Market Milestones - 30b in One Month

After bringing in 18b in January, I expected trade profit in February to drop down to a more average 10b or so. However, with the introduction of skill injectors--combined with more time to play and a few trading side-projects that proved profitable--I ended up bringing in 33b for the month. That's not bad for only trading on one character, or just 300 orders! -The basics of the month are:

1. Skill injectors obviously made up a good portion of the trade profit for February. The margins have mostly fallen to 10-20% now, but I expect skill injectors to be a staple of my trade habits for some time. It is not so much the margins on injectors that makes for good trading, but the sheer volume:

Alright, so the 36k and 33k traded in skill injectors during the first two days is definitely a lot, but the initial hype was to be expected. What's really surprising, though, is how high the quantities have stayed a full month later. The quantity of injectors has yet to drop below 5k, and has in fact stayed closer to an 9k average (in Jita). That volume is higher than the PLEX volumes traded in Jita during the same period, which makes an unprecedented opportunity for traders. The point is, an initial rush of injector trading was expected, but a month later it seems that players have gotten used to occasionally using injectors. They seem to have become a regular part of the game for many players, something much like multiple character training or level 5 implants, that players want to grind isk for and use on multiple occasions. (E.g., I just used another 3 the other day to finish a level V skill I wanted to use. It is a habit now, just like training a month on an alt here and there.)

The real questions I am interesting for skill injectors at this point are:


     I. What will the lowest quantities be pre-Citadel release? Will they stay above 5k per day?
     II. What kind of spike will the Citadel release bring to the injector market?
     III. During the next period of "Stagnation" for the game (maybe late summer of 2016?) how 
     low will injector quantities fall?

I am interested in how these questions will play out over the next 6 months, if only for science.

2. Because I had a bit more time at the computer, I also did a bit of station trading in Jita. Spoiler: I traded in SKINs, as they are very low volume but very high margin. I made roughly 10b isk in the month I traded them. However, just a few hours of station trading here and there made me realize how much I cannot stand it. Not only do I not like updating orders, but I don't like having to remember to do it. The reason why I like regional trading is because I can update orders when I feel like it and then not think about the orders for a day or a week. Regional trading uses considerably less cognitive resources (because I can and do simply ignore it), which for me is just as valuable as time. But for anyone looking for some casual station trading, SKINs are a potentially worthwhile market. (Yes, players do sometimes sell them to incredibly low buy orders. I have no idea why, but it happens.)

3. Some trading side-projects have also proven decently worthwhile. Basically, I expanded where I trade to a null sec hub--maybe 12 items or so that are bought pretty frequently. Here's another spoiler: it is in P-Z, the very convenient Red Frog freeport in Querious. However, I was able to stock this location at first because I found a wormhole in system directly to HS. I stocked it on another occasion by flying a hauler through null, mostly for the fun of it. I don't yet know if I will be able to reliably stock this location, short of scanning for a wormhole every day or buying a jump freighter. The JF likely would not pay itself off for a few months, though, so it would be a risk (and time consuming) venture. This freeport has also seen an influx in station camps as well (I didn't know Rote Kapelle, who just moved in, did a lot of station and gate camping, but apparently they do), and there's always the possibility some group will entosis the station out of freeport sooner or later.

Exploring Every High Sec System

Exploring every system in EVE is a sort of goal I have. It is completely personal and arbitrary really, but the sandbox nature of EVE is amazing enough to make such goals worthwhile.

As of last week I've explored every HS system, as well as most of LS so far. I've made a decent dent in null sec space.

I've scanned for and run (I think) every exploration site that spawns in HS/LS, and I've searched every system for inactive POSes in HS at least once.

There's a lot of empty space in the game, that's for sure, but there's also a lot of unique space. And what is meaningful about the unique space is that it is not the developers who make it so, but the players living there who make this fascinating space world. 

Getting Rich Quick with Skill Injectors

I don't think there's ever been an easier time to get rich quick in EVE than during the last week, with the introduction of skill trading. All of a sudden, the market had an item which was traded in higher volumes as well as isk totals than PLEX, something I doubt we will ever see from an item again in the game's history. The Citadel expansion probably will not even compare in trading potential to the introduction of skill injectors.

