Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Last Note on Ganking Miners

Tips for the miner in a 0.5 to 0.7 system

1. Pay attention to Local
2. Dscan, especially after someone has just entered local
3. Include Combat Probes and Ships only on your Dscan results. The rest is just clutter
4. Use a Procurer
5. Fit some tank, even if its Thermal and EM resist rigs, they may make the difference.
6. If its your life savings in one ship, leave it in dock and see point 4.
7. If anyone you do not recognise warps to your belt, go elsewhere, and see if they follow. If they do   then Dock up.
8.Orbit the nasty evil rock that you are attacking at a medium range if you can, or drop a can and orbit that. A moving target makes life more difficult for the ganker.
9. Anything that makes life difficult for the ganker is good for your survival chances.
10. Have a disposable alt. Fly it to your ship and attempt to gank yourself. CONCORD will arrive, late as ever and kill your alt. They will then hang around the belt. This drastically reduces their response time and effectively means that that belt is a gank free zone. Any ganker will be virtually insta popped by concord. AFK mining for the rest of your session is possible.


If you cannot do the above stick to 0.8 and above systems.

I learnt a lot on my brief foray into the dark world of CODE representatives....

Chiefly not to bother with 0.8 and above, 0.7 was iffy and it takes more people to kill the same sort of target and the failure rate is higher.
0.6 or 0.5, if not mining in a venture or procurer and AFK you are going to die at some point, so insure your ship.

Huddling together is still not safe, except when faced by idiots like me who pick the target different from the rest.

Mining in low or null sec is usually in a procurer, in safer systems the odd skiff or mackinaw come out, but they regularly get shot. However a group of miners with five light drones each can often kill the tackle that wants to pin them down, not so in high sec. Not without losing your barge to concord.



Tips for the Ganker

1. Miners are creatures of habit, find a bunch or 0.5 and 0.6 systems in close proximity and get to know then.
2. You need an alt if solo ganking, if in an organised group, a dedicated scout is good.
3. Make the scout cloaky with a decent cargo hold.
4. Know your limits. A solo catalyst can take a Retriever in 0.5 and a poorly fit one in 0.6. Can do the same to a covetor.
5. Do not try the other barges solo.
6. Have some method of fixing your security status, as even if you do not pod people you will be an outlaw within the week.
7. Be aware of your kill rights and do not fly that hauler with all your loot in it where some ganker is going to kill you. Nasty people gankers...
8. Expect to die. Every time. Do not worry about this.
9. Include concord on your overview, Check they are not there before you start. (Scouts job really)
10. Alt should Always pick up the loot, the catalyst drops first as they are blue to anyone then the targets loot.
11. Alt should go and cloak / dock somewhere to wait out your timer before you drop off loot.
12. Consider a Prospect for the loot scooper / scout. You are killing miners, it would be rude not to be able to scoop the ore as well. And they have a covert cloak.
13. Have fun and make things go bang.
14. If the miner survives, be nice an congratulate him on tanking, moving, whatever. Its good manners and to be honest, why not.

Have fun on both sides.

John


Friday, September 25, 2015

Drone Space

While waiting for jump freighters to ferry in ships, discovered that the local market and contract market is well stocked.

So I bought an Astero. Fitted for probing and off we go.

Goal number 1 was to make insta undocks and safes in all nearby systems, and 2 was to find any High sec wormholes to bring in T2 rigged ships.

Working around a couple of the local constellations, you soon realise that Drone space is slightly less populated than other space, and that 80% of the sigs to scan down turn out to be combat sites.

The others are split between wormholes and data sites. No Relic sites at all.

Drone data sites are also a bit different.

For a start they all have the same name (Well the seven I have found so far do) and all have 3 cans. essentially two easy cans with strength of 40-50 on the blocks and a much harder can with many obstacles in 60+ range of damage.

Now of seven sites, only 1 of the harder cans was NOT empty. 6 duds and one with done parts.
The easy cans have been where all the loot lies. Now this is drone parts and BPC's.

The BPC's I have found so far are Integrated Hobgoblin, Hammerhead or Ogre.
1 can of the 21 dropped an Augmented Hobgoblin and an Augmented Hammerhead BPC.

Now these ae what makes the Drone Data site worth it. An augmented Hammerhead has a buy price in Jita of 11.8 million. The BPC's are 10 runs so 118 million if you make the drones and sell to buy orders in Jita.

Most of the parts except the Elite Drone AI and the Hammerhead II I have through the drops in other data sites. It looks like the local market has those parts that I am missing at a cost of about 2 mill per drone, so even if I buy the parts its still 9.8 mill per unit or 98 million for the full BPC run in Jita.

Transport costs are going to bite into it but not by a lot.

The integrated drones look to be better than Tech 1 drones but not as good as tech 2.

The Augmented though look to be better than tech 2 for several reasons.

Please feel free to correct me.
1. Same total damage but split type. Hobgoblin II's do 20 Thermal as a base with 1.92 damage mod
The augmented does 7 Kinetic and 13 Thermal with a mod of 2.11
2. Slightly faster Orbit
3. Higher resists
4. Higher base Hit points

So in my mind not good for PvE but not bad at all for PvP.

In my mind not worth 12 million a drone though.


I am not sure that I would bother with the integrated BPC's. I will probably end up making and dumping in corp hanger to dish out to newer toons.

A bit more ganking and move back to Null

What can I say, we were bored.

Put half a dozen pilots that want to shoot something into high sec, and without wanting to start wars then shooting miners and mission runners was the only option.

I spent a couple of days selling all my stuff (That I could) and moving most of the rest.

The two more days joining the others in Placid, Essence, Heimatar, Molden Heath and Metropolis looking for targets.

Many we had, and many were killed.

I personally was only involved in 3 more

A Mackinaw  Dead Miner 1

A Skiff  Dead Miner 2

And a Hulk  Dead Miner 3

Lost 3 catalysts (And a Velator when someone activated a kill right on a gate camp)

so killed 648 Million for loss of 23 million.

As a plus the corp paid for the ships so all loot went back to the corp.


We did find that the miners in certain systems would warp out as soon as our scout decloaked and called for us to jump in and warp.

We adopted a slightly different tactic. Our scout sat in system and combat probed the miners down.

We jump in and scout warps us all to zero on the target. No one even enters the belt prior to landing.

We had one or two issues where we were warped to ships sitting in a POS and one where the team landed just too far away, Here the target was orbiting an asteroid at 10k and was not afk and warped before we caught up.

On the whole though combat probing was a lot quicker than visiting or DScanning every belt.


This harvest of tears was brought short by the news that the corp had joined a new alliance.

Triumvirate

We were asked to package anything we wanted to take, convert the rest to isk, contract all stuff to corp to be jumped out and fly out in interceptors.


A bit of a brown trouser moment was had in Hek where I docked to pick up a couple of bits I wanted, I un-docked and warped to the gate. Bearing in mind that I was in a travel fit interceptor, someone still managed to activate one of my kill rights and was beginning to lock me as I WARPED... Ha ha ha.

Being flashy yellow in high sec was actually ok. Instead of actively trying to engage, most ran away. I could not have had an easier run to low sec, looking at kills on the pipe I was going down, multiple gate camps were a distinct probability.

I worked on the assumption that any gate I was heading to, if there was anyone in local, had some fool in a battleship smart bombing.

So remember the golden rule, WARP TO A RANDOM CELESTIAL.

Once there pause and look at map and head to gate from a direction that is not in line from another gate. This may be slower, but its faster than a pod back to high sec, shopping and getting back to where you die.


Then Onward to our staging system in Etherium Reach

Drone space here we come. Asking around, no one had lived in drone space before.

Big Unknown

Friday, September 11, 2015

Ganking Update

In short not good.

Tried a Retriever in 0.6 space.. Only got him to one third structure before concord came and killed me. I think a 0.5 will work.

Teamed up with two other corp mates and killed a Retriever elsewhere.

Overkill on a Retriever

and one of the others took his pod as well.

Then the three of us tried for a Mackinaw that was in a belt with an Orca.

Needless to say this one failed as well as a particularly inept pilot, (Me) locked up the Orca instead of the Mackinaw and thus took one third of the DPS off the table for about half the time we had.

It really is annoying having the order of ships in the overview change while ganking...

I have improved on the last post though as:
1. I remembered to overheat the guns every time
2. Had an alt provide a warp in. Mining ships are good camouflage....
3. Said alt retrieved the loot.

We are all trolling around High sec now, as we are leaving DEX and looking for a way into another alliance, and just waiting for logistics to move a load of our stuff so we can go back into Null.


Why? Well, The founding Corps of DEX had some real life issues with their CEO's and some directors, and they did not need the hassle of running a corp and an alliance. So a number of people have folded into Mutts and looking for a new home.
We want to be somewhere that actively shoots people, but can shoot those nasty red crosses so that we have the ISK to fund new ships and mods.

Watch this space.....

