Friday, June 30, 2017

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.

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

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?




Friday, June 23, 2017

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.



Friday, June 16, 2017

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.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

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.