Unfortunately, I did not have too much time to play in the last week; but fortunately, I had enough time to make an easy 20b and rising on skill injectors. It really was as simple as "buying low, selling high," especially when, in jita alone, tens of thousands are being traded each day. On the first day I was buying injectors for sub-700m and selling them for 900m or more. I did transport some, and not dying did indeed help making a profit. I know quite a few other traders made many times what I did. The leaderboards on EVE-Mogul have a few traders making over 50b in the last month, and those are just the semi-public cases.

Even if you only have a few billion isk, you can still get in on the trading wave by buying 1-2 injectors (especially if you can get them for sub-600m right now) and waiting, or shipping them elsewhere, to sell for 700m or more. Buy them in jita, for instance, and carefully ship them to Querious or Khanid, where lots of active new players currently are, and watch the profits roll in when you sell them for 700-900m before you can even get back to jita to restock your orders.

The demand for skill trading is far higher than almost anyone predicted. (It does go to show that reddit in particular--which had a surprising number of negative threads about skill trading--is not often representative of the interests of the average players who log in every week, the many players who apparently love skill injectors and are driving the massive volumes.) Of course, there was a huge demand on the first day, which has since fallen off as players finished remapping their alts/characters.

The first week is over, so what will the average daily volume of injectors settle on? Obviously, it depends a lot on the price of PLEX as well as the general activity level in the game. The volume in jita is now dropping to sub-10k per day, which leads me to expect an average of 2-5k per day in March. I would expect the volumes of injectors to decline each week until 1-2 weeks before Citadels, and then spike over that month until falling again in mid-summer. With injectors, volume matters more for trade than prices (especially if you are willing to transport them).

Huge Module Changes in March (an analysis of damage control, ewar, and other changes)

CCP released a bomb shell—or more like a bunch of little cluster bombs—to the meta, coming in the March release. Over a dozen module tiericde passes are coming, and to many of the most important modules in PVP--damage controls, damage amplifiers, webs, scrams, EWAR, and so on. The module rebalances coming in March look small but they are actually some very big changes for the meta across the board.

Module tiericide might seem like it does not heavily affect ship fits and the PVP meta, but many of the small changes CCP has made to modules have had greater impact than the ship rebalancing itself. For instance, the buff to shield extenders (lower fitting requirements and higher overall HP), especially the buffs to tech 2 versions as well as navy versions like the Republic Fleet shield extender line, has proven to be a significant buff to buffer shield tanking. The relatively low fitting and huge HP given by two Republic Fleet MSEs is part of what makes the svipul so powerful given its bonuses, for example.

So let's look at some of the more significant upcoming changes (keep in mind they are subject to revision) and see how they will affect PVP fittings and balance (solo and small gang fits in particular).

Damage Control Tiericide

Let's look at the biggest change first: Damage controls will now be passive modules, and all ships are getting a base hull resistance of 33%, and the bonus provided by all damage controls is going to be reduced by around a third. That. Is. Huge. Put the contentious issue of freighter ganking aside and focus on how major of a buff this is to the many powerful ship fittings which do not use a damage control currently.

Here are some very common pvp fits which do not use a damage control: Kiting Slicers (e.g. Chessur style), kiting Tristans, Jackdaw fits with 2 BCs, Flycatcher fits using 1 BC, pure armor tanking ships that do not often fit a DC such as are common on the Enyo, Retribution, Punisher, Maller, and so on. All of these fits and some others are powerful right now, and getting an added base hull resist makes them quite a bit more tanky. The Slicer and kiting Tristan in particular would be pushed from tier 1 class to overpowered in my opinion.

Oh god, I almost forgot to add the RLML Caracal (in addition to a few other RLML kiting setups) which already does not use a damage control (on 2x Nano 2x BC fits) and is insanely powerful and quite tanky already. It would be a huge stealth buff to many already OP ships.

My suggestion (one I made on the forums) would be to only add a 10-20% base hull resist, or to have tech 1 ships have a base hull resist of 10% and tech 2 ships have a base resist of 20%. In any case, 33% across the board is probably just too high.

But let's assume that CCP adds some amount of base hull resist—that is a huge buff to ships that do not fit a damage control, and the potential fittings that run without a DC increase tenfold. It would give more options for kiting setups—making more sense to sometimes swap a DC for another damage or speed mod—as well as some dedicated armor tanking setups that could better use another armor resist module.

What about the addition of faction damage controls? Solo PVPers who fly big stuff should be rejoicing at this news in particular. Regardless of the final cost of a faction DC, it would be a nice buff to battleship level solo PVP fits. If they are cheap enough, it may even make sense to put them on smaller ships as well, as the added resist bonus above the Tech 2 provides a worthwhile boost. Once this change is finalized I will go back over which fits in particular benefit the most, but I have a feeling CCP will be adjusting the numbers with damage controls soon.

