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.