Or mail us in game if you have a proposition.

John


Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Hi sec Gank

Not something I had done before. I have never been on the giving or receiving end of one of these.

Now this is something that some members of my corp indulge in when in High sec and are stuck for a period.

I had clone jumped to near Rens last night for a skill book, thinking I was logging from eve shortly.

Events at home gave me another 30 - 40 minutes. I was listening to another member failing to gank a retriever in high sec. He apparently had drones on his overview and the positions swapped and he locked up and shot a drone. Realising his error he shot at the barge but concord showed up with the barge in structure, and he died. 

So I stopped in Rens and outfit a catalyst as he suggested. Then as a ganking virgin I looked for a 0.5 system to hunt in.

So off to Dammalin, at 4 jumps, a very close high sec with a couple of low sec entry points.

I had never been to this system before, and on the way was thinking it a poor choice as its probably well traveled by people of dubious moral character....

Anyway I get there and Dscan. Only a Procurer on scan but 6 people in system, 4 belts are out of scan range though.

Quickly warp to the planet and dscan and find a Coveter and a Venture. Narrow it down to 2 belts as both of these in a line from the planet.

Now a Procurer is generally too well tanked for a catalyst to kill in the moments before Concord shows up and a Venture is economically not worth it.

So Coveter here we go.

Warp to the first belt and nothing there but rats, who red box me before I warp. No matter.

Off to next belt at 0.

As I land I see a Coveter 13km away stationary mining rocks with at least 3 drones out and a Venture close by.

So I pre fire guns and warp scrambler so as soon as I lock I will fire, and hit approach.

Now I want to start firing at 2km and carry on in. I actually lock him at 2k but no guns fire....

Safety.. argh had it set to yellow. Forgot as irrelevant in Null sec.

Anyway, bumped the Coveter, he seemed to not react to being bumped by a Catalyst and targeted.
I suspect was not watching the screen.
It was at least 5 seconds before I set safety to red and confirmed and cycled my guns.

Now, I made an error that could have made the trip pointless. I forgot to overheat the guns.

But it was fine, the Coveter died with 4 seconds to spare before concord slapped me.





Warped pod to station and logged off.

Now I made several beginners errors here.

1. Did not have a neutral alt ready to scoop the loot so missed out on about 18 million in dropped modules. So the experience cost me about 8 mill in ship fittings and hull. Part of me hopes the miner went back and retrieved his stuff.
2. Did no research, literally flew to first 0.5 system and shot the first barge I could take. A retriever would have done. 
3. Did not have gun security lowered so the victim had a chance if they were not AFK.


To be honest, I feel bad. First time I have shot someone who really had little warning. I have shot unarmed exploration craft before, but they were in low sec or null sec and so knew they were fair game.
This feels different.

Would I do it again. Probably. 
Would I do it regularly. No.

Thoughts anyone?

John

Friday, September 4, 2015

Recruiting Advert. Please ignore if you are happy with your corp

Space Mutts Want You!

We are recruiting.

PreRequisites to apply:

1. English Speaking
2. Human
3. Must have a sense of humour
4. Must be able to Use Team Speak
5. Willing to undock and fight.
6. Allegedly we also get sweets and cookies, (not seen any yet though)

Now we are not a huge corp and not flush with isk.
So you must also have a way of earning ISK. We will not replace the Ishtar you lose. We may laugh at it but that's it.

Time Zones. Not bothered. If you like solitary activities, then fine, if not we are split between EU and US Time Zones.

If you are relatively new to the game we can teach you how to mine, how to scan down sites, how to rat how to build. We have people that have done it all. You will learn not to listen to their more bizarre claims though!  We also have an industrialist or two that happily make anything and then sell it to you. As your skills increase then you will get more income.

Some of us will happily buy the rocks you kill or teach you how to make your own hulls/mods.

We always need tackle and scouts so even if you are a month old, We can fund throwaway frigates that you can use to roam with. Its a short train to a Destroyer or Interceptor.

Our kill board is below. we don't care about combat losses in PVP ships. These happen and are a part of the game we play. We do care about shiny PVE and mining losses.

You must also be willing to relocate a clone to Null Sec and live there at least 5 days a week. Remember High Sec is only a clone away!

You will need to submit a full API key, understand the Scottish accent and be over 18.

Space Mutts Kill Board

Join in game channel

Space Mutts

to chat and ask questions

John

Small Gang Fight

I am afraid that these next few posts are not in any order...

Last night I hop onto John, and see few others in corp on. Alliance looked to be 30-40. From first glance mainly miners.

No obvious threats on intel channels and on comms. A corp mate cheerfully told me that he had beaten me to all the relic sites in our pipe but, there were two wormholes that he had bookmarked, but not investigated.

So out comes the Helios, a ship that I have had for over a year now and has done very well.

So hop next door, pick a bookmarked hole at random and jump in. Nice small hole, all planets within Dscan range.

So usual routine, Before I break cloak I bookmark the entrance, Dscan for ships and then for structures.
No ships, 4 towers 1 force field and 2 Ship Maintenance Arrays. Could be lucky so I warp cloaked to a random planet and dscan them down.
Both SMAs are around a planet with 2 moons and only one tower, and a force field.
I warp to it anyway to look. No ships, no activity and corp has 10 members. so 1-2 people and alts.

That determined I warp to a safe and drop probes. An Ore site and 4 combat sites and 5 sigs up.

I already knew that this hole has a Null static, and it took 5 mins to resolve the sigs as all gas sites.

Not something that I was set up for.

So exited and warped to other hole and repeated the process.

This was a C2 and had a high static and was very messy. 13 anomalies and 12 sigs to scan down. 2 active towers, both belonging to different corps, but no activity that I could see. A short time later I had a High Sec hole, another Null and a C5 looking hole and a frigate only to low sec.

The High sec when I popped through was 7 from Dodixie. so result. I did not bother with the low sec, and was meaning to investigate the other null, but did not get around to it.

I corp bookmarked both sides of the interesting holes and sent a message out. There is always someone that wants to buy/sell in a trade hub, and this was a painless way to do so.

As I finish, comms comes alive with reports of a Test fleet entering our space and so I race back to the station to reship.
We had a FC on and 3 Mutts and a couple of other PvP characters in other corps.
Test fleet seems to consist of a Sabre, 4 T3 destroyers and a couple of interceptors according to our scout.
They first go to V-S9YY, mainly as it has an ice belt and there is a chance of the stupidity of an AFK miner that is not watching local or intel.

This gives us time to reship to Destroyers and 4 of us made it to the gate to V-S.

First one through is a Jackdaw. The FC had basically said shoot whoever decloaks first, so its him.
Just as he was in armour  they all un-cloak and the Sabre pops a bubble. Fire is then called to switch to the sabre.

I died first, My Glorious Thrasher  followed by the other two Thrashers and a talwar. Hearing about the bubble I assume the other two remain safely docked...

The Sabre was however dead Dead Test Sabre before the Talwar. Pod express saved us the 6au warp back to station. That's the problem with bubbles...pods seldom escape. Its therefore important to have no implants. It also means that your get a nice sweet smelling pod rather than a battered used one for next time.

Helpfully the remains of the Test fleet warped to the station. We re shipped into more thrashers and un docked. This time there were 7 of us.

We managed to point and kill a
Jackdaw
and
Stiletto

and both pods before the remaining Jackdaw and Svipul ran away. I am not 100% but think that there was another interceptor and T3 as well.

We chased them across 5 systems and gave up. Basically a normal destroyer could not keep up.

When we got back to station we found one of our merry band had stayed and looted the wrecks, and was tastefully collecting the corpses to supply his private collection... No idea what he does with them, but he is a solitary soul...

Test will be back. They come to gank miners, but to be fair they also want a fight and know that if we are around, even just one or two Mutts will undock and try.

Then, bored, I loaded up all the salvage I had collected over the last few days and went through the hole to Dodixie. Picked up a couple of skill books for others and came back.

Missed another interloper as I was just entering the hole when they killed a solo cormorant (Looking for miners).

So one evening play, I earned no money (did get some by selling loot) but did not earn it, lost a ship and got on three kills. I sold the salvage for 120 million but spent about 20 on stuff.

It looks like Test killed four of us for about a 40 million loss, however, we killed three of them for about 130 million.

ISK war won!


Pipe-  what do I mean by it. Well in most cases a string of systems where there is only one way through. In this case we have seven systems with one way in and terminating at a dead end. Locally we call it the pipe. Maybe others call theirs something else...?

FC - Fleet Commander. Anyone can in theory do this, but its a hard job. You have to know your ships, you have to know where to go. You have to have the guts to stand up to your friends when you get them killed. Alcohol helps.
Mutts have 2 very good ones and a couple that will stand in for home defense.  It's a thankless task. Also, someone always asks to bring a Drake...
I am not one. It takes practice and its not me.
I am quite happy to follow one, but remember the golden rule, if you chose to un-dock it it.... its a bonus to dock it back up again. Expect to die


Have fun all

John


Thursday, September 3, 2015

I'm back

Well sort of

My eve time has been drastically reduced this year and access to Eve related sites banned altogether by work.
Now this is quite right from the work point of view and something had to give, and it was this.