Oh, and my mouse and hand thank CCP for making the damage control passive! <3

Damage Module Tiericide

Tech 1 damage modules are getting a (significantly) lower CPU variant and a buff to the damage in order to bring them closer to tech 2 versions. Some meta damage mods currently have more CPU than tech 2 versions, making them worse than useless right now.

First of all, this is a nice buff to new player PVP. Currently, tech 1 damage mods have high CPU costs and low damage output, meaning new players both have more fitting issues and much lower damage than they would if they could fit the tech 2 version. Over the years CCP has made many small balance changes that bring new player fits closer in ability to tech 2 or higher SP fits, and I am happy to see this trend continue.

Second, there are a few PVP fits I can think of off the top of my head which have CPU issues and would benefit from dropping a damage mod to a tech 1 version in order to not have to fit a CPU mod or rig. For instance, one of the most common Tristan fits is the kiting MSE version, but it has CPU issues which force it to lack a damage control or fit a CPU rig. Dropping the tech 2 DDAs to the (new) compact variant would let you either fit three DDAs for a small DPS buff at the expense of less speed from losing the nanofiber, or allow you to add a compact damage control for decently better tank. There's really nothing too major that will change with damage modules, but there will be some added options for fits that are tight on CPU.

Warp Disruptor, Scrambler, and Stasis Webifier Tiericide

The important change here is that Tech 2 modules here will now be better than the Meta 4 versions of scrams and webs, a nice change not only because Meta 4 versions of these items have skyrocketed in price but also nice simply to have a reason to use Tech 2 versions if the fitting space is available. Faction disruptors are being split into three categories based on their respective strength: those with the lowest fitting and cap use, those with the longest range, and those with a balance of stats. I still think the disruptors with longest range will remain the most used and expensive, simply because the fits that tend to use faction points do not generally struggle with small amounts of CPU or cap use.

When it comes to fitting non-faction scrams or webs, I think the priorities are generally going to remain favoring the highest range that can fit. So, Tech 2 webs and scrams are going to be preferable when they fit, and if they don't the compact version will probably be necessary. The lower cap use versions just don't make a big enough difference to be preferable in any case—unless, say, you are fleet tackle and expect to face neut pressure and want to have the lowest cap using tackle possible, but even then it is questionable how much the lower cap cost would really matter.

Some players have pointed out that the overall CPU requirements for current fits are going to increase, making some past fits tight on CPU need reworking. Gorski Car has a very nice post on reddit about how to adjust certain current fits after these changes, but the overall result is going to be that some fits will need to lower the meta level on one more damage control, web/scram, or even damage module, compared with how they currently fit. On tight setups, which module you keep as Tech 2 (the prop mod? DC? damage module? scram/web/point?) is going to be a more meaningful decision than it is now.

Cap Battery Tiericide

I love the proposed revamp of currently useless cap batteries, making them both add a base amount of capacitor while also adding a resistance to neut/nos pressure. Even though mid slots are extremely valuable, I can think of a few armor tanking fits I would love to use these on if the numbers were right. For instance, the Tech 2 medium compact battery would add (on the current numbers) 500 capacitor and -25 cap resistance. That would be reasonable to fit on a dual rep Myrmidon (the triple rep really needs the 2x cap booster), for instance and would be slightly more resistant to neut pressure and could do slightly more damage than a triple rep Myrm.

But, using a cap booster is going to provide better resistance to neuts in most cases anyway. And, on some ships that could really benefit from the battery, there does not seem to be a way to usefully fit the battery in the first place. On a dual armor rep Deimos, for instance, the battery would be incredibly useful, but with only 4 mid slots there's nothing you can get away with replacing.

The other big problem is, the CPU is too high on all of the sizes, and the PG is too high on the small variant. I think they would only be worth using if they had roughly the same fitting requirements as cap boosters (or maybe with slightly more CPU but similar PG). To be honest, to really be worthwhile instead of a cap booster, the battery needs to provide more resistance to neut pressure—such as in the range of 30% or more.

