Reverse Engineering Success Probability

I have had a lot of pilots ask about T3 production and variable costs involved. One of the first things about T3 production that people often overlook is the fact that only some subsystems are profitable for production (e.g. the materials cost is greater than the market value), and that the subsystems you can manufacture are dictated by the (randomized) outcome of your Reverse Engineering (RE) attempts.

Each applicable Relic has three types: Wrecked, Malfunctioning, and Intact. These three types are used to establish a "base probability" in the calculation on success rate (i.e. the percentage of attempts resulting in a subsystem BPC) and a predetermined production run count:

• Wrecked relics have a base probability of 20% and a run count of 3.
• Malfunctioning relics have a base probability of 30% and a run count of 10.
• Intact relics have a base probability of 40% and a run count of 20.

The RE success probability is a factor of the base rate and your applicable skill levels in RE and associated datacores. Relics each have their own respective skill requirements, specific to the datacores required for RE. The higher the skill levels in the base Reverse Engineering and required data core skills, the higher the success probability.

The formula for RE success probability is:

success rate = base rate x [1 + reverse engineering skill level x 0.01] x [1 + (datacore 1 skill level + datacore 2 skill level) x 0.1]

As you can see, the skill level for Reverse Engineering is dramatically less important than the datacore skills. As such, I advise minimal required training on RE and max skilll levels on your datacore skills.

Here is a GoogleDoc link you can use to save locally to calculate your success probability.

As an example, if you skilled RE to 3 and both datacore skills to 3, then your success probabilities would be:

Wrecked: 32.96%
Malfunctioning: 49.44%
Intact: 65.92%

Taking the extra time to get just those datacore skills to 5 (leaving RE at 3) would be:

Wrecked: 41.2%
Malfunctioning: 61.8%
Intact: 82.4%

The actual RE job itself, if successful, will randomly produce any one of the four subsystems for that particular relic, which means you first cross your proverbial fingers that the RE job is successful, then again cross them that the desired BPC has resulted. I cannot count how many times I have cursed a successful RE job that provided me with a useless BPC!

FYI - Here is a great reference page for EVE Formulas

Safe Flying!

Quiet Night...

In contrast to the last few sessions online, I was able to login tonight and simply confirm that there were no K162's, the system was vacant of hostiles, and I could just grind out the sleeper sites while running some T3 component manufacturing.

Cleared 22 sites tonight for a total of 96 Melted Nano's - pretty good yield on the market, but these are going towards T3...

Just about time to start bringing the subsytems to market - pretty excited about that, although I am keeping some select subsystems for my own...

Fly Safe!

Marooned in NullSec

Well, in attempting to close a new K162 from NullSec, I managed to overestimate the remaining mass and got my Star Defender toon marooned all the way into deep, deep nullsec. F76-8Q to be exact.

Yes, in between my location and home was the largest battleground in Eve.

So, I chart a course around all of the heavy action and 43 jumps later, 39 of those in NullSec, I managed to squeak by 3 gatecamps that I can only say I survived because I was "going in the wrong direction" - all the gatecamps were on the destination side of my warps, not the entrypoints.

So, although I was in a Caldari Navy Raven (yes, I was going for BS mass on closing the exit and yes I was dumb enough to risk a 4ooM fit CNR for WH busting, I can hear it already...), I managed a few quick aligns to various stellar bodies and maintain a step ahead of some pursuers, and got lucky enough to make it back to HighSec. Whew!

Seeing that I had brought my trusty old CNR missioning ship out of the dust bin on a whim, I decided this was a great opportunity to park it back in friendly territory, then flew the rest of my way back to my current LowSec exit (another 42 jumps) in a shuttle.

Basically a wasted night of fying all over New Eden, but managed to get a very expensive ship back to safety and learned another lesson on W-space exit management.

Fly Safe!

The grass is greener...

Today's C2 exit brought a surprise in the form of a packed system - so much here in fact (~60 sites) that I decided to move my entire base of operations into this adjoining system:

The move was long and complicated - long gone is the "Mongolian lifestyle" of hopping systems with my trusty little Small POS, Corp Hangar and Ship Maintenance Array. No, this was a 6-hour ordeal, even with twin, max-rigged Iteron 5's. With a month of fuel, all the defenses, the silos and other components for hybrid reactions, and subsystem construction, we are talking serious transport and logistics.

Turns out that this new system also contains static C2 and LowSec, so I lucked out and ended up in a new system and the same recurring exits. This system does not enjoy the shield regen bonuses my previous system had, however, which was noticeable when it came to clearing radar sites - I had to remote rep my Drake briefly for the first time in ages.

Ironically, just about the time I had finished up the move and was anchoring defenses, some visitors started coming through a new exit in my "old' system. I quickly acted to close the WH, but I could only get it to "Verge of collapse" as I did not know the remaining mass and did not want to risk leaving a ship on the other side.