But I am now in a position that I have a free lunch hour once or twice a week with access to here, and so I march on.


So to recap

Two accounts, 6 toons in total
1. Jita market alt. Never moves.
2. Rens Market alt, also not moved since April
3. High sec Miner - mining to build a Freighter
4. 2 month old toon in null sec, mining high end ores to ship back to 3.
5. Oliver - Still in Vale of the Silent - still not getting time to log in beyond once a week PI
6. John - Current Resident of Scalding Pass. Main one I play.

I have the option to have John Online and one of 2,3 or 4 at the same time


John.
Still with Space Mutts, now a Null sec corp holding Sov in 7 systems as one of the founding two corps of the Alliance Dramatic Exit (DEX).

I will give a brief potted history, but future posts may contain stories from the last 6 months.

March time, the corp moved to Derelik, and everyone was asked to mine as much as possible. We had eyes on a section of sov space in Scalding Pass, and while we were waiting for various logistics we were going to build a station. thus mining.

This time was reasonably dull and lasted only a couple of weeks.

A handy wormhole was found, and we as a corp set us some base POS in NSBE-L and U6K-RG in Scalding pass.
The alliance objective was to take the constellation and anchor a station.

Now at the time the constellation was held by a mix of Guardians, Feign and Huns Reloaded.
None of which appeared to live there

SD4A-2 was the first to fall on the 10th March. Structure bashing being slightly less fun than watching paint dry.
We had all come in via wormhole in Ishtars with a freighter for the POS, so we would structure grind and rat the days away.

For many it was the first time living out of a POS. One or two interesting thefts in other corps took place, and you would occasionally jump into a scanning ship and find no probes or into the ishtar and find different or no drones...
The wise would move the probes and drones into one boat and log off in it.

Slowly over next four weeks took all the sov and killed most of the POS in the systems.

We had a setback or two, and at one point lost most of the caps we owned in one go,

Then a Station appeared in F2-NXA and all was good.

PL, were however around, and turned up 3-4 days later in more supers than we has sub caps and reinforced the station.
No one was very impressed. Our leadership got on to theirs, and a deal was done.

Since that point Fozziesov  hit, and the whole of scalding pass was fighting.

We spent two weeks either fighting people trying to Entosis our space or going to be a third party else where and seeing what we could kill.

I think, due to work and a lot of the action being in the US time zone, I went out on 2 fleets, and formed up to defend most days. my first time in a ship with an entosis link was a disaster. No one had told me it uses strontium, and I had none with me...

I ended up dying a few times and killing a few things

Since Two Inch Terror were exterminated from Scalding pass its calmed down a lot now. It seems that everyone here has about the right size of space that they want, and we all hate the Entosis links and node captures with a passion... So by and large its rare to see it happening.

DEX have been upgrading their systems, and fighting a losing battle against stupidity.

Stupidity in that we seem to have attracted a couple of corps that want to do little but mine, No issue, but they mine or rat in expensive ships AFK. There is not a day that goes past without them losing several ships. Now the first corp, Skyhammer, was kicked and went to join Mad Associates. Now Mad were not part of DEX but moved into our space as blues until they claimed their own. They were quite good.

Anyway, Still one corp in alliance with silly losses, which attracts hot droppers and roving bands.

Now Roving bands are fine, as we like to try and catch them and kill as many as possible. Cloaky hot droppers are a pain though.

We even had Isogen 5 open a hole into our space, luckily it was a frigate hole, We did manage to put up a fight and killed a Sabre and a Confessor, and would have had a lot more if they did not have hole control, and jump back when they were hitting armour or structure.
They kept coming though, and had a real advantage in numbers, and definitely won the Isk war as we lost a Vexor, Maulus and a Typhoon. Hopefully we put up enough of a fight to go down in their records as not care bears.


Now we mine, we rat, we do sites and we form up far too often to try and kill intruders...

Space Mutts are the best corp that I have found. Mix of EU and US time zones, and all good for a laugh.

John







 

Monday, March 9, 2015

Troop Reinvigoration Camp

Well now I had come back from a night out and thought I would sign on for half an hour while several pints of water and some paracetamol went to work.
Signed on as Oliver as I have to think about it a bit less, and nipped out to shoot some rats.
With this sort of time to kill I will go for a Rally Point then Hub then Rally Point and finish in 30 mins. If I wish to go to 40  I will salvage all 3.

On the salvage from I have an Algos that is fit for PVP except the highs are a Tractor and the rest salvages and a flight of salvage drones.
Go to the first drop an MTU go to the hub and salvage and loot everything usually takes 3 -4 mins then go pick up the MTU and put it in site 3.
Nip to station and empty hold. Return to 1 where all nicely clustered and go through them with drones and salvagers.
Warp to 3 and do the same on neat clump to ships.

Anyway
end of first rally point an escalation. Bonus. And not in Germinate. Look at map, 8 jumps away, but jump bridge next door cuts to 3, so off I trot. Just enough fluid in me to neglect to travel fit.

Arrived without seeing anything but a couple of Blues.
Made a safe or two and warped in.

Now then I had been reading the eve wiki page and its good but it does not prepare you for the sheer numbers that you face. its not in waves. They are all sitting there waiting for your warp in.

And they all target the drones! I was not impressed as I neglected them, as I was trying to find a safe orbit, sort and lock up ship types and keep an eye on local. Both my poor drones were dead and the only thing that made me check was the incoming damage spiked sharply.

Still launch a couple more and keep an eye on them. With good drone management you could probably do it without too much lasting damage, but by the time I reached the last stage I had 3 undamaged drones and 3 dead out of 10.
Its the initial onslaught where the drones get whacked in transit on the way in and out to be swapped out.
Lost a forth in the first minute in the last room, but that's it. Incoming dps to my ship was pitiful and except when drones were in, it was all trying to hit them. I was worried that I would have to track back and get spares before I would finish. But finish I did with 40% dead, 50% armour damage and just one without a dent.
Whole shedload of missiles lighter as well as against my normal policy I was trying to kill frigates as quick as possible and the rapid lights certainly do that.

So end result was a slightly empty drone bay and a Gila BPC. I did not try and salvage anything else, just ran for home.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Blatant Advert

SPACE MUTTS

FREE SHIPS ------ FREE ISK ------- FREE SKILL POINTS ------- TRAINING & FITTING TIPS

Only one of the above is true... but now I have your attention. Read on.


Join us now for a chat in channel Spacemutts

There may be cake.

There may be sweets....

But remember to ask names before accepting any. Safety first!

Seriously though Space Mutts are recruiting and will actively consider any application that talks and can fly a ship in a reasonably straight line.

Drunken applications are fine, we will accept this as an excuse for poor piloting, we will even talk to you in the morning, possibly even think about breakfast, and may even respect you.

Must be able to take a joke, not be afraid of dying, as this, will happen. Welcome to EVE.

Mutts Kills (and deaths)

Not all our corp are male, and come to think of it I am not sure all qualify as human, the amount of hours they put in.

We are a corp that is mainly EU time zone but with a small and active US time zone membership.

Currently located mainly in Null Sec, but with a Low sec base that has some members that did not fancy the current trip to Null...

Space Mutts are fairly laid back, if you want to do

Sites - OK
Mine and build - also OK,
Explore and die explosively in worm holes - OK,
Pvp - there is nearly always someone that will do a small gang type roam with you. - Very OK
Missions - OK
Gate Camping - OK
Market trading - well there has to be a first

Survival is not guaranteed though and any sort of request for SRP will be met with mass laughter.
Please as always do not fly what you wish to keep.

There are no three line whips for CTA's, no penalties for verbally abusing the CEO and directors (they seem to thrive on it) and a good laugh to be had over all.

We have a number of capital pilots and a number who are not.  Logi and suicide tackle are highly thought of and may even get extra sweets. So no matter what your ability, if you fancy a change, talk to us.

We use Team speak and out of game phone app for communication. It would be nice if active on both, but not everyone is.

These are of course my opinions and views as a non director of the corp.

I am assuming that if they ever find this I will be bought an internet pint of the best bitter! Not sure if I will get to drink it or be dipped in it though...





Back in Catch

Well, after neglecting John for too long and the recent frustrations in Vale of The Silent I log in to the strange world of NRDS..

Only needs an E to be apt.

Not Red Don't Shoot is a strange provi block custom that to be honest worries me.

To get used to it went to run a couple of sites in system, and found myself warping out whenever a neutral shows up.
Also saw the strange sight of a neutral industrial quite happy loitering near station. Any where else and he would be toast.

Are they spies, some probably, are they dangerous, some probably, are they useful, some probably.

