Solo Gate Camping in Devoid

More specifically the Mendori gate in Rahadalon.

Why is what I hear many of you say.... well why not.

There was supposed to be a low sec deployment for all in the alliance of Straight Jacket Bears. This was to a friendly citadel just inside Hi sec for easy access to low, Faction Warefare Low (Kamela) and Null (KBP7-G) in Provi.

The stated object was to learn how to pvp in small groups.

Now this character, Pram Face, as previously stated has been largely industry based. He can use all the industrial ships (except the Rorqual) up to Jump Freighters, but has issues flying most frigates and destroyers and only had drones trained as a weapon system.

Over the last few months has been training frigates and destroyers and a couple of weapon systems.

So I turned up at the staging, and found that I could not fly the mimnitar stuff that they wanted to use, so bought myself a buch of executioners and a few punishers and a gnosis, as the alliance mentioned gate camps.

The frigates because they were cheap. even tech 2 fitting them the total bill was about 5 million a time. Including the gnosis and a few odds and ends I spent about 180 million.

Anyway, first night some of the Americans in alliance were on early and I was on late and we had a little roam.

Depressingly I attempted a Slasher fit as suggested by the organiser, and had the dubious honour of dying first. Dead Slasher

I then re shipped to a punisher and we killed a ferox and a Drake..
Drake
Ferox

This was surprising as the ferrox was caught in a belt, ratting, and the Drake warped in to help. Both died without loss.

The next day I had some time, and thought what could I do with no one around. So I broke out the gnosis and started a solo gate camp.

Warning. This is only for the terminally stupid in most areas of low sec, and I fully expected to die. Badly.

In my first hour, I caught and killed a shuttle (which just proves that some pilots are slow and stupid), and had to run away from T3's and other blingy ships that wanted to shoot me on the gate.

So, I went to work and came back that night for another try. The gate I chose was fairly low traffic, and a large portion of the traffic was interceptors, pods and cloaky haulers. the rest seemed to be big nasty looking ships, often in pairs.

However I did manage to catch
Nemesis
Coercer
Rookie Cyno


Now that to me was enough. 3 different play sessions on the camping for 4 small kills.
There was a bit of hide and seek when the local inhabitants showed up in Brutix's and started shooting me, and a few others had a pop on the way.

So realistically I was bored. The gate was not busy enough with ships that I could catch or kill and with no company it simply was not fun.

If you are going to try this at home...

You do need;-
1. A second account to be eyes on the hisec side, or a small gang will keill you.
2. A good idea of which ships you can kill before the gate guns kill you.
3. Pings around the gate to retreat to.
4. Safe docking in system.
5. Willingness to lose an 80 million ship.

If you have all of these, get out and try.




.

Entosis Games

Out in Scalding pass, there is a constellation of stars in the top left that belong to a new player in the region.

Now in Scalding Pass this is not saying a lot, small alliances come, kick someone out and then are evicted in turn a while later. None of the really big boys care, and its a good training ground for all things Sov.

I had not operated an entosis module since my last time in Scalding Pass, when fighting against Bright Side of Death (who still hold the space they evicted me from).
It's still rather painful (the process, not the memories).

The ship of choice seems o be a Neurosis, although I have seen everything from Battlecruises down giving it a go.

There still appears to be two ways of countering them.
1. Shoot them
2. ECM Griffins.

Having now done it on two different nights, sitting orbiting a node for 25-30 minutes is not fun.
I have had more fun shoe shopping than this, and I hate shoe shopping!

The pain is that you cannot warp off while the module is operating. So some go for a ship that can shoot back and others go for tank on a ship that is cheap and rely on screaming for help.

ECM is a right pain as it kills off the entosis cycle and the entosis ship has to start again. Happened to me once on a 25 minute cycle, and I was 8 mins from the end. This protracts a dull experience into a very dull experience and the chances of the same pilot doing it several days running are small.
Its amazing how many will be washing their hair or watching some rocks grow as more interesting and valuable uses of their time... You also don't have the excuse of having to reship or find another entosis module, as you are still alive and in space.




On another note, I am off on holiday tomorrow until 2nd September so no posts till after then.

John

Alpha Clone - First step into Faction Warfare

Corp -Done
Ship - Partial
Guide - Read
Confidence - High
Prospects of a messy death - Possible.

Well, I was accepted into a faction warfare corp. From log in times I can see they are mainly in the US time zone. Not unusual for me and certainly not an issue.
Someone had kindly put 10 Tristan hulls up in the station I was in, so I bought them. Outfitting the ship was the next issue.
I was aiming for a kite version with shield rigs, point and drones as skills are currently very limited.
Looking on the market I could not find any medium tech 1 shield extenders, tech 1 drone damage amps, tech 1 drones except warriors. nor could I find prop mods of right size, buying 50MN micro warp drives by mistake..

So, I had shield rigs, a nano fiber, a point, no guns and 5 warrior 1's and was set to take the world.

With no real thought I undocked looking for something to do... and I look at the status bar and find that I am in a stable system, so no point in doing plexes.

Docked back up and went to see the level 1 agent. Found, that I had to recover some data sheets from 6 jumps away and return. So I set off.