Sensor and ECCM Module Merger/Tiericide

Oh yes. Oh hell yes! I and other solo PVPers have made this very suggestion, and let's just say that this is probably one of my favorite small changes CCP has made in recent years. One of my biggest complaints about ECCM modules is that they provide no real use unless you are facing ECM, and the use they provide when you do face ECM is purely chance based and is not worth the slot for the module.

ECCM modules are getting merged with sensor boosters, and sensor boosters will get a script which specifically boosts sensor strength. Signal amplifiers will also be getting an added sensor strength bonus, which actually makes them useful to fit on some battleships for the added scan res as well.

ECM is still terrible game design, there's no gameplay or skill involved in it, and the range at which ships worth less than 1m isk can perma-jam virtually any other ship in the game is absurd, but this is a small step in the right direction.

The only downside to this change is that it is a stealth buff to the arty svipul. Now it gets another buff, an extra resistance to ECM. To be honest, with the added functionality of sensor boosters, their CPU should probably be quite a bit higher. 16 CPU for a Tech 2 sebo is insanely cheap given the added functionality it will be receiving.

Predictions about Skill Injectors (and why I'm fine with the pricing)

CCP released the initial pricing on skill extractors, then updated the prices slightly presumably in response to (negative) player feedback. I am happy they rounded out the price; and while I think the extractors would sell better if slightly cheaper, overall the prices are what I predicted and, frankly, in the range I think is reasonable for a pure item of convince that, if made too cheap or without diminishing returns, could threaten to ruin or cheapen one of the most fundamental and delicate systems in EVE. I particularly like that you can buy the extractors directly with cash, meaning no need to deal with PLEX to Aurum conversions that many players were frustrated with. CCP is also including extractors in subscription renewals for 3 months or longer. If my accounts were up for re-subbing I would definitely get the 6 month or 1 year renewal in light of the included extractors.

The ability to directly buy extractors and the fact that CCP added extractors to renewing a subscription (in addition to a small PLEX sale) will likely significantly dampen the rise in PLEX costs. I was expecting a massive spike in PLEX prices and demand starting February 9th, and while the isk cost does continue to climb, my guess would be PLEX will not go above 1.5b until the Citadel expansion, assuming the expansion is a major success. But, that's just my largely unfounded guess. It could be wrong, who knows.

I am still going ahead with my plan to use roughly 15+ extractors across all of my characters, and send that diminished SP all to long skills I would like on Sven, such as Drone Durability V and other 20+ day trains. Impatience might get the best of me and I may train skills on an alt just to get more skills, faster; we'll see! Many older players I've heard from have at least some plans for redistrubting skills on their characters, and some like JonnyPew are even planning to use over a hundred extractors. Skill trading is a completely optional system, but everyone can benefit from it in some way, and as a result I think occasionally using skill injectors will become almost as common as training a month of skills on an alt or getting a set of +5 implants. For instance, say CCP introduces new skills coming out in the next expansion. Stocking up on injectors would be a great way to get those skills to V on patch day.

Some new players I've heard from also plan to use just one or two extractors. Receiving or re-distributing 400-500k skill points is a significant change when you are new, with only sub-10m skill points. It is the difference between being able to do PI or not at all, flying a tech 2 ship, using a tech 2 weapon type, and so on.

The real impact of skill trading I am interested in is not just PLEX prices, it is also the total skill points across characters in EVE. Because the skill points still have to be trained at a fixed speed, we will likely see a noticeable decline in the average SP of characters in EVE. Many alts are going to be gutted down to 5m SP and many main characters are going to increase by 1-10m, but the diminishing returns will lower the overall SP of the playerbase. I think a 2-5% drop in average SP could be expected to result from skill gutting.

For my final prediction, the first injector loss will likely happen within an hour of the patch going live. Someone, I am confident, will throw an injector in an alt and blow the ship up, just to be the first player to destroy the new item. Heck, I would do it if I could get up that early!

Players often say that CCP doesn't listen, but that does not generally seem true. They revise plans, if ever so slightly, all of the time. Maybe they do not do exactly what many players want (some players were calling for extractors to be free, for instance) and maybe they do not always respond quickly (they do not have a lot of free dev time, after all), but they are by no means as bad as most gaming companies. So overall, I think they did an okay job with skill trading, and I'm excited for the new feature.

Table of Contents (Guides on EVE Lost and Found)

PVP Guides


Solo PVP in Every Ship
-Discusses my progress toward the biggest goal I have in EVE--doing solo in every ship--and lists ships killed and my favorite fits

Solo Stealth Boming
-My guide to doing effective bombing runs while solo.