There appears to be quite heavy penalties for shooting neutrals from the alliance, and apparently they re ship your victims as well.....

I fear that I will become complacent and that cloaked neutral is in fact a warp in point for the million plus interceptors on the next gate.

It also interferes with ratting.

Anyway enough of the rant

Bought a Confessor, fully fitted, off contract, thinking here be a nice little ship.... Still waiting to fly it. I have never had a use for small lasers, so no skill, and the skill for the ship itself was also missing...

3 days until I can barely fly it. Not good. But that's what its all about.

The kill mail will probably grace the blog here soon.

Space Mutts are making a home for ourselves out in Null, but keeping a firm eye on old low sec stomping grounds in Placid as well.

Still, I put down PI to make POS fuel last night, so at some point in the next week I expect the new Drifters to shoot the station out from under us or something equally catastrophic to happen to move us on....


John

Friday, February 13, 2015

Some people....

Short of time in Real Life I log in and set out to scan. Maybe a nice data or relic site that I can do quickly awaits.

Sadly not, wormholes and a Pith Penal Complex.

I look up the complex and decide that I do not have the time and possibly the ship to run this.

So bookmark it in corp and get on the chat channel to see if any of them are awake. 3 in corp but all docked so probably AFK.

One replies and I give him the heads up, he says thanks and heads out to do it.

Fine.

Next day I log in at a similar time and scan. Lo and behold another Pith's Penal Complex in system. So I book mark it in corp again. The same people are on. So announce it and the same person as yesterday pipes up. He asks if I want to do it with him as most of them know I am new to this. I have time, and we agree that 5 mins and we will be off. All looking good.
Spend 5 mins re setting PI.

We then chat about who was warping to site first and what to expect etc.

Now in that 5 mins another corp person has logged in.

The new entrant pipes up with:-

"Hope your not planning to run my complex".....

Really? The one I just scanned down bookmarked and planned to run, while he logged in, un docked, saw it in bookmarks and saying nothing starts to run it....

To be honest I logged out in disgust. He did offer to sell me a Rattlesnake BPC though, but would not name a price.

Part of me hopes he got shot.

Next time I will BM it privately if I am at all interested, or contact the people that I know are not rude, ignorant, self absorbed nerds in their tech cave, blinking myopically whenever a stray beam of sunlight comes their way, and are in all probability allergic to soap!

Arrggh

Oliver

Friday, February 6, 2015

Guristas Military Operations Complex

I have been ratting the lower end sites this week due to time constraints, May only be on for 20 minutes. Now this is enough time to do a Port or Rally Point but not a Forsaken Rally Point or Hub.

I have had two escalations from this, both in Germinate, so I left them alone.
In my mind, what happens when expired in 24 hours? Does it become scanable or does it become an escalation for another or just disappear?

Now on Wednesday evening  I had 20 minutes to kill so went to do a Port. I thought not good money but can do it in the time I have, so did.
At the end I was 7 million richer and had an entry in my Journal for a Military Operations Complex. This on look up was a 7/10 rated complex of 5 rooms.
Gurista_Military_Operations_Complex

It was also 8 jumps away in a fairly well traveled system.

A few people in corp were hesitant about my chances in a Gila and more so with the location.

Lucky that I was off the next day so logged on 90 mins before downtime, and quickly jumped across.

No issue getting there, didn't see anyone of note.

Started in after making a couple of safe points. Paranoia had kicked in and I had removed a couple of RLML and put in a cloak...

The first room was a bit of a shock at the volume of targets, but started with the smallest and just attacked everything in turn. Rapid Lights making 1-2 shots on the frigates while the drones chewed out the medium and above. Quite happy that shields did not dip below 65%.
Second room was the same, but I was more organised. In neither place did I stop to loot or shoot structures. I was more concerned with finishing before neutrals and reds show up.
Room three is the first one a commander turns up in, and therefore the first one that's worth looting. But hey, this is the first one I have done, if all the multiple BS drop BPC's let me know what I missed out on!
The fourth room was more of the same and then the fifth...
Now this pushed me a bit. mainly as the overview setting I had did not show the stasis tower... I had killed 4 or five before I thought on why I was only going at 100 m/s and my shields were south of 70%...
An unholy amount of small and medium and indeed large ships.

The tower died quickly and I moved on to actively targeting from small to large. Then I noticed I was slowing down and the commander BS was webbing me... By the time I had killed him and started on the rest there were still over 20 red crosses, half were battleships and shields about 35%

Not disastrous. I had in mind to align out when at 30% and warp at 20 to a safe I set up on the way in.
I was down to 4 BS when a neut appeared in system, so I swooped in to collect the commander loot and aligned out. At 2 BS to go 4 reds entered system and combat probes appeared on scan... Not feeling lucky I pulled drones and warped to a safe spot where the cloak I fitted came in very handy.

I did not bother going back.

I then sat still for 10 mins until everyone left, luckily going the other way to me.

Now was it worth it?

For the experience, Yes
For the adrenaline of the unknown, Yes
For the ISK (61 million from rat kills) Yes
For the loot.... No

Three faction rats
walked away with
Pith C type kinetic deflection field. about 17 million
Guristas Iron Charge Medium
Guristas Nova Cruise Missile
Dread Guristas Kinetic Deflection Amplifier about 2 million
20th Tier Overseer's Personal Effects. about 60 million

The ammunition all from the 4th room, the Deflection Amp the 3rd and the Pith C and effects the 5th.

So nothing earth shattering, but when sold 180 million in total for just over an hour...

Must admit I would have been interested in a Rattlesnake BPC, if only to build it.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Drama in Germinate

Apparently there is...

Now there seems to be some sort of war going on, mainly involving Russians.

Why does this affect me you say?

Well, it seems that the Vale rental command  has placed the area off limits to any members. A blanket no go.
If they find out you have been shot there, or indeed been doing the shooting there, apparently you may be shot again. And possibly again.

Some high up power negotiation has us keeping out.

That does not stop Germinate residents from roaming through our areas.

It also to be fair does not stop us shooting the intruders if we can:
1. Find them
2. Be bothered
3. Un dock

The crowd I have fallen in with seem ok, and if the fight comes to us, most are happy to reship and give it a go, but no one goes looking for trouble.

But its not why we rent. I am sure that there are some people that this is their main game play and their only characters, however I am equally sure many others are alts of a combat/mining/hauling character and their only reason to be here is to build the cash to be able to splash the cash elsewhere.

I am one.

I am guilty of spending four fifths of my time in Vale at present. I now have a set up that I can log in and in about an hour earn 40-45 million. Now this is sorted I may scale back Vale and play more in Catch. Well at least until I get my ships shot out from under me and need some more.

This is pretty good, but its taken me a month to get there. It does mean that if I log in and do this 20 days straight I can probably buy a plex and pay for the account. That gets me 10 days of game time for other activities.

Needless to say, I am not always on for an hour, nor am I solely ratting for that time. I scan, reset PI, and do some invention. If I find relic or data sites I do these. Sometimes I mine, just to be sociable.

Now the month in Vale has been quite profitable
looking at cash flow
I went there with 135 million in cash and a Prospect. I took existing BPCs for some stuff, mainly some ships. This was between Oliver and a Jita Character.

Beginning Of Feb.
Cash on hand Oliver : 101 Million
Cash On Hand Jita : 52 Million

Ships
Fully fitted Ratting VNI Estimated value 125 Million (
Fully fitted dead space fit Gila Estimated Value 425 Million
Algos - Salvager  Estimated 10 million
Caracal Combat Estimated 22 million
Astero Scout Estimated 160 million
Drake fit for combat (its a laugh) Estimated 50 Million
Nemisis 30 million
Epithal, Kryos, Miasmos  5 million
Procurer 25 million
Heron 50 million (sisters probe launcher)
Venture 5 million

so roughly 900 million in ships plus the prospect.

According to the in game estimator roughly 500 million in assorted junk.

Also about 100 million in BPO's including some POS weapons

This is from selling everything I loot, making rigs with salvage and selling those and price of all tech 2 salvage and PI finished material on hand.

I admit that probably half of that income has come from Data and Relic sites. So they are worth doing...

In short I am no longer poor.

Next step is buying a ratting ship and a small pile of combat ships for John




Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Instability

Playing in Catch with John.

Now I log in and am greeted in comms by corp mates that were ratting Sanctums in system and asked if I wanted to join. They were blitzing them by getting 2-3 people to crash each one and a dedicated savager following on. They were completing Havens and Sanctums in 10-15 mins each. Not really fast but using armour tanked Vexor Navy Issues and Dominix.  So not too many damage mods for the drones they are using. Relying on  numbers.

Now I just had combat cruisers, destroyers and the odd frigate, so I declined.
There was also nearly always a red in system, and usually more than one. 5 minutes later there were 40+ looking for a fight.
Not good ratting conditions.

The armour tank was also because most ships have 0% EMP shield resistance, which is a big old hole to fill.  It can be done but pushes the base price of the ship right up to silly money.

