TEST and Outer Passage with Ni Industries

 After a brief transition period where I consolidated my holdings around EVE and began re-familiarizing myself with all of the feature changes since I last played, I am now settled into Outer Passage with the Ni Industries corporation.

I found their post on the recruiting forum, essentially targeting returning veteran players, and subsequently found it to be a very successful recruiting strategy.   It's amazing to see a corporation with good and flexible leadership,  pushing the boundaries of new content for its members.  With so many veteran players like myself, most of us have accumulated significant wealth, and with it comes more focus on content vs income, which unlocks a lot of opportunity to be liberal with funding new projects and pursuing new content.

A key selling point for me was stability, a new area of EVE space I had never been, and opportunities to explore new content (for me), such as the new moon mining mechanics, readily-available and bountiful high-end ice mining, and options to get involved again in Fleet PvP including Black-Ops.  All of this and more available with this Corp so decided to give it a run, and can't be happier about the decision.   The Corp is growing rapidly and we have moons popping every two days, ranging from R4 to Double R-64!   If you are a multi-account miner that embraces EVE-O, then this is paradise.

My only disappointment so far has been the enormous changes in capital ship construction materials and the ore availability changes that effectively mean that you can no longer build 100% from local (region) resources/materials.  For example, not having access to Tritanium in NullSec is ridiculous IMHO, but the EVE economists are clearly trying to mix up the cross-region dependencies and everything adjusts accordingly.  But for players like myself that like to make EVERYTHING in the capital build chain, we must now rely on markets for a considerable portion of materials.  This is the first major change I can remember being very disappointed with in the long history of EVE mechanics changes over time. 

As a result, I have initially been focusing my efforts on Reactions and Components, supporting the Corp and Alliance supply-chain where I can, while considering what my next big project will be.   With Corp members building everything from Exhumers/Orcas/Rorquals to Sins, it looks like it is going to be a fun ride.

Recruiting page link here.

Reading up and considering returning

Wow, has it really been 10 years since Tenerifis and SI Radio and SI. Alliance?  Hard to believe so much time has passed and have seen kids grow, graduate from college, join the real world, etc.

I had a chance to re-read some of my old posts here and recall how exciting it was back when Apocrypha was released and the challenge of a totally new frontier in New Eden.   

I had that one brief stint in 2013 where I enjoyed some time in Syndicate in the JQV5-9 pocket.  Good crew down there and enjoyed a more laid-back effort building an Rorqual and selling it and some rare roams.

I re-subbed my two mains last week just for the hell of it and restarted skill training.  I forgot that my two primary toons were max'd out in almost all of their respective skill areas, with Star Defender skill all the way up to Titan and perfect refining and LightTraveler having perfect production skills and nearly-perfect fleet boosting skills.  I also had some fun reviewing the incredible blueprint library I amassed over time.  With something like 400 Billion in assets and ISK, I need to go find something to do in EVE.

So, time to start dabbling to see if and where I want to go set up.   

Safe Flying...

I'm back...

Well, after quite a long EVE hiatus, I decided to start playing again.  I had been keeping up my skill training throughout and have been keeping up on nullsec events on evenews24.com and themittani.com - interesting to see how things barely change...

I think what brought me back more than anything was the Retribution release and the wealth of new ships and fittings.  I spent some time down in Khanid/Irmalin where I had some old missioning ships from ages ago, mostly to do some random ratting and figuring out what to do next.

With some of the old SI Radio team members still maintaining our chat channel, it was good to see some familiar faces online.  Some folks have battled it out through the entire -A- campaign, others went off to one of the big powerblocks.  I am impressed how a few have amped up their WSpace game and now run C5/C6 sites with small fleets of Carriers and Dreads - these guys are making Billions per day - pretty sick (nice)!

I am settling into Syndicate - setting up with a small Alliance and getting my toons back on their feet.  I am not 100% online yet - don't want to get carried away like last time and repeat the mistakes...  If it was one thing I learned about EVE burnout, it was that you cannot let it drive your RL schedule - my online time will be based purely on leisure time, not at the whim of fleets and FCs...at least for now  ;-)

Biggest decision will be to either continue poking around Syndicate or joining up with old friends in Wspace and in the powerblock territories.

Fly Safe!

SD/LT

...And pushed out of Tenerifis

As the focus of the Russian forces began to focus more on Detorid and then into Tenerifis, it became apparent that our Alliance would never be able to field a defense fleet capable of defending our Sov in Tenerifis. Most of the CTA's I participated in were with Imperial 0rder (IO), which later disbanded, eliminating the last bit of fun in the Region.

As such, the Alliance evac'd out to LowSec. Based on this and some other internal issues, the lion share of the active player corps have left the SI. alliance, and many have left SI Radio (EDGAR) altogether.

I have been roaming around LowSec and WSpace (and combinations of both) - a kind of wanderlust. Rolling the dice so to speak on where I land.

I definitely want to maintain a presence in Nullsec, but do not want to play Sov games for the time being. So, most of my wanderings have been in NPC Null. I lived in Great Wildlands with the Corp just before we moved to Tenerifis and I enjoyed it - never a shortage of target to shoot, so I may stick around NPC Null for a bit before I make any big corp jumps.

I have been considering joining some corp-mates that went to BSC Legion in Deklein, but no final decision on that yet...

