Friday, July 25, 2014

Lack of Time

Combination of work, children and preparing to go on holiday has kept me away from the game in the last week for anything more than an hour or so a day.

Oliver, has been logging into the wormhole, by and large in between others, and so has not been sociable. PI, a small amount of mining to trigger the rat spawn, and poking nose into whatever connects for a quick look has been the name of the game.
The Crius release hit 2 days ago and stopped the only other activity I do there, ammo and fuel block manufacturing. Now I deliberately stopped all jobs before the update. I have not been playing long enough to be truly paranoid, just, with an industry release thought it prudent to stop it all.
Now have fallen foul of the cost to manufacture in a pos bug. 1 run of tech 1 missiles now costs me 6 ISK to put in. for 100 missiles, fair enough, but it wants the funds from the corp master wallet.
Now like 95% of POS users, we do not run corps, just use the facilities, mainly for free. There is no way on any New Eden planet that we would all be allowed take access from the corp master wallet.
Now I get why, as the POS is a corp asset, and all jobs are corp jobs, then if someone has to pay then the corp is the default. But hello CCP this is real life. most people that use a POS are not corp directors. Possibly all the devs, testers and CSM members that use a POS are directors and have roles to access the corp wallet, and therefore this was tested and passed without thought.
Please test from the little persons view point. Please.
CCP has now listed it as an undesirable feature, and said that a fix will take about a week.... For many a week without fuel blocks built locally will be interesting. Also a week when they have one or two other things to fix will probably mean two.

John then gets logged in to basically shoot things. A bit of mindless gate camping at the end of the day is always a wind down for me. Sometimes I am the only one there, which gets the blood up a bit, but more often there are 1-5 others that can share the gate gun fire.
Yesterday as I log in a tower bash was about to start next door, so I jumped into a Proteus, shot the tower a couple of times to get on the kill mail

Small Tower Kill

and remained cloaked up watching while our transports landed to anchor a new one. Then went to camp the hi sec gate so that people could not come through and interfere...
I have been making a rule to log off after the first kill, unless like yesterday that was within 30 seconds of arriving at the gate. A Punisher was just decloaking as I landed.

Punisher Kill

Then it was dead.

I have had a few more than normal disconnect issues since upgrade to Crius, (Mac Client), and so missed a couple of shuttles that were caught, then killed a Coercer

Coercer

and his empty pod

That was me for the night. A good result.

I fear that business is going to be slow however in  the future as the charges to make anything in industry will now pump up the price. CCP say between 1 and 14%....
Now I have heard several ideas of what the % is a % of. Some say the base price of the item.
Say for example a Coercer,

Z-kill says 1.117 million isk. so 1% is 11, 170 and 14% is 156,380, multiplied by system index.
Not bad

Another school of thought has it that its 1-14% of the NPC blueprint price.... of 8.635 million so that's between 86,350 and 1.208 million...  multiplied by system index. That's at worst

Another says that its the materials price for whatever is being manufactured multiplied by the system index. This will give you a value a bit less than the market price calculation.

However the system index is calculated by taking the number of manufacturing hours for that system in last 28 days and dividing by total manufacturing hours in New Eden.

My heavy missile BP requires 738 Tritanium at ME -10 and 2 Nocxium so assuming a price of 6 per Tritanium and 624 for Nocxium that's 5,676 in materials cost. In a wormhole with minimal manufacturing then 1% of this rounded up is 57.... which is 10 times what it asked for... 6 is 10% of this or 0.001%

I once worked out that a Raven would cost £138,063,151 if I bought the materials. So if this is the case 1% is a healthy 1.38 million, 5%  is 6.9 million and 10% is 13.8 million but 0.1% is only 138,063 which is far better.

I am lost to be honest. Anyone who can explain simply, I would be grateful.

The end result is that everything will cost more 5-10% is my guess.

Anyway I am going on Holiday for a couple of weeks, during which time Oliver and John are both training Caldari Cruiser V and this blog will be quiet.