What do people use to Rat in Sansha space? If you cannot fly or afford a Nightmare that is.

Anyway, not what I am in Catch for.
Fleets

There was a big one forming 6 jumps away in Providence, so I joined. No ships there, so fitted an Atron with a Micro warp and a couple of outrageously prices warp core stabs and jumped.

Uneventful journey. Lots of wrecks on gates but no hostiles on them. some reds in local and some neuts but that's it.

Luckily a lot to choose from in the market in the form up system.

Bought a Vexor. It was the only ship not at 200% price and fitted it out with an armour tank, drones 200mm Rails and Spike ammo. Chuck in a long point, web, afterburner and Sensor Booster and good to go.

However

I fly a Mac not a PC and EVE on Mac's seems more unstable. I took the precaution of restarting before I logged in. It did not stop me disconnecting while fitting, and again after leaving station.

I was now playing catch the fleet. Was on comms listening to all the jump orders and a corp mate was posting the current system in corp when they changed. I then proceeded to disconnect half way, and then again 1 jump away from them on a gate.

At this point I suffered what can only be described as wife aggro, as it was about 21:00 and I had been on line (mainly off trying to re connect) for about an hour and a half...It was bin day the next day and coffee was required. Must try and organise the children to do the bins and wife to make own coffee.... Nah, pipe dream, will never happen!

So my Cruiser that I just spent 25 million fitting is sitting effectively 10 k from a gate in Catch, in a hostile system. A bit pot luck for when I log in. If there is a hostile camp on that gate, they will have me locked before I can burn to gate or warp away. Toast.


Now disconnects happen, but in the last few days since one of the daily updates much more frequently. Its always (I believe from reading the forums) been worse among Mac users but 4 times in an hour of game play is silly.

CCP Please look at stability. Its a new top range iMac so should meet specs. All the asteroid effects are off as well, as I found in belts, it looks really pretty but slows the machine down a bit.


No Kills, No Fun and looking forward to a edge of seat experience when I next log in... Aiming for a midday eve time slot as hopefully EU is a work, US in bed and Russians just on way home...

So minimise the chance of a hostile camp.

I can't believe that I pay to have this much fun!

John


Monday, January 26, 2015

Thank You

DragonHelm III
Thank you for your kind comments


Also a bit overwhelmed for being mentioned here

The Mittani.com

No complaints thus far from anyone.......

Comments, abuse, criticism, congratulations, ISK and gifts freely accepted by anyone.

Mail me in game
Leave a comment

(anonymous or named I am not bothered)

It would be fantastic to know


Cheers




A bit of a shock

I have recently decided on a direction to take for Industry in Vale of the Silent.

Drones

Everyone's favorite ratting tool in Renter Land and I am told also somewhat useful in PvP.

Now in the nearly 4 weeks I have been in Vale, I have lost 5 drones to ratting and another two in the Caracal that died... Annoyingly I forgot to even launch them... Well its a leaning experience.

The ones I have lost to rats, have all been when I have been either distracted by Her Who Must be Obeyed, or for two of them, I was busy typing in chat and looking at who was in system to notice they were dying....

Now, to replace them its either a trip to the renter capital of 2DWM-2 or a trip to TVN-FMX (Where I have been told, once or twice, that I can dock...)

OR

a Jita order that will take 3-4 days.

When you need drones you tend not to want to brave the roaming gangs to go shopping or wait for the Jump Freighter service.

So, I thought, one step at a time, do mediums I have the BPO's. Doing ME research on them, just acquired the skill books for the science skills, ordered the morphite and moon goo stuff and thus ready to go.

Or not

Invention. Had not played with this for a while and its changed a bit.
Now you need a BPC before you can even look at the invention tab to see the requirements, but the number of copies is now variable. It used to be max for anything but ships, and 1 run for ships. Now I am less than clear on modules, do you need max runs?
The dev blog says that an invention job will reduce the bpc by one run at a time... but not clear on a minimum required.

So I have created a BPC with 140 runs as a test, now need Data Cores.  And possibly a Decryptor.
Luckily I had found a couple of data sites and attempted them in a Heron with tech 1 analyser and level 3 skills.  I was pretty amazed that I came away from the hack with anything to show for it, but I did.
Anyway, came away with data cores for:-
Caldari Starship Engineering
Graviton Physics
Hydromagnetic Physics
Mechanical Engineering
Rocket Science

Also found 7 different types of Decryptor.

Which is great. Except I need Electronic Engineering Data Cores

So waiting for a Jita order before I can start.


Now the shock

Gas sites..... Well scanned one down in one of our systems. I thought great, see what sort of gas it is, and see if anyone in corp uses it, if not it will sell well in Jita.

So nipped back to the station, Jumped into a venture and put a couple of gas harvesters in there. Warped back to system and warped to anomaly. A box popped up, which I largely ignored as I assumed it was the null sec equivalent of the wormhole gas  pop up...

Landed and looked for the gas.....
I see structures
I see Red +
I see Lots of Red +
I see no gas

I see pod.....

Turns out it was a

H-PA Crew Blue Pill Production Facility

Not what a semi awake gas guzzling venture wants to see....

So embarrassingly I die to rats.

Sheer carelessness on my part, assuming that Gas sites in one part of space are the same as Gas sites in another part of space.... That would just be silly.


Its the first time I have tried the new Data Hacking process as well.

I like the fact that the little number now tells you how far you are from a good find, or potentially good find. If you are near an edge and a high number pops up. No longer do you have to risk all the bad ones just to see if the core is hiding in the 1 space you have not been to.

Removal of loot spew is also a sending from Bob. I was always missing the good loot in the past because in the frantic click fest I either missed or otherwise mucked up getting the can I wanted. Now what you scan is what you get.
If you scan.
My skills being rubbish I am only getting about 50% of the cans, so if I scan and see a large tower bp and then blow the can I will be annoyed, so simple, I do not scan.  Scanning was only important if you were going to cherry pick and not complete the site or if you needed to know what was in the can to aim the loot spew collection at the things you want.
Not completing the site is silly in renter space as it does not re spawn for longer. And with limited systems to hunt in, complete them all.


And it gives a mid slot spare to play with. Possibly a drone mod or a shield mod to dual tank (sacrilege I know, but a bit of extra tank)....Who knows, not worked out what would actually be useful yet.

Oliver



Monday, January 19, 2015

Bears with Teeth

The last few days, around 23:00 Eve time our system had the same people trolling through, looking for easy kills. Each time a pair of Vexors.

Day 1, they buzzed around and disrupted ratting, so several people un docked some larger ships and they left.
The next day they visited several times. I joined in re shipping to a Caracal to see what happened, the first time they came through. They hung around gates and we bounced around looking for them. They ran.

Later, long after I had gone to get my beauty sleep, one came back.

Not sure of the entire story, but it ended badly for him...

Click Here

Next day, same time he came back with a friend

Again, we chased him off station and then to gate, and when I warped to Zero they jumped.... and left for all of 10 mins

One of our guys dropped a bubble off gate to catch the direct line to station as soon as they left gate and we all assumed positions.
Now my ship was built here, and used parts 100% from ratting or mining, with the exception of the drones. Its biggest hole was that I had no rigs, which is something I will rectify.

Arbalest Rapid Light Missile x4  Inferno Light missiles
Medium Rudimentry Concussion Bomb

Experimental 10MN Afterburner
Hypnos Multi Spectral ECM
Large Supplemental Barrier
Medium C5-L Emergency Shield Overload
Medium F-S9 Regolith Shield Induction

Beta Reator Control shield Flux
Compact Reactor control Unit
Type D Power Core Mod - Cap Power Relay
Hypnos Signal Distortion Amp

I know, the lows are rubbish, And the shield mods in the middle should be large. But hey it was free and slung together from parts on hand.
EHP about 10K and damage without drones a massive 120 DPS

Kill board value about 19.09 million.

Anyway sitting outside station with this we are told they are caught in the gate bubble with eyes about 40 km away and closing. We position ourselves to warp. I was heading to them at 0 as a distraction while the others positioned to warp to the cloaky.

Time to go, we all entered warp together. I pre activated my missile launchers and ECM, landed and immediately locked and fired on the closest. Activated the smart bomb as they had hammerheads out, and orbited at 10 with AB on. I was taking damage but dishing it out as well, then call came in to primary the other. Both were now pointed and neuts and DPS landing. So I switched... To be honest I get to get on both kill mails.

They still managed to kill me, 31 seconds later, but both then suffered a fiery death less than 30 seconds later. I got on both kill mails, but died, and disconnected at same time.

My Glorious Caracal !

Apollo 4

Onlyengel

So 64.38 million of kill for a loss of 19.09 million. Anyway pod escaped and my modules scooped and returned, so 6 million better off in parts as well...

I can live with that.

Then finished the site I was interrupted in. Earned enough ISK to pay for the loss if I wanted another shipped in.