Later, I found that a pilot had jumped through that critical WH (assuming it closed behind him/her) in a Helios and for some reason ran out of (or gasp! did not have) probes! I discovered the abandoned T2 Helios sitting right at the closed WH location - it also had heavy armor and structure damage, so not exactly sure what happened, but I now have a spare, fully fitted Helios... BTW - I love having the Ship Maintenance Array and the Corp Hangar. I simply swapped fittings on my alt for remote armor and remote hull repair and in less than 2 minutes I had a good-as-new second Helios.

All quiet now and I have cleared the 2 Radar and 8 of the sleeper sites. Will continue to clear while conditions are optimal (e.g. no visitors). Lots of sites to clear!

Fly Safe!

Podded!

We break from our regularly scheduled W-Space post to bring you an update on LightTraveler, who was last seen traveling to his old-old base of operations in Hykanima to clear out some old BPO Copy Jobs that were restricting his Reverse Engineering capacity here in W-Space.

En-route to said system, he reported passing through the oft-camped Onnamon-Kinakka gateway to LowSec. These were, after all, his LowSec stomping grounds for close to a year immediately prior to the Great W-Space Migration. Never a problem with his trusty CovOps, he had no problem jumping through and Warp-Cloaking to avoid the substantial gatecamp presence.

After logging that he successfully cleared the BPO Jobs in Hykanima , he decided to clean up some year-old fittings, selling some locally and then dropping the rest into cargo, including some old skill books that had long since been trained - he planned on dropping by Jita to put them on market on the return route to the new LowSec exit that opened in Lonetrek. He was last seen in Kinakka evaluating the longer route around the camped gate or to cloak through. Seeing that he had done so dozens of time previously, he was cleared to proceed and attempted the jump.

However, a cascading failure of internal warp and cloaking system malfunctions led to the demise of LightTraveler's long-lived Helios and his pod. His last report was from his Clone base in Isinokka, where he was showering before taking a shuttle to his new Helios. His return to the new LowSec exit is imminent.

(OOC) Classic EVE - before I even exited warp I was podded. How I could have been locked, shot, ship destroyed, pod-locked, and then podded before I even exited warp is beyond me, but I tally it up to game mechanics and lag at the heavily camped gate. I convo'd one of the campers and wished him best of luck with the loot drop - probably 20-30M in fittings and skill books. Not so much as a ripple in the wallet to replace and refit the Helios - I even took the opportunity to go get a Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher this time, which was on the Xmas List! Side note: I considered briefly attempting to move some of my 1o0+ BPO's and countless BPCs collected at that station, but without a construction or T2 production plan, decided they were fine where they were... Good thing, although I would have never attempted a gatecamp party-crash with BPOs..

Fly Safe(r)!

Hey there, Nice W-Space Setup

I toured the newly adjoining C2 this evening (just prior to my outing into K-Space that got me podded), and came upon a Russian corp POS. They were taking down a Ladar Site and not exactly being watchful (I toured the POS and Ship Scanned their Ladar ship at work and warped to 100km to convo).

I used the babelfish site within the In-Game Browser (IGB) to converse in broken Russian about how nicely laid out their POS setup looked, but too much of a language barrier. I closed the WH (well, on verge actually) and got on with my eventual podding.

Here is a good look at their layout (2x Hybrid Reaction sets, Subsystem Assembly, Large Assembly Array, multiple Corp Hangars and a Ship Maintenance Array, plus good defensive setup-not shown for their benefit, all METICULOUSLY anchored):


Upon returning LightTraveler to W-Space, now that the slots are opened up (I have max 4 jobs limit and 2 were consumed by a long-since completed BPO copy in K-Space) I resumed Reverse Engineering (RE) jobs.

Fly Safe! *(And curse lag)*

System traffic and reverse engineering

After nearly 4 weeks of mostly just my two static exits, this evening the new year welcomed a total of 6 Exits!

In addition to the static LowSec and C2, I had 4 K162's: a nearly expired (timer) C2, a new C2 (abandoned small POS, decent amount of sites and sigs), a new N766 C5 (Unoccupied but recently farmed), and a nearly expired (timer) HighSec exit. By the next morning all but my static exits remained.

Also, my favorite wormhole info lookup site, eWormhole, is Gone! Looks like not enough donations to keep it afloat. I have updated the link to a different wormhole info source.

Based on other comments, I cleared all but 2 of my sleeper sites. Many pilots have suggested that retaining one or more anomalies may affect the respawn rate. I think the idea is bunk, but willing to give it a shot. The system certainly respawned much faster while I was on vacation. At least double the respawn rate as compared to when I am clearing the system daily...

Even with all of the K162's, I have yet to have any aggression against the POS. Let's hope that streak continues!

Finally had a chance to complete my Reverse Engineering spreadhseets and supply them with actual yield ratios. The findings were thus: The way to go is Intact Relics, although this approach is going to require a significant up-front investment, since intact relics are the domain of higher class W-space.

So, I have a stack of BPCs for the subsystems I want to build and all of the required elements, just waiting for a few skills to finish up.

Happy New year everyone, and Fly Safe!