Wormhole PVP: Part 1
-My first experience doing solo PVP while living out of a wormhole

3) A Nice 15b Isk Drop From a POS - But Is It Worth the Time?
2) Pillaging POSes: Now and Later
1) How I Made 15+ billion isk Shooting Starbases – Or, Unorthodox PVP Part II: POS Destruction
-A three part series on finding inactive POSes in high security space and destroying them for potentially large amounts of loot

Unorthodox PVP Part 1: Baiting Mission Runners
-My first guide on niche forms of PVP, from when I was a fairly new player.

5) Tons of New PVP Options with the (2015) December Release
4) Hunting the  Elusive Good Fight - November (2014) Solo PVP in Review
3) The Best Guide for New Player Solo PVP
2) What Solo PVP Looks Like - In Graphs
1) Practicing Flying Skills for Solo and Small Gang PVP
-Miscellaneous posts about my progress toward learning solo PVP, such as using out of game tools, learning to solo in null, finding fights during dry spells, ship fittings I've used, and so on

Exploration Guides

Sansha Wormholes for PVE and PVP
-A guide to making isk in the three Sansha wormholes, one of my favorite places for exploration and not widely known about in the EVE community

Besieged Covert Research Facilities - now spawning in a system near you
-Covers fittings for running besieged covert research sites as well as the average loot drops and value (currently being updated for 2016)
 
Gas Harvesting
-My experience making a one month character to harvest gas sites in wormholes

3) Four Months of Casual Exploration - Some Statisics
2) The End of an Era (with some exploration statistics thrown in) 
1) Exploration and Isk - 7 months of Statistics 
-A three-part series on living nomadically in low security space doing primarily exploration. This was how I made my first billion in EVE and then was able to PLEX two accounts doing something I really enjoyed.

Market Trading Guides 


2) Hauling 1 Trillion Isk
1) Safe(r) Hauling
-How I haul large volumes and isk amounts, without incident in over 2 years

2) Trading in Thera: Part 2
1) Trading in Thera: Part 1 - The Plan 
-A two-part series on a small trading project I did in Thera

3) Investing 100b Isk - Update II
2) Investing 100b Isk - Update I
1) Investing 100b Isk - An experiment
-A three-part series on a project a did that involved investing 100b isk in long-term markets

6) Market Milestones - Reaching 300b Isk
5) Market Milestones - 20b in One Month
4) Market Milestones - 200b Isk from Trade 
3) Market Milestones - 5 months over 10b Isk
2) Market Milestones - 10b in One Month
1) Market Milestones
-Covers all of the progress I have made in doing trading (regional and station) to make isk

3) Some Good Places to Trade
2) An Applied Introduction to Regional Trading: Part II - Items to Sell
1) An Applied Introduction to Regional Trading: Part I
-A three-part guide to getting into regional market trading, with specific examples of locations and items

Taking and Owning POCOs Solo 
-Covers the player-owned customs office system and how to (potentially) take over POCOs as a solo player. I also discuss the profit I make off a number of HS POCOs and how I would defend them if/when attacked.

Misc. Guides 
 
Ten Things You Can Do With a One Month Alt
-One of my favorite guides which covers a bunch of different useful alts you can make using only one month of skill training (particularly relevant since the release of skill trading)

Sansha Wormholes for PVE and PVP

This post is an introduction to PVE and PVP in Sansha shattered wormholes. Other players have written quality guides to shattered wormholes and frigate wormholes--the fantastic blog Interstellar Privateer has an introduction to these systems and their lore, and Invading Your Hole has a great series on making isk in these systems--but no one (to my knowledge) has talked much about Sansha systems. There are only three Sansha wormholes, making this form of gameplay niche even for EVE online. However, I spent a month in two of these wormholes with 4 characters (an exploration alt in two, a PVE character to run the bigger sites, and Sven to PVP), and I would say they have some of the most interesting PVP and PVE opportunities in the game (not to mention some of the most interesting lore--I mean, pirate NPCs living in a shattered wormhole, what's not to love already?!). I put an exploration alt in the Sansha system with a LS static, and another in the system with a HS static. If someone were to ask me what I would do for isk if I did not trade, I would say PVE in Sansha wormholes. In my opinion they combine many of the fun aspects of wormholes with null/low sec exploration all in one system.

The three Sansha systems are: 

1)  J010556. A Pulsar C4 class with static connections to HS, C1 space, and C2 space.