I suspect I will ship in a number of decent tech 2 modules to outfit a few more...

It was fun.

Now need to mine to build hulls or import some...


Oliver


Null Sec Ratting

Can be dull but also exciting
and then dull
and then boom....

Pod

Logged on as Oliver, Quickly reset my PI,  a couple of corp people in system, both in station  so warped out to the only forsaken hub in system to kill something.

There was a solitary Battleship rat, not the expected 7-8 mixed collection.

Someones had to warp out I thought, seeing a cluster of wrecks about 70k off centre. So looked for another anomaly to rat..

Then noticed that one wreck was a Mobile Tractor. Rats do not shoot mobile tractors... Ever.
Drones yes, not MTU's.
Another small clue that all was not well was a non rat battleship wreck. oops. Suddenly the paranoia meter took an upward swing. While I was deciding what to do, I shot the last rat...

Only one wave left so I killed them and set about salvaging the wrecks while I looked up the kill board.

Someone just lost a Rattlesnake and a MTU. All the loot was gone, but the MTU obviously salvaged the Rattlesnake wreck and then when it was shot a lot of the loot was destroyed. Good. No wonder someone shot the harmless old Tractor unit.

Just as I was leaving site a red entered system, and it was the same chap on the kill mails in an Orthus. That's not what you want if you are semi afk in a site.

Now to hunt a care bear (Me), I would, if combat ships on D-Scan, if it was me, warp straight to the highest ranked anomaly in the system. In this systems case Forsaken Hubs.  Odds are that your greedy care bear like creature is either:-
1. Belt Ratting 5% chance
2. Running combat Signature site 5%
3. Running highest ISK anomaly (Forsaken Hub) 90%

If in a combat ship, that's how I would spend my time.....

Consequently for any visitors to Vale of The Silent, I am always in the lowest payout, highest ship count anomaly... Try warping to the Forlorn Dens at zero and then looking....

Seriously though, if earning the ISKies, unless you have a solid intel chain and are keeping an eye on it, or have backup in system, maybe choose the next highest anomaly.

As for ISK per hour, I have see various claims by dubious people saying they can get 20-30 million per tick...
A tick is a server tick for wallet purposes, or to you and me 20 minutes. the timer starts at the point you make(or lose) some ISK. so when you shoot the first rat the timer starts.
Now I have tried a VNI tech 2 fitted, and the most I achieved to this point has been 14.3 million. This has been for the first half of of a Forsaken Hub. The second tick is less as I would be salvaging, looting and collecting the tractor at this point.
The actual combat seems to be about 35 minutes with another 10 - 12 salvaging and running back and forth to station.
As a contrast the first tick of a Forsaken rally point is a bit over 12 million, but seems to generate more salvage and loot.

Obviously a very shiny ship in a much better anomaly could do more, but there has to be a limit.

My VNI cost me about 100 million (plus another 60 for 2 geckos), so averaging 20 mill an hour, its paid for in 8 hours ratting. Just on bounties.  Add a single Faction Drone Damage Amp at 120 million, and that's another 6 hours.

I am in the position now of having paid for my VNI I can afford a Gila, just need a few hours ratting to outfit it.

Friday, January 16, 2015

Fleets in Catch

Well there is a lot of them...

John went out in a small corp fleet (well 6 of us), all in cruisers for a bit of an orientation shakedown.

Sort out any fitting kinks, rename ships, insure them etc.

None of us were expecting to survive this one, all part of learning the new locations.

First a quick run over to HED , seeing other small blue fleets, and one massive one. We saw numerous neutral ships, some even hanging around on gates....
We all wanted to shoot them on general principles, but our FC would not allow it.... Apparently our new alliance operates a NRDS policy... We all think that this is wrong, but that's the low sec side talking....
HED was half and half blue and red, looked like a fight just ending, 100 ish in system. Warped to high sec gate at 300 and hung around  aligned and ready to warp into gate if anything looked good.

5 mins later and all the blues started leaving, leaving 5 vs 50... not being totally stupid we set destination south to see whats there, about 5 jumps later lots of reds, and we see a massive PL gang camped firmly at a gate. Not wanting to appear cowardly, we bravely D-scanned them and left for our urgent appointment at the space barnacle cleaners.

Stopping at SV5-8N we clustered on a gate with cloaked eyes on the other side. So 5 of us against the world.
Luckily we had a null sec veteran with us in an interdictor, He bubbled the gate whenever anything was coming through.
Have to say I failed as a camper.
1. Locked before activating guns, but did not bother to fire as all targets outside my range(by a long way - blasters)...
2. Warped away after each lock expecting gate guns.... Well tried... bubbles do spoil your day.

Must admit only did number 2 once to some gentle chuckling.
Number 1 though, missed first 3 targets before I was reminded to fire.

Got on the last, a pod....empty though.

Trotted home and docked up as it was late...

Next time out we had to join a CVA fleet....

Guess who the only Muppet was who had not signed up to their mumble server.

40 mins later I gave up and logged off.

M ost
U seless
P rovi
P ilot
E ver
T rained

MUPPET

NRDS
Not Red Don't Shoot

To be honest it makes providence a fairly safe area for independents and non war targets.

Personally always been NBS  --- Not Blue Shoot it







Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Oliver's Not Long for Null.....

Yes. That's right.....Setting up PI!

So based on previous track record, about 2 weeks until I am kicked out or evicted.

Every set up before (except in the wormhole) has been haphazard to say the least. No definite point. In the hole it was set up to provide all the PI needed for fuel blocks, so that I had to import less to make my own.


Here I have a goal in mind.

Self-Harmonizing Power Cores....

A top stage product requiring 9 different resources, 3 of which are used more than once.

So 9 Raw Materials
9 Stage 1 materials
6 Stage 2 Materials
3 Stage 3 Materials
= 1 Product

Oliver can do a maximum of 5 planets, a 20 day train for the 6th

So set up on
Larva
Oceanic
Gas
Temperate
Barren

No Plasma or Ice planets available

This is cutting things very fine
Larva has 3 extractor heads dragging up
Silicon
Suspended Plasma
Heavy Metals
Doing this and 5 basic processors take all my cpu... so output is small of each resource.
Oceanic extracts Plantic Colonies and Complex Organisms
Gas both Reactive Gas and Electrolytes
Temperate extracts Autotrophs and also takes the product of Reactive Gas and Silicon to make 3 of the Stage 2 materials
Barren, Sole source of Precious Metals does this and 3 stage 2 all the stage 3 and the final stage 4 reaction.

So re setting my PI each day is slightly more complicated.
I have not been to the planets in the wrong order, honest.
On the Barren I drop off stage 1 and stage 2 resources, both needing to go to a different storage area. Not being able to transfer it without hours of paperwork is a pain.

So after 3 days I am the proud owner of several (4) Self-Harmonizing Power Cores. The bottle neck in my production appears to be Plasma and Toxic Metal, these and Silicon all from the larva planet.

I could produce from another planet with 22 days training, using a storm to get plasma, but I have no alternate source for Silicon and Toxic Metals. I could also spend 22 days getting the command center upgrade to 5 to increase the power on all my planets....

So much training

Now what to do with the PI

Option 1: Try and sell here....
Option 2: Export to Jita. about 35k transport cost. Buy orders for 1.6 million
Option 3: Invest in a Small POS weapon BP and make POS guns

IF 3 then sell here or export to Jita. 5 times the volume of the raw resource to transport to Jita and the same buy order value for the weapon and Self-Harmonizing Power Core.
Also what weapon system, Laser, Hybrid or Projectile... No one sane uses missiles.

All those POS owners, what do you use?

Most of the POS that I have seen around here are Caldari, and appear to use lasers of some sort.

Do I go for quick profit or do I look to providing a small service to the area....?


Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Back Shooting Red Crosses

Oliver wanted to get several combat anomalies under his belt in null sec. I can cheerfully announce that he has....

Below are the ones ratted so far

Rally Point
Forsaken Rally Point
Port
Forsaken Hub

Now the fit I linked in a previous post for the Vexor Navy Issue is what I have used. All of the above are easily achievable if you pay attention.

In Guristas space 90% of the damage is kinetic so it makes sense to tank this way. The attention is required because every so often some rats spawn that do Thermal.. My thermal tank is basically rubbish. Now these generally have
Inferno or Mortifier
at the end of their name. Eraser also is dangerous.
When these spawn need to encourage your drones to kill these first. The first time I encountered them I was watching but leaving drones to their own devices, and the drones were busy killing the battleships while there smaller brethren were putting me down to 25% shield before I re targeted.

The other reason is that one site refused to target my ships and shot my drones. All of them, every time. Every wave.  Even recalling and sending others out etc lost me a Caldari Navy Wasp and a couple of Hammerheads, and both Gecko's heavily into armour.
Not an amused care bear.
If I had go to make a cup of tea then no drones and probably no ship when I came back.

Due to the above I have not ratted AFK and now am not going to....
Also the amount of red visitors to system seems to be increasing and the chances of getting killed if not paying attention are reasonable.

I have not as yet tried any of the Hidden or Forlorn sites, mainly as I have not read up on them and someone helpfully told me that they are full of cruisers and smaller and kill your drones en mass.

Now ISK....

Rally Point - 3 to 6 Million plus salvage averaging 1-2 Million Jita price. Have done 4.

Forsaken Rally Point - 12 - 16 Million plus salvage 3-4 Million Jita price. Have done 4 as well.

Port - aprox 8 million and 4 million salvage both times I have tried

Forsaken Hub - 19 - 23 Million plus 4-5 million salvage, have done 3.

So 13 anomalies.
Never had a Dread Guristas spawn. Apparently not frequent, but I have no idea. Anyone know how often they turn up?
Not had an escalation either. However If I did I suspect my VNI would not be up to it.

Not sold the salvage as yet but approximately 170 million in rat income. Estimate that salvage will be another 50 million, as keeping some useful bits.

Rally Points and Ports take me about 15-20 mins to kill and salvage, Forsaken Rally Points about 40 mins and Forsaken Hubs about the same.

So for pure ISK to time, stick to Forsaken Hubs

However. I intend to do all from the Dens upwards just to see.

I have paid for my ship, can afford another, so why not experiment.

Plan to try and do one a day. If I have time a larger or an untried one. If I need to be quick a Rally Point or Port depending on whats spawned.

Choices Skill wise.
1. Stick with VNI and  Improve drone skills ( Heavy Drones V, Drone Interfacing V, Drone Navigation IV and V plus a few small ones)  about 60 days

2. Gallente Cruiser V 19 days

3. Train for Ishtar 60 days (including 2 and HAC to V)

Ideally all of them, taking about 90 days. But what to do first....

So that's 3 plex as would wish to continue Johns training.... Maybe it will be done by summer, Christmas plus Children = no cash for plex.....

Monday, January 12, 2015

Little Accident

As previously said, John was off to null sec for a holiday.
Providence and Catch to be precise.

So not nice safe care bear null sec, but like low sec with bubbles.

I was asked to make time at x hour to run in with the corp in a combat ship, but was unfortunately playing taxi driver to my youngest. It was his first session with Scouts, so I could not really say, hold on Eve is more important.....Not and keep all useful parts of my anatomy attached.

A couple of hours later I Jump Cloned down to Amarr space, and looked for a ship. The clone I was in had a Myrmidon, which I laughed at. All tech 1 fit with 4 different fitting mods and no rigs. It was some while since I had flown this.

For a solo run in to Null though I wanted something smaller that I could use there as well.

So I bought a cruiser and fitted for combat. Thought I would take my chances, and he if I died, no issue. A fight is a fight.

Went to the entry system and hung around. Intel told me that there were reds in system but not gate camping, so why not. Jumped in and immediately warped to a random planet.

Listening on comms it seems Wolf Pack were playing station games with some people who were up for it. My concern was to get to the new base. My corp, were some 20 systems away shooting people, and they sounded like they were having fun.

Multiple jumps later I had got a bit complacent. Reds were in several systems, but only in ones and twos, generally we ignored each other.

Some multiple systems later I see 1 red in local, bounce off a POCO and land on gate, Jump already selected.
Here was my mistake, Red at 0 on gate in an Exequror...while I was debating, thinking had he just landed and we would go through together, and could I take him, I jumped....

No.... He was lookout for the camp on the other side...

I was in an Exequror as well, and its small sig often in low gives the edge on getting clear of bad camps... Not so here. (Or any good camp in Low sec)

Held cloak for 40 seconds, hoping any overheated sensor boosters would burn out, saw the lookout jump in, selected a celestial pressed warp and turned the DCU on.

I was only 2k from a Thrasher so was scrammed almost instantly.

Bugger! was my first thought, then, well Ok a fights a fight, I will take a couple with me, locked the thrasher set close orbit (1.5k) opened fire and launched drones.

All was well for the first few seconds, his shields were melting, so were mine. Heavily armour tanked so I was not worried. Thought, right I will have him and was trying to lock the rest to put them off  and consider who would I try for next, when my shields stopped turning red... so did the thrashers, and no damage reports.....

Now I run on an iMac. big 28 inch screen.  In this game size does matter...

Its also prone to disconnecting usually once in a two hour session.  I think you can guess the rest....

So I force quit the application and re log. Not best impressed. Not disconnected in PvP before. In PvE your ship and drones all warp out and then in again when you re connect....

Not so in PvP. in a pod on entry screen.... warping... guess where...

Got a LoL in local as I landed, but briefly, as I had selected a celestial and warped to it before they locked... It was not what they were expecting.

Had a brief chat in local and asked them what happened. Apparently had the thrasher in armour when I stopped firing and they stopped taking damage.... they killed me and pod warped out...
Looking at the surviving ammo, only used 11 shots, and in a blaster boat with a high rate of fire that's not a lot.

Then I warped in.... ha ha ha....

My poor ship

So do not disconnect in PvP, you die.

Objectively I was not walking away from that, but with my tank and the thrasher scrammed double webbed and being hit by that much null blaster damage and drones, wanted to take him and possibly a Tristan that was fairly close as well....


So arrived in a Pod.....

Was listening to my corp mates die over near HEDGP at the time as well, so felt better.

Ships are expensive to buy and fit out here as well. Bought and kitted out two different doctrine cruisers, and half my money is gone already....

Good job Oliver is earning...


Note to self... Must get around to that Interceptor skill..... Trouble is, no call for it in low, and so many others to train...

John

Friday, January 9, 2015

Null Sec 2015

As the Blog is stupidly called - 'New To Null' I suppose I should start there!

I had been considering moving one character back to Null sec, as to be honest I enjoyed it there.
I had still not for filled an objective of ratting properly (i.e not belts) in a null sec environment. I also had not built as much as I wished.

As a renter in CFC space there appear to be strict rules.
1. Stay in your systems unless shopping or traveling.
2. No scanning in systems that you do not rent
3. No mining in systems you do not rent
4. No ratting in systems you do not rent
5. Station services, e.g. refining can be used in other systems, but bring your own air...can't use theirs!
6. No anchoring towers in other systems

Now some of these I can understand. People pay rent, some of it huge, to rent a system, and the sites in them should be for them, however if I pop next door and mine one of the 20 belts, I am not depleting their resources but I am increasing their system mining index.... They should thank me!
Also Scanning for wormholes should be allowed, they are a content generator and a transport link.

Mine is however not to reason why, and I will live by the rules.

Having jumped out in a Prospect, I unloaded the 96 BPC's and two dozen modules that I fitted in the hold, refit the low slots for mining and headed out.

Not many belts in the home system so warp to one and take a look. Usual Caldari space mix. Nothing high end, just the mix you would see in any low sec belt.  Hemorphite being the best ore on show. Quick check of the other systems and all appear the same. Null sec but not deep null sec. The high end ores would have to wait for a belt to spawn, bit like high sec.
Talking to other members of the corp, there is an organised mining trip to one system once every 3-4 days. This then ups the index enough to spawn one or two belts, thus the good ore.
The rest of the time seems to be spent ratting, mining or ship spinning

I quickly had mined enough to build myself some station vault containers and 2 dozen secure cargo containers, an Algos and a Venture. Added a Kryos and Miasmos as well in case I needed to transport ore/minerals.
Station Vault containers to me are a necessary luxury. - These massive containers allow you to sort all your stuff and keep your main hanger relatively clear.
I went for 5:-
1. Ammo and Drones
2. BP's
3. Sale Bin
4. Meta 4 plus
5. Useful Stuff

Ore and minerals are the only things regularly in  the main Hanger. Ammo and Drones is self explanatory as is BP's. Meta 4 plus is where any tech 2 or meta 4 plus items go. These I normally hang onto for a few weeks. Useful Stuff is storage for any parts that will fit on any of my ships. For example I have a 20 run frigate bpc here, so 1MN afterburners and microwarp drives, and medium shield mods end up here along with any weapon systems that will fit. I will have to import some stuff, like webs, but it ends up cheaper as some is loot. The sale bin, is everything else and I will export back to Jita on a weekly basis to sell.

The small secure containers are far more paranoid.
You should have, in the first hour or two made a couple of personal safe spots in system. Now go and make a couple more, as far out as you can. Take and anchor as many secure containers as you can here. This is your back up stash. Each set should have a mobile depot, cargo expander II's and warp core stabs. I also add probe launcher and sisters core probes. You then can store anything very valuable safely. In case you had not noticed, secure cargo containers cannot be probed down, and so as long as you do not sit there afk or drop a depot there, they are totally safe. If the station gets flipped or you are booted from corp and locked out then some stuff can be salvaged.

Oliver

Jita

Now for John.

Things are on the move. Corp has been told that a brief stint in Null is on the cards in the not too distant future. Almost like a deployment to help some people fight.

So John seems to have a small mountain of salvage hanging around, but not much isk. So a run to a market to sell it all seems to be in order.

Jita is only 18 jumps, only 2 in low, so pick a frigate, load up what eve says is 180 million of salvage in the hold and toddle off. What can go wrong.

A basic Atron frigate is often my preferred travel method to this nice calm holiday system. Jump into Ostingle as the last Low system, and warp to high and jump. Small gate camp on the gate but no smart bombers so all's cool.
I have a debate with myself over auto pilot, can make a nice cup of tea while waiting.... and decide not to.
I hit no issues, jump into a freighter gank in Udema, nothing new, but probably the best time as the hoardes of vultures are either pretty blue triangles or concentrating on doing the same to someone else...
And on into Jita.

I am quite happy that I had been playing Eve for well over a year before I went to see it.

Not been shot there yet but the grief of 2000 people in one system is not good.
I hide Local - anything said there is by and large a scam trying to separate you from your ISK.

The shear repetitiveness of some of the adverts leads me to believe that a large number of people are
1. Either macro controlled and not there.
2. Have a small child that they pay in sweets to do the repetitive cut and paste
3. Have a very high boredom / low intelligence level
4. Terminally Stupid

If you look at the history a huge amount of them are less than a week old. They all seem to have billions of ISK that they want to give away though.

Jumping in, the usual crowd of about 30 gate scum were hanging around. As no war dec's, and not in a freighter, Industrial or high end ratting ship, no one I suspect, even scanned me. No one worries an Atron where there are other juicy targets.

I feel that you are safe moving high value small mass stuff in a basic frigate than elsewhere. Saying that not on auto pilot.

Straight for buy orders, as I have not tried the trading aspect of the game, I was surprised that it all sold for only about a million less than the cargo hold estimated.

So I painted a big bulls eye on the Atron, bought 1 tritanium, put it in a cargo canister  and then contracted that via Hardly Athletic to John to ferry back...

I then un docked, waited about 60 seconds and auto piloted back.

NOT ONE person shot me.... I was hoping for one of the happy campers to scan me, see all the wrapping and gank me. The kill mail would have been hilarious, a unfitted (well basic gattling gun) 400 k Atron for a  gank ship worth millions to Concord, and me if I was quick enough with the gattling gun....

Ostingle on the way back almost had me. Jumped in to 11 yellow flashy ships, 9 Logi and two of those new tech 3 destroyers... Thankfully all too far to point before I warped...

Anyway. unless you really have to, its just nicer to shop elsewhere.

John



Wednesday, January 7, 2015

A bit of a haphazard set up.

The basics covered in the last post having been done, Oliver was seeking direction.
Exploration was out, as too few systems are available.
Building is a possibility, but to do it properly I would want an industrial POS, lots of BP's /BPC copies and a small army of mining alts.
I have been in system 5 days now, and have a number of buy orders out for minerals, none of which have been filled over two days. I see a number of corp out mining, but all the ones I ask are mining for their own build projects. So without the small alt army (strictly Navy) I will give that a miss.

So Mining for my own purposes, PI and ratting are left. I discount pvp at present as I need either the cash to import ships and fittings or the minerals to build the hulls at least.

Mining.
The Prospect is good though, to warp to a belt cloaked to check for rats before mining starts. It is however totally defenseless and not even a single drone to its name. So the tactic is to sit more than 2k from any object, mine and as soon as rats enter or players turn up, cloak before you can be locked and moon walk out. It takes about 15 mins to fill the 10k ore hold so its not a bad little safe miner.
I had a situation at one point that every belt was colonised by rats, and even your basic frigate would doom a prospect. Luckily an obliging ratter cleared them out of several belt in a few minutes.

It is however a bit dull. Don't get me wrong, a bit of mining never hurt anyone, and if you have no other options and / or need to, mining is what you do.

Then there is Ratting....

I was lucky here, in that chatting with people here one offered me a Vexor Navy Issue for about 20% under the Jita price point. So I said yes. Never had one before. I also helpfully  was supplied a link for a ratting fit in this space

High
Drone Link Augmentor II

Medium
Experimental 100MN Afterburner
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Drone Navigation Computer II

Low
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Power Diagnostic System II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Drone Damage Amplifier II
Power Diagnostic System II

Rigs
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Medium Anti Kinetic Screen Reinforcer II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II

Drones
Gecko x2
Caldari Navy Wasp 

Hammerhead II x5
Warrior II x5

My only change was the Drone Nav computer  which went from a II to a I

Now my skills being Heavy Drone 2 and Gallente Cruiser 3 --- I was wondering...

Anyway most of the parts were not available locally and it was wait 3 days for Jita delivery or run he 12 jumps to a null market. The jump bridge took it down to 4, so that was the way to go....
Shopping in a Prospect is no issue, cloaked and jumping as quick as possible, got there, bought the stuff and was back at the jump bridge before my timer ran out... Spent 30 mins mining with 20 million in parts in the hold... Oh what fun. 

On return had most of the fit, just not the 100MN AB or the tech 2 rigs or the Power diagnostic system. Also only had tech 1 Wardens.

So took it on a tour of the belts and happily warped in at 50 and blapped everything.

I then tried a rally point...

This was interesting. I picked a point 50 k out dropped sentries and orbited them with 10MN ab on.
I had to warp out twice as was entering armour, but eventually got it done.....

More in the next installment 

Monday, January 5, 2015

Brief catch up and overview

Well, new job in RL has kept me busy. Not tooo busy to play Eve but nearly. Now its 2015 and lots of in game catch up to do.

3rd Character I build I named Hardly Athletic, as I had no plan zipping around the galaxy!
Hi sec PI was fairly productive, but due to my laxness I was getting about 13 million a week out to Dodixie. Happy days. Now due to other changes detailed later he is sitting in that Hell hole that is Jita IV, training some trade skills. Using last 5 days of the Christmas freebie to do this. His job is basically to buy anything Oliver and soon to be John wants and contract to a Jump Freighter service for delivery.
He also (hence the trade skills) receives 'stuff' sent back the other way for disposal. The first load went straight to buy orders, but now the trade skills are developing some will go on the market.
Its nothing brilliant, just ratting loot belonging to Oliver.

Oliver.
Now he has gone from high sec mining in the Placid region to the role of Low sec renter in Vale of the Silent. Only been there 10 days so fairly new... Was looking to join Ares Legion, part of the Bastion, as that was where a number of other ex Back Water pilots went, however, they  will only take main (or all characters) on an account, so that was a no. I was up front and declared I was an alt and who and where main was though. Several ex Back Water pilots recommended a smaller renter corp in the same region. So I applied. It helped that I knew one of them and came recommended by a couple of Ares Legion chaps, but inside a few days I was accepted, and just had to run out to their home.
Now as per usual the gateway between The Forge and Vale of the Silent was hell camped. I also had to get there, 27 jumps mainly through high sec. Being happier in Low I went 18 through low sec and just a handful in high to get to a seemingly random low sec system.
Now I was warned that getting there with significant assets would be problematical. I was advised pick interceptor or bomber and get everything else brought by the normal JF run twice a week.
Not wanting to be stuck with nothing to do I fitted a Prospect for mining, filled the hold with BPC's that may be useful and there I was. The lowsec run, in a ship with a stupidly small sig radius, cloak and travel fit was easy. Blew through two gate camps before they could lock. Nearly all battle cruiser DPS ships or battleship smart bombers...
The corp CEO came to meet me in a black ops battleship and (this is where the Prospect is good) bridged me through to one of their systems. After a cool down used a jump bridge to my new home.

Without giving any details away, the new home is a quiet system, but not a dead end, so there is some passing traffic, that looks to have lots of ratting sites, but no ore sites.
The mining all takes place in a remote system that is one step away by Jump Bridge.

John
Remains currently in low sec Placid. Has been a little relaxed in activities. Shot a couple of defenseless data site runners in Pelille, went to war against high sec Island dwellers 9 to 5, and shot a few of their POCO's. explored a number of wormholes, ended in Null a few times running data and relic sites, and joined a couple of Gal Mil fleets and shot nothing.... and that's about it.
The Data site runners were both fairly new, one was an old account but had re subbed with the Rhea release. Both were clueless about D-scan as I was following with combat probes. To be honest I was looking for lost drones but when ships pop up, its rude not to track them down.
I followed the same routine for each, entered site cloaked, sat 10k off a can and waited for them to come to that can. as soon as they started the hack, de-cloaked, locked and a single rail gun volley, blew them off the field. Did not bother to lock the pods, and they were both probably quick enough to evade if I had.
Had a chat afterwards and showed both how to Dscan. Also felt sorry for them, so in the spirit of good cheer and all that re shipped both into  cruiser hulls, I had spare, and sent them on their way. Hopefully that would help them to re sub rather than jack it in. Also both may stay out of low sec until they feel happier.

More individual details shortly