On the way found the next system was contested, but only by 0.2% so sat in the novice complex for 10 mins, earned 125 LP and system was stable again... I had made a difference!

2 Systems further on was 42% contested, no one in system so warped to large, and started orbiting the NPC at 500. Two npc wrecks and 2 player ship wrecks on grid. Timer at 21:40. So I watched local and waited. With 7 mins left on the clock 3 neutrals entered system, I swapped Dscan to 5 AU and waited.
An Orthrus landed first, closely followed by a Deimos and an interceptor. I was too busy warping out to look which one and what corp they were in.

Anyway, holiday over, I get to target system, 2 in local, both Minmitar Militia, so I start the site.

About 20 frigates in first room, so I launch all four drones and start orbiting a large object. By the time all are dead, its been a while and only me and 1 neutral in system. Dscan said an Orthrus again. But not the same person.

Safe in a mission pocket I ignored him and checked Dscan for combat probes.

While doing 350m/s towards the second acceleration gate 76km away (need to find a prop mod) saw a Tristan on dscan getting closer. Again just the two of us.

Did not think of it till he landed on grid and 5 hobgoblin II's popped out.

I ran like a big girl. If I had guns, shields or decent drones would have taken the fight. but with a point and not a lot else, no.

Warped to station and asked in local how he found me without combat probes...

Now here's a thing I did not know. As soon as I warped to the mission site it activated a public beacon that anyone can warp too.... Not good. He found me with Dscan then shipped down to what could get in a novice site.

Now I need to fit that ship.  I did complete the mission about 30 minutes later though and get the 6 jumps back without incident. 1100 LP and 102,000 ISK reward.

Not bad, but not good. I am sure better things will come.

No idea what to save the LP for though?

Alpha Clone Adventures Part 2

I have kept the training queue full on Mi, which, lets face it is not that hard. It is like going back a couple of year to how the skill system used to be, Only 24 hours of training, and once over that barrier no new skills can be added.
Going back to this way of doing things, I can completely see the benefits of the current system.

The old one did force you to log in more regularly though. However, I am off on holidays soon and what with one thing and another will be away from computer for about 17 days. Now I can, on an Omega account, put half a dozen (or shall I just bite the jump cal V bullet) and not log in and no danger of  missing any training....


Anyway, what to do with an Alpha?

One thing I thought I would try is Faction Warfare. So moved my rookie ship (No missions, so no crap to move) down to Minmitar space, to try it far from home. Not decided if to join Amarr or Minmitar as yet. Did not wish to join Gallente as may want access to Jita at some point...

On the way down in my rookie ship i did project discovery for a while. and earned enough for 5 canisters. I came away quite pleased, in that I kept the Tristan skin, but sold the Brutix, Dominix, Epithal and Punisher skin for enough ready isk to buy most of the skill books I can train and buy several frigates.

I arrived and put in an app to a corp that was recommended to me as alpha friendly and am now waiting...

I cannot find any ships on local market that I can use however so may be short lived unless I can find a supply.

It seems strange to be sitting in Low sec not in a corp and not having anything except civilian guns on a rookie frigate.

Never been in a FW corp, so will report back soon.

Hi Sec NPC Mining Haulers

Now one of my corp mates attacked a NPC venture that was aggressively mining his rocks. He was dead about a minute later. I thought that sounded odd so actually listened.

The NPC mining fleets have been a thing now for about a year. I spent a little while trying to pin it down but there does not seem to be a Dev blog on the subject that I can find. Best guess is that they made an appearance in November 2016. I had not really even seen them till now.

NPC Mining fleets roam Hi sec trying to gather all the ore to either:-
1. Force players into Low or Null
2. Build a Death Star.
3. Just because.

Personally I think Number 3.

The NPC fleets do mine a staggering amount of ore, it does not appear to go anywhere.It would be an idea though for all the ore to be put to use to litter space a bit more with NPC citadels...

Anyway I did a bit of research and found that there were basically 2 ways to deal with the NPC miners. Both of them could lead to a messy death.

1. Shoot one of the mining ships. These appear to be tanked the same as a similar player ship.
2. Shoot the haulers when they arrive.

Attacking a miner spawns a response fleet. This can be any size, it can be a single frigate or a full swarm of ships up to battleships, supported by logi and ewar and acting like a proper fleet.
The only way I have found to do this is to select a target and apply rapid DPS, and then warp before the response fleet can scram you.
Doing this to a miner gives you some ore when you come back and loot the wreck, but a hauler seems to give you a faction skin for a mining ship and sometimes some ore.

The last two nights I had Oliver jump out of the worm hole, once to Amarr Space and once to Minmitar. On the first night I shot a Venture, Retriever Bestower and an Impel. I was in a max dps Hecate,  Max for me is 556 unheated.
The Venture died first and all the other ventures warped off, then I warped and docked at a station. This aggression towards innocent miners does not give you a weapons timer so docking and jumping are fine. Loot was 2k of Veldspar.
The same happened with the Retriever, but with a bit more Scordite in it.
I tried an Impel next as I saw it warp in to the belt that I was sat at. This proved a slight issue. I managed to burn out my guns, but warp out as I was entering structure. The impel had not even dipped below half armour. Time to warp out was about 40 seconds.
About an hour after, I had replaced the guns and found a Bestower. This died very rapidly and warped off 22 seconds after opening fire, just as the response fleet was starting to land.

