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
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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