The Best Laid Plans...

Back in the summer when I heard about the new ship classes coming and being available through invention only, I decided to try and cash in on the early rush once the expansion was released.

I did the research into what ship class I would go for (Caldari Black Ops Battleship, aka "Widow"), what skills would be needed to construct it (Cruiser Construction IV, Battleship Construction IV), what would be needed to invent it (32 Mechanical Engineering and Caldari Starship Engineering datacores, Scorpion BPCs), and what parts would be needed to build it. A lot of this information came from the test server.

I then proceeded to stockpile datacores, decryptors, minerals, and ship components for the anticipation of the expansion and at least one success at invention.

You see, the calculation was that the odds of a battleship invention attempt succeeding was about 20% with my skills. Adding a decryptor increased the odds by an uncertain amount as well as the number of runs on the T2 BPC, but the decryptor cost about 22 million isk and the datacores cost about 80 million isk. Per attempt. So I planned for 5 tries which I figured had decent chances of at least one success, somewhere between 67% and 83%. That cost about 500 million isk to set up. Quite a gamble.

By the time the expansion was due I was ready. I had enough materials to build one Widow right away and it would fund the purchase of more materials for the next Widow. Since each ships cost about 200 million in parts to build I wasn't rich enough to stockpile more than that.

Well the expansion came and I threw my 5 invention jobs in the oven and a day or so later I took them out to great news: 2 successful inventions creating a 5 run BPC each. I was still a week from having the skills to build so I moved them leisurely to the factory station. I quickly verified the skills and saw everything was in place. I checked the parts and noticed that they added something: capital jump drives.

Scowling I checked the market and saw NOTHING. I ended up having to go to Jita to buy some and worse, could only carry two at a time because they were huge, 10k m3 each! As I carried a couple back from market I checked the blueprint again and that is when the worst news hit.

They had increased the requirements from the test server to deployment such that a lot of materials had doubled in number. And since I figured I was set for parts last week I had spent money on skill books and investment payouts so the corporate wallet was drained by the purchase of the capital jump drives. And I needed about 100 million ISK more of materials. Panic set in.

Fortunately, I was able to make a small loan from a friend, purchase the moon materials, and get them into the factories to make the required ship components. I'll be a day late on building the Widow but it will happen. Hopefully initial price gouging for the new ships won't deflate too quickly.