Hopefully Industry will be less broken when I get back.

John

Monday, July 21, 2014

Hull Tanking

Hull tanking in general

Now a little while ago I stated that you would have to be a Very Special type of person to hull tank anything with the exception of the Orca.

With Kronos this has changed. There are a number, nearly all Gallente ships, that you can actually get a better deal out of Hull tanking.

I Hull tanked a lowly Tristan the other day and went out on a solo roam, where everyone ran away, or only found large groups, and I ran away. Then I joined a larger mainly tech 2 frigate roam where we killed this:-

Proteus Kill

Now my Tristan had the 3rd highest damage.... Look at the other ships on the kill, They are all hideously expensive compared to mine.
My fit below. Only used guns as could not source small neuts in time. The other Meta modules are what I had handy in 10 mins before fleet leaves. (Harlequins fleets usually go at advertised times and if you are late you have to catch up) Also my skills are not all 5's in fitting and combat and thus had to fit meta modules to make them work. I would rather in most cases fit a meta module to do what I want rather than waste a slot on a fitting module. My personal preference.


High
125mm Railgun II Caldari Navy Anti matter
125mm Railgun II Caldari Navy Anti matter
Small Nosferatu II (keep the DCU on line....)

Med
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler
Patterned Stasis Web
Experimental 1MN Afterburner

Low
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Internal Force Field Array
Beta Hull Mod Overdrive

Rigs
Small Transverse Bulkhead x3

Drones
Hobgoblin II x5


Now this, with my non perfect skills has a
Top speed of 1099 m/s,
Drone range of 51km,
Drone DPS 129
Gun DPS 39  This can be increased to 46 with Light Ion Blaster II and Null
Total DPS of 168 This can be increased to 175 with Light Ion Blaster II and Null
Volley of 617
Base shields 420, Armour 562, Hull 1404
EHP of 4966
And I am Cap stable....


Compare this to a common Tristan (blaster Fit) from z-killboard.

High
Light Ion Blaster II Null
Light Ion Blaster II Null
Small Diminishing Power Drain

Medium
j5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
1MN Afterburner II

Low
Damage Control II
Energised Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Small Ancillary Armour Repair  with Nano repair paste

Drones
Hobgoblin II x5

Rigs
Small Ancillary Nano Pump
Small Nanobot Accelerator x2


Now this, with my non perfect skills, I cannot even fit, but if I could has a
Top speed of 1028 m/s,  ( Minus 71)
Drone range of 51km,  (Same)
Drone DPS 105    (Minus 24)
Gun DPS 46    (Plus 7)
Total DPS of 150   (Minus 18)
Volley of 528  (Minus 89)
Base shields 420  (0), Armour 562 (0), Hull 812 (-592)
EHP of 3967  (-999)
And cap lasts 1m 18s....

It does have the Armour Rep, If you have the cap left to use it, which looks like on my fitting tool will rep 51.7 a second, But the just under 1000 extra hull makes up for this in my book.

So in a stand up fight, Not sure who would win. With my skills the traditional armour tanked would be cap dry very quickly, but the Nos would probably keep the armour rep going. The extra speed and DPS of the hull tanked one could keep the Blasters out of range once webs are on and pile on the damage and win that way.

Hull tanking for me has given the ability to fit a damage mod and a low propulsion mod for essentially the same tank, which cannot be neuted out.

Ships to Hull tank.

Well I would look for anything with similar HP in the hull area as the traditional tanking of that ship. If The ship has more Hull HP (As most Gallente ships do) then these are all worth a look.
The hull tank rigs are quite expensive, but worth getting a BPO and making I suspect.

Try the following ships
Atron   A=450 vs H=500 hp
Incursus A=450 vs H=500 hp
Tristan A=450 vs H=650 hp

Algos often shield tanked A=850, S=800, H=950... Try it
Catalyst  A=800, H = 900

Celestis A=1400, H= 1700
Exequror A=1400, H=1600
Vexor = A=2000, H=2000 but can put more damage mods in if Hull

Myrmidion A=4500, H=4750, Again More room for damage mods

Dominix  A=8000, H=8500, more room for DDA II's

Now I am not suggesting that you do this, but adding hull rigs to drone boats gives you the same if not more ehp compared to armour and frees up one or two slots for Drone Damage Amps or something else useful.