Now, the response fleet seem to stay in belt almost exactly 60 seconds from when you leave it. So warp to a safe, then 1 minute later back again

The Bestower dropped a Coveter skin, worth about 10 mill on market. So the hour I spent hunting down a set of ships and then waiting for the transport ship was not the most lucrative I have ever spent.

The next night in Minmitar space I had much more luck. The WH came out in the middle of 1.0 and 0.9 sec status systems. I went around in a big loop until I found a Mammoth on scans, then hunted them down. An hour and a half later I had shot 5.
Loot that dropped
1. Coveter Skin
2. Bowhead Skin
3. Metal Scraps
4. Endurace Skin, and 85,000 m3 of assorted high sec ore, majority being Veldspar. Estimated ore worth 12 million
5. 193,000 m3 of assorted ore from Omber to Veldspar Estimated Ore worth 32 million

Now the skins were great. I have not injected the Bowhead one, as its quite a niche ship, and not likely to be one I ever fly. Not many on market though, one for sale in Hek for 150 million and 1 buy order in Amarr for 0.01 ISK...
There are buy orders up for the Gallente and Amarr ones at 20 and 50 mill respectively. So Realistically I will sit on it till I next get to Jita and list it for 30 mill and see what happens.

Now the Ore in the wrecks was a bonus, but in a Hecate, 6-7 jumps from WH it was a pain.
Both systems had 8-10 people with 4-5 mining ships on Dscan. So I posted in local.

Free ore if you have a hauler to move it. 

Then I sat for a few minutes. Then the systems started depopulating, until there were 4-5 people....

As a thought Code does not have to gank anyone, just say they have won a prize... And I am not code, and one of the systems was 0.9. Who is going to gank a T1 hauler with ore in a 0.9 system. I was genuinely going to mark the wreck blue and give it to whomever turned up. 

Looking on the market there was a Miasmos (Galente Ore Hauler) for sale in system for 1.5 mill.So I docked and bought it. Wreck no 4 took 2 trips and 5 took 4 trips. That is a lot of ore. It all was taken to nearest Citadel with reprocessing and compressed. Here the ore was worth more on the market than the minerals, so moved it one jump and sold it.

Left the hauler in station and escaped back towards the nice safe wormhole that was waiting.

Found a Mobile Tractor Unit in the entrance system, someone had littered it, so shot it on the way out, to make navigation safer.

in summary 6 hauler kills, 4 skins and about 40 million ISK (Its worth less to sell once compressed) in ore that is a pain to collect.

Going to try kill enough haulers over the next few weeks to get a full set of skins, but I don't think that I will revisit afterwards.

Alpha Clone Adventures

Now I was a little bored, and possibly under the influence of a little beer last night. When I logged off, I thought I had a very funny character name, so I thought try the new Alpha stuff.

So I created a new account, and set up my character. I selected Gallente, because, well why not.
The first screens after, I admit I mainly pressed randomise simply because I have never worried about what the character portrait shows.

So now I start in space with some nonsense about being the only survivor. I see 3 Dominix wrecks all in a warp disrupt bubble.

So with Aurora burbling on about ship handling I loot the wrecks and then am attacked by a couple of Circadian Sleepers. I thought well this did not last long, and shot them with my civilian gattling gun. Too my great surprise they died as did the warp disrupt bubble.

However Aurora  was now stuck. She wanted me to loot the Dominix wreck that I had already looted. I could not, as I had already done so. I could not put the scientist back and could not progress in the tutorial.

Failed at the second hurdle.

I then stupidly switched off Aurora and said yes to the fact I cannot do it again....

So now docked in Duripant station with a Velator, civilian gear no ISK, no idea where the starter missions are and a head ache.

Looking and asking in the Fed Navy Academy corp channel just got me talk about how they started last week and how Drakes and Gilas were fun....

Skill injectors have I feel a lot to answer for....

Thinking about it I do not even have the rookie channel, I assume the tutorial would have done this at a later point....

Now I have to find the ISK to get the Gallente Frigate skill book as a starter...

Ho Hum

At this stage I may or may not keep the character, and in any case the name may get banned...

So if anyone can point me in the right direction, as I have not done this for a long while, please mail in game to

Mi Pric

See what alcohol does...

Deep Space Transports Vs Blockade Runners

Or 

Occator vs Viator

Well I am training one of my characters to be a transport pilot in high sec. To me this has several utilities.

1. Transport of PI from WH to market.

2. Transport of ganking ships and fits to where its needed.

3. Moving stuff to staging area's for various null gateways.

Now as this character already has Gallente industrial IV it was the natural choice to take to V and then Transport ships.

Choice of ship was the next one. Natural inclination is to go for the one with the cloak. but the bigger hold has a draw as well.

I asked corp mates and slightly more were in favour of the Occator than the Viator.

Objectively

Viator lowest HS price 100 million but that seems to be a one off and trade hubs look to be 127-130 million

Occator Lowest HS price is 200 Million, and trade hub price 203-205 million.

Looking at kill board

Viator has lost 43,790 and Occator 14,807

Exploring 1 page of the Occator, of the 50 loss mails, only 8 were in High Sec and of these 6 were war targets.

