Quarterly Report: Q2 2011

Welcome to the 2nd Quarterly Report of the Journals of a Baroque Pilot. Due to the amount of work involved with tracking the data here and producing these rather pretty graphs (thanks to Bonni3 for the graphs!) The blog has turned into a quarterly report rather than the originally intended monthly instalments. Positive aspects of this includes more quantitative data to analyse. I would recommend keeping the first quarterly report open in a separate tab etc. as there will be a great deal in comparison between the two as I hope to better understand my habits as a pirate. 

Firstly a disclaimer; I have been aware even before pulling any actual concrete statistics that this quarter has been the most devastating to me in my piracy career. I lost over 1/4 of my lifetime ship losses (which is spread across 1 year and 8 months) in this small 3 month period. There are even blog posts on Journeys of a Baroque Pilot that discuss (or moan) about the issue. This coincided with a extended period of solo roaming that I embarked on, albeit not intentionally) due to real life circumstances. As we look deeper I can only assume a trend might emerge from these preliminary statements. Let's begin!

Below is an overview of all recorded battles for this quarter:

        The first thing to note over Q1's data is that there are nearly 4 times the amount of battles that occurred over the course of the 3 month period. In conjunction with that both the maximums and minimums on the 'Net Profit' y-axis are also about 4 times more than that of Q1. Already there's a trend noticeable within these early realisations. There is even a visual trend between the two graphs, as one would expect, due to the types of ships I flew and lost. I clearly hadn't quite learnt my lesson. I flew many, many expensive ships throughout the quarter and lost the large majority of them. Statistics state a close to 2 billion isk loss sink over the entire quarter. 

April was the most explosive month for me; profits rose up to heights of 500 million isk, with losses falling well down to -80 million isk. April also housed around 1/2 of the overall fights during the quarter. The only other point at which I ran into the negative value for profit was during June, though the value is negligible. Despite the heavy losses I still managed to pull an overall profit of 50 million; loot and ransoms combined - salvage still excluded from the totals. As always, ships lost are generally replaced so the overall profit whilst keeping a stocked hangar is something I'm quite impressed with overall, even in spite of the devastating loss streak I endured. 

Below we have efficacy of ship types: mean profit/loss (note that some bars throughout this report will not have error bars - this is because only one of that ship type was flown/lost)

        The evidence given here houses a lot to talk about in relation with the first quarter. We'll start with a positive first to get the ball rolling, namely in that I improved my profit ratio for tech 1 Frigates which had prior been a negative source of income for me. Unfortunately, however, both Assault Frigates and Faction Frigates posted a loss in this second Quarter. This is bad news for me as I thoroughly enjoy flying both classes - it appears that I will need to address how I use both classes and and rectify that in the coming months. I also posted incredibly heavy losses in Faction Cruisers (namely the Stabber Fleet Issue) as I was trying to get used to it and unfortunately lost a fair few throughout. 

        Once again both Interceptors and Battlecruisers post big profits in isk, this time with the error bars closing in and becoming more akin to one another. I should seek to utilize Interceptors more, despite many people's reservations that they are a dying class of ship (when compared to factions frigates and Assault Frigates). The Interceptor I fly most is the Crusader, one that many deem to be rather weak due to it's slot layout and overall tank ability. I feel that an in-depth look at this specific ship might be in order over in the world of Journeys to see if I can demystify any of these beliefs for prospective pilots. My Vagabond has shown it's colours and posted a massive 75 million isk profit amount! Bear in mind that at the point of time this Vaga hadn't been destroyed - the profitability of that ship would change drastically once it become a 170 million isk hole. Once again I am going to break down faction frigates next to see whether I managed to address the issues raised in the past quarter (on top of the fact that I fly this type most frequently and there are two tiers within the category). 

Below we have the breakdown of efficacy of faction frigates: this includes losses

        The first thing to notice is the change in Dramiel profitability throughout the period. This was the only faction frigate that I posted losses with in Q1 and whilst the same holds true it appears that the profitability has shifted slightly in favour of the hull. Perhaps with some more focused attention I can turn that ship into a profitable aspect of my piracy career, rather than a guilty pleasure. It's also clear that the entire line of 'Pirate' faction frigates all post a large loss for me through and through. I went on a tour of them all and in such lost them all rather quickly without ever getting anything great in the way of kills. The Daredevil is my biggest failure in the whole ordeal; no matter how much I try to achieve in that ship I seem to always die in a fire. I really need to go cold turkey on that thing!

        Thankfully the 'Navy Series' of faction frigates still post very encouraging profits for me. Not a single one came out negative and this brings up interesting observations. The performance/price ratio is obviously skewed in favour of the Navy Frigates but I hadn't realized to what degree the extent of that is. It really does take a lot of work to pull a profit in the Pirate Frigates - both due to the already large expense of them, along with target opportunities likely being smaller (due to fear of the ship themselves; something the Dramiel in particular is afflicted with). I feel that I should be pulling back on the Use of Pirate Frigates and making more use of the Navy Series as I pirate through Q3 if I wish to pull a larger overall profit. 

This is a graph that focuses on a request from the Q1 report before; mean isk yield per ship type per battle: does not include losses, does include ransoms.

        Bear in mind that this graph focuses on the potential amount of profit that I could make for each ship class per battle, removing the prospect of losing the ship. Here we see that it's the Faction Frigates and Battlecruisers that seem to carry the largest possible isk profits based on the types of fights I have engaged with them. I would bring this down to the fact that I engage a lot of other faction frigates (which tend to have expensive modules on them); Battlecruisers have the capability to allow me to confidently engage bigger and badder targets and as such the amount of isk that's at stake is far greater. It's interesting to note that Interceptors actually carry the lowest amount of potential isk gain as a ship class despite being the most profitable for me overall for the quarter. This means one must have a more rigid play style to consistently find and win fights in Interceptors without losing them to break even. Finally we'll take a look at another staple in the career of piracy; ransoming. 

Ransom Total: the number above each bar is how many ransoms were received for each ship class

        There's really only one thing we can pull from this graph; ransoms are profitable! In seriousness though, there's a huge trend towards faction frigates catching those elusive pods, something that can likely be attributed to their incredibly high lock time and the targets that I engage also likely having expensive implants for me to base my requests upon. I obtain well over 200 million isk in ransoms from that class which is truly fantastic, though it needs to be said that without the sheer number and amount of isk that I ransom when using Faction Frigates I would end up with an absolutely huge isk hole in my profits - keep that in mind. Another interesting development in the on-going analysis of Interceptors; there were no ransoms! One would think that the beyond awesome lock speed would mean I catch pod after pod, yet there must be a discrepancy in the targets I take on that means no isk comes back my way. 

         Ultimately we end the quarter with an approximated 50 million isk profit and some more data to base my future goals upon. I will be kicking Pirate Frigates for the largest part whilst ramping up my use of the Navy Frigates and Interceptors. This will hopefully put a far more positive spin on the Faction Frigate class and give some more profits back to me. I've had great luck with my very First Vagabond, obtaining a total of 67 kills with it before I finally lost it this past week due to some sleep deprivation and general failure on my behalf. I will be intrigued to see the figures of that ship in the coming report regarding the next quarter. 

        I will be looking to do some more in-depth analysis of specific ship types as the blog continues to evolve - various fittings and their effectiveness when using the Rifter hull for an example. I will likely still tie these in with data from the QR's and provide separate posts to give these investigations the attention they deserve. I can even look into the war between nano kiting and brawling ships to review their efficiency in the current state of low-sec piracy (though I have my assumptions already on this debate). I will be posting up a poll to gauge interest in a few areas I could look at and will keep mindful of what you guys want from this. 

        As always comments are very much appreciated, I have been taken back by the incredibly positive response from everyone about the focus of this blog and rest assured I am committed to continuing the growth of this blog, of Journeys and of the future ventures I'll be embarking on (more on that in future posts!) Let me know what you guys want to see, tell me about your experiences as pilots and even come to your own conclusions on the stats I've provided. The more discussion the better! 

All the best o7

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.