Roam Scouting - Part 1 (Initial Assessments)

I am still a n00b PvP'er. Let's get that straight up front. But, in the interest of sharing learnings to date, here are some observations about being an effective scout when you are a part of small (or large) roaming gang out looking for a fight in NullSec.

If you are a lead scout, your FC (Fleet Commander) is going to have a plan to move you along an ever-advancing tide that is your gang. Your role can mostly be summarized by the following responsibilities:

1. Initial Assessment: Report hostile counts and ship types as soon as possible upon entering into the "next" system.
2. Risk Assessment: Evaluate pilot traffic in a system containing hostiles to ascertain whether there is a hostile fleet enroute to intercept or otherwise compromise your own fleet
3. Target Acquisition: Locate possible targets of opportunity and create a warp-in point for fleet action, when applicable

In this first post, I am going to focus on the initial assessment.

This basically consists of a combination of evaluating local and using DScan to identify probable ship types.

The Local part is easy. If you are NBSI (Not blue shoot it) then you take a quick count of all pilots that are neutral or worse and quickly report the count to your FC.

In parallel, you are performing a Dscan at 360 degrees with max range to get a first look at ship types in-system and reporting them to the FC. In larger systems (e.g. systems where distance between your location and the farthest celestials is greater than 14AU), this may mean flying to other parts of the system to effectively canvas the system with DScan.

In systems where there are no Player-owned-stations (POS), this is much easier, as the only ships flying about are occupied and active. In cases with one or more POS's, you can run into a situation where more ships appear in Dscan than there are in Local, as there are ships left unpiloted within the warm confines of the POS bubble that still appear in DScan. Obviously, cloaked hostiles are not shown in DScan either, so the quick, initial assessment is either a confident: "4 Hostiles: 2 Vaga, a Muni and Caracal" or soft: "4 Hostiles: shiptypes unknown, possible targets on dscan include..."

If you have more time (edging upon target acquisition here), you can quickly identify POS locations, warp to 100km and identify unoccupied ships and mentally remove them from the DScan tally.

Typically, immediately upon entering a new system and while getting to a safe location (or cloaking), I will do a max DScan and give an initial report on total (Local) hostiles count and probable shiptypes, then quickly perform a directed DScan (30 degree or less) at the gates within the system to quickly see if there are any ships at the gates, which typically sounds something like: "4 Hostiles, probable 2x Vaga, Muni, Caracal" then about 10-15 seconds later: "2 Vaga on xxx gate, 1 on yyy gate".

The initial assessment needs to be fast and as accurate as possible - remember the FC is going to make fast decisions on fleet movement based on your reports - it could be the difference between a good kill or a substantial fleet loss if you get it wrong...

I will post about risk assessment in the next post.

Fly Safe (or not...)

SIR Recruiting opens in September

Whether you have spent months or years in NullSec or are thinking about trying out Null for the first time, there is a good opportunity to join a fun crew in the heart of Providence when our recruitment re-opens in September.

An early Corp post is here, but I wanted to mention a few personal observations about life in H-K. First off, I will refer back to my post on one of my toons finally getting started in PvP - I have the taste for it now, and let me tell you, it sticks. All I ever seem to want to do now is set up a camp or participate in a roam or protect the H-K pocket against hostiles.

Now that I have been to NullSec, it is actually hard to see myself ever returning to Concord space. I really enjoyed past years in LowSec and profited greatly from WSpace, but getting involved in NullSec was one of the best moves I have made.

I have a vested interest in growing our US Timezone membership (I am west coast/Seattle), so if you have any questions or have an interest, feel free to EveMail or convo LightTraveler or Star Defender.

T3 and Logistics-capable pilots are likely going to get a preferred look, based on the fact that the bulk of the corp ISK will be made in Class 4+ Wormhole daytrips, so if you are growing weary of WSpace colonization but enjoy the rewards of WSpace, you will enjoy taking down REAL sleepers in these higher-class sleeper territories...

However, that may not be a critical requirement - final details on recruitment and minimum skills will unfold when we officially open recruitment.

My favorite new ship - Blackbird. Scripted to permajam from 120km, I am loving this ship. It is arguably the ugliest damn ship in Eve, but it continues to be effective in camps and saving my bacon.

Fly Safe (or not...)

Summer in EVE

This time last year I was just renewing my excitement and activity level in EVE and was just a couple of months into WSpace. I had just found out that the Apocrypha release was everything I had hoped for, and more. I was posting to the blog almost daily, and was raking in the ISK and enjoying T3 production along with building up from a small POS to a Large, well-defended POS.

What a difference a year makes!

Like may, the time in Wspace, specifically the daily need to check on everything, led to a need to take a break from WSpace, which also allowed me to reflect on why I grew tired of the demands of WSpace, which soon became a trend and ultimately planted the seed for my move to Provi.

This summer, although I have been pretty happy in Provi and with my new corpmates, I have found that my EVE time has dropped precipitously. Based on what I can see from fellow corpies and other corps, this is fairly common in the summer.

The problem is that it is a sort of compounding function. For those times where I am amped up about getting online, I login only to find that there is nothing happening - no roams/camps/fleets of any kind, at least in my (US) timezone. Same goes for a lot of other pilots in other corps, at least generally speaking. I am guessing the larger corps and alliances maintain momentum all through the summer.

However, skill training continues and I am quickly draining my skill queue lists for various efforts, from PvP to Cap-ship training. Both my main and alt toons are nearing the 35M SP level, and the compliment of ships I can now fly is growing exponentially.

There was a good post by my fellow corp member Agatir on Provi, so no need to replicate.

My favorite activity of late is to use my near-perfect skilled EWAR jamming setup in small fleets - I really enjoy these outings and enjoy massive range, especially with range scripts. That, and continuing to act as forward or rear scout on roams. In between these (for now, rare) corp ops, I am running Sansha anoms, typically Havens and Sanctums.

Fly Safe! (or not...)

LightTraveler grows fangs

Been a while since I have posted, particularly because I felt like I did not have anything new or informative to share.

However, as several blog followers and also corp-mates have mentioned recently: "What do you mean you have nothing to share? What about your new NullSec and PvP experiences?".

Well, although it may certainly not be informative, it would nonetheless be a chronicle of my experience in nullsec/Providence. So, here is a quick update on all-things Provi (while trying hard not to give up any sensitive info).

As most know by now, I have joined up with my long-time WSpace friends and allies over at SI Radio Corp/Planet Risk. We are located in Providence, specifically in the H-K4WA constellation. We have a unique relationship there with NOIR., and reside in the pocket with the LSS Alliance.

We are a large enough corp to essentially field a squad 24/7, which allows us to defend the pocket and make regional roams around Provi. For a NullSec n00b like me, that has meant diving head-first into PvP, an area where I am untested.

My first experience in Provi was simply to get settled in and get everything I felt I needed/wanted down in Provi relocated from HighSec. The first lesson learned, as in real life, don't overpack. If you are going to join a Nullsec corp that provides ships and fittings for Ops, then you probably do NOT need to bring every ship in your personal arsenal. I simply brought down a CovOps, a Drake, and Domi, and a Viator. I also constructed one of my Tengu kits once I got down there. My biggest mistake was bringing a good portion of my invention and production goods - we already have ample industrialists in the corp, and essentially anything you need, you corp mail the request to have it baked.

Once I got settled, the first thing I did was make 3 safespots in every system in the HK pocket, the "pipeline" to Mista, and the surrounding Provi systems.