In Viators 1 page of 50 loss mails gave me 16 dead in High Sec, about half due to Wars.

I did notice that the Viators were mainly cargo or inertial stabs in the lows with one or two shield modules in the mids. Most had a covert ops cloak.

The Occators, despite getting 4% armour resistance per level of transport ships and 35% bonus to armour repair and 100% overheat bonus on local repair and resistance mods, seemed to be largely shield tanked. The many lows were, and I say that this was from 8 ships at random, mainly istabs or other speed enhancing modules. Only 2 of the 8 were armour tanked.

This does seem bizarre in the extreme.

Anyway, for mainly HS use then the Occator is the clear winner for me.

I will update this thread as and when I lose the ship.....

Failed Gank

Now I have an alt that used to within SLYCE, but was removed in one of the recent purges.

I had complied with the requirements and done everything right, and the alt was on  the list through an honest mistake.

I had a word and was invited back.

I however had a bit of a moment. Fueled by several pints of  Hobgoblin  and Spitfire , I decided to stay in the NPC corp.
In SLYCE, all he was was a salvage monkey anyway. Skilled in the use of cyno's, salvagers and a thrasher with a very limited PI suite.

So I thought lets stay neutal and upset someone.

Plugged in the skills for Catalyst and small hybrids, along with all the combat skills like surgical strike.

Went to Amarr and bought a catalyst, had to fit it tech 1 guns. I thought, I would see if I could kill something.

Trolled around  a number of 0.5 systems and only found skiffs, Orca's and some Mackinaws. none of those I could probably do solo with the right skills.

Anyway, 5th system I check, I have a MTU, Orca and 2 coveters on Dscan from the gate. limited quickly to 1 planet but 10 belts.

Just to be contrary I warped to belt 10, and tried Dscan from there, Limited it down to two, all targets in the same place.

Found them on the second try. 2 coveters mining, an Orca with a MTU tractoring 10k off.
I had warped to 0, and nearest coverter was 11 k away, so hit approach and fired up sensor booster, scram and guns. Completely failed to overheat, as Thermodynamics was not on the list of needed skills I had injected...

So bumped the coveter a good bump and came to rest 170 m off target. Sitting there it took 20 seconds to turn safety off. Not a good start. But no reaction from any of them except a boost washing out from the Orca.

It did cross my mind at this point to shoot the MTU and hope one of the ships tied attacking me, however I only had ganking ammo, not enough for an MTU.

So shot the coveter in front of me.

Some good hits but damage was not enough, looked like about 25% structure left before concord jammed,scrammed and shot me.

I warped he pod out to the top station, and saw he coveter land just behind me. luckily I had bounced off a customs office and my timer allowed docking.

No communication from the 1 or 3 pilots on grid. Another in system asked what was happening. I replied honestly that I was learning a lesson, and that lesson was mainly that I needed more skills.

Anyway, 30 seconds later I was given a 500k bounty. The first any of my characters have had.

So waited out the timer, and warped back to the belt in my rookie ship. My wreck was gone, I assume looted by the MTU and salvaged. The Orca and 1 coveter still there. The chap I shot was in a Gnosis.

So I bumped the Gnossis and the Coveter several times, and ineffectually the Orca once.  They all kindly locked me up, and part of me was waiting for the kill right or the stupidity of one of them getting Concorded.

Anyway they must have been worried that more were on the way as they all warped off.

I did pick up 5 hammerhead 1's and 5 hobgoblin 1s though that they left behind.

They also kindly added another 250k to my bounty.

Loss mail
Catalyst 1

And yes I know I had ammo in the hold. That the ammo I was looking for a little later in the station...

And to top it off the kill right was made public for the cost of 10k

Now all I need is an alt in HS that can accept and clear it for me.


Lesson learned and an hour of fun. The other party may well now watch local a bit better as well.

To Orca or not

Well my industrial character finally finished building a Freighter. I am the owner of a shiny new Obelisk. Well will be in 1 day.

I will have to hunt down a hi sec WH  as no way would I pilot it back through 4 low sec gates.

I will of course triple bulkhead fit it, as I have no intention of making it easy for those nasty gankers.

I have been reliably informed that in a 0.5 system a triple Bulkhead fit will pop with

30 Catalysts or
23 Bombers or
14 Talos

Now I suspect there is a bit of leeway to do with overheating and ammo and what type of hits you get.
I also suspect that if CODE are involved and Polarised Weapons it will be less.

However, with those numbers, unless its done for tears, carry less than a billion, maybe a billion and a half and your economically not worth it.

I would welcome input from anyone who does this regularly.

I suspect it would also be safest to drop corp and join an NPC one to actually fly it. War decs make flying freighters in a corp effective suicide.



Anyway gone a bit off topic. I had an Orca BPC pack laying around so I thought why not.

I have started to build the components and have about a third built. But what to do with it?

Mining wise I suspect it pulls in less than a Mackinaw, the Orca relying on the drones only. OK,  the drones are heavily boosted, but its still less.
The Orca has a 100% hull bonus and up o 50% bonus for industrial command skill for drone mining, so in reality 130-140 max.

