire was accidental. I started with Bosean simply because it was where I had Established the Cougar Store. Without banners, I thought that having the POCO labeled would be a mini advertisement for me. I could ‘own’ the system in a way. I had no idea if it would be worth owning but I decided to give it a try.

One of the biggest questions was, "How much do they make?"  Often I hear, “they are not really worth it” or “they do not make much,” when it comes to how much a POCO make. Yet, here we are battling over them. Some groups are consuming huge swaths of them. 

When my POCOpire windfall I decided to share how much my POS made. Molden Heath is non-faction warfare low sec. It is a bit off the beaten path. While it is not far away from anything it is not one of the major busy zones in the game for high sec or low sec.


The second thing I tried to do was go with a super low tax rate. Some of this was just curiosity. Some of it was an attempt to figure out what was a ‘reasonable rate’ for POCO taxes beyond ‘its low sec and adjustment’.  Also, I want to have a rate where people do not ask for standings and not attack the POCO.


I’ve only put down five of my POCOs. The other 22 were given to me by people who were tired of reinforcement games.


POCO have a 3% tax for anyone not in my corporation. All of my corporation members receive a 0% tax. That means the transactions are slightly skewed because they are paying nothing to use the POCO.


The ISK to put down a customs office is about 90 million ISK (86.8 in Jita at the time of this post).

  • Customs Office Gantry: 54.5 million ISK
Upgrades
  • 8 Broadcast Nodes: 8.5 million ISK
  • 8 Recursive Computing Modules: 5.8 million ISK
  • 8 Self-Harmonizing Power Core: 9 million ISK
  • 8 Wetware Mainframe: 9 million ISK
The grand summary of income in this four month time frame is: 767,120,484.62


Notes about the POCOs:
I own a total of 27 POCOs.
One of those POCOs is in high sec. It is listed as System 8 and it is the last chart. That particular POCO was given to me by someone.
Another POCO is outside of Molden Heath as well. It was also a gift and it is listed as system 7. 
All other POCOs are in Molden Heath. 
POCO #27 is no where on the chart. A recent acquisition I forgot to set its tax rate from the default 10% and as such it has had zero use. 
A few poco have shorter dates. Length of time tracked is noted with each group.
How I pulled the numbers:
I was given access to a very powerful POCO tool I traded information for it. That tool allowed me to gather summaries. I had started doing it by hand and frankly, it was a terrible task. 


System 1
Planet Type (.4)
Earnings March 21st 2014 - June 24th, 2014
Transactions
Barren
45,025,137.26
172
Oceanic
6,896,662.39
90
Gas
7,852,980.00
61
Total:
59,774,779.65
323


System 2
Planet Type (.2 sec)
Earnings March 21st 2014 - June 24th, 2014
Transactions
Lava
15,564,480.00
69
Barren
52,342,405.20
401
Temperate
40,852,278.00
127
Barren
102,979,056.00
102
Gas
4,610,383.05
96
Ice
48,357,192.90
214
Total:
264,705,795.15
1,009


System 3
Planet Type (.3 sec)
Earnings March 21st 2014 - June 24th, 2014
Transactions
Barren
49,539,392.93
158
Barren
47,906,325.75
120
Barren
43,002,474.00
119
Barren
15,987,468.00
34
Oceanic
15,688,140.00
50
Temperate
8,438,136.00
50
Barren
63,647,370.00
165
Gas
12,351,552.00
70
Barren
26,970,428.40
86
Gas
5,548,962,00
31
Ice
20,241,137.35
95
Total:
309,321,386.43
962


System 4

Planet Type (.3 sec)
Earnings March 21st 2014 - June 24th, 2014
Transactions
Lava
36,105,620.30
137
Lava
20,177,922.90
115
Total:
56,283,543.20
252

System 5

Planet Type (.2 sec)
Earnings March 21st - 2014 June 24th, 2014
Transactions
Ice
19,123,176.83

Total:
19,123,176.83



System 6

Planet Type (.2 sec)
Earnings May 13th 2014 - June 24th, 2014
Transactions
Barren
8,348,341.20
79
Total:
8,348,341.20
79


System 7

Planet Type (.3 sec)
Earnings March 21st 2014 - June 24th, 2014
Transactions
Plasma
32,514,308.03
262
Total:
32,514,308.03
262


System 8

Planet Type (.6 sec)
Earnings May 8th 2014 - June 24th, 2014
Transactions
Storm
17,049,154.13
64
Total:
17,049,154.13
64

Summary:

The 3% tax rate isn't that great from a finical point of view. Most of the POCOs have not paid off their base value in three months. I don't think I can sweet talk people into dropping their rates this far.