Next, I simply began running local anom's in the pocket, as we were trying to max out our military index. Plenty of ISK in NullSec to be made on running NPC sites, especially when you get your system index up to max and you can run top-end, respawning sites over...and over...and over, etc. We also get wormhole spawns, which are quickly capitalized upon and squeezed for max possible ISK extraction ;-P

I was in the pocket maybe for a week when I felt the pull of PvP. Every time a neutral enter the pocket, the local Intel channels lit up and small squads were formed to nail the intruder(s). It was obvious that most of the regional veterans had a well-practiced protocol, with pre-assigned roles, ships, etc.

I really wanted to participate, but thought I could add little value. That is until I realized I could immediately join as a scout. With all of my covert ops skills and practiced hand at dodging gatecamps and cloak-warp trickery, I began asking to join SI Radio and NOIR. roams as a scout. I quickly began learning the vernacular and protocol of joining fleets and stepping into a role. I participated more and more as the pilot that gets sent several systems ahead of the roam to report back intel to the fleet. It was an easy fit to be the slippery pilot that can avoid getting killed while scanning down potential targets and reporting back to the fleet.

However, reporting intel successfully also means that you are also not getting in on the battles (and of course killmails). I would occasionally be in a position to watch the battles unfold, but with no offensive or defensive capabilities, I could not get in directly on the action. Thus began my PvP skill training crash course. My main and Alt began a new skill training regiment. One for tackling skills, the other as an EWAR master.

Roll forward 2 months and I have now participated in more than 2 dozen roams and ops, and have been able to continue to add value as a scout, but I have begun introducing my favorite ship of the moment - the trusty Rifter, in some of the more recent ops. I have even managed to collect a perfect record of 7 Kills, 0 Losses! I attribute the perfect score to PURE LUCK as and/or simply not being important or expensive enough to bother targeting. Lolz.

But LightTraveler has been officially blooded, and he likes it...immensely. I get it now. I can now at least understand all of those pilots that flame the industrialists for not embracing Eve for what they see as the only thing to do in Eve: Kill, attack, pillage. It is certainly a rush, getting that lock, webbing and warp scrambling the target, even catching the pod and sending the pilot to his next clone. I still think that Eve is more than just PvP, but now that I have (finally) tasted that aspect of Eve, I can certainly say I have been missing out on a lot of fun. Until now...

Shout out to my corp-mates for helping LT grow fangs and taste the blood of the enemy...

Fly Safe?!?!

PI: KSpace versus WSpace Planet Yields

I have surveyed more than 300 planets in HighSec and LowSec to date, and have recently been surveying the WSpace's that have been spawning out of the Provi area.

Although there are some obvious increases in resource yields when you dive deeper into LowSec, the increase is nothing when compared to the increase in resource yields you see in most WH systems.

For the more abundant resources, there is certainly no lack of supply in LowSec or WSpace. So talking specifically about the rarest resources (Felsic Magma, Reactive Gas, and Autotrophs), of the last 10 or so WH systems I have surveyed, at least 6 of them have seen amazing yields for these rare resources. I have begun measuring resource availability on a rough percentage scale when viewing Planet Mode in the scan tab, where you are looking at the horizontal resource bars. Most High and LowSec Lava planets, for example, show Felsic Magma in the 0-20% range. The last 4 WSpace lava planets I have surveyed have consistently had in excess of 60%. We actually had a Class 3 Wspace open this week that had every planet, including 2 temperate and 2 Lava. This system had Felsic, Reactive, and Autotrophs over 75%.

If not for the fact that the C3 system had only a single static to NullSec, it would have been the most ideal PI system I have seen to date.

Bottom Line: it clearly looks to me like WSpace is the best location for PI. You do not even need a POS. Drop in a scanning Alt and a Hauler Alt, either one skilled for PI, and you can configure your resource chains for maintenance every 2-3 days.

Fly Safe!

Final EVE Planetary Interaction Products

Some good posts on the eve (pun intended) of the Tyrannis release regarding How-To's, Video demonstrations, etc., but I thought I would re-post what I thought was the most important information: The final list of products that can be made with PI (reference and adapted from Eve University Wiki on PI):

POS Fuels

Not actually manufactured, but an intermediate planetary product. Usable immediately as POS fuel

• Coolant
• Enriched Uranium
• Mechanical Parts
• Oxygen
• Robotics

T2 parts

Most T2 manufacturing uses a PI good. Mainly P2 and P3.

• Construction Blocks
• Consumer Electronics
• Transmitter
• Guidance Systems
• Robotics
• Miniature Electronics
• Super Conductor

Miscellaneous

Created with Blueprint and PI products

• Nanite Repair Paste

Sovereignty Structures

Created with Blueprints and P4 products.

• Infrastructure Hub
• Sovereignty Blockade Unit
• Territorial Claim Unit

Starbase Structures

Created with Blueprints and P4 products.

• Assembly Array
• Control Towers
• Corporate Hangar Array
• Cynosural Generator Array
• Cynosural System Jammer
• Electronic Warfare Batteries
• Energy Neutralizing Array
• Hybrid Turret Batteries
• Jump Bridges
• Laser Turret Batteries
• Missile Batteries
• Mobile Laboratory
• Moon Harvesting Array
• Projectile Turret Batteries
• Reactors
• Refining Arrays
• Shield Hardening Arrays
• Ship Maintenance Arrays
• Silos
• System Scanning Arrays

Settling in (in Provi)

As you can tell, my WSpace posts have dried up lately. That is primarily due to the fact that I have been helping the corp prepare for WSpace operations out of our new base in Providence. Although we have not begun running full fleet ops yet, I have managed to be opportunistic to regional Class 3 WH's popping up from time to time and "day tripping" in to run a few sites.

My big surprise the other day running a Class 3 with a corpmate was the relatively normal Melted Nano drop rate but the extremely high "Blue Salvage" (e.g. NPC Buy Order salvage) - it amounted to 3x the total yield from T3 sleeper salvage. I had not heard of changes in drop rates, so I will chalk it up to pure chance for now.

For those interested, this is my first foray into a "large" (50+) member corp. This is also my first venture into being based out of Null-sec. As such, learning about regional Intelligence channels, joining roams, avoiding roaming hostile gangs, etc. has quickly become commonplace, and I am enjoying it immensely. Getting used to communicating on Vent is also new, and has spurred some funny exchanges with Mrs. Star Defender.

Wormhole Ops starting soon(tm)...

Fly Safe

EVE Parodies, by Luminus Aardokay of SI Radio

OK, I do not often get the chance on this blog to post about truly gut-busting, hilarious examples of how creative and ingenious some pilots can be. So it is with great pleasure to provide, for your guaranteed amusement, the link to the following EVE Parodies. My favorite is the one posted today, entitled:

"Bye CVA"

Link to post: [Oh my Pod] Parody songs that will make your pod crack

Fly Safe!

Yep, consolidating sucks

I think I have found one particular EVE function that I dislike even more than mining - consolidating.

How I keep ending up with various ships and fittings and ammo and loot all over the various reaches of EVE is intriguing. Although random exits from WSpace is obvious, I typically make sure I complete my run(s) to market or quickly grab an exit in the next day or two to "clean up". But still, I have various crap in hangars at no less that 40 stations!

I would love to clear up my Assets view - there must be some skill to be learned to be able to remotely issue "Trash It" to countless stations???

I managed to hand over my most recent WSpace to a reader (Free!) and that turned out to be good karma, as they also bought the entirety of my Large POS package (Over 1B ISK, including fuel). This saved them some ISK (I charged less than NPC/Jita) and saved me a bunch of time transporting to Jita for sale. Best of luck to the new owners of my WSpace kit...

That being said, I am all set for my move to Provi, including transferring my EXPLI and GSTN corps to alts and dropping roles in advance of joining my new brethren.

Fly Safe!

All packed up

I was able to dismantle the large POS deployment tonight and managed to hit a nice HighSec exit to The Forge region via my adjoining system. Everything was nicely uneventful and everything is at a HighSec base, 4 jumps from Jita.