Certainly worth a look for certain fits and situations.

Hull Repairers are, however, rubbish so until these are fixed/altered its a buffer tank only.


Good luck, blow some stuff up...

John

Something Different

Orca's

These are really quite interesting multi-role ship. Most often seen in the following roles.

High Sec
Most often seen hanging around providing mining boosts to a mining fleet in systems. Can also be seen in a mining fleet that is stripping a belt, using its various holds to store the ore so that trips back are less frequent. Often attended by a Miasmos or two to ferry the ore away. A Miasmos however has roughly the same ore storage capacity as an Orca, so why both? Not sure but its there.

Low Sec.
Its lost and going to be shot shortly.
To be honest its not really a ship for low sec. If it does jump in, fit properly it should have enough time to get back to gate and jump out. The truly mad could use for mining boosts, but with little organised mining, why bother.

Null Sec.
Usually sitting at a POS in a bubbled system providing mining bonus to the fleet of care bears that are currently mining. Been there done that, always an Orca, always in/near a POS or on the station undock.
Usually built in place or ferried in via a direct wormhole.

Worm Holes.
In any hole it can be used as both a Corporate hanger Array, Ship Maintenance Array and Ore Storage that does not go offline if the POS is reinforced. So its all accessible, and uses no power or cpu on the POS so the POS can run more weapons or modules.

C1-
If present it has to be built there and cannot use a hole going out. So its stuck. Other than Mining bonus and storage, That's it.
C2-C3-C4 Can use the holes in and out. Most common use would be to "role the hole". This is to either get away from a hostile or potentially hostile connection, or to get away from a boring one that offers no targets of either the sleeper or player kind.
C5 -C6. You have, or should have capitals for hole control, but the Orca would have its place as a less massive weight to throw around.

How to tank an Orca? Well with the Kronos release you would now be mad to do anything but hull tank. That's right. To be fair even before, hull tanking an Orca was not a bad idea.

Base Shield : 10,750
Base Armour : 6,900
Base Hull : 46,000

With 2 Medium and 4 low slots, Idea for 3 new hull rigs and a Damage Control.

With Trimark Armour rigs and a DCU II the EHP is a staggering 284,000 HP
With Transverse Bulkhead rigs and a DCU II it goes up to a whopping 346,000 HP

I can see ganks on these being reduced as with a normal armour tank you would still want to use something like 3-4 Brutix to stand a chance. With the hull rigs it becomes a lot less ISK efficient to use anything to kill them.

Sorry this has been disjointed, written over a week.
Now if anyone can tell me other uses for an Orca, let me know, as I am skilling up for one for use in a wormhole.


Thursday, July 10, 2014

Mixed Feelings

Low Sec or Worm Holes.....

Dilemma.

The last week I have been mainly on as Oliver, trying to set up all that I need, and only on as John after, and with a new character to get on as well.

The new chap will be high sec only and initially skills are being built up towards being an Ice Miner. Now this is dull, however POS fuel does not magic itself, and ice products are the most expensive to buy in.
Now I say most expensive because PI in the hole is sufficient, even at Oliver's skill levels to provide all the PI ingredients for fuel blocks. So just ice products need providing.

Large POS towers require 40 Fuel blocks PER HOUR of operation
Medium's require 20 PER HOUR

Not interested in small as to be honest its asking to be shot in any wormhole.

So that's either 960 or 480 fuel blocks per day. Current Jita prices are between 13k and 16k per block depending on the racial type. Mimnitar, is the cheapest and Caldari, the most expensive.

Large Tower between 14.5 and 15.4 million a day to buy fuel. That's  between 375 and 450 million per 30 days
Med Tower between 7.25 and 7.75 million a day and 190 and 225 million per 30 days.