The other cost I didn't not address in the main body was the grind to claim these things. I've spent money on cyno inhibitors and reimbursing Moros pilots their ammo. People donated their time to my project.

I'll leave it to the number crunchers to run the differences if I charged greater parentages.  Also, I'm going to try to source from some other POCO owners what their histories are in different areas of space.

I decided to leave out fine details for the sake of my POCO clients. There are also other things such as dead end systems and such that I can comment on. All POCO are in systems with stations.

Comments

  1. Can you see how many pilots make use of your planets, how many planets each pilot is using and how often each week they visit their poco's? Trying to see what sort of setup others use and what cycle times.

    Made a table of value per transaction and it seems that barren planets are the most valuable because most players use them for as factory planets instead of pure extraction.

    I think a 5% tax rate is reasonable but even then a poco takes a while to pay for itself.

    And now I also start wondering how your mostly lowsec poco empire compares to high or null sec poco income. Perhaps Mynnna could shed some light on this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i do 1%...my alliance does 0% but i prefer some sort of paper trail just out of curiosity

      Delete
  2. I would expect it to take some time to get a POCO empire to pay off, given that you are trying to attract customers via price-cutting. Presumably there many people who don't really care where they do their PI; cost is what matters to them. You could get these people as customers if they knew about you. But the problem is there is little ability to advertise that.

    Have you considered anchoring cans near gates to advertise your rates? Too much work for a lark?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What is some time one may wonder? At current rates some time is a long time.

      I ignore cans on gates most of the time so no, its not something I've thought of doing. I'm not one for sales/advertisement. It may be something to think of.

      Delete
    2. I usually ignore them, but a good message can catch my eye. I extrapolate from that to think that they can work. Not that I remember any of them, mind, but that is because none of them are relevant to me. I am not looking to be part of a highsec missioning corp.

      "Some time"... hmm, don't know. Six months, a year? It should be long enough for word of mouth to spread. I also feel like it should be about as long as people change locations in the game. When you move, you'll make more effort to optimize what you're doing since you have no sunk costs.

      Delete
    3. "3% PI tax for all. Look for -owned POCOs." That might catch a few eyes.

      Delete
    4. It'd be nice if there was a way to check POCO ownership and tax rates without having to fly to the system in question. POCO rates aren't easily searchable which means if you are a PI producer, it takes a great deal of time to search for the best rates. This probably contributes to folks just doing PI at the most convenient POCOs rather than searching for the best rate.

      Delete
    5. mobile depots can be used as adverts, yes? any RF timer is just highlighting

      Delete
    6. Well you want a poco to pay for itself. If the average poco is in your posession for 2 years before someone else takes control and it takes a year before the poco turns profitable then it's fine.

      If it takes 4 months for a poco to turn profitable but every 3 months an invasion force tries to take it, it's probably not worth fighting over.

      Delete
  3. interesting data there...one would assume 'barren' planets to be crap, just because of the nomenclature of the type. I myself find barren to be perfect for low end, low maintenance POCO gameplay.

    Did you avoid plasma planets for a reason? Any speculation on the value of such based merely on the difficulty on acquiring one? Crucible was almost 3 years ago, and Rubicon just over 6 months ago...someone's got to have an idea how lucrative they are relatively to each other. hmmm

    On a side note i freaking HATE ice planet maintenance...aaaaahhh my eyes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Plasma planets are rare enough and tend to have ownership already. The Plasma planet I have was given to me because said person was tired of having to fight over it. I never intended to acquire this Empire but once I got it I tried to do something productive and interesting with it.

      Delete

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