Plan is to sell off all of the POS gear, including the Refineries, Hangars, Arrays, all defenses, and even the Hybrid Reactions gear. I will not be needing any of that in Provi (for now at least). Quite a bit of POS gear I have managed to collect over the last year.

Many people have asked and yes, I will still be running WSpace sites and posting to this blog about future WSpace experiences, albeit mostly C5 and C6 now and with the SI Radio team out of NullSec in a true "Mongolian" (aka Raiding Party) format.

Looking forward to getting set up - more soon...

Fly Safe

Semi-final CCP quote on PI Outputs

Quoting from the discussion thread on the latest PI update from CCP:

CCP Soundwave: "The end rewards will come off the NPC market. Basically you'll be able to build POS structures, sov structures, POS fuel (the NPC seeded parts), T2 components (the NPC seeded parts again), station components and nanite repair paste. Might be forgetting something, but that's it I think."

I think the most surprising element here is Station Components, POS Structures and Sovereignty Structures. We already had a good indication in Nanite paste, POS Fuel and T2 Components - very pleased to see that there are more substantive structures that can be built from PI.

Shout out to Planet Risk and their Season Finale Podcast - looking forward to roaming together in Provi! If you are a WSpace dweller and have not heard about what happened to Planet Risk, you need to read and listen... Especially the piece on how the Orca got bounced from the POS and establishing an exit plan.

QP and Lum - loved the NOIR commercial BTW Lolz.

Fly Safe!

Moving to NullSec

As soon as I get a good exit I am going to dismantle my Wspace POS and restage myself in NullSec.

With Dominion's Nullsec upgrades dictating rental agreements in NullSec constellations and with the upcoming Tyrannis release, and with my long-time desire to check out NullSec, I found myself thinking more about Ratting, Plexing, W-Space, and Industry from the deep reaches of Eve.

So, I am all set to sublet from a not-so-secret new sovereignty holder in nullsec that is renting a constellation. I will provide more details soon, but my biggest fear in this move is getting set up out there and then finding 500 other renters squabbling over the constellation resources ;-)

My main goal is to work with other renters and the owning alliance to procure upgrades for ratting and plexing and take a break from WSpace again. I will continue to opportunistically search for the next ideal WSpace, albeit from NullSec.

Will be interesting to see what kind of WH's spawn from NullSec - although I have heard the majority are C5+, I am eager to see if the constellation-WH model is really true and whether less-accessed C2-C4 WH's are accessible from NullSec.

Otherwise, I will be setting up shop "somewhere in Providence" and maybe starting making some use of my BPO library...

Fly Safe!

What do you do while mining?

I have not been loading grid on my statics for the past 3 days and true to form, there had not been a single jump in my Wspace for that entire time. That has allowed me to mine Arkanor in peace.

As you may have read throughout this blog, I am not a miner.

Regardless, I did train up for the occasional lack of anything else to do in WSpace and got my Covetor and T2 mining crystal skills maxed. So, I spent some idle time mining Arkanor. It wasn't that bad...as long as I was doing a few other things like inventory on my BPO collection, chatting with other pilots, and reviewing the latest updates on Sisi regarding PI.

I guess that is what full-time miners do to pass the time while your mining lasers are cycling?

Please comment on what you do while mining (and keep it PG please).

I also managed to get some WSpace chores done this morning.

A rare inbound K162 opened this morning that was nicely located near my K-Space base of operations, so I got both of my max cargo Itty V's running laps and got nearly 30,000 Arkanor plus about 750M ISK worth of loot out of my WSpace to the local station. Next time I am in KSpace I will either sell the Arkanor directly or get it to my base with 100% refine and sell the minerals.

Feels good to have all of that safely into a highsec station.

I also took the opportunity to refuel, so I am again back up to 30+ days of POS fuel.

Last night the adjoining system was unoccupied and Dotlan showed narry a single jump in 48 hours. There were 14 Sigs and over 20 sleeper sites, so I scanned down and ran the radar and mag sites before I had to logoff for the night. Hate leaving so many riches behind (exit closed overnight), but I still managed to get a pile of MNRs, datacores, and various wrecked parts.

So believe it or not, there are STILL some unoccupied C2's out there! For the record, that empty C2 system had a single static to LowSec.

Fly Safe!

Neighboring Loot and Deep Safe Nerf confirmed

After quickly replacing my trusty Domi, it was back to business. I had some nice spawns in adjoining systems via my static, including some juicy radar and mag sites.

I have had a nice run of derelict talocan ships from which the hull's are derived over the past week or so - Managed to salvage 11 of these, which breaks my record for even a packed system.

Dotlan showed I had some light traffic in my system while I was at work, but it looks like they only partially worked a Sleeper Data Sanctuary site, as the left the last 2 Sleeper BS's for me to finish up.

Plenty of Grav sites are newly spawned in my system, so if things get really scarce, I can always mine ABC's.

I was late in noticing what most of you likely already saw officially reported by CCP on the Deep Safe Nerf that will coincide with the Taranis release. I had posted previously on the Sisi observations that surmised as much. So get your ships out of those 1000AU safe spots!

I saw some good counter-posts regarding what the heck cap ships and titans will do - I think Mule captures my sentiment.

Fly Safe!

EVE and Taxes do not mix

Expensive night, and learned another EVE lesson...Do not try to finish your taxes while your system contains hostiles.

I was getting a bit of traffic through my HighSec static and after chasing off a prober, decided to start closing it. NOTE: I use my Rokh and Domi to close WH's. They are the two largest mass ships I have.

Well, I got the WH to critical, but just as my Rokh comes back into WSpace, a HAC and Raven lock and bubble me. OK, I think I can maybe work this - I get my Alt Domi to warp in and take a shot at this now 2-on-2.

But...First problem - my Rokh is still fitted for Mining. Yes, mining. Before I was skilled up for Covetor, I mined in WSpace with my Rokh. As anyone can read in Halada's Mining Guides, Rokh is a good option if you cannot fly a mining barge. So, once my Domi warps in, I deploy ECM drones.

Second problem - another Raven and HAC uncloak. OK, now I am in trouble. I am bubbled, webbed, and cannot seem to lock the HAC. In short, Main and Alt podded back to Kspace.

So, I lost my Domi and my Rokh. That Rokh I have had for nearly 2 years and I only keep around for WH closing, since I am flying a Covetor now for Mining. So although costly, it was cost incurred ages ago and do not really count it. The Domi is just a pain to refit. Well under 100M to replace, including fittings.

I expect the losses from time to time, but when you get caught with proverbial pants down, you just want to kick yourself.

Regardless, this system has made me a cool billion ISK, so no real loss, but I get miffed when I have to spend an hour refitting.

Worst thing I did? I told the intruder earlier that he better exit the system because I was closing the hole. Just enough info for him to exit, go get a small fleet together and return for an easy catch coming into/out of the hole.

Thus, I am done being the Wspace nice guy - no more quaint warnings or free passes. Instant aggression from now on.

Luckily I always maintain current exit/entrance bookmarks and even if that fails, I always have a scanning alt in-system.

Flying now to get my main back in while I replace the Domi.

(edit - was actually a HIC and two Ravens - chalk it up to fog of battle. Also, back in system with Main and Alt - in-system scan alts are a good thing...)

Fly Safe (and smart)

System Cleared, Hitting Adjoining WSpace

Did not take long to clear all the sleeper and ladar sites. For the first time in WSpace I broke out my new Covetor, fitted with T2 Crystals. After the initial 5 minutes of "OK, I am actually mining Arkanor in WSpace", I remembered why I never really liked mining. So after about 10K of Arkanor and some Crokite for Hybrid Reactions, I decided to check out the adjoining system.

