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