EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

EVE Online's Crucible expansion is upon us, and industrialists everywhere are scrambling to build and use player-owned customs offices. These new centers of industry are one of the most important changes introduced in Crucible. Read on to learn about building them.

This is the first guide in a series dealing with the player-owned customs offices introduced in the Crucible expansion for EVE Online.

What Are Customs Offices Used For?

Customs offices are the centers of planetary industry. Anybody that wants to use a planet to earn ISK is pretty much guaranteed to do so through the customs office. It is there that goods from the planet can be collected, and other goods needed on the planet can be sent down to the surface. Up until Crucible, every customs office in the game was run by non-player organizations, who extracted a very low tax in exchange for this service.

As of the Crucible expansion, the tax rates have been adjusted to reflect the market. This means that taxes are much, much higher, since CCP's economics team vastly underestimated the prices that planetary materials would fetch. Furthermore, CCP has moved the customs offices in high-sec to CONCORD's control, and doubled the taxes. Ouch, right? The result is that serious planetary interaction players will need to leave high-sec for greener pastures, or else accept a tremendous loss of profits.

But what's this? Customs offices in low-sec, null-sec, and wormholes space are now under the control of the NPC Interbus corporation, and can be destroyed by players. What's more, they can then be replaced by players, who can then set a tax rate and collect any proceeds that result, no matter who uses the customs office. And of course, there can only be one customs office per planet. It practically goes without saying that players can blow up each others' customs offices, too.

It seems clear that the demand for these guys is going to be both high and perpetual. Assuming that players decide they are worth fighting over, anyway, which I find quite likely.

Do The Math On Building A Customs Office

Though I will discuss profit and value added in another guide in this serious, the following is important enough to mention here: do the math before you start buying ingredients. At certain points it may be cheaper to buy a customs office off the market rather than build it yourself. Just be sure that you aren't wasting ISK, before you get all gung-ho about building these.