The adjoining system was (surprisingly) vacant. There were 7 sleeper sites and a ton of ladar and grav, but no Radar sites. I cleared the sleeper sites and decided enough for the night.

Although I have had a few jump-throughs in terms of system traffic, I have not really had any true hostile traffic to date. I also managed to jump out through my static HighSec and get some additional Mechanical Parts - either I left some in my hangar in the staging base or overlooked the fact that I was short (5 days left) - so the thing I can see I like already with a system with a static HighSec is truly enjoying the benefits of ready access to materials. Most of my WSpace homes have been "deep" C2/C3 and this is my first hole with a static to HighSec. A scant 10 minutes and I was back with the missing fuel and some other misc. items.

So, in terms of loot value I am somewhere around 750M for this system, but I will be keeping the MNR's, etc for T3 production. I will likely run the other/NPC loot to market tonight.

I should continue to mention the process of wormhole exit management, which is a good part of the reason I have maintained a quiet environment here in this system.

Fly Safe!

Back in W-Space

Well, when luck simply hot-drops an unoccupied, Anomaly-rich C2 a mere 1 High-Sec jump from your base of operations, and you happen to have your entire POS fitting (including a month of fuel) staged and ready to go for such circumstances, it makes it comparatively easy to pull the trigger and move in 250,000m3 worth of POS gear and get it all setup.

So, I now find myself in a nice little C2 with 2 static exits to HighSec and another C2.

The WH entrance was a HighSec R943. A lookup on the dotlan wspace system traffic page for the system J# showed a scant 4 jumps in the last 24 hours and one sleeper killed. With all of the sites here, I consider that to likely be a newer pilot day-tripping it.

There is evidence of prior inhabitants in what looks like the remains of a small POS - there are a handful of small, damaged guns from a 1-pilot corp, but no POS. Looks like someone got knocked out. With no ship kills on dotlan and based on the number of spawned sites, whatever happened must not have happened recently.

With a static HighSec, I am fitting my full Large Hardened POS configuration. I expect visitors, even with good exit management.

It will take a few days of active effort to clear the sites. There are also 3 Grav sites and a Ladar site. One thing that does stand out are two of the Grav sites, which are "Uncommon Core Deposit" sites - these are typically found in higher-class wspace systems and are rich in high-end ABCs.

Might be a short stay, or long...we will see. Time will tell.

Fly Safe!

Planetary Interaction for Wspace (POS Fuels!)

A little more information leaking out from pilots grinding on Sisi since the latest patch there. In my last post, I only had a chance to look at the new graphics. After reading up on some posts, I thought I would share the information that was of most interest to me (typically) as a WSpace resident.

If the production chains on Sisi remain stable to Tyrannis, I am pretty excited to see that the NPC-supplied fuels (e.g. some of the key POS fuel elements) are included in PI:

• Coolant
• Enriched Uranium
• Mechanical Parts
• Oxygen
  

Kudos to SYXGeek for grinding through all production paths and compiling this list of materials that can be produced in the current PI build on Sisi.

Now if only there were Ice Belts in Wspace...

Fly Safe

Updated Planetary Interaction

Looks like a new build was deployed to Sisi, and with it came some updates to PI, including...

New graphics for planet-type-specific Command Centers:

...and planet-specific extractors:


...Processors:



...and Storage Facilities:


(The new launcher is the same as the cube-shaped extractor above for now)

Looks like surveying for resources and most of the functionality previously there in the last build in terms of creating a supply chain is broken, but I dig the new graphics... Call me easy to please.

Fly Safe!

Struggling to get back into EVE

Thought I would share some introspection...

My experience with EVE has now spanned several years, and in that time I have seen my weekly play time vary substantially, peaking at some ridiculous levels back in January, where I would estimate I was playing as much as 35 hours per week. That led to RL impact and a complete burn-out.

Following a brief hiatus, I resumed with some T3 production, including deployment of a HighSec POS and billions of ISK in transaction volume. I basically ended up flooding the subsystem market for a brief period and actually influenced a downward price trend in some specific subsystems. As such, I halted my T3 production and took down the HighSec POS.

Since then, I have dabbled in evaluating the upcoming Tyrannis release on Sisi and have been keeping up with the blogosphere readings, but simply cannot get any kind of focus on EVE. I put a few hours into roaming my old LowSec plexing stomping grounds, but that territory is now rife with Faction Warfare fleets and effectively unsafe for plexing. I keep logging in, scan and visit a few regional W-spaces, deciding I don't really feel like doing anything specific, and logging off.

I was even going to join friends out at Planet Risk, but got side-tracked with some RL events. That is the most likely prospect for near-future.

I loved the recent post by Letrange RE: EVE being like Hotel California - "you can check out, but you can never leave" - very apt.

My senses tell me there will be some trigger-event that will get me back into EVE... Wonder what it will be. Completion of some critical skills (almost have carriers completed), Tyrannis release, or stumbling upon a pristine and packed W-Space? Time will tell...

Fly Safe!

Poseidon Deep Safes to be nerfed?

It appears that a fix is in the works to potentially fix a number of exploits relating to logoff, and although the Poseidon method of creating an ultra-deep safe is not specifically targeted, it nonetheless appears that ultra-deep safes will no longer be feasible.

Make those 1,000 AU deep safe spots while you can...

Fly Safe!

Seattle EVE Meet

After reading Letrange's recent post on their semi-regular meet, I am proposing a Seattle Meet - I know of at least 5 players here locally and would be fun to jabber over a few beers and some stick about EVE.

Thinking April 3rd at Belltown Billiards - any interest out there fellow Emerald City pilots?

edit: Just discovered the channel "TheSound" - all Washington State pilots.

Fly Safe.

Planetary Interaction - Deposits and Link Capacities

OK, I am back from NYC and see that there has been a lot of new information regarding Sisi testing of the new Planetary Command Center (PCC) and the related production line elements for Planetary Interaction (PI) in the upcoming Tyrannis release.

In the last post on PCC's, I linked the EVE University video, which looks at a simple production line. After reading the Sisi test forum on PI, it seems that, like any RL production chain, you will have to deal with supply chain management. Resources are harvested at different rates depending on the deposit from which you are extracting (e.g. each deposit extracts a specific amount at a specific cycle time, which varies for each deposit) and the route amount specified when connecting a route between an extractor and a Storage Facility or Processor dictates utilization rate of the route.

Each selectable Deposit factors into a specific m3/hour. In many cases, the Deposit yield rate is less than the default Link limit of 10,000 m3/hour. However, richer deposits can exceed that rate and you will get an error when attempting to establish a new route between the "rich deposit" extractor and your Storage Facility or Processor:


In these cases, you have two options: you can either reduce the Quantity specified when you establish the route OR you can upgrade the link to allow for a greater capacity.

• The default level has a Logistical Capacity to 10,000 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level I ("Local") increases the Logistical Capacity to 15,000 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level II ("Basic") increases the Logistical Capacity to 22,500 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level III ("Standard") increases the Logistical Capacity to 33,750 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level IV ("Improved") increases the Logistical Capacity to 50,625 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level V ("Fast") increases the Logistical Capacity to 75,937 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level VI ("Expedited") increases the Logistical Capacity to 113,906 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level VII ("Express") increases the Logistical Capacity to 170,859 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level VIII ("Advanced") increases the Logistical Capacity to 256,289 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level IX ("State of the Art") increases the Logistical Capacity to 384,433 m3 per hour.
• The Link Upgrade to Level X ("Experimental") increases the Logistical Capacity to 576,650 m3 per hour.

Considering I have only found two Deposits that exceed the default, but only needed a Link upgrade to Level I, I can surmise that eventually the scanning interface will allow you to identify "monstrous" deposits worthy of significant upgrades to your links.

