All these bases are belong to CCP

This land is my land…sort of*

This land is my land

You better get off

I have a railgun

I’ll blow you head off

As I was flying the Jita highway

I saw above me an endless skyway

I saw below me, a Waskisen valley

This land was made by CCP

(*With apologies to Woodie Guthrie)

All these bases are belong to CCP – as Eve Online fans know (at least those who have taken a look at the planets between June 8^th and now) the rumors of players being able to claim entire planets are greatly exaggerated.  There is no doubt, however, by being a bit obtuse about the entire matter that the good folks at CCP lent an air of excitement to the entire Planetary Interaction process on the first day of it’s release.

Our factories on Waskisen I, III, IV and VII are now running full tilt, producing fuels for player owned stations (POS)  – Oxygen, Enriched Uranium,  mechanical parts, and a few items for export (like Fertilizer) as well. All told if the corporation doesn’t want them for the POS at least they will make a heck of a big bang.

Our colony on Waskisen I

Along the way to getting our factories in operation I discovered that a few of the fears where based on nothing but lack of information; as fears often are.  Much to the chagrin of the resident can-flippers (ore thieves) that always inhabit each system, there is a way to entirely thwart anyone who would grab the goods once they are launched from the colony into orbit. Around each planet there now orbits a customs office with which the player can interact, cutting would be thieves out of the equation.

Customs office transfer on Waskisen III

It works like this

As a side note, one of the questions I often see in the help channel is “how do I get my command center back?”  The answer is, of course, you don’t – once it’s placed thats it.  If you get rid of your command center you will receive a warning that your entire colony will go with it.  In fact I have already done this once to upgrade a command center in order to obtain more CPU and power, and thus be able to build more structures.

If you have taken a gander at the training video by CCP in our earlier article you no doubt have an understanding of the basic process – first the extractor pulls the material out of the ground (heavy metals in the case of our colony on Waskisen III.  A base factory turns the heavy metals into toxic metals. However the toxic metals are only one half of the equation (see this link provided by Stabs for a full list of materials and what they produce).   The base processor/factory that produces the toxic metals is then routed to an advanced processor that will combine toxic metals and precious metals we import from our colony on Waskisen I.  Once that factory gets the proper mix of precious metals and toxic metals it is routed to storage waiting for pickup.

materials ready for launch (not to command center) on Waskisen VII

Getting through Customs

Fortunately, getting through virtual customs is a lot less painful than getting through real customs (no waiting).   And here is why using the customs office is important. As you noticed in the CCP tutorial, simply launching your goods into space is a one way trip.  In order to make the enriched uranium we need precious metals and Waskisen III has no way of producing them – and the only way of bringing materials back in to a planet is by using the customs office.

Back on Waskisen I our colony is taking noble metals and turning them into precious metals where they are stored waiting for our attention.  The precious metals are transferred (in game this is called “expedited”) from storage to the launch pad (not the command center) and from there to the customs office. 

Look up in the sky – it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s an indie

The skies of many systems are now filled with industrial ships (Indies) and the next step in the process is why.  In order to transfer your goods to a station or one of your colonies on another planet you have to fly to the customs office above the planet.  Open your Indie’s cargo, open the customs station cargo, and transfer the goods (drag and drop).  To bring the materials from one planet to another (Precious metals from Waskigen I to Waskigen III in this case) just reverse the process.

Truth or error

A couple of questions I have, and will make it a point to discover, is whether or not you can use a freighter to transfer goods from a customs station to a cargo hold.  I expect this isn’t possible in that it is also not possible to pick up floating giant secure containers.   No doubt there is no way (at least for the present) to damage another player’s colony (mind you Dust 514 may change that).  The possibility here, speaking as a covert ops pilot, is to run a colony/factory in low security space from a covert ops frigate since the factories can be run from anywhere in the system. The problem thne becomes, of course, getting the finished product out of the system in once piece, if at all.