Regardless of whether you manufacture or buy, the isotope portion of fuel costs has tripled in the last 6-8 weeks. In fact, if you manufacture you will save yourself 10-15% on Jita prices, if at all. Similarly, you need to work out the opportunity cost of producing crappy PI materials for your fuel cooking versus making more expensive PI materials for sale and using that extra money to offset buying fuels.

raw material price has been rising steadily since fuel blocks were introduced, whats causing the isotope price rize?

Looking at Minmatar fuel and Hydrogen Isotopes, which have been hit hardest on the Jita market, each fuel block currently sells for about 22,000 ISK. At max skills, each block requires roughly 14,761 ISK in all three ice fuels at current buy prices, or 2/3 almost exactly of what I sell it for. That means I'm making a 50% profit selling fuel on today's market. The margin has decreased somewhat since pre-Hulkageddon but yes, there is still a reason to make it.

I wonder what the actual profit is when you calculate in the price of the non-ice materials.

In a belt when someone warps in to gank you, if you warp out you still get a portion of the cycle of your lasers. In ice mining, if you warp out before your cycle is over you get nothing. :(

If fuel prices are a factor in a wormhole you're doing it wrong.

I suppose you fuel your towers with bullshit..

I think what he was really getting at was that in a wormhole when you're making maybe a bill/week who really cares
about it costing an extra few hundred mills per month to fuel the towers.
So yeah if the fuel prices are really make or break for you then yes you are doing something very wrong

I know what he was getting at that, but there are scores of people doing nothing but PI in their systems, and alot of them are making pos fuel.

Saying that it shouldn't be a factor in ppl's WH is just a silly thing to say.

Still I guess RL time constraints and other factors all come into play......I do most of the PI in our hole on 4 toons and by christ does it bore me rigid so can't imagine only doing that

Since I also sell the fuel to my alliance at a discount, I benefit from not having to change the setups on my 35 planets, and my alliance benefits from the cost reduction.

PI is really a boon to players in my position, who do mostly admin and diplo. Regular sites don't allow you to do these things simultaneously. PI is something you can go AFK in the middle of, don't have to look over your shoulder constantly during, can have meaningful chats with allies or potential recruits while you do it, and still makes nearly-comparable money to other wormhole activities, if you know how to run it.

Tyrannis was one of my personal favorite expansions.