Skill trading: Difference between revisions

* You can now '''remove unwanted skillpoints''' from skills you've trained in the past and either consume or sell the '''Skill Injector''' afterwards.

In a development that may be related, the Scope has learned that representatives of Genolution, Impro and X-Sense were called to a meeting with the CONCORD Inner Circle this past week. There has been no official confirmation of this meeting by CONCORD despite repeated requests for comment.}}

[[image:skill_extractor_window.jpg|thumb|343px|The skill extractor window shows what skills you cannot extract.]]

It's a consumable item that removes skillpoints from your own character in order to create a new item called a '''Skill Injector''' and transfer the skillpoints into that item (the extractor itself is used up in the process). This allows you to sell or give away a portion of your skillpoints or simply redistribute skillpoints from one skill to another. There are [[#Diminishing returns|diminishing returns]] as you get more and more skillpoints in total however, so keep that in mind.

You can purchase '''Skill Extractors''' from the [[New Eden Store]] (NES) with Aurum (AUR), alternatively with ISK if someone else has bought it from the store and put it up for sale on the regular market. While the Aurum cost is set by CCP in the store, the ISK price on the regular market will fluctuate based on supply and demand.

Once you have a '''Skill Extractor''' you activate it and get a list of your skills, allowing you to pick and choose which skills you'll extract skillpoints from. This process will remove the skillpoints from that skill and they will be lost, dropping the skill down to a new level based on remaining skillpoints. The '''Skill Extractor''' is also consumed in the process, leaving behind a '''Skill Injector'''.

* You need to be logged in through the [http://community.eveonline.com/support/download fully supported game launcher] to use '''Skill Extractors''' (this is to support, but doesn't require, two-factor authentication for skill trading).

* Need to be docked in a station, sitting in your pod.

** {{sk|Interplanetary Consolidation}}

[[image:skill_injector_prompt.png|thumb|350px|right|Unless dismissed, you'll get this prompt whenever you access your '''Skills''' tab in your '''Character Sheet''' window.]]

It's a consumable item that will give you anywhere from 150,000 - 500,000 '''unallocated skillpoints''' that can be used to boost any of your existing skills or saved for later. The item is destroyed once used.

You can purchase and trade '''Skill Injectors''' on the regular market, just like any other item. Since the item is placed on the market by players for players, the price can and will fluctuate based on supply and demand.

Depending on your total amount of skillpoints, you receive more or less of the skillpoints stored in the '''Skill Injector''' when you use it.

* If you have less than '''5 million''' skillpoints you gain the full '''500,000''' skillpoints {{co|green|(100% worth)}}.

* If you have more than '''80 million''' skillpoints you only gain '''150,000''' skillpoints {{co|orange|(30% worth)}}.

To put this into perspective, it might be good to know roughly how much time you're actually ''"saving"'' by purchasing a '''Skill Injector''' instead of just waiting for the skills to finish naturally.

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Apart from the obvious choice of simply train the skills over time, you have a few other options to acquire extra skillpoints; [[Multiple Character Training]] using '''PLEX''' or purchase a character from the [[Character Bazaar]]. Each method will have different pros and cons, most noticeably regarding time and cost.

Using a '''30 Day Pilot's License Extension''' (PLEX) allows you to train another character on your account for 30 days (normally you can only train on one character at a time) or even use as gametime for another account to run and train on a separate account. Both of these options are limited to training other characters and cannot give your main character more skillpoints and it still requires time to train the skills at the usual pace.

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If you don't need the skills on an existing character and you have room for another character on your account (each account can hold three characters), you have the option of buying a new character from the [[Character Bazaar]].

== Profitability of skill trading ==

Here are some common scenarios and the costs/profits involved. There are probably other scenarios as well that doesn't adhere to the examples mentioned above, so always do your research.

If you're buying PLEX to facilitate the training and then pay ISK to get the extractors from the market, then you'll be able to extract at least 3-4 injectors a month (at 2,700 skillpoints an hour you get 1,944,000 skillpoints in a month). So for that to be profitable, you'll need to sell the injectors at a price that's higher than your initial investment.

{{example|<p>For example, if PLEX sells for 1,2 billion ISK and extractors cost 300 million ISK then the costs of training and extracting 4 injectors a month (rounded for simplicity) is '''2,4 billion ISK''' (1,2 billion + 4 x 300 million).</p><p>In order to just break even selling injectors you'll need to price your injectors above 1/4 of that, '''600 million ISK''' a piece (2,4 billion / 4), and for a profit you'll have to price it higher than that.</p>}}

If you're using real money to subscribe (in order to have an account to train on) and again real money to get extractors, you should compare the relative ISK per real world currency spent. If 4 injectors doesn't yield as much ISK as however many PLEX you get for the same price, you'd make more money simply selling PLEX straight up.

{{example|<p>For example, say you pay €10.95 for your subscription (cheapest if you go for a 12-month plan) and fork out €17,99 for 4 extractors a month (cheapest extractor from the bundle of 10 is €4,50 each). That amounts to €28,99 a month.</p><p>If you spent that buying PLEX for €14,87 a piece and sold those, you'd pretty much be able to sell 2 PLEX a month instead. If PLEX sell for 1,2 billion each that means you'd have to sell the 4 injectors at a price above '''600 million ISK''' (2,4 billion / 4) to turn a better profit.</p>}}

If you're using the account anyway and for some reason have no need to train anything (the account might be filled with specific alts already trained for their purpose), you end up changing the dynamics for profitability. The ability to train in this scenario doesn't cost you more, you're already subscribing to use the account, so the above mentioned formula is changed to simply weighing the cost of extractors vs the profit of selling injectors.

{{example|<p>Since one extractor makes an injector to sell, if an extractor costs '''300 million ISK''' then anything above that is pure profit in this scenario.</p>}}

== Skill Trading between Alts - A Comparison ==

Another usage of skill injectors and skill extractors is for personal use to faster train a target character of your choice. In this article we will compare each strategy by its cost, in ISK and in Dollars.

* Training an alternative character on the same account as the target character. This can be done by buying Skill extractors from the Aurum Store or the in game market. This strategy also require a Multiple Pilot Training Certificate, buyable in the in game market, at the price of 1 PLEX in the PLEX store or in the AUR Store.

* Training an alternative character on an alternative account. This can be done by buying Skill extractors from the Aurum Store or the in game market. This strategy also require a PLEX (buyable with ISK or money) or a subscription for the activation of the account.

This gives us a total of 13 options, only three of them being ISK only and four being IRL currency only. The 6 remaining involve both ISK and Dollars.

We are now going to compare each option, using the equations below, this equation should include the amount of money you are willing to invest and the skill training point time: