Monday, September 29, 2014

Back In Low Sec

Well some are anyway...

I wrote about creating the third character on my account. Well just noticed that he is still in the worm hole, Logged off in an Epithal, that I think may possibly have scanning gear, but not logged on to try.

Probably going to have to pod myself back to high with this one, If I can scan down the low sec in an Epithal, I still have to run across one or more hostile systems in a hauler.

Anyway, enough of my stupidity

John has settled into the corps new home near Ostingle and started doing Level 1 missions for Fed Customs. Using an Algos normally. To be honest they are not very exiting or stretching. It does however hone the paranoia a bit as low sec missions are prone to interruption from anyone and everyone.
If you have not spent any time in wormholes its a quick and effective way to get used to D-Scanning, is doing low sec missions. Keep a spare ship handy.

If I get on and I really have no time, then a spot of belt rating relieves the tension. I tend to do this in either of two ways.
1. Take a cloaky rail gun armed Proteus, warp cloaked to each belt at 30-50. If you see something worth shooting uncloak and blap.
2. Fire up the Drake and methodically clear each belt and kill them all.

Method one can go though 12 - 15 belts in about 15 mins, usually only stop for a battleship or a clone soldier.  I admit I would stop for any Mordus Legion chaps, but only seen looted wrecks of these.

Method Two takes nearly my entire play time to do the same amount of belts. This does include nipping back to salvage and loot in a destroyer though.

The clone soldiers are present in about 40% of the belt runs I have done. Actual runs 11 against tags held = 4. All but one of these belt runs have been method 1 with the Proteus.
I find that if I log in and get two missions run then whip through the belts looking for Clone soldiers thats about my play time done.

As a side effect my security status has risen! I have gone from a Nasty Red Pirate at -9.6 to a Nasty Red Pirate at -8.7.
The Clone soldiers seem to be worth the most with a sec rise of 0.4% which is 10-20 times better than a normal rat. It also help that the tags that they drop can be sold quickly for 13-15 million each.

These 4 tags have helped me fund a little side project that I am working on.

I am going to sponsor a Corp Roam  for a laugh. We (the royal we, as I am seldom on long enough) take out similar frigates, destroyers or cruisers on roams several times a week. mainly expecting to die, and wanting to have fun. If fun is had, a red kill board is irrelevant. Its a game.

I have built Tristans, Hull tanked them all with rigs, Drone Damage Amp, Damage control and Overdrive in lows, Scram, Web and Afterburner in mids, highs are either Neutron Blaster, 125 mm Rails or Neuts. Light drones in bay.
I have built the same number of each type and handing them out one night. Mainly as an experiment, and hey it may kill more than the last Venture roam. If they die its cost about 40 million but provided an evenings entertainment for 10 ish people.
Gone tech 2 for most things, so Low sec Placid could be either a Turkey shoot or Death Trap one night next week....

I have to admit that I probably will not be doing this again though for a while. On limited time the grief required to collect enough bits to outfit 10 ships, then sit and fit them is an experience to do once but a chore to repeat.


All good fun

Friday, September 26, 2014

Logistics are a bit toooo much

The Logistics of operating a POS in W space have beaten me.

Now in Real Life,
that's that bit outside internet spaceships,
I have a new job. Not one I asked for or went looking for, more a case of the Boss saying there's a position vacant here, we think you can do it, its yours if you want it, let me know tomorrow.
Oh and by the way if you say no, your current role may be chopped in a couple of months...

Pay rise... No
Better Benefits .... No
Outside comfort Zone ... Yes
Lots More Work... Yes
Later Hours ... Yes

But lots of training into a position that is marketable most places instead of the very narrow field I was in.

So no brainer it seems.

However its cut my eve time from 1-2 hours a day to 30 mins to an hour tops.

For the first week, I would log in. Scan out the sigs, reset PI, then see if the holes lead to high sec for fuel. By the time I had done this and scanned out the C2, I was done. John, my main character had not even logged in that week.

Most days I would have no time to do anything else. I was logging on for no fun at all.
I play to unwind and I was stressing about fuel and a dwindling bank account, PI not quite paying for fuel costs. Its not good to stress over pixels.

The final straw was one of these new frigate holes. Found it, ignored it, went to sort PI. Next thing I know my POS was hit with a bomb.
Several Bombers on long Dscan, and three times one would decloak, drop a bomb and warp off before my guns could lock him.
No lasting damage but pride, and they were clearly playing to draw me out and murder me in a dark place. Now I was in a bomber, set up to scout, and I had my trusty Drake, but nothing that can kill multiple frigates. So I thought I can't touch them, and they cant be bothered to kill my stuff, so I logged off and went to walk the dog, who was most grateful.

Logged back on, to see if I still had a POS, and I had. Made the decision that I needed to move out, and there was a high in next doors C2. The C2 was clearly inhabited, multiple POS with lots of industry.
BUT no time like the present. Started ferrying all ships but scout and Iteron MK V out. all full of stuff.
Off lined and unanchored most defenses, and arrays and shipped them out.
Made the mistake of off lining the tower with a gun still anchored. Mistake that as could not unanchor the tower, had to put fuel in and wait to online to do it properly.
POS stuff is a nightmare and isn't simple.

Nearly 4 hours later at 3am I finally had most things in high sec. I had left a small gun that was 50k away but thats it. I could not be bothered to go back.

The next day I totted up the expenses..
Cost of ships
Cost of Tower
Cost of Fuel

Vs

Loot

And came up heavily in the RED.

However if I count the equipment and fittings I have at book value, then I made a profit. The Loot and PI paid for the fuel and 30% of the ship and tower cost, and I still have the ships and tower.

I did not play Oliver for a week, mindlessly failing to shoot things with John.

I have been invited to join a corp in a C3, which means I do not have to run my own POS, but real work currently comes first.

I have found that I do not have much of a life outside work, and I am taking a couple of weeks to sort it out.






Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Bit of a Disaster

But not much!

Now John had been neglected while wormhole stuff was being sorted out, and had not killed anything in ages.
So He logs in and gets on team speak to hear a frigate and destroyer roam had just left.
Aha, the hull tanked Tristan needed another spin.

So once undocked and had a target system off we go. 4 jumps, figure is easy. A ten plus group clearing the way should be easy.
Saw no one, Jumped into Renarelle, and onto next gate... hit the gate and nothing happened. Checked in TS and it appears that I disconnected. TS is on a phone, not computer.
Now I use a Mac and the client is not 100% and I get a disconnect usually once an hour or so. So well trained in killing the client and logging in again. Usually takes 30-40 seconds..

Log in warp starts, just as my wife starts talking to me... Not good.  Anyway, I think just have to select gate and jump.

However overview had gone to my default, which is a little cluttered, and saw gate 12k away, Thought some bad things, selected and pressed jump and paid attention to Her who must be Obeyed.

The horrible sounds keyed me into trouble. Turned around, and I was already in structure! Tried aligning to a random celestial and pressed warp lots. No go. As a nasty piratey red person the insta locking frigates snagged my pod as well. No gate guns for them....

Looking at a floaty corpse I realised two things.
1. I obviously disconnected jumping into Ren not jumping out, thus the log in warp took me to the gate I was not expecting.
2. While landing from a log in warp, even if I was paying attention, you cannot warp for long enough to let you be locked by a blind one legged cow.
3. I should have thought quicker and turned on the damage control, launched the drones, fired the guns or even tried to target one of them. Or done anything at all....
4. I am a total Scrub.
5. I can't count.

So, wiping the goo off at least I remembered to upgrade clone, went back to Oulley and jumped into a rapid light missile Talwar.

Set destination again and set off.

Went past my looted wreck and floating corpse, next system over I think, oh that's a lot of red crosses on the gate, and get scrammed and one shotted by the incursion rats in system.
I was less than impressed.
Pod was already in warp to next gate and jumped.

Set destination to Oulley again, slightly different route back. Next system saw a proteus decloak on jumping in and then I was off. The proteus showed up on overview and Dscan mid warp. Strange I thought....

Land on gate and bang,

Dead.

Again.

Killed by a smart bombing Proteus that beat me in warp and obviously knew what he was up to.

So not killed for months, then lose 2 ships and 2 pods in an hour.

Sometimes its good to not log in.

Tristan was 100% my fault as should have been paying much more attention.
The incursion kill (no kill mail by the way, I wonder how many they get?) is annoying but could see no reasonable way to avoid that.
The pod to the proteus, well good kill, and very skilled at what he does.

But annoying

Went to go sit in a wormhole and muck up shooting at sleepers.

John

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

A little excitment

Now Oliver's scanning skills are not brilliant
Astrometrics 4
Rangefinding 2
Pinpointing 2
Acquisition 0

So to stack the deck a Helios
Covert Ops skill 3

High
Core Probe Launcher
Covert Ops Cloak
Mid
Scan Rangefinding Array
Scan Rangefinding Array
Scan Pinpointing Array
Scan Pinpointing Array
Experimental 1mn afterburner
Low
Warp Core Stabiliser
Nanofiber Internal Structure
Nanofiber Internal Structure
Rigs
Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade
Small Low friction Nozzle joints

Sisters core probe scanners

In short small fast, hard to pin and single job is scanning
with this I get the average signature on second or third attempt.

So I log on, and I am already in the scan ship. It is pointless logging in to find your POS reinforced or dead if you cannot scan out. 6 sigs in system, five minutes later have them as 2 gas, a data and three wormholes. None of the other usual inhabitants of the hole are online, so security for site running is not going to happen.
Warp to the first hole, Low sec in Solitude 5 jumps from high and no local fuel... No decent shopping so book mark and go back.
Warp to the second and its a K162 from Null. A deserted system in the Greater Wildlands. biggest point of interest was that it had an ice belt. One I could use. There was a plan afoot. Well at least until I went back to the POS and looked in the ship hanger.
Drake
Epithal
Venture
Venture
Iteron V

Hmmm. Nothing that could mine ice. Made a note to get a procurer at some point.

So last hole was a C2. Warped and jumped in.
Dscan showed towers, plenty of them, and 9 ships, mainly Dominix and haulers. Oops I thought lets look. Only 3 sigs and 1 anomaly in system, and that was ore outside dscan range. So made a safe.
One side of the system had 6 towers and 6 forcefields, the other side, after shortening the range to clear duplicates had 4 towers and 3 force fields. Interestingly there were 4 Ship Maintenance Arrays and 4 Corporate Hanger Arrays on scan....
So kept probes in, as they may not notice me. There was also a further 5 ships, two being retrievers, both in the Ore....
Narrowed down the towers and warped to each. One had a piloted Domi and a piloted slicer... Good to go unseen.
Anyway one tower had no force field, but did have the SMA and CHA.....  oh for some guns.

Bookmarked, and went to ore site. the two retrievers warped off after I had been there a minute as the sleepers showed up.

I wanted to kill that SMA, but thought the likely hood of getting a Drake across system, Kill two structures, loot and get back to my hole were slim. No one I knew was up and had no idea how to contact any interested party. the system did have a High sec static, so I thought that I could provide an entrance if I had a taker.

Mailed the other inhabitants of my hole (who had cloaky combat ships) and went to bed.
7 am the next morning I text one who I knew would be up and told him to read his mails. Full details of the target were included. I was just off to work... Isn't Real Life good!
20 mins later had a text back that he had killed it scooped the loot and was dodging a Tengu.

Wish it was my kill!

He had an alt that scooped the Orca and thus all the rest.
Killed the CHA as well.

I did rather nicely out of that, adding a Retriever and a number of other bits to my loot. The Retriever was set up well for mining, tech 2 strip miners and crystals, tech 2 rock scanner and mining upgrades but rigged for more CPU... which reduces the rubbish shields they have.
Need a couple of Ice miners next trip and its a cheap standby.

My issue is that the SMA was an easyish target if I could apply damage. However if I shot it I would have been forced to shoot most of the dropped ships as could not fly an Orca or even the Domi that dropped... Also I would have to abandon the Drake. Not good.

Added a Bomber to my list of useful things to have. (That I can fly).

I also need more contacts.

If I find a target that I cannot hit they there is no reason in my mind why not let someone else do so.

I figure the bomber is a good replacement for the Helios. Just as squishy, reasonably agile, cloaked, but without all the scan bonus. Big plus though is some torpedo launchers. So I could at least shoot some things.

Will have to fit one and see how badly it scans. Probably 40 - 50 million to buy and fit though so a big chunk out of my fuel slush fund.

Is it for me. Who knows.

Oliver

Fuel

What would we do without it.

Well in Wormholes, move out.

I find my daily routine governed by the question, "Where can I get fuel from?"

Now my set up with a medium POS is only 20 blocks an hour, or 480 a day or 3360 a week....
The fuel bay has space for about 30 days worth, and like the fool I usually am I only bought 2000 initially, needing space for tower, strontium etc.

Very quickly I decided that Fuel blocks were painfully expensive and quite bulky. There was also the issue that I have PI set up to churn out all the PI materials that go in fuel blocks, I was just missing the ice products.

Luckily an ammunition array can also manufacture fuel blocks, so one BPO later all set to go.
Heavy Water and Liquid Ozone are a product of all ice, the Hydrogen Isotopes needed for the rust buckets that are Mimnatar towers, are however are far more rare.

My skills not being brilliant, and the paranoia of a few warp core stabilisers means that my Iteron V can only carry about 4000 fuel blocks, or 8.3 days worth. This will cost outside Jita about 64 million or about 8 million a day.
However buying Liquid Ozone, heavy water and Hydrogen has so far, in the quantities to create a similar amount of blocks, has not filled the hauler and costs about 44 million. So 5.5 million a day.
So far I have then exported the excess PI and combined with the blue loot has paid for fuel. Once my alt actually gets a PI planet or two then I will be looking at a profit. This is at a rate of doing a site every other day.
Logistics and exploring take more time, and some days with 4 active wormholes in system, the thought of running sites is daft.

Whoever said wormholes were paved with gold obviously :
a. Never lived in a C2
b. Did not have to pay for fuel
c. Or had plenty of PI alts.

So I find myself usually with between 6-10 days of fuel, and always exploring a low or high sec entrance to get more. Most days I will come back stuffed with one or more or the materials.

The thought of upgrading to a large tower is too much for a beginner.

Oliver