Data Cores Complete and Review

Finally I’m done.

The bad

Doing this has taken longer than expected. This started with frustration of only ever flying cheap ships and my SP base being far greater than my isk base. I was wanting to start to fly recons, hac’s and other more expensive ships. With PvP taking up so much play time I needed an isk source to expand beyond battle cruisers or alliance ships.

Dreams of endless isk and shrugging off combat losses of personnel ships was the goal. Tracking down information on the real details of passive isk making was hard to come buy. I found out why.

It takes a large up front time investment of over 2 Months to work up 2 data core characters. Making a brand new character and grinding out data cores alone in terrible. Grinding standing of any sort is not overly fun. Getting a 5.20 standing with a corporation(or faction) with a character who can just manage to use a weapons system without shooting himself is not great. Most of the training time is science based skills that in no way aid your character to help them grind standing. It also uses 2 character slots and stops training on your main. Now my alts are no longer expendable and less useful for cyno’s down the road.

This is due in large part to how little you make. Each toon can expect to make at most about 50m a month. 2 toons 100m. This 200mil (I worked four characters up. 2 for each account)  That’s not a great deal and I’ll still be needing other sources of isk.

It also takes isk for the skills.

I have yet to sell a datacore but every now and again it will be a pain. I am toying with the idea of working up my mains for an additional 50m using tags to get the faction standing since I already have a head start towards that due to running 4’s( see “The Isk Treadmill  http://morgals.blogspot.com/2011/03/isk-treadmill.html) this will be a very rarely collected fund but may eventually pay for something big(collect after a year or so to help buy a carrier)
Edit: it takes a few hours to go and collect the cores, i have sold a batch now but will wait much longer before doing so again. I then run into huge isk being moved and need a way to move it all.

The good 

Is I am done on my main for griding(my alt still need work but less worried about that as grinding is good to due during a pos bash or other task.

I also was much faster on the second toon, less wasted training, more focused missions, learning what missions to decline as well as a really lucky batch of storylines(had 5 in a row that gave 8% standing that finished of the toon.)

These toons may now require a clone and may or may not be used as cyno alt’s but not the expendable type. If someone needs a cyno one jump into low sec at a station these guys can handle it. They won’t be 30 jumps into null sec acting as a scout/cyno though.

Also in forming my own little corp and grinding the standings I now have a corp with standings and may even look at progressing along further in manufacturing or a POS…not right now but the option is there.

Overall I’m glad I have the data core alts but would not suggest it to other players. I won’t post details on how to do it. There is a limited market for data cores and 100 people starting them would deflate the market and both they and I would not make what we expected. Unfortunately datacores are not free isk. Even once created they are a pain.