2) J011195. A C4 class with static connections to LS, C5 space, and C5 space.

3) J005299. A C4 class with static connections to NS, C3 space, and C5 space.

I will refer to these as the "HS," "LS," and "NS" Sansha systems, respectively. 

 The essential info about these systems is this:

-All three of these systems have at least 3 static connections (each to a different type of k-space), plus receive wandering wormhole connections. (The above WH statics might not be 100% accurate, but the k-space static info is accurate.)

-Only Sansha relic and data sites spawn in these systems--meaning no sleeper relic and data sites spawn here.

-All named Sansha combat sites spawn in these systems, from 1/10 to 10/10.

-Regular C4 gas sites spawn in these systems, containing sleepers.

-Sansha combat anomalies spawn in these systems, in great numbers, and including Sanctums.

-These wormholes get a huge amount of traffic. They have at minimum 3 static connections at any time, but also receive wandering connections (reflective of their C4 status). I have seen as many as 7 or 8 wormhole connections in the HS Sansha system and never fewer than 3 or 4.

-The first rule I discovered about these three wormholes is this: All of these wormholes get a huge amount of traffic. But, if you want to do PVP in Sansha wormholes, your best bet is to fly in J010556, the Sansha wormhole with the HS static. It gets considerably more PVE and PVP traffic than the other systems. However, if you want to do PVE, probably focus on either the LS or the NS Sansha hole.
 

How I Found the Wormholes (aka the lazy way)

For over 8 months I've been casually looking for a few (5 or so) particular wormholes, including any of the three Sansha wormholes. Wormhole dwellers can fairly quickly find particular holes by causing static connections to collapse and respawn, or just by waiting a few weeks, given the sheer number of connections they map. The method of simply manually search for a wormhole one system to another is theoretically feasible, but not practical. Instead, I've taken the long road to finding a few specific wormholes, which involves just checking the listing of wormholes connected to Thera on EVE Scout everyday. Sheer statistics worked, and after some eight months I've found the specific wormholes I had in mind. I've wanted to write this blog post for 8 months now, but I only found the wormholes in December. Hence the "lazy" way of finding wormholes!

PVE in Sansha Wormholes

In discussing PVE in these wormholes I am going to describe my method. My method is best suited for solo players, whereas groups can run the content much more straightforwardly. However, large wormhole groups would be better off printing isk in a C5/C6, so PVE in Sansha wormholes is probably better suited for solo or duo players anyway. 

Here was my method for PVE: I camped the LS Sansha hole J011195 for a little over one month. I placed a low SP alt in the hole in an Astero. This character essentially lived in the hole, using a mobile depot and occasionally dropping off loot into the LS system of the day. I primarily only did PVE once a week on this character. By far the most time consuming part of living in these systems involved scanning down the signatures--there were as many as 20 signatures in system at one time. Very few players do (/did) PVE in the LS/NS Sansha systems. One reason for this is because explorers looking for pirate relic/data sites in wormholes will immediately skip Sansha holes once they see the system is a C4. Traditional C4 holes do not spawn pirate relic/data sites, so Sansha holes get ignored (see below for how this plays out in PVP in the HS hole--it basically means mostly newer explorers visit, who do not know the type of wormholes to look for).

Anything you can do to speed up your scanning time will increase your isk per hour in these systems given the number of signatures and the fast respawn rate. I used the Astero because it could easily scan and run all relic/data sites in the system, first. My records suggest that around 4-5 exploration sites appeared in the hole per day, with as many as 10 present at one time(!). My theory for their respawn is that the respawn mechanics for Sansha wormholes is restricted to the pool of 3 Sansha systems. I believe this is the case because if I ran a relic/data/combat site in one Sansha wormhole, I would often see the site respawn in the other Sansha hole I was camping. I can't confirm this, but in any case all site respawn very quickly in these systems, meaning you can log in one day, run all the sites, and log in the next day with most of them back.

The second reason I flew an Astero is because it can easily run the 1/10 to 3/10  Sansha combat sites (it can run the 4/10, but it takes a very long time). The key to making good isk in Sansha wormholes--as well as staying alive, given how much traffic comes through these system with all of the wormhole connections--is blitzing the PVE sites as fast as you can, and knowing which sites in particular can be done quickly. There are two PVE sites that can be blitzed in less than 15 minutes: the 3/10, and the 5/10. For the 3/10 (the Sansha's Command Relay Outpost), there are just two pockets. You simply need to kill the overseer in the first room, loot the key (and see if any good but rare faction mods dropped), and then kill and loot the commander in the second room. With less than 3m SP I was able to run this site 6 times with an average time of around 5 minutes, and an average loot value of 50m. 

