Quarterly Report: Q1 2011

        Hello there! Welcome to the first quarterly report of my piracy career (first documented, at least!) I've started with a quarterly report purely for continuity reasons and so you can get an idea of how I've got on from the turn of the year. If at any point you are confused by the data provided just refer to the section provided; If You're Confused and that should provide the material needed for you to engage with the data. As this is all new, keep in mind that the isk counter is set to 0 (this is not respective of my actual wallet amount in-game, for privacy reasons). As time goes on, the counter will obviously change based on my net profit/loss each month. Unfortunately the data provided excludes any isk gained through salvaging, so only loot drops and ransoms are measured. Lets begin. 

The first graph we have is a battle timeline for the first quarter of 2011:

        As you can see from the graph, my pirating during January and February was limited when compared to March. Almost 2/3 of the battles for the quarter take place in March, which turned out to be my weakest month in profits. February proved to be the most lucrative month, bringing in an approxited 50-60 million isk over the course of the month. Largely however, both January and February proved quite stable for income with only a few heavy losses incurred throughout. 

March is an interesting month, mainly due to the incredibly large drop in income that occurs. This was a Dramiel loss that I had invested heavily in; net profit had risen up to near 160 million before the loss and crashed right down to rock bottom afterwards. March also proved to be the most erratic month when isk is considered. I had entered a funk and it shows in blinding truth here, as the profit bounces up and down continually. I nearly even dip into the negative at one point late in the timeline, though a few good victories save me from the red. An overall (approximated) profit of 40 million for the quarter. This includes the investment and replacement of lost ships of course; not bad I'd say! 

The next graph provided plots my area of activity across New Eden:

        As is common knowledge I base out of Hevrice along with the rest of the Tuskers. You can see that the bulk of my activity is around this region, branching out both ways from home base. There's also healthy activity that occurs along the pipe towards the Heimatar faction warfare hub system Amamake. I regularly take trips, either in a gang or solo, to the system and it's clear that it proves to be a quality place to fight. It's clear that I manage to get around a lot of places, though it's lucrative to stay at home. 

        The next graph is a breakdown of profit by ship type flown:

        This particular graph holds special interest to me for a number of reasons. Firstly, it appears that assault ships aren't quite as bad as I thought. There is a large error bar indicating that my success with them is sporadic at the best of times, though I manage to ultimately break even with them during use. This means I might contemplate taking another few chances with the AF class too. Secondly, both interceptors and battlecruisers proved to be my isk making machines. The price to performance ratio on both the Interceptor class (in my opinion) and especially the battlecruiser class is rather good and that's displayed in the graph. The difference lies in the error bars once more, revealing that battlecruisers are a safer investment and provide a steadier and more constant stream of income. There are a few variable that affect this; I never fly a battlecruiser solo and the targets I take are generally more lucrative. 

        In a shocking turn of events it appears that my two most flied classes (namely Tech 1 frigates and the Faction Frigates) are overall the weakest classes for isk profit. I put the Tech 1 class down to my willingness to throw them away a little more on crazy targets if I think I have a ghost of a chance, though it's apparent that my Faction Frigate usage needs to be altered. The error bar is absolutely massive on these things; they embody the gambling aspect of New Eden as I've been known to foolishly pump money into 'investments' before, only to lose them in a fire; case and point being the Dramiel. It's also surprising (though makes a lot of sense considering Eve's mechanics) that the Tech 1 hulls have low error bars and thus represent consistency, whilst the Tech 2 (and faction) hulls have high error bars. The EAF that I flew proved to be useful, though only one was flown so there wasn't much chance for any correlation to show itself. With that being said, lets go take a more in depth look at the faction frigates themselves...

        My prediction holds true! The actual faction frigate class appears to be (collectively) my most lucrative class of them all. Battlecruisers only accounted for 15 million isk profit over the quarter, yet if we remove the Dramiel from the statistics (hypothetically of course) then the faction frigate crew netted me in excess of 40 million! Unfortunately the Dramiel loss drags that all back down leaving me to break even. It's interesting that the Imperial Navy Slicer isn't my best ship for isk as we see here (though I do make a killing with the offline salvager and foolish Jaguars!) and that the Federation Navy Comet proved to make me the isk when I needed it. Fortunately I've got two in the hangar that I've barely flown; I think undocking one might be in order soon!

        All in all, a minor profit across the board. It might not look like much but you have to remember that the ships lost are generally replaced. I've managed to make a profit of 40 million isk whilst doing nothing but piracy and I'm happy with that. I'm already well aware that April is going to be a roller coaster months; some big losses on my end, some even bigger kills having been made. The April journal will appear when May hits so keep an eye out for that! Till next time, fly safe.