Not sure how they stack, but current T2 drones mine 68m3 each per 60 seconds

If they stack how I hope, that will up the output to about 180m3. That's better than 2 tech 2 strip miners but not the same as a Mackinaw and drones.

Again, if anyone has the numbers for Orca mining with tech 2 drones and ship skills at 3 or 4 please let me know.

I assume I would at least try it.
I could also provide boosts to other miners, if I feel in the mood.

Options are:-
1. Keep as a mining ship
2. Keep as a hanger ornament that sees a sun occasionally.
3. Sell it - about 750million ish at current prices.
4. ?


Fly safe

Missed a Citadel Kill because I'm Stupid

Log on Oliver to reset PI.
I have 45 mins until I have to leave for work. Wife out, Son at school and Daughter with a hangover so the computer is mine! All mine!

As I log on get the message that Citadel anchoring in our C4 static timer is up in 5 mins. friendly 3rd party on the way but need to stop the timer.

So get in a bomber and head off. One corp mate already in hole and on grid so warped in and started on torps.
Had a few solid hits, then my mother phoned... Typical.
Anyway switched off coms.  As I am not female, I obviously cannot multi task.

Then, still talking to my mother, saw a bunch of Gila's on Dscan. Immediately thought of the friendlies then they landed... my corp mate was long gone.
Panic, cloak and warped at random. I think my mother thought that I was not listening. And she was right.

Luckily I had picked a customs office that was on grid 1000k from the citadel

So I could see 5 Gila's and a Slepnir all marked as red.

Back on Team Speak, the friendly fleet were 5 jumps from entry point. A 6th Gila turned up.

There was no logi on either side so it was deemed unlikely that we would be able to take that many Gila's , then a scythe and a Bifrost appeared. Even more pain.

Meanwhile the hostiles were not a defence force but were bashing as well.

So it was deemed that our friendlies would re ship to bombers and try and kill the slepnir at least.

I did not have a bomb launcher, and had already shot the citadel so stayed on over watch.

With about 5% left on citadel bombers warped into a chap tracking their fleet.

There it all went a bit wrong.
A friendly bomber was de-cloaked coming in. Either very bad luck, or more probably forgot to click cloak. It happens. Also, a 8th Gila and an Hurricane had joined the hostiles.

On landing, the  uncloaked bomber found out that the Hurricane was an insta locker and  the first bomber popped without a shot in return. The wreck then de cloaked one of our  stratios. This was also pointed and shot in fairly short order

Several bombs were launched and several torps were launched at citadel. None by me.

The Astrahus exploded.

Citadel

I then went to sit on the exit hole as our friendlies had forgotten to book mark.

Now I was surprised that I did not get on the Kill.... I had shot it for a couple of minutes at the beginning, and I had stayed on grid and in system.

I have since been told that there is a 15 minute window, and you have to have shot it within 15 mins of explosion to have it registered.

Well you live and lean.

Experience but no kill. And still did not reset the PI....

Short and pointless post on Mining

In Short: shot some rocks. Nothing happened.


I did a spot of mining last night. Not normally that into it except as a background activity on the spare screen.

This time I was paying attention. This time it was in a small fleet of 6 with a porpoise giving boosts.

Now my normal High Sec ship of choice is the Mackinaw.
Half decent tank, especially with a Damage control and tank rigs.
35k Ore hold after skills
1400 ish m3 output per tech 2 strip miner with tech 2 crystals every 149 seconds.

With boosts that went down to 110 seconds. Mining drones also were getting 1m3 each per second, which for 5 is about half that of a strip miner.

Anyway I was paying attention as it was sort of a mini corp meeting to bring up to speed some people. Mined for 2 hours in the end and got probably twice what I do when doing it solo and tabbing back to do something else with another character. No lag when an asteroid is exhausted, just a switch of targets, speeds up no end.

I was mining Veldspar, Scordite and Kernite only but still had 5 trips to unload so 175k m3 of ore.

Now I have to refine and use it all.

Conclusions.
Its worth maxing out skills if you are going to do this. May have to
It is dull unless you are chatting to others.

Mexallon, Mexallon my kingdom for Mexallon

Well My industry character is currently in Great Wildlands. And they are a bit wild.

Engineering complexes litter a fair few systems, and there are only a handful of stations.

Now I relocate to a system that's been pointed out to me as one to mine and build in. 3 Engineering complexes are up with facilities to build anything between them.

Now I usually relocate initially with a prospect, a handful of BP's and the intention to build a few bits and get the lie of the land before moving more in.

I, in my pack will have station Vault containers, a procurer, strip miners, mining drones and one or two useful bits as BPC's.

Where I am, the reprocessing is in one citadel and the building in the others. This adds a certain amount of grief, but it can be fine

So I landed, dropped the blue prints in a citadel, warped to a belt and started to mine for the basics. I needed Tritanium , Pyrexite and Mexallon for the containers. They are always the first thing I build.

So massive Scordite was my first goal as that kills the first two. Mexallon though... I warped to every belt to be sure but not one had a mexallon based rock.

I assumed at this point a massive fleet had dropped in and mined it all as it is required for all sorts. Then I  thought, No.

So I asked the question in local, what do you guys do for Mexallon?

It turns out that they rat the belts, loot the wrecks and re process all the stuff for the minerals.