Prices are approximate and rounded.

Now a character that could provide this as a sideline is worth it. About 30 days to mine the ice skill wise and another 30 to process it with a degree of efficiency.  The training is so long as you need to be in a barge, and that requires a reasonable amount of support skills to train into. Ideally, a Procurer or Skiff, as looking at systems with ice belts in high sec, there are a large number of ice miners dying to ganking. Either of these ships provides a measure of protection as they are easier to tank and therefore need more ships to kill them. This shortens the profit for the gankers, and also with the drone bonus that these ships now have, they too could be in on the concord kill mail. Not something the average ganker wants.

So with one playing skill queue online, and ongoing a semi afk mining regime its just the main two to decide the way forward.

Once Oliver is skilled enough to take a wormhole site solo, there will be more fun to be had here in a wormhole. Currently, the day is scanning the sites, warping to gas sites and collecting as much as I can before the sleepers turn up and then collecting the Drake and shooting the 6 frigates that turn up. Normally get about 3000m3 gas and the 6 sleepers for about 40 minutes signed on. Once PI is reset and collected that's almost an hour. Then, the choice is sign on as John, or go and collect more gas, mine or jump into the static and see what the next hole over holds.
This is my dilemma as currently my play time during the week is about 90 minutes. Also at the time I finish all this few are online in Oulley.

Part of me wishes to make a go of the worm hole and ignore low sec for a while, the rest wants the opposite... Its clear that I cannot do both well...




Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Wormholes again - What's the fascination?

Now for the last 6 weeks neither character have been near a wormhole, the time has been spent gate camping with one and mining with the other. A sideline in building a few bits in Oulley has done quite well, making a profit from Station Containers, Scripts and Warp Core Stabilisers. seems to be a healthy market for each.

Now I was listening into team speak at the wrong time, it seems that one corp in the alliance has a wormhole and was looking for fresh meat volunteers to join them. I sort of did want to do this, but not with John, although he is the best skilled and set up for wormholes.

So Oliver finally left Back-Water and joined up. This has also left me without an out of corp/alliance back up... So I capitulated and started another character.

On the first night I managed to kit out a Helios as a scan ship and get it in the hole. But I needed some roles to use the POS which would have to wait for the next day. I busied myself making a couple of safe warp to spots and perches.

I then took stock. Travelling light was going to be name of the game, so I made a list
1. Scan ship plus probes
2. Venture kitted to mine both ore and gas.
3. Venture as a fast salvage ship with salvage rigs
4. General Hauler
5. PI Hauler
6. Assorted PI command Centres.
7. DPS ship
8. Modules to fit each.

This was fairly easy to purchase, and run in, as there was a direct hi sec connection at the time.

My only issue was the DPS ship. Oliver had initially skilled up in combat minimally then become a mining and manufacturing  alt.
Biggest ship he could fly and had available was a Drake.

Right that's half the readers of this blog switched off....

Now the Drake is the first large combat ship that I flew, but had not tried it for 8-9 months. It was brought to over watch mining ops in Paragon Soul, and kill Sansha.

Wormholes are a different kettle of fish however. So I slinked into the hole fit with tech 1 Heavy Missiles, tech 1 shields and tech 1 Ballistic Missile enhancers. I did have a tech 2 damage control though.

So, that's the other half given up in disgust.

One of my colleagues immediately took me on a sleeper shoot.

I learned the following
1. I could take down the Frigates and Cruisers, just
2. Battleships, I could not break their tank.
3. Drones. Keep an eye on these. The sleepers spread their love by randomly re-targeting  the drones. They die fairly fast. Keep control and recall as soon as sleepers target them.
4. Align to safe is the best. Drakes align and warp like a drunken pig in a mud pool.
5. Sleeper Loot is like bounties, but you have to collect and take to certain K-space stations to swap for ISK.
6. Need to watch D-scan like a hawk while shooting the red crosses.