But, of course, you will often find Sansha 4/10 sites and all the way up to 10/10. If I found any of these sites I wanted to run (obviously the Astero can't do them), I would simply fly my alt in a Tengu to the LS connection, pop in, run the sites, and leave. In terms of isk per hour, only one of these sites is really worth it unless you have a friend to help speed them up: the 5/10. One of the best blogs about exploration in EVE, Pilgrim in Exile, covers this site in extensive detail. The key is, you can blitz the 5/10 in under 15 minutes. I am not going to cover how to blitz the site because I can't add to what Pilgrim already has, but it is worth noting that you can blitz this site in a number of different ships. He has a specialized HAM Tengu that is very fast, but HML Tengus also work (and can still complete the site in under 15 minutes), and the Ishtar and Gila work well too. I ran around 7 of these sites, an average time of 13 minutes, and an average isk of 200m. 

If the wormhole does not have players actively hunting, I also run the 4/10, 6/10, and sometimes 7/10 Sansha sites. All can be done solo in an Ishtar, Tengu (except the 4/10 since you cannot enter in T3 Cruisers), and other typical PVE ships. However, all of them take a fairly long amount of time since you cannot blitz them like the 3/10 and 5/10, but are often worth doing if you have the time.

As mentioned, I primarily did PVE in the LS Sansha system. However, the HS Sansha system has one advantage: it has the effects of a C4 Pulsar. This significantly buffs shield tanking, and makes it possible to run the 7/10 and up using shield fit ships like the Rattlesnake or Tengu and so on. After around a month of very casual PVE in these systems (doing PVE sites only once or twice a week), I came away with over 3b isk. You could easily farm one of the holes and make upwards of 5-10b isk a month in them if you were active two or three times a week.

PVP in Sansha Wormholes

I also had a second project I wanted to explore in these wormholes: PVP. My overall opinion from a month of PVP on Sven in the HS Sansha wormhole is this: You get a ton of traffic through the wormhole, but it is primarily two groups of players. First, you get some newer explorers. More seasoned explorers will often pass the wormhole up because they do not expect a C4 to have relic/data sites, while veteran explorers who might be living in the Sansha hole are difficult to catch. Second, though, you have the wormhole groups who find a connection to the Sansha systems and want to run the sites. I have seen wormhole groups bring in 5-10 players in Gilas and Asteros and clean out the system in a few hours. There is not much I can do against such groups as a solo player (especially in the weird off-meta stuff I fly). However, it is a great place for wormhole groups to find PVE groups to kill. Here is my only notable example:

I am on the killmail, at the very bottom. Here is how I organized the death of this 3b isk Golem: One night, there was a random connection to null sec in the HS Sansha wormhole, to I N F A M O U S space. A covert ops explorer pops in, then leaves. He comes back in a Golem and starts running the Sansha Sanctum anomalies that populate the system. Of course, I am a solo player and never have anyone to "Batphone." I also don't have any big ships nearby (and it turns out he had a mobile depot with warp core stabs to refit if tackled (hence the stabs on his loss mail--those were refit), so I would have lost the kill solo anyway). So, I looked at the killboard history for the wormhole, and contacted a group that was active there a few hours prior. 20 minutes later, they show up in a T3D fleet, and thankfully the Golem is still present. I decloak and pew just to get on the killmail. The group even gives me the loot for providing the intel, how nice! :3

But beyond this instance, there were no other notable kills I got or was on, and in total I only got 19 kills in the HS Sansha system. A regular C1 with a HS static would have netted more kills in a month in my opinion. I am still the top all-time killer in J010556, though, and those 11 kills in the Endurance in the system are from me (lol)!

Sansha wormholes are one of the rare instances in EVE where I would say the PVE opportunities are more exciting (to me) than the solo PVP opportunities. In the future I may return to these wormholes to PVE (especially if I ever stop market trading), as they provide a really niche and unique type of gameplay in EVE with their combination of pirate NPCs in shattered wormhole systems.

If there is anything I can do to improve this guide, let me know! Any suggestions or further info about these wormholes would be much appreciated, as I believe a few others players regularly do PVE in these holes as well.