Well I nearly fell off my chair.

NPC null so no surplus of combat sites or ore anomalies.

I then flew a combat ship up and ratted all the belts. gave me enough stuff reprocessed to build 5 containers.

I am going to re think the location I feel.

I noticed a capital ships module in one complex I passed. How without mining?

Null Sec Surprises

The lure of Null sec is many faceted.

For some its the ability to print ISK by ratting. Others Exploration and others Mining. Some even enjoy the wack a rabbit game that is Sov conquest. So I am told.

Whatever the lure is, its true that everyone has their first time.

Many of these are short and many painful to either the pride or the pocket.

The corp I am in has a large number of new pilots. Of the 30 warm bodies we think 20 have never been to Null and 12 are new to eve.

When i found this out it made me both sad and impressed.

Sad, as to be honest I do not expect all 12 to stick out past their first big loss, but impressed that a number want to try Null.

What makes it easier is that now part of an alliance, we have war with Marmite and Vendetta Mercenary group. This narrows down who we are to only about 60% of eve.

Sadly, despite mails and messages in corp channel some are still surprised that they cannot be in Jita without being comprehensively shot. Others have got the idea that you cannot beat them, and so are happy to try Null where at least you have a chance of fighting back.


Don't get me wrong there are still some massive issues with information. Some of the new blood have no idea, and others assuming they are alts of more experienced players expect them to know.

For example, one lost a VNI to a neut while ratting. The first anyone heard was a message in alliance along the lines of
"I am under attack in belt V. need help."
Closely followed by
"Don't bother I'm dead"

The person in question was raging about the lack of help via corp chat.

The issues were.
1. He was not in a fleet. There was a standing one up.
2. He was not on comms. Had not installed it even
3. He did not see 1 or 2 as an issue.

I and the corp CEO and 7-8 alliance were in system. Personally I was fitting ships so was not paying attention to chat channels, and on comms most were doing something similar.

IF he had installed Team Speak and signed on to it. A brief, help I am tackled message would have got 3-5 people responding and at least undocking. Being in the fleet would also let us warp direct to him without mucking around debating which of the 20 odd belts (yes belt ratting) was the right one.
When asked how he was found, he did say that he saw combat probes on D-scan.

That there gave me hope, because he was doing something right. 10 out of 10 for use but minus several million for bothering to do something about it.

If You are reading this and belt or site ratting somewhere that does not have to be scanned down then:-
1. Be on Voice Comms in whatever channel most of people in system are in.
2. Be in the standing fleet. If there is not one make it. Do not say "Didn't know how" google it.
3. Anyone not in your corp/alliance enters system, the minimum you do is align to a safe spot.
4. If you are in something far too shiny then warp to the sun at zero. They will never look there. Honest.
5. If you spot combat probes, a citadel or station is your friend warp, hope no bubble and hide.
6. If you do get tackled through agro from your better half and or sproglings  or sheer bad luck, then say so on coms. Correct would be
"Break Break. Idiot 1 here, tackled by a punisher at 5k site BRG-"

Now substitute your name for Idiot1 and the ship that's got you for the Punisher and the site code/ belt number for BRG.

For good measure put an X in fleet and say X'd up in fleet

Help then knows what to expect, where you are, and exactly where to warp to to get the bad guy.


If you type help me under attack in alliance chat, by the time anyone notices, figures out where you are, gets conformation that they are not warping into multiple black ops battle ships and gets to you the bad guys have podded you, violated your corpse and are 2 systems away.

Do not be that guy.

Drone Nests

Just a quickie

Drone Nests.  How bizarre. I like the mechanics that the waves warp in and therefore its an extra few seconds when you are not locking or shooting.
Three waves and then the over mind. I have seen a Primus, Secondus and Tertius.

Randomly a swarm of aphids appear.

I started doing these in a Gila, but when I realised that there was almost no dps incoming have run them in a frigate to see what happens.

Loot:

Skins. Every one drops one of 4 types of skin.
Plex. 1 new plex can and does drop
Accelerator +10 to all attributes. This seems to be very random.
Drone Parts. Occasional bits for drones.

Two characters have been doing this. Total of 34 sites between them thus far.

Both High sec. 1 in a static island location. 1 from a wormhole going to different hi sec systems Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

From the WH I have had skins of all four types but no other drops. This was 11 sites. Competition is fierce, but people have learnt to not take the bait. With Oliver in a Gila I have been stealing sites when ever possible. No fights and no loot other than a selection of skins.

With my industrial toon on an island, 24 sites and 7 have dropped accelerator or 1 new Plex.
Competition is still in evidence but I have been playing nice and if someone is running the site, I warp off. This location only appears to be dropping two types of skin, and with in the region of 200 skins to collect I have 6 duplicates from 34 sites...

Once everyone gets the 6-12 (Train Biology skill) accelerators that they need personally, farming of them will slow down. The skins will be common, the accelerators worth increasingly less as expiry date looms and 1 new plex is not enough to shoot millions of drones with no risk from the NPCs.

The ridiculous worth of the skins on kill mails does however make some ludicrous kill mails. It also gets the newbies hopes up.
One asking in corp earlier if he would be able to sell an avatar skin for its estimated worth. He was quite hopeful.