One low level site, done, 4 waves of sleepers. with my microscopic amount of damage it took nearly 45 minutes and I needed another person to shoot the battleships. Not good.

Found out that I am deficient in some crucial skills
Cloaking - need level 4 for a covert ops cloak.
Caldari Battlecruiser. Level 3 is really not good enough
All the shield skills - well 3's do not let you use any tech 2 modules.
Scanning- I can do it with a full complement of scanning modules in the mid slots and 2 rig slots for them as well.
Missile skills - mainly 3 and 4's. Ok, but need them up to increase DPS.
Weapon upgrades, need to increase it to fit the tech 2 modules.

So just to fit a tech 2 Drake properly my training queue looks to be about 30 days. Oh Happy days.


But the people are friendly, and that's what counts.

So in a wormhole and huffing gas...

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Kronos and me

Well a new patch. Nearly 40 minutes to load on the Mac. Almost gave up the nights activity at that point.

On loading and undocking it certainly looked visually, well, different. The artwork is visually stunning. Stars and Station skins look very very good.
Sound seems to have completely shut off however.... Hmm I liked the locking sound....

On the game play side, well I immediately whipped around the belts and did not find hordes of Mordus Legion queuing up to hand over the Blue Prints. There were more signs of life in a week dead cat.

Still kicked off the invention of some prospect blueprints and placed a materials order in Jita, on the hope that a few would work.
Not much going on in the home system so jumped round 6 more systems to check belts. No Mordus. Hmm
lots of other people out looking though. decloaked on a couple, but they ran away before I could lock.

The next few days were busy in real life, so I fished out the completed invention jobs, and found out that I have BPC's for 7 runs of the new prospect... Put 3 in to cook and semi afk mined.

The prospect, nice ship to look at and now I had some in the hanger was eager to try them out. That was a flop however as Mining Frigate V was not trained. I had missed that one, I had trained the new skill, but was stuck with 9 days left for mining frigate, never a priority till now...Should I swap? No was the answer as I did not want to abandon the 25 day skill that I started a few day ago. Ho hum. Planning was poor as usual. decided to wait.

A few days later I had the opportunity to sign on in the morning, and promptly did so. Un-docked in the Proteus to tour the belts. There were only a hand full of people in system and one was blue. Just as I hit Dscan, voice comms clicked in and I was asked if I was in a Retriever....
Sure enough a Retriever on Dscan. With only 6 belts, my colleague took the top and bottom and I went for 2 and 3 and we would meet in 4. As it happens I landed 14km off him in belt 3, and started in toward him while calling in my colleague to warp to me. He definately was shooting rocks with 2 beams out on different one. Not a Cyno carrier then. When my compatriot was in warp, I was 7km off target, dropped the cloak and began targeting him managed to scram him just as the Gnosis landed. We both opened fire and he died very quickly, no tank, set up for maximum mining.

Retriever

Pod

The pod made no effort to escape, so he must have been AFK mining as well... On less than 5 minutes and a good kill already...



All the other Kronos changes seem to have passed me by, in the large.
The contested Guristas sites are far too lethal to venture into, in my little ships. I sat cloaked and watched a couple of carriers have a hard time in one, all for a ship skin....

Ship skins, to be honest I am not bothered, 95% are for ships that I do not fly, and a lot of the time I am zoomed out anyway to get a better tactical awareness. May go for a Proteus one, or a Gnosis one, or even to be honest one for the multitude of Gallente haulers.... When they are released.

The Prospects I have in the hanger, I could sell I suppose but at the prices they command I would be making less than a million each profit, and as I intend to fly and probably get shot in them at some point its worth keeping. They caused me trouble to make, so I will get my monies worth.

The anti cloaking in Faction Warfare does not affect me at all as I have yet to take a cloaked ship. Fights there are already far from fair though, so its a step in the right direction... The increase in large complexes is however interesting as it gives scope for future large ship warfare.

The best bit about Kronos is that its drawing lots more people into the Low Security regions of New Eden, and more people = more targets.

John