Below is a simple production line that produces Aluminum Nitrade, which would be considered a supply chain element (as a required input to Create Aluminum Nitrade Paste, and ultimately combined with other lines to generate Nanite Repair Paste, see below). The top-most Storage Facility stores the Aluminum Nitrade, which would later be connected as an input source to another Chemical plant to generate Nitrade Paste:

(Aluminum Nitrade Production Line)

To put it all in context, the full production line for Nanite Repair Paste (a necessary NullSec resource), with the above supply-chain identified in red, can be seen below:


Why is all of this in a Wormhole Blog and why am I blogging about it? Because PI is going to also function in W-Space, where I can effectively oversee production on multiple planets and use exit management to manage traffic through my enterprise!

edit: Please note that even CCP has stated that everything we are seeing on Sisi in terms of what is extracted, built and launched is just for example flows and that the final products produced from PI will likely be different, so don't go selling off your Nanite Repair Paste operation.

Fly Safe!

Planetary Command Center

Been reading the rare bits of information regarding the plans for planetary interaction with the upcoming summer release of Tyrannis and thought I would see what they put up on Sisi (aka Singularity), the test server.

First thing I noticed was a new highest-order market category for "Planetary Infrastructure", which has a single item, the "Planetary Command Center" (herein referred to as the PCC). I headed off a few jumps to pick up a few and see what I could sleuth out.



It seems you do not actually deploy this PCC like a POS, as there is no "deploy for corp" option. Instead, I figured out that you warp-to a planet, right-click it, and there is a menu option for "View in Planet Mode" - hmmm, that is new...try it.



OK, now we are in Planet Mode.



I can see a list of things on the left and a filter placeholder. Nothing actionable except for "Satellite Status", which toggles a Scanning box, which is currently non-functional. Assumption is that you can ultimately position the box over a specific area of the planet, scan, and get a readout on the available resources for that planetary region...



Closed the scanner.

Looks like there is a right-click context menu over the planet, which includes Build... options:


So I choose the PCC and sure enough, one goes from my cargo bay to the planet. PCC Deployed! I click on the PCC "Chevron" and a new window appears - I review the mouse-over hints for the different actions: Links, Storage, Decommission, {Build Structure}, and Launch. Clicking the Build Structure button gives us a list of extractors and processors to build, identical to the above "Build..." context menu:

Since the satellite scan is not functional, I consider the fact that this is a temperate planet, with both water and land, so I choose a Water Distillation Plant and "Build", and click over nearby Ocean - a new chevron appears - I click it and I get a new popup to replace the PCC window and it has options for Links and Products. I click Products and..."No Products Present".


OK, try all of the extractors...FAIL.

(To be continued...Flying to NYC)

edit: Actually got to my hotel tonight in NYC and had a chance to read a few blog posts, including CK's post that has a link to an EVE University video on the remaining steps.

The Mighty Dreadnoughts

With my pilot training for T3 (Tengu and Proteus) to Level 5 completed, I began to consider what is next for Star Defender, my Caldari main toon. I have longer-term visions (too early to call them "plans") for Class 6 (waves at Quiv) and NullSec.

As a Caldari, he is max-skilled at all-things related to missile and shields, and I have all sentry and drone skills to max. I also have Caldari BS to max as well as a host of supporting skills relating to optimizing CPU and Power for fittings. At just over 25M skill points, I have a lot of ground covered.

That left a major fork in the proverbial road for either going "small" (Frigate/HAC PvP training) or for going big (Dread). I am edging towards going big. I have never been a big fan of carriers, but I REALLY like the looks of the Amarr Revelation.


Most of my reading to date has seen the Revelation highly recommended for a number of reasons, but to me I think it ultimately comes down to what ship I like the most, minus what ships simply do not make sense. With my max skilled drone and sentry skills, however, and with a similarly max-skilled Gallente toon (LightTraveler), the Moros is also appealing.

Although Caldari-trained, I think I am talking myself out of the Phoenix - so many comments and writings (even from current Phoenix pilots) that said if they could do it all over again they would never choose the Phoenix, although it's tank rocks.

Looking for some feedback here. I have plenty of time to make a decision, with the non-racial (e.g. common skills) to get out of the way first.

Love this video by the way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPeb547pis0

Fly Safe!

The Expanded EVE Online Blog Pack

CK has expanded the BlogPack!

I continue to see new, great blogs being written, many of which I have been adding to my blogroll list, but it looks like most of them also made it into the EVE Blog Pack, which I think serves as a great resource for exploring the wealth of writing in this community.

Be sure to check out some of the new additions - some great In and Out of Character blogs out there...

CrazyKinux's Musing: The New, Improved and Expanded EVE Online Blog Pack

And thank you to those of you that continue to find my humble writings interesting enough to follow and comment!

Fly Safe!

W-Space Colonization Longevity

After talking with more than a dozen pilots that have been in W-space for 3 months or more, it is interesting to see a trend developing, whereby more than half of them are either out of W-space already or plan to exit W-space within the next 2 weeks.

Most cite the fact that their previously juicy recurring static exits are simply populated and farmed out, which means they find themselves going for days (or in some cases weeks) without much to do, having farmed out their local system.

The others simply fall into my own line of experience, where the constant commitment to maintaining the W-space POS, even with a good small team, becomes a little too demanding of their time and they find themselves in need of scaling back.

Regardless, it can certainly be said that W-Space remains lucrative, if not demanding. And, choice of system is by far the most important element of longer-term colonization.

Also noteworthy is that the bulk of this feedback is coming from C1 - C3 dwellers. The handful of C4 - C6 dwellers I know are quite happy and content with their operations, which I attribute to (a) larger corp presence with less demands on time, e.g. sharing the load and (b) less populated adjoining statics, which means a good consistent supply of sites.

Anyone else have some thoughts?

(edit: Additions below based on comments):

It appears that a key driver for many that are primarily mining as their key source of income have the added downside of the mineral price issues, with typically high-end ores yielding less than low-end ores. Mining always was a tough way to earn a buck...

A great post by Kename Fin at Our EVE, and I have added this blog to the list - glad you posted Kename, nice blog! (And I saw your Dark Star reference - one of my long-time cult favorites. Can you say "Bomb, this is Lt. Doolittle. You are *not* to detonate in the bomb bay. I repeat, you are NOT to detonate in the bomb bay!")

And here Minuit adds some reflection on Time Demands in WH Space. Good post!

Fly Safe!

Star Defender's WTB List

OK, per the recent post, I will be maintaining this page to identify what I need in terms of production inventory, in case there are fellow pilots out there looking to earn a slightly better yield than Jita prices at more convenient drop points.

Updated: February 28, 2010

WTB:

• 0 Melted Nanoribbons (minimum contract 30)
  
• 0 Carbon-86 Epoxy Resin (minimum contract 100)
• 0 Scandium Metallofullerene (minimum contract 100)

All stocked for the moment. Next update expected March 2nd.

Eve-Mail me @ Star Defender to contract.

Fly Safe

I want your Melted Nanoribbons

OK, In less than 24 hours I have burned through my stock of 400 MNRs.

That means that I am ready to extend the offer I previously convo'd to many of my fellow W-Space dwellers that I am prepared to offer a premium over daily Jita prices for materials, such as MNR's.

Why? Well, I hate waiting for (and managing) market buy orders to fill and think that there is a mutually-beneficial solution here for trusted partners. I get to maintain an inventory with direct suppliers and the suppliers get two things: (1) a premium over standing buy orders in Jita and (2) option to drop the loot at convenient (to both of us) system locations, meaning not necessarily the growingly treacherous Jita run.