High Sec Wars

This post is largely irrelevant to people in Null Sec, Worm Holes and a lot of Low Sec.

Also this is my own mutterings and ramblings and should be treated as such.

 Null Sec Dwellers rarely go to high sec, with the exceptions of Jump Freighter pilots.
Worm Hole corps largely do not care about High sec nor get wars declared on them.
Low Sec people often cannot enter High Sec anyway.

Right that's the preconceptions stated and half the readers annoyed. I know both of you will mail be and say you regularly visit and or are always at war.

Having lived in all three areas, in Null there was often war declared, then you used out of alliance alts or ignored them and stayed in null. In Worm Holes over the last year, have been in one war, and then it was considered fun if the entrance was near a hub, to stick a bait neuroses or procurer out and hide in the hole. Never killed any targets but some clearly needed underwear changes after they finished running. In low sec, only one member had a security status high enough to get into high sec, so they were ignored.

Declared War is the only way for a corp to shoot another corp ships or structures without the intervention of Concord.
The original idea was probably pure and intended for content or just the figment of an over eager Dev team.

What we have ended up with is imperfect, and like Marmite (The spread not the corp). You either Love it or Hate it (OK! like the corp as well!). Like all things in Eve it has been twisted and turned and could do with an overhaul.

The idea is simple. Corp A annoys Corp B by mining their rocks or breathing. Neither can shoot unless a dual is accepted. So Corp B pays lots of lovely ISk to Concord to be able to shoot Corp A freely for a week. From the declaration there are 24 hours until shooting is legal. A notification is sent to each member. This is not a mail however and does not get picked up by third party tools, so you are reliant on logging in and checking as the icon does not even blink. This gives the targets time to re locate, pull down citadels or POS towers jump corp or log off for a week.

Then once one corp has had their fun or run away it can be called off or the seven days are up and rock mining can be started again.

It has however become a profession. Declare war on 20 corps (or more) and hang around trade hubs with shiny ships and see what lands on gate. Then shoot them, scoop the loot and start over.

Major Null sec groups, and other groups also get war declared on them, mainly because they have to haul loot and moon goo to a trade hub to maximise the ISK return. The War initiators hope to kill these and steal it all. Same on WH groups. Most income is PI or Blue loot, so has to be hauled.

There are other groups that will actively look for their targets outside trade hubs, and will go to high sec islands and harass poor innocent miners....

Its a fact that a large number of professional war deckers have T3 Cruisers or faction cruisers and their targets are largely haulers and miners. Or mission runners.

They do provide a necessary service though. They keep Eve hard. There is never anywhere that is 100% safe and these people and gankers are Eve's way of highlighting this.

In my humble opinion though several changes need to be made. No neutral Logistical ships that cannot be shot first. If you want to aid in a war, you should be part of that war take the risks along with everyone else.
Second is structures. This is more difficult. A war dec corp will usually have no corp assets that can be shot. the target will often have some.  An imperfect suggestion is that a corp declaring war must have the same number of structures at the start of the war as the target in order to shoot them. For example. Corp A has 2 citadels and a POS. So Three. Corp B declaring war has none. Then Corp A's structures are not part of the war. However if corp B had 2 structures then 2 of Corp A's would be eligible to be shot. This would be tested at the start of the war and the time of shooting.
This single change would however make structures safer as the war dec corps will never put them up.


What starts wars. Often nothing beyond a corp member visiting a trade hub in a shiny ship, or being cargo scanned with large amounts of loot.  There are people out there with spread sheets monitoring juicy targets.And on the basis that you do it once and you will do it again then you are marked.


However when it starts what to do.

As ever there are choices. With many wars, staying in your local area and avoiding trade hubs is all that's needed to get through safely.

Other options:-
1. Drop corp to an NPC corp for the duration and carry on.
2. Carry on but limit your exposure, do not use the Hulk when you can mine in a procurer or prospect.
3. Log off for a week.
4. Fight back. However, be aware that unless your corp is very good you will usually die.


What NOT to do.
1. Visit Trade hubs. Regardless of why.
2. AFK anything.
3. Mine or Rat and not watch local.
4. Haul that Keepstar blueprint you just bought...

If you are lucky it will only last a week. If however you have provided them content that is risk free to them then be prepared for a long war. anything over two weeks will often kill a high sec small corp and people will not play the game to station spin for weeks and do nothing. They will drop corp and go.

That's the third change. A limit on wars, so that you can only declare war on a corp for 2 weeks. This will cause a lot of corp hopping but on the attackers side.

Just my thoughts really.

Comments and abuse gratefully accepted as always.

o/ and fly safe.

An Alt in High Sec

After a period of time failing to log on due to real life intruding on the world of Eve I am back.

I have Two accounts now, the main still has John and Oliver. The second has two maxed out in PI skills that follow John and Oliver around attempting to make some ISK. The third Character is a primary Industry and Transport one. This is not to say he cannot fly both an Ishtar and Gila well, as all those good complexes that ccp put in for holidays have to be farmed somehow.

Recently I have been playing the Industry character more, as I can often walk away from the keyboard to help with homework or cook or other chores. There are also no CTA's (Call To Arms) or strategic ops to get in trouble for missing.

