I noticed that CCP recently released a video on the interwebs showing off Planetary Interaction or Pi as it gets abbreviated in chats and forums. I figured this would be a good opportunity to show those interested, one of the things you can do in EVE and it's complexity with it. I was thinking of waiting to see if maybe the site itself would jump on it but I decided to grab the bull by the horns and not wait on that.

From someone who has 6 colonies going, following this video will balls up your efforts.

Speak to someone from EVE uni to get decent instructions.

Firstly, don't get storage buildings, get launch pads.  They have twice the storage, for a little extra CPU.  At higher levels, you run put of power before CPU.  Also, position factories as near to storage area's as possible.  Don't place them between ECU and storage, you will only waste valuable power.

Planetary interaction is something I never had a reason to try, i remember putting like a commandpost on some random lava planet but I never actually did anything with it. 

" From someone who has 6 colonies going, following this video will balls up your efforts.Speak to someone from EVE uni to get decent instructions.Firstly, don't get storage buildings, get launch pads.  They have twice the storage, for a little extra CPU.  At higher levels, you run put of power before CPU.  Also, position factories as near to storage area's as possible.  Don't place them between ECU and storage, you will only waste valuable power. "

The video itself shows how PI works though to a degree. I know people on GB are intrigued about EVE and what you can do.

By posting here people who frequent the forums but are unsure of EVE could see how working with planets goes. It's definitely a video for new players and EVE Uni won't work for everyone.

Good advice though on the storage containers, someone like me who has trained the majority of the skills up high definitely doesn't need them but I see their use for pilots who are fairly new and need a viable storage to avoid waste. 900K doesn't come fast enough for new guys.

@jadeskye said:

"This is all great info. I also find it's only really worth your time to do PI in nulsec, the yeilds just arn't high enough in high-sec. "

If you know what your doing, you can make ISK from planets in any part of EVE.  The only problem is that it takes longer to get back you initial investment in high sec.

I think, one of my high sec colonies cost me around 10mil ISK to set up (after fine tuning) and get's me a return of 600k ISK a day.  So it took me between 3 and 4 weeks to get my money back.  On the other hand, one of my w-space colonies cost 15mil ISK to set up, but gave me an income of 1.4mil a day and only took me 8 days to start making a profit.

If you look after your planets, they will look after you.

(BTW, in no way at all do I use planets as my main source of income.  I run the extractors once a week, and once a week I fly round picking up all the items made.  And once a month I go to Jita.  Every month, I put my PI stuff up for sale, and receive in the region of 30-40mil depending on prices.  This is only 1mil per day, but it's not much effort to run PI once a week.  Easy money.  The only money I make easier is selling data cores form my research agents.)