For example, as I type, the current standing Jita buy order for MNR's is 5,110,408. If you contacted me for an MNR offload today, I would offer 5,300,000. I will probably settle on a fixed premium over Jita buy orders somewhere between 3-5%. If your current exit is 20 jumps from Jita, we will mutually agree upon a good system for you to put up a personal contract for the loot.

Obviously this does not apply to those of you with the patience and cashflow to post Sell Orders at higher yields, but in my experience it was never worth it to invest the time in constant market order manipulation to eek out an extra 2% margin and as a result I would always take the quick and easy market sell.

As my other stocks diminish, I will maintain this page that will specifically identify what I need, when, and how much.

Hope you are all having a good time in W-Space and may your spawns be frequent and lucrative!

Fly Safe!

T3 Production Resumes! (In High-Sec)

Huh?

OK, I am back in the proverbial saddle!

The interesting angle here is that I am continuing with T3 production, but NOT in W-space. I have setup a Large hardened POS in HighSec for Reverse Engineering, Component and Subsystem construction.

Why?

Well because it is easier to run my productions from a HighSec POS than a C1 W-Space first off, and with my only real concern being an expensive (on their part) war-dec, I would not lose all that much if it were to fall - I will only be maintaining the bare essentials in the POS, and with my standings and skills with a nearby faction starbase, I do not even have to move my BPOs into the POS for any other Research or Manufacturing.

Comparatively, if I was managing my complete T3 production chain in W-space, literally everything is at risk and W-space POS maintenance is a hassle. That is, of course if you have sufficient standings to put up a HighSec POS, which based on my prior missioning was not a problem.

I will continue to make trips into W-Space, including the occasional Medium POS deployment if I stumble upon a packed system and want to camp there for a while, but essentially my experience has netted a decision to no longer maintain a persistent POS home in W-space.

The only thing I cannot do from my HighSec POS in terms of T3 production is the Hybrid Reactions. However, I reacted enough materials whilst in W-space to last about 10 years - the only market runs I need now are for the Carbon-86 and C3-FTM Acid elements, which I never reacted previously because those source gases do no occur in C3 or less W-space.

So, the story continues, albeit not consisting solely of W-Space!

Fly Safe!

Red Frog Freight Service

I had heard of Red Frog Freight Service nearly a year ago from another pilot that was using the service for POS refueling and consolidation of their corp hangars. So, since I had recently pulled out of Wspace and my entire POS portfolio was (albeit in a single location) far away from my desired base of operations, I decided to look up Red Frog and get a better idea of how it worked and what the freight services would cost.

Much to my surprise, it was dirt-cheap and nearly instantaneous. I had more than 3 Billion ISK worth of POS fittings, ships, fuel, supplies, and loot that I wanted to relocate 26 jumps to my "permanent" base in Lonetrek.

With a max m3 of 860,000 m3 per contract and a max collateral of 1B ISK, this actually worked out perfectly divided into 3 separate contracts. The process was pretty simple - divide up the ships and cargo to no more than 860,000 m3 per batch and then create a courier contract for each batch.

I had a couple of "comfort" questions I posted to their channel in terms of how the process worked, but within 36 hours, all 3 contracts were completed and the total cost to move this immense amount of equipment was....wait for it...less than 29M ISK. Yes, for under 30M ISK, I saved myself roughly 47 52-jump round-trip efforts in max-rigged Iteron V. That spells more than 2,400 total jumps that I did not have to grind, nor sweat out the prospect of HighSec ganking considering the cargo value.

To say that I found this service invaluable would be a gross understatement. I actually ended up tipping the three pilots that completed the contracts an additional 10M ISK per pilot just because I though the value was so high and the cost was so low.

As I mentioned above, they also offer HighSec POS Refueling contracts - something I will be considering heavily in the coming weeks.

Hats-off to Red Frog Freight Service, their great service, and impeccable results (success rate at 99.9%).

Fly Safe!♦

More love bestowed on my Viator

OK, so the last station to clear out was in Dal, which is a LowSec system next door to the border system of Anamake - a notoriously rough place to be in an industrial...

With some heavy tonnage worth of goods (all sorts of POS fittings, most each in excess of 4,000m3), this was not a job for the Helios. However, my base was nearly 16 jumps away, and I did not want to run 11 full round-trips. So, I devised a plan whereby I parked my two Itty 5's in HighSec just outside of the border to LowSec, then sent my Viator in for the relatively short 4 trips each way to essentially ferry out the expensive goods.

So, although there were camps in both Anamake and Dal, I made 11 round trips, through both camps coming and going each trip, and got all of the goods out to HighSec. Once there, I simply loaded it all up in the Itty's and the main and alt transported it all back to my staging system.

FYI - I had scouted the 2 gate camps and was relatively confident that they were not fitting smart bombs, which essentially allowed me to go ahead and proceed with the Viator plan.

Like I said in an earlier post - I am beginning to enjoy my Viator - all the benefits of a Covops, but with an actual cargohold.

Fly Safe!

Google Analytics Stats

Wensley at Rifter Drifter recently posted his Google Stats, which drove me to check my stats for the first time in over a year! Very interesting to see your traffic distribution, sources of traffic, etc. As such, here is a quick recap and at the bottom, my thoughts...

January GA Stats:

General:

• 49,486 Views on 21,247 Unique Visitors
• 40.82% new visitors in January
• Avg Time on site is 2:51

Geo:

• 40% US
• 11% UK
• 9% Canada
• 6% Germany
• 5% Aussies
• 2.7% Netherlands
• 2% each for Sweden, Denmark, France, Poland
• ...then 77 other countries under 1%
• Iceland (CCP!) at 0.33%
  

Traffic Sources:

• 65% Search Engines - Nearly all Google, where are Yahoo! (.03%) and Bing! (0%)?
• Top keywords were all about "eve wormhole" and close variants combined at 17% of searches, the rest being names of sleeper sites
• 19% Direct Traffic
• 16% Referring Sites - Facebook (6%), scrapheap-challenge.com (2.65%), crazykinux (1.96%), Mynxee/lifeinlowsec.blogspot.com (1%), long list of others at under 1%.
  

Most popular pages in January:

• Root/Home Page (25.59%)
• The demands of W-Space Colonization (4%)
• EVE Grids and WH Exit management (2.38%)
• Hybrid Polymer Reactions (1.66%)

Most popular pages in December:

• Root/Home Page (27.91%)
• Wormhole System Daily Ritual (2.24%)
• Living in WH Space (My very first post still sees the most traffic!) (2.18%)

Thoughts:

• Interesting to see that the traffic is so dispersed across all posts - a lot of visitors appear to read through all the posts - nearly as many views of prior months posts as current-month posts.
• Hardly any referring traffic. I have not jumped on the EVE Tweet bandwagon, nor have I campaigned for any kind of premium links from others - just interesting to note that other than Kinux, not a ton of referring traffic.
• Shocks me that my first-ever post on this blog, from June 25th 2009, still gets some of the highest pageviews of all of my (currently 121) posts.
• The most-read post ever? The first-ever post, but excluding that, it is the post on EVE Grids and WH Exit management. I suppose that is not too surprising, considering it generated a whopping 22 comments, all of which were good posts instead of one-liners...
• Most commented post? A recent one: Blockade Runner Transports == WIN with 23 comments.
  

Fly Safe!

Consolidation

Similar to the last time I stepped out of WSpace for a short stint, it provides an opportunity to go round-up salvage and other materials that were dropped off at K-space exit points over the course of the last several months.

Typically, these drops take place because I have always maintained the belief that you should never store billions of ISK worth of loot in your W-space POS. In cases where there was not a convenient path to market or simply did not have the time, I had about a dozen locations that needed to be consolidated.