Now This character is not organised. He has Jump Clones on Three High Sec Islands and a set up in each area.
In Placid he has PI and is Making an Astrahus from the ground up. (Reminder, still need the citadel bpc).
In Devoid I am not really sure what he is up to. The plan was to build a carrier, but was side tracked by running cosmic anomalies. Lots of shiny expensive drops from level 3 and 4 sites.
In Derelick he is building a Freighter. If I get ambitious then a Jump Freighter, but that is a lot of hauling of moon goo and other stuff.

Up to last week he was in his own corp (done early when fed up with 10% tax to npc corp.).

Last week though he was persuaded to join a high sec mining corp.

No they may well be reading this so....

They are set up on a High Sec Island, its small and surrounded by low sec. They were at war when I joined but it was a typical trade hub band that would never risk their nice shiny gank ships.

The corp itself is run by a fairly experienced chap who simply wanted to run his own corp. Now he has organised a citadel, and has a fairly extensive BPO collection (note to gankers - not in citadel) and had about 10-15 real people plus alts. (to be fair these are just the ones I see, there look to be more in the deep USA time zones.)
However, probably only 5 ish of those have more than 6 months eve experience, and there are several Alpha clones and 3-4 that are new omega clones. This is an interesting dynamic and he probably thinks that cat herding would be easier sometimes.

I am all for new blood and gave a number of items littering my hanger away to both the CEO and one new omega clone now has a prospect that he probably needs to train for...

Now the kill board for the corp is rather snuggly with 3 kills and 72 losses at last count.

Since I have joined I have tried to answer the basic questions and provide some insight. Obviously 1 person (You know who you are) did not finish the tutorial, as I had to point out how to open the probe window, and indeed what all those combat sites actually were... There is more than mining!

The corp is going in the right direction though and some of the new blood will stay and grow with the corp. Others will go elsewhere, but thats Eve and is only right.

Only  Stay in a Corp while its enjoyable!

Life is fluid and there is much to see.

Our dear leader has sort of the right idea though, he has built from corp funds a clutch of Tristans and Vexors, fitted them out (with tech 1 stuff he built) and is handing them out for people to try sites and hopefully PvP.

Corp Mates. If you are reading this, then I am building Punishers and Thrashers, and will provide them fitted, IF and only IF you can prove you can fly it. Fittings dependent on current War Dec as they are competent and not worried about low sec.

Sample fit to train for

Punnisher 

Small Trimark Armour pump 1 x3

400mm Rolled Tungsten Plates

400mm Steel Plates II

Damage Controll II

Energised Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Adaptive Nano Plating II

1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner

J5b Enduring Warp Scram

150mm Light Auto Cannon II x4

Hail ammo

Now this little beast is not an all rounder and a kite ship will still peck you to death. But probably very slowly.  Any kite frigate will run out of ammo or get bored first. It has around 19k ehp (depending on skills) and can easily take gate or station guns in low sec for 30-40 seconds (42 was the longest -  but someone else was shooting me as well).

Thrasher 

Small Targeting System Sub controller x3

Gyrostabaliser II

Tracking Enhancer II

Warp Disrupter II

F-90 Compact Sensor Booster x 2 (Scan Res Script)

280mm Howitzer Artillery II x 7

Repuplic Fleet EMP or Quake ammo

This one is more of a glass cannon, The alpha damage is huge at 17-1800 for the initial volley but works out to around the 250 mark. You do however get 1 and a half free shots before the others have locked you when fighting un boosted smaller ships. This will obviously die if used on station or gate in low sec, but in numbers can kill lots of stuff.

I have some skill books for the above, so if you need one mail me.

Next installment is a word on War Decs.

Long Time No Writre

Well, what can I say. Real Life seemed to be anti writing....

I would work rest and play, but when it came to putting finger to keyboard to write it came out all wrong.

Quick update

John Still in Space Mutts

Oliver in a Wormhole as part of a larger group,


Mutts have moved out of Drone space a long while ago. I believe that there was a disagreement at higher levels, but out exit was controlled and not rushed so I expect no ego's bruised.

So back to Low Sec, and Oulley in the Placid region.

We hung around there on our own basically shooting most people that wandered in in the hope of surprising them. Several weeks later we joined an alliance called Seperatists.

This was an interesting mix of people. On the plus side there were no rules. No CTA's and no expectations to hang around three hours while a fleet formed.

so daily life was either missions, combat anoms, data/relic sites, gate camping or small roams if you felt like joining.

Caldari Faction Warfare was next door and Gallente next door but one. So if you fancied small gang or solo pvp you could with ease.

This suited many Mutts as we could all do anything without anyone frowning.

Did hit security status though. Within a week or so most of us could no longer enter hi sec freely.

We then had a couple of internal bust ups with 3-4 long term members leaving and going elsewhere.

This was unfortunately a personality clash and several people went different ways.

I have to admit, at this point I put Oliver into a Wormhole corp to get away from it all.

I signed onto John to do PI which was my only method of revenue generation.

Recently however Mutts kissed and made up with all but two of the ex members and started recruiting.
We told Seperatists that we were once again off to null and started paying a small fortune to elevate  our sec status so that we could get stuff to a staging post.

And then off to Deklin


I wrote all this in June 2016. How times fly by.