This guide is intended to be used in conjunction with the Base Havers PI Program service. Vale Inc. Citadels & IHUB Upgrades

• Mechanics III
• Cloaking III
• Energy Grid Upgrades III
• Power Grid Management IV
• Evasive Maneuvering III
• High Speed Maneuvering II
• Warp Drive Operation II
• Cybernetics II
• Advanced Planetology III/IV
• Command Center Upgrades IV/V
• Interplanetary Consolidation IV/V
• Planetology IV
• Remote Sensing III
• Astronautics Rigging I
• Jury Rigging III
• Shield Upgrades I
• Gallente Industrial IV

An Epithal (Gallente Industrial) Fit with the following:

[Epithal, Base Haver PI]
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Warp Core Stabilizer I
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II

50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Medium Azeotropic Restrained Shield Extender
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Medium Ancillary Current Router I
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I
Medium Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I

This ship can do the cloaky mwd trick, which you should learn before you take any gates with it. This user's video does a good job of explaining it.

The Warp Core stabilizers and shield extender protect against light tackle. The only adversary that poses a strong, lethal threat is a Hictor, Dictor or any ship armed with bubbles. If you somehow end up jumping through a gate into a bubble then the gate crashing tactic explained in the video linked above might save you but it's unlikely. You should utilize TEST's ingame intel channel “TEST Intel Channel” and avoid unnecessary risk.

The Base Haver PI Program is not currently running. You're welcome to use this as a general guide, but as of now there is no buyback or structure building program.

Join the group Base Haver PI in Auth if you haven't. This will add a room to discord where you can speak with us and fellow program members directly. It's the preferred place for questions, generally. https://auth.pleaseignore.com/groups/request/573/

We have a list of assignments each with 5-6 planets. For each character working the program you use our web app to request an assignment, start making those things (details on how to do so below if needed), and move them to the hauling location listed at the top of your assignment. Contract only the items in your assignment for 0 isk to the Base Haul corporation once every 1-4 weeks. We'll pay you generally within 2-7 days and haul the stuff to a central location where it will be used to produce structures locally.

• Log on to http://pi site (defunct) using your main character. This is the character name we can use to contact you on TEST discord and on the forums.
• Click “Characters” at the top and add any alt characters you plan to use for PI. You must be logged in as your main character for this.
• Click “Assignment List” at the top of the page.
• Find an assignment listed as open, select the PI character you'd like to work that assignment and click “Request”. Retired assignments can be opened on request.
• Once you've completed this for all desired alts, mention in the PlanetaryInteraction discord channel that you've requested planets. You can start working your requested planets immediately. We'll verify that we can contact you in the PI channel before we approve the assignments.
• It's recommended after setting up your first planet to post a screenshot to discord. This allows us or your peers to catch any obvious mistakes.

Once you have been assigned planets to work please follow the instructions laid out below to set up the planets.

Most of the commodities used in the creation of P4s are P2s. Four P1s are also required. One P3 is sourced from legacy orders in Jita and is not produced locally.

While some of these P2 commodities can be made on two different planet types, most are only viable on one. A variety of factors comes into play in determining the value of each commodity.

• The rarity of the planet type that produces it
• How heavily the commodity is utilized by P4 schematics
• Whether the commodity is also utilized by other sectors (POS fuel)
• The scarcity of a P0 component that may be shared with other P2s
• The # of different P2 commodities each planet is relied upon to produce

Together, along with the volatility of the highsec market, these factors can reduce one commodity to as little as 1/4th of the price of another commodity even though both commodities require the same amount of effort to produce by the player.

When you are assigned commodities to produce it may be tempting to go off script and produce one of the more lucrative ones. Please do not do this. The balance between all the individual ingredients is tedious and paper-thin, if you end up producing the wrong thing you will not only crash the market for your new production, you will drive up the value of the commodity you did not produce. In finding yourself sharing a planet & production delegated to other players you will also notice a depletion of the resources you need. Ultimately it is in your best interests to stick to the plan as all of the assignments are balanced to offer every user an equal share of the profits.

If you want to test a colony design without having to build it try using this nifty tool provided by fellow TESTie Kurt Midas.

All of the schematics for P2 commodities are listed in this graphic.

• Requires command center upgrades V.
• Built on planets with a radius smaller than 15,000km.
• 2 day extraction cycles.
• Produces 360 units of a P2 commodity per day from 3 Advanced Industrial Facilities (540m3).
• Should be emptied every 8-10 days.
• Cannot create Microfiber Shielding, Polyaramids, or Silicate Glass, as those commodities utilize resources that cannot be sourced from a single planet.

Watch the video below to learn how to build one. (Watch it in HD)

These factories make efficient use of the planet's resource patches. The natural replenishment rate from the patch displayed on the right would be more than sufficient so supply one of the resources.

When you have your scanner set to 1 bar below maximum (as shown in the graphic) you can assume the following:

• White patches are unreliable nugget spawns
• One ample red patch will support two P2 colonies
• One narrow, extended red patch will support one P2 colony, the ECU will not need to be relocated (unless it is a nugget)
• One ample orange patch will support one P2 colony
• One small/thin orange patch will need to be supplemented with other orange patches
• When no orange patches are available you can substitute a vast yellow patch so long as the other resource your colony utilizes has ample red patches. Run 6 extractor heads on the yellow patch and 4 on the red

You will frequently come across planets that are technically capable of producing the commodities you want, but an anemic supply of the necessary resources renders them entirely unsuitable. Sometimes it's due to an over-exploitation by the community (like any lava planet in our staging), sometimes its innate to the planet's type (coolant on gas planets) and sometimes the planet was deliberately seeded with a defective attribute (complex organisms on temperate/oceanic planets). In any case, working on a stunted planet is frustrating and under-rewarding. Whatever you are manufacturing can be made somewhere else, try a different commodity or location. Base Haver's PI service is designed to work around the limitations of every planet in TEST space.

• Recommended over the Dual-Extractor version in most cases.
• Build on planets with a radius smaller than 20,000km.
• Only requires command center upgrades IV.
• Easier storage management.
• 2 day extraction cycles.
• Produces ~360 units of a P2 commodity per day from 3 Advanced Industrial Facilities (540m3).
• Should be emptied within 18 days.
• Cannot create Microfiber Shielding, Polyaramids, or Silicate Glass, as those commodities utilize resources that cannot be sourced from a single planet.

The tutorial video for the dual-extractor colony embedded above explains most of what you need to know to create this single-extractor variant.

These colonies are very similar to the dual-extractor version, but only extract 1 resource at a time into each storage facility. You run the extractor for 48 hours extracting 36,000-41,000 units per hour, then the Extractor Control Unit is decommissioned and a new one is built on the other resource patch. This new Extractor Control Unit is then linked to the other storage facility and the process repeats.

You will have to remember to re-route your new extractor control unit to its storage facility each time you rebuild it, if you forget then all the resources in that cycle will be lost and wasted.

When constructing this colony, start by placing the launchpad roughly in the center between two patches of the target resources. Build three advanced industrial facilities around the launchpad tucked in as tight as possible. Next create two arms of basic industrial facilities reaching out towards the resource patches three buildings long on each side tucked in as close to each other as possible. Finally, build two storage facilities, one at each end of the BIF arms.

Place the extractor control unit so that it covers one of the target resource patches. Now link all the buildings together as shown in the image on the right. Finally, upgrade the connection between the ECU and its storage facility to level 1. Double check the your colony's current power consumption, if it is greater than 13,500 then you will not be able to place all ten extractor heads.

Install schematics in your facilities, three of the BIFs produce one P1 (the one that's created from the resource being extracted on that side) which are routed to the launchpad. The AIFs produce the final P2 which is also routed to the launchpad. Install an extraction program into the ECU the same as you would on a dual-extractor P2 planet and route those materials to the nearest storage facility.

Route the P0 resource your ECU has routed to your storage facility out from that building to the three BIFs it supplies. Since your other storage facility doesn't have anything routed to it you can only create routes from it if you tell your only ECU to extract the wrong resource and route it to the wrong storage which you may want to do to get construction over with. Don't switch extractions if you have already saved changes with an extraction cycle active as that would waste all the resources from the cycle. Lastly, route the P1 resources being routed into your launchpad back out to the advanced industrial facilities.

Again, don't forget to re-route your ECU to its storage facility when you rebuild it. This is a very common mistake and can cause harm to your forehead and keyboard.

If you only have CCU trained to IV try to keep your ECUs spaced as close together as possible. Planets over 15,000km in size are going to be a tight fit.

3 of the twenty-four P2 commodities cannot be created on 1 planet because they utilize P1s that must be sourced from two different planet types. These “black sheep” commodities are Microfiber Shielding, Polyaramids and Silicate Glass. These could be created by cross-swapping between two planets but it is far more efficient to employ the hybrid factory method, skip the P1 > P2 step and go directly from P1 > P4 on commodities that use the 3 black sheep.

The P1 commodity “Biomass” is also necessary to produce in Vale of the Silent due to a shortage of good Ice Planets for the creation if Supertensile Plastics.

Consider these factors when scouting for a P1 colony:

• The planet's radius should be less than 30,000 km, and at that maximum radius you will need to leave no gaps between any buildings
• Your final production will range from 5760 to 7680 units per day (6 to 8 basic industry facilities worth)
• P1 colonies deplete the resource they utilize much faster than P2 colonies. No patch is sustainable
• Eventually you will need to relocate the colony on the planet
• These colonies are much more valuable than the P2 planets and should always be your top earner

Create a colony as depicted in the image below.

1. Begin by placing the Storage Facility near a vast deposit of the target resource.
2. Surround the Storage Facility with 4 Basic Industry Facilities and 2 Launchpads, keep everything as close together as possible.
3. Add another 2-4 Basic Industry Facilities (depending on skills) and 2 launchpads.
4. Plant your Extractor Control Unit in the resource patch.
5. Link together all 14 buildings. Connect the Extractor Control Unit directly to the Storage Facility. No building should be more than 2 links away from the Storage Facility.
6. Upgrade the link between the Extractor Control Unit and the Storage Facility to level one.
7. You will be able to add all 10 Extractor Heads if the colony's powergrid is lower than 13,500 at this point. 8 or 9 may suffice if you only have CCU IV.

1. Configure your Extractor Control Unit to extract on a 2 day, 30 minute cycle. Total output should fall between 36,000 to 54,000 units/hour. 48,000 units/hour is enough to keep all 8 Basic Industry Facilities 100% busy.
2. Route the ECU's products directly to the Storage Facility.
3. Install the schematic for your P1 commodity in all 8 Basic Industry Facilities.
4. While you are doing that, route the products to the 4 Launchpads. 2 BIFs should be paired with each Launchpad.
5. Now go back to your Storage Facility. Under the “routes” tab you will find an incoming stack of your P0 resource and 8 transiting P1 commodities.
6. Click on the incoming P0 stack and click “Create Route”. Link this route to one of your Basic Industry Facilities.
7. Create another route from the P0 stack to the other 7 Basic Industry Facilities.

You're all finished!

A P1 colony running at maximum capacity needs to be emptied every 13 days. When you pick up the final product in the Customs Office you will need to empty all 4 launchpads one-at-a-time.

If you deplete all of the target resource around your colony you will need to relocate it. No planet has a replenish rate that can keep up with 10 extractor heads. Don't fret, you'll get faster at it.

Remember when you are relocating your Extractor Control Unit to reestablish the product's route to the Storage Facility. If you forget to make the route then you will deplete the planet's resources and gain zero production in return.

Sometimes your assignments will contain “Transfer” colonies which are a pair of planets that each extract their own P1 commodity and combine them on the “upgrader” colony to create the final P2. One of these colonies labeled as a “transfer” colony is going to be a standard P1 colony while the other one is made into an upgrader colony as depicted in this chapter of the guide.

To be clear - Only one of these two “transfer” planets is going to use the this setup to make the assigned P2. It will extract one of the two commodities required by the P2 schematic and upgrade them to the final P2. The other planet is going to be a P1 colony that produces the other P1 commodity which you will load into the “upgrader” colony to complete the schematic.

It's up to you to decide which colony gets which setup, just bear in mind a few characteristics:

• An upgrader colony is harder to rebuild than a P1 colony.
• A P1 colony can generate more of its assigned P1 than the upgrader can.
• The upgrader colony has a tighter fit but can still function on planets with a radius up to 30,000km wide.
• Complex Organisms are going to be hotly contested in our space by rival PI chains.

Because of these factors it is generally preferred to build the P1 colony on the planet with a less abundant source of its target resource since it can extract and process higher volumes and is easier to rebuild. On the other hand sometimes it makes sense to build the upgrader colony on a planet with a very small radius even if it has less robust patches since you will be able to move the ECU further away from the industrial facilities without sacrificing extractor heads.

Sometimes one of the planets in the pair will have a supply of both P0 resources required by the assigned P2. In these situations you should look carefully at the two planets in the assignment to verify which planet should be producing which P1. A barren/temperate or barren/oceanic pair will always have the complex organisms & proteins coming from the oceanic/temperate planet. A gas/ice or gas/oceanic pair will always have the planktic colonies & biomass coming from the ice/oceanic planet.

NOTE: This colony was designed for characters with Command Center Upgrades trained to 5. If you only have it trained to four you will need to drop a Basic Industrial Facility and an Advanced Industrial Facility to make it work.

If you're confused by the graphic above then you should try building the standard P2 and P1 colonies first before attempting to build an upgrader colony.

The extractor control unit extracts the P0 resource and routes it to the storage facility. The storage facility routes the P0 out to the six basic industrial facilities which route their P1 commodity back to the storage facility. The storage facility then routes the P1 out to the six advanced industrial facilities, half of which route their P2 commodity to one launchpad and the other half which route their P2 to the other.

The companion planet generates its P1 commodity as always but the production is hauled to the upgrader colony instead of being contracted along with the rest of your production. You fill each launchpad with the P1 resource (being careful to leave space for the P2s that will be created in the first cycle) which are routed half-and-half to three of the six advanced industrial facilities. If you route both of the launchpads to all six AIFs then only one launchpad's P1 will empty at a time and the other one will overflow, deleting all the P2s that are routed to it.

Two launchpads filled with the complimentary P1 will take 8 days to process completely into the assigned P2. The colony is designed around the same two day extraction cycle as the rest of the colonies in this guide.

The cloaky MWD trick explained in the video mentioned earlier can save your butt on a gate but it wont save you if you get a bad warp-in on your customs office and bounce off it when trying to escape a hostile entering local. In all cases you should create bookmarks near all your target customs offices and warp to those instead of warping to the pocos at zero.

The image on the right depicts the location you should aim for placing your bookmark. See how it is located along the same plane as the center of the customs office facing its flat side. The bookmark is safe as long as it is between negative 200 to +200 meters away from the structure. If you put your bookmark above, below or to the side of the poco, closer to the geometry of the structure there will still be a chance your epithal will bump into it when attempting to warp away; the flat side does not have this problem which is why its ideal for a warp-in.

Although most roaming gangs and solo hunters are not seeking epithals to kill and are generally warping to anomaly sites rather than customs offices an elite roamer can still easily spot you and land on you using his directional scanner. Because of this you should always get safe when a new hostile enters system. The standard epithal is fit with two warp stabilizers which will allow you to warp under one warp scrambler but not a scram/long point combo which are relatively common.

To get safe you have three options:

• Burn 2500m away from any nearby object and cloak
• Warp to a safe bookmark in the system and cloak
• Dock in an outpost/citadel or hide in a POS shield

The safe bookmark is the only option that will keep you safe under all circumstances so long as you've created an unaligned safe that doesn't intersect any warp vectors.

Burning away from nearby objects and cloaking is risky. Your epithal flies very slowly while cloaked so if your hunter spotted you before you managed to cloak or if he's determined enough to fly around for a while he could decloak you. If you end up in this situation it would be wise to align yourself to a station or a safe spot while he searches for you so you can attempt to warp off it he finds you.

Warping to an outpost can be very risky if your system just spiked with a hostile gang. Even if you're using an insta-dock bookmark the gang could have dropped a bubble on the outpost which may catch you outside of the docking radius when you warp in. This isn't as much of an issue for POS or especially citadels since they have such a massive radius to cover.

Ultimately, even though PI is far safer than ratting and the stakes are much lower you should still keep an eye on intel.

You don't have to be next to a customs office to move commodities from the launchpads into it, only to drag those commodities into your cargo. For this reason you should always be transferring the commodities into the poco while you are in warp to it. If you do this you will only have to spend the 8 seconds it takes to initiate warp at each customs office.

If you are caught by a hostile while you are in range of a customs office you can move all or most of your cargo back into this customs office to keep it safe. If you manage to do this you only lose the 15 million isk pricetag of the ship rather than the 200,000,000 isk value of the commodities inside it.

If one of the systems you need to go to is being watched by a cloaky camper it's not actually a huge deal. To be clear: you may still be destroyed but it's far less likely than if you were ratting.

Most cloaky campers are afk the majority of the time and only wake up to check to see if there are potential targets occasionally. If he spots you on d-scan and deduces your location he still has to catch you. Since he has a cloak fitted he's not likely to have much firepower or scram strength so you could still get away if he lands on you. You shouldn't be idling on each planet for long at all so if he does warp to you you should be in warp to another location before he lands and if you spot him chasing you you can get safe.

Each POCO you warp to can hold 35,000m3. Your empty epithal is nearly worthless. If you're afraid of getting popped, don't carry more than 35,000m3 at a time. DScan for bubbles before you warp. If something lands on grid with you, shove your stuff in the poco.

If your cloaky camper is acting as a cyno for a nearby gang then you would be considered a low-reward target for them and they may pass you up for a more juicy target. They may also be exceptionally bored and go to extreme lengths to kill you by watching your warp vectors and intercepting your next target but we're playing the odds here, it's less likely. Don't stop hauling your PI just because your systems have been cloaky camped for a few days, wait a day if you feel uneasy.

The Base Haver PI service does not require anybody to create P4s, but if you are determined to try you can take a look at the setups over at the Factory Planet PI page.