So, I spent some time over the weekend while reading up on global news to fly my Viator and Itty 5 around EVE to get everything back to my new staging base. Mission accomplished - amazing to see what you end up stockpiling. I have over 300 Melted Nano's and datacores in the thousands. Plenty of goods for reverse engineering and T3 production.

I had also amassed an amazing amount of W-space gases that there was frankly no need to react into component materials - I have enough component materials to last to the next ice age and will likely be selling off my hybrid reactions setup. That leaves a LOT of C-70/72/60/84 gas that I will likely take directly to market.

I have been enjoying the reports from the D-GTMI front - I especially enjoyed Manasi's posts and pictures.

Fly Safe!

What I am NOT doing

Well, even with just my first 12 hours in 3 months outside of W-space, I can attest to what a difference POS maintenance in W-Space represents in term of EVE commitments.

As such, here is a list of things that I will not be doing daily:

• Logging in from work 3-4 times per day to check on T3 jobs, starting new reactions, component jobs and subsystem jobs, and making sure there are no recent POS attacks.
• Logging in nightly for 3+ hours to scan any new exits, clear any new spawns, and evaluate adjoining exits for safety/closure.
• Constantly monitoring fuel reserves for rare HighSec refueling opportunities
• Not stressing over whether or not I cleared all possible sleeper sites before another pilot does
  

All of this ties into my recent post on the demands of W-Space colonization - a "must-read" IMHO.

Fly Safe!

Exiting W-Space

A rare and convenient HighSec exit opened yesterday and I had logged on just in time to get about 75% of the transport effort completed before downtime for the Dominion patch.

I had a handful of subsystem assembly jobs remaining anyways, so today I logged in from work and spent the 90 seconds needed to kick those off. Once I get a chance to login tonight I will be taking down the remaining POS structures and evaluate the best LowSec exit to take everything out. Hopefully another nice HighSec exit opens, but it had been close to a month prior to this recent HighSec exit...

So, although I found some great neighbors in a really nice C2 with the right static exits, I need to take a short break from W-space. I will continue my T3 production in the near future, and will likely just spend some intermittent time on getting my Caldari toon's Gallente standings back up to avoid future mishaps. I will likely leave the scanning alt in-system just in case I have a hard time finding a good home in the future.

Not a true hiatus from Eve, just turning down the volume to catch my proverbial breath.

Fly Safe!

Blockade Runner Transports == WIN

So after my previous thrashing while attempting to transport some goods out of Jita, I took the friendly advice given by some readers here and picked up a blockade runner Viator, fitted for CovOps cloaking.

With these transports, you can choose a type that provide bonuses towards hitpoints (HP) and Warp Strength (ex: Occator) or to fitting a Covops (Viator). Since I am max skilled already for CovOps ability, I went for the Viator.

Although the Occator-style blockade runner transport is meant to increase armor and warp strength for staying power in HighSec (i.e. to outlast the ganker), after seeing the ships being used in the latest gankfests (Uedama, Perimeter, etc.), I am not really all that sure that the improved armor tank would last long enough.

With the Covert Ops Cloaking Device, which allows you to warp while cloaked, you are essentially getting Helios-like gatecamp busting in a Transport.

My trip to market today saw huge gank-camps in the usual keyhole system of Uedama and the main entrypoints to Jita (Urlen, Perimeter). But I was able to skirt past the gankers. I did have to shake a follower by pausing briefly in Haatomo 100km off a station, otherwise the trip was nicely uneventful.

Back to completing some T3 subsystem manufacturing and then likely pulling out of WSpace for a short stint.

Fly Safe!

New Neighbors

In a case of intriguing coincidence - last night I happened to be chatting with Mick online and we were discussing the 7 untouched Grav Sites in my system. We agreed that I should warp-to-cancel on all of them to trigger a faster respawn cycle.

Just as I was wrapping up with Mick and prepping to do so, I get a convo request from a Mining corp in an adjoining C2. They were salivating over all the tonnage of untouched Frontier Grav sites and were asking if a peaceful mining corp could join me in the system. After a little deliberation, I agreed (much to the chagrin of some nameless others who thought otherwise ;-P).

Risky, but as always I look at how to expand horizons in this game. Although there was a perfect gank opportunity, I actually looked forward to getting a neighbor and watched dscan and combat probed for any traffic while they moved in. A pretty efficient move I must say, and they had their POS, Orca, Hulks, Covetors, and all the rest of their ships all stowed away in just under 3 hours.

I volunteer when available to clear the token sleeper presence when they take on the next grav site, just so they do not have to swap out ships. I actually got a kick out of fleeting up tonight just to warp out to their operation to see what a large mining fleet looks like - have never seen one "live".

Talk about 'Roid PWNAGE! Below are some pics (corp and names anonymous by request) - and one funny comment from the crew once I told them to smile and look nice for the camera: "Dohh! You should have let us bring out the Hulks!" - they were even nice enough to pose the Orca on the field for a quick screenshot as well.

Bottom Line - actually good to see the yield being generated out of the Gravs - if you read this blog you are familiar with my typical banter on how much ISK is being left on the proverbial table...







As always, Fly Safe!

EVE Grids and WH Exit management

A couple of pilots and I have been comparing notes on static exits that have not been "loaded" or "have not loaded their grid". Essentially what this means is, knowing I have 2 static exits, I scan the location of the exits, bookmark them, but do not warp-to the exit (not even warp and stop).

What we have collectively seen is that these exits do not abide by their otherwise-mandated lifespan (i.e. Max Stable Time). For example, my static LowSec Exit, an A239, should have a max lifetime of 24 hours. However, the A239 static exit has persisted in the same scanning location for nearly 3 days now, having not warped-to the location and by doing so loading the grid.

It appears that the exit timer does not really start until/unless you load the grid for that particular exit. It will eventually respawn elsewhere in your w-space, seemingly according to standard respawn conventions of 4-6 days.

This in itself does not really mean that much, but when you combine this fact with the circumstantial evidence that, by not loading the exit WH grid, the corresponding K162 it would otherwise be opening to another system is not actually occurring, then it becomes relevant. If there are no K162's and you have not loaded grid for the statics, then essentially it seems your W-space is marooned. Nothing keeping incoming K162's from forming, but if true, you need not worry about constantly closing that nasty nullsec static exit as long as you never load it's grid.

For example, using the dotlan maps to monitor my system traffic, I have identified that if no incoming K162's form AND if I never load the grids for the 2 static exits, I never get outside pilot traffic. I have only been accessing my static C2 lately and I close the exit once I am done working the adjoining system. In many days I can account for all of the dotlan jumps in my w-space based on my own jumps.

Continuing to gather data, but if true, it could simplify WH exit management.

Fly Safe!

BREAKING NEWS: All Jita Scams attributed to Spectre3353!

Breaking news from EVE Online - the recent departure of Spectre3353 has been tied to the recent absence of literally all Jita scams! CCP sources who have recently posted about the complete drop in Jita scam activity have tied the recent trend to the recent decision by Spectre3353 to cease engaging in Jita scams (and EVE in general, for now...).

"What are all of the petition researchers going to do now?", questioned a CCP source that desired anonymity. He continues - "With the current volume drop of petitions stemming from this extreme drop-off in Jita scamming, we may have to literally sack some employees."

Although Spectre could not be reached for comment, he was rumored to be rolling in vast piles of ISK he recently acquired in Jita scams.

What the long-term impact of Jita local and CCP petition workers will be is currently unknown. All this pilot can say is "Hey, could you throw some of that ill-gotten ISK my way"...

NOTE: The entirety of this post is PURE FICTION and intended only to reference Spectre's recent departure contest and to wish him all the best in his GL and RL endeavors. I for one expect to see him back in action in under 3 months... ;-P

Fly Safe!

No emoragequit...

