Why hasn't anyone built a Palatine Keepstar yet? This is why.
I am continually annoyed by industrial incompetents on /r/eve who suggest in every thread having to do with a Keepstar, that Goons or Pandemic Legion/NC./GOTG/whoever build a Palatine Keepstar, as if its even an option. This thread is to educate the pubbie mob as to why this is a dumb idea and perhaps, to preserve my sanity, they can be regularly shouted down whenever the topic arises.
Lets review the facts... The below material lists were compiled from http://eve-industry.org/calc/ assuming that you already have all the component blueprints researched to 10/20 (which any rational actor that has the isk to build a Palatine would already have). Also, please note the total production time on all of the components using a single production slot is 1950y 29w 5d. This means you'd need over 5000 production slots running simultaneously to cut the time down to only 3-4 months of build time. That's 456 characters (150+ accounts) worth of build slots assuming perfect skill industrialists with 11 build slots each.
That in and of itself is a massive logistical nightmare to coordinate. Most large alliances have just a few directors with multiple characters spread out over 50-500 build slots that handle all production for the entire alliance (in terms of citadels, or capital fleet hull SRP etc). Trying to herd cats and spread out 84+ trillion of materials among 456 characters and worrying someone isn't a spy and is going to walk away with a %1 of resources they've been handed to build with...well you begin to see the nightmare problem you'd have to deal with just to get the damn thing into build.
1 Palatine Keepstar requires:
| Material | Amount |
|---|---|
| 7076160022 | 7076160022 |
| 265356011 | Megacyte |
| 61916400018 | Mexallon |
| 8 | Morphite |
| 1326780016 | Nocxium |
| 176904000015 | Pyerite |
| 884520000026 | Tritanium |
| 619164033 | Zydrine |
| 6674400 | Broadcast Node |
| 2073600 | Integrity Response Drones |
| 5427000 | Nano-Factory |
| 5491800 | Organic Mortar Applicators |
| 3677415 | Recursive Computing Module |
| 3839400 | Self-Harmonizing Power Core |
| 7030800 | Sterile Conduits |
| 5135400 | Wetware Mainframe |
| 450000 | Holoreels |
| 450000 | Small Arms |
| 450000 | Spiced Wine |
| 450000 | Frozen Food |
| 2250 | Janitor |
| 9000 | Marines |
| 81 | Heavy Water |
| 167 | Liquid Ozone |
| 152 | Nitrogen Isotopes |
| 61 | Oxygen Isotopes |
| 22 | Strontium Clathrates |
| 8 | Technetium |
| 22 | Thulium |
| 6 | Titanium |
| 16 | Tungsten |
| 21 | Vanadium |
| 21 | Villard Wheel |
| 21 | Coolant |
| 21 | Enriched Uranium |
| 21 | Mechanical Parts |
| 21 | Oxygen |
| 21 | Robotics |
| 9 | Thermoelectric Catalysts |
| 1 | Scotty the Docking Manager's Clone |
Total cost in Jita, at current prices: 84,791,621,383,850.28 isk (including build fees).
That's 84+ TRILLION isk for those unable to count that high.
1 normal Keepstar requires:
| Material | Amount |
|---|---|
| 14644800 | Isogen |
| 549180 | Megacyte |
| 128142000 | Mexallon |
| 2745900 | Nocxium |
| 366120000 | Pyerite |
| 1830600000 | Tritanium |
| 1281420 | Zydrine |
| 13950 | Broadcast Node |
| 4752 | Integrity Response Drones |
| 10872 | Nano-Factory |
| 10998 | Organic Mortar Applicators |
| 7668 | Recursive Computing Module |
| 7992 | Self-Harmonizing Power Core |
| 14076 | Sterile Conduits |
| 10584 | Wetware Mainframe |
| 225 | Janitor |
| 900 | Marines |
Total cost in Jita, at current prices: 175,249,289,959.77 isk (including build fees).
That's 175+ billion isk for those with poor math skills.
If one chooses not to build a Palatine Keepstar, and instead, uses those resources to build regular Keepstars then one can build 483.83 Keepstars at current materials market prices.
ANY person or organization making a rational decision would rather have the 483 regular Keepstars. ANY organization within the game that is wealthy enough to build a Palatine Keepstar would make the same decision, because you do not become as wealthy as that without also making rational choices. And this is even ignoring the fact that the list of materials above DOES NOT EXIST on the market to buy. If you look at the daily volume of materials on the market, you would have to buy out Jita of its entire stock of these materials for MONTHS in a row in order to have enough materials to build it. The very act of trying to do so would spike prices on those same materials in such a way that you'd be adding trillions to the cost of what you're trying to do because you're driving prices up on the same things you need to buy.
Unless CCP fundamentally changes the way PI is gathered to dramatically increase the supply of PI (and thus crashing PI prices [and also crashing the build cost on all other citadels as well]) or the build requirements directly on a Palatine Keepstar, it will never be built and I will continue to suffer from my own personal annoyance of seeing idiots on /r/eve suggest people build Palatine Keepstars because they're so ignorant about how production works to know what a stupid suggestion that is.
Here are a list of threads over the last year about this topic to illustrate just how often this subject comes up. This list is not comprehensive. I just linked the first few relevant threads I found using a search of the word "Palatine":
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/7t577n/why_hasnt_anyone_built_a_palatine_keepstar_yet/