I think I need to clarify something from the prior post - nowhere in the post was an emoragequit, and I laughed it off in local. I had already mentioned I was taking a break, which was prior to the gank. With the ISK in my wallet, 300M is not a real hit, just bitching about the lost effort.

Quick update - Already cleared Radar/Mag 9 sleeper sites in the adjoining system today - I may park a scanner alt there, as it appears to have C3, C5 and HighSec statics, which is extremely rare - either that or one of those exits is one of those equally rare Non-K162, Non-recurring exits. Regardless, there was an abandoned Small POS there with arrays anchored - if it is still unoccupied I will likely check it out soon. There are still over 30 regular sleeper sites remaining, so this system has not really seen recent action.

Other than running the 9 sites, today was really just spent checking into Eve every few hours to cycle through the next Refine batch. I wanted to refine all my ores before I transport out of here.

Fly Safe!

HighSec Ganked

Yep, I saw all the signs - ship trailing for 8 jumps, lots of concord presence on the way to Jita, etc., a lock at the Jita station exit (likely a cargo scan?), but I still just stubbornly continued jumping systems enroute back to my W-space. Even with more than 20 Concord ships present at the Uedema gate from Ikao, all it took for my comparatively paper thin Iteron was a single gank ship (he popped within 5 seconds of me by Concord of course) and then watch as three others afterburner to my wreck - ganked and looted in less than 30 seconds. Efficient.

A first for me, after 2 years of Eve - and I actually had a VERY expensive cargo for T3 production, with over 300M ISK worth of production materials ganked plus the replacement cost of a max rigged Itty 5 (another 20M, plus the hassle...).

One post to local from me: "Lol, nice gank"

I try to convince myself it is just a game...and it is, but that is some serious effort down the drain. No crocodile tears, just a , , and even more reason to take a break.

Fly Safe!

Evaluating W-Space System Traffic

I have begin using the DOTLAN maps site for some time now, but only recently became aware that these maps and system data had been extended to cover W-space systems as well. The syntax is simply:

http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/{systemid}

example: http://evemaps.dotlan.net/system/J114055

I have found them to be invaluable in terms of assessing traffic to my own system when I have not been online and for evaluating adjoining systems to determine the resident's (if any) activity and timezone(s).

For example, if you look at a typical system (this happens to be my most recent adjoining system), you can see that although there is some recent jump activity (2 of the jumps were me), there has been very little sleeper site action.



This site happened to have a ton of sleeper sites and a VERY well defended and established POS with dual active hybrid reactions systems running. So obviously an incumbent, but one that does not necessarily seem interested in the sleeper sites, or at least not in the last few days.

With this information, I can determine with some level of confidence when the residents will be online/in-system and provide me a safer time-line for me to clear some sites while they are offline. It also provides a good indication of how "trafficked" the system is and may influence your decision on whether or not to close the WH to the system.

This system, for example, had a high jump count, so I assumed that it may have a HighSec exit - which it did.

Good to use all tools available!

Fly Safe!

The demands of W-Space Colonization

I have seemingly reached a point in my W-Space experience where I can honestly say I need a break. After clearing this latest system and stockpiling an amazing amount of T3 materials, I am ready to leave W-space for a while.

The key issue here is that W-space life requires a nearly constant vigil on the POS and the W-space system. I suppose that goes for anyone maintaining an active POS, but in W-space, it is combined with a "use it or lose it" race to capitalize on all of the available resources before someone else does.

As a result, I found my EVE online time skyrocket recently from a relatively (in my terms) stable and reasonable 4-6 hours per week to an incredible 20-30 hours per week, mostly in the late night hours, but has also intruded into RL impact. This is simply not sustainable. Back when I was running LowSec exploration sites (ad before that, missioning), I could go for days without logging in and simply log time when convenient. Recently, I have felt chained to my W-space operation - not optimal.

So, I will be tearing down my W-space operation as soon as I can get a good exit and focus for a while on T3 production and continue to complete my max skills for mining (an area where I continue to leave a ton of ISK behind in the form of W-space Grav sites).

I will not be selling off the POS and fittings - I will return to W-space soon enough - just a needed break from the constant W-space POS vigil...

Fly Safe!

System Cleared

Last night I finished the last of the sleeper sites and I must say, it was a chore. With nearly 60 sites originally, only a half-dozen were cleared by visitors when I was offline - this meant a LOT of grinding and a lot of valuable loot.

Enough so that I now stashed more than 250 Melted Nano's (and enough hybrid polymers to seemingly last years) stashed away in concord space for future T3 production. More on that in another post.

So for now, other than the 7 Grav sites that are literally untouched other than the roids I harvest to support hybrid reactions, my system is clear and further efforts will again focus on hitting the adjoining systems.

Funny story - as I was going back and running salvage (I typically clear 3-5 sites and then return with my Cormorant salvager for REALLY fast salvaging), I arrive at one site and see a Zephyr sitting there. My first thought - BAIT! So, I align to my base and target the Zephyr to see what happens - absolutely nothing... Obviously, said Zephyr pilot is AFK. A quick check of the pilot info shows that he is a member of a big Russian alliance, so I decide to cap me a Zephyr - I BM his location and return with a Drake that, unlike my Cormorant, actually has firepower.

For some reason, though, my Warp landed me 25km off target (yes, tackle FAIL), so I lock anyways and race with AB active to get into tackle range, firing missiles as I went. Apparently the first missile or two awoke the groggy pilot and he escaped with 50% structure. He had come in through a HighSec K162, which was quickly put into Verge of Collapse.

Also, a great string of Reverse Engineering successes to report on the actual BPCs I wanted! Always a bonus when you actually get desired T3 BPCs...

Fly Safe!

Reverse Engineering Success Probability

I have had a lot of pilots ask about T3 production and variable costs involved. One of the first things about T3 production that people often overlook is the fact that only some subsystems are profitable for production (e.g. the materials cost is greater than the market value), and that the subsystems you can manufacture are dictated by the (randomized) outcome of your Reverse Engineering (RE) attempts.

Each applicable Relic has three types: Wrecked, Malfunctioning, and Intact. These three types are used to establish a "base probability" in the calculation on success rate (i.e. the percentage of attempts resulting in a subsystem BPC) and a predetermined production run count:

• Wrecked relics have a base probability of 20% and a run count of 3.
• Malfunctioning relics have a base probability of 30% and a run count of 10.
• Intact relics have a base probability of 40% and a run count of 20.

The RE success probability is a factor of the base rate and your applicable skill levels in RE and associated datacores. Relics each have their own respective skill requirements, specific to the datacores required for RE. The higher the skill levels in the base Reverse Engineering and required data core skills, the higher the success probability.

The formula for RE success probability is:

success rate = base rate x [1 + reverse engineering skill level x 0.01] x [1 + (datacore 1 skill level + datacore 2 skill level) x 0.1]

As you can see, the skill level for Reverse Engineering is dramatically less important than the datacore skills. As such, I advise minimal required training on RE and max skilll levels on your datacore skills.

Here is a GoogleDoc link you can use to save locally to calculate your success probability.

As an example, if you skilled RE to 3 and both datacore skills to 3, then your success probabilities would be:

Wrecked: 32.96%
Malfunctioning: 49.44%
Intact: 65.92%

Taking the extra time to get just those datacore skills to 5 (leaving RE at 3) would be:

Wrecked: 41.2%
Malfunctioning: 61.8%
Intact: 82.4%

The actual RE job itself, if successful, will randomly produce any one of the four subsystems for that particular relic, which means you first cross your proverbial fingers that the RE job is successful, then again cross them that the desired BPC has resulted. I cannot count how many times I have cursed a successful RE job that provided me with a useless BPC!

FYI - Here is a great reference page for EVE Formulas

Safe Flying!