I think the whole "DRF can control any/all of Null" aspect of the current EVE environment took more wind out of my sails than I initially considered. I have found myself not logging in for days or a week or more, and then only for a few minutes.

We will see where this goes...

Safe Flying

Pushed out of Detorid

Well, we did not have to wait too long to see if there was going to be a real challenge to opportunistically capturing Sov in Detorid.

United Pod Service, RED.Legion, Waterboard and more have decided to purge Detorid. So, after all of that grinding to clear and take Sov, we just as quickly gave it up.

"We didn't want that space anyways" Lolol.

Of course we did, but the SOB-led coalition never really organized in a materially-effective manner, which made the process of kicking SOB out relatively easy (SOB did not even show up to defend critical strategic assets!?!?), which made the rest of Detorid fall like a proverbial house of cards.

Not sure what to make of SOB's efforts in Detorid. It looked at first like they were put in place to organize, parcel-out and defend Detorid, but things were so rushed that there was no real C&C put in place from the start, which made defending against large fleets nearly impossible. Imperial Order did a pretty good job of stepping into the SOB vacuum and trying to save Detorid, but I personally think that by the time IO really got involved, the momentum had already decided the fate of Detorid.

Learned a ton, including the need to quickly establish clear communications for joint CTA efforts and that in hindsight, a gradual expansion into Detorid may have been wiser, but it was sure fun.

It will be interesting to see just how far DRF and associates will push, and to what extent the coalition will do to either hold in Tenerifis or to push back into Detorid.

Regardless, it has been interesting and certainly more eventful than ever. I do pine for the days when things are more stable and we can do non-sov "good fights" rather than large fleet battles.

Fly Safe!?

Continued growth and expansion

A lot has happened since my last post about the war in Tenerifis to purge White Noise and being awarded the Tenerifis G3IP-E constellation for CTA participation and additional warfare.

As it turned out, the campaign pushed into Detorid, primarily with us, IO, SOB and EON waging battles deep into Detorid and maintaining a strong line at the border area between Tenerifis and Detorid. To be transparent, it was not like we had a ton of resistance, but we continued to put up good numbers and soon cleared sov on nearly all of the key systems and stations.

-A- placed SOB in charge of newly-captured Detorid, who then quickly awarded our alliance 5 constellations. As it stands currently, our alliance holds sov in PR-ACX, T875-C, MZ-PA2, 1RG-GU, and HOV-VI. We immediately shared with EON, giving them HOV and renting T875 to a very capable Alliance - TFA.

Just about the time where we began to grow weary of constant sov-bashing (akin to watching paint dry - Cyno to target system, shoot structure, lather-rinse-repeat), we finally started seeing signs of what we suspected would occur - challenges to certain systems and an increase in fun hostile encounters. There is some classic ping-pong sov action in the SOB-held south-eastern portions of Detorid, with plenty of CTAs to go kill SBUs, etc.

As we work together more, the Detorid coalition is beginning to function properly and it looks now that, short of DRF deciding to do something more than burn a few cornfields, the Detorid coalition + -A- will hold the region.

I hope things get back to "good fights" - everyone grows weary of structure bashing after a while. Looking forward to flying more with TFA and EON as the saga in Detorid continues to unfold.

Best laughs of the month: Taking Sov on the 3-LJW3 station system, getting hot-dropped and losing some internet spaceships, then naming the station "Hot-Drop O'Clock", after the timely line from the EVE Video series "Clear Skies".

Elbow room

Thought I would post an update on our NullSec efforts.

I would continue to consider our deployment to Tenerifis a great success, both monetarily and from an experience perspective. Also, we have grown tremendously. As of this post, we stand at an astounding 459 members, most of it coming from Rule of Five (plank-holder corporation in the alliance) and the welcome addition of BSC Legion.

Obviously, with this kind of alliance growth, comes the need for expansion into additional systems. As such, an opportunity arose in Tenerifis when -A- decided to push White Noise completely out of the region. Previously, WN owned mostly ratter and botting systems on the "Eastern" (Dotlan View) half of the region, basically everything from DZ6, east. This was also some our primary hunting grounds, with many juicy kills in DZ6 and up the pipe towards (and into) Detorid.

We knew from prior experience that to expand your sovereignty-holding space, you need to prove yourself by assisting in the CTA's (Call-to-Action operations) and even taking The Initiative (pun intended, see history of Tenerifis) to attack in advance of the main CTAs. So, we set out as an alliance to participate in as many Tenerifis/Detorid/Catch operations as possible. We had some good times and good kills in the process, and were very pleased with the alliance participation level. Nice to have large contingents of Capital and Supercapital pilots on-board the alliance now.

I think one of the best ops we took on was the cleansing of BW-WJ2, including their extremely well defended Jump Bridge POS and then their iHub and remaining system installations, all of which was completed solely by the alliance.

As a result of participating in the Tenerifis campaign, the alliance was awarded the G3IP-E constellation. With the recent anomaly nerf, these systems are not exactly the most prized systems in Tenerifis, but they will provide (with the direction of our experienced Moon-Goo techs) a considerable level of passive monthly alliance income. You can see our Tenerifis systems in this view of Dotlan (S1. Alliance).

No hard decisions yet on what (if any) iHub upgrades will go there, but certainly more room to scan for Wormholes and Signatures. Also, we will now have 3 rich ice mining systems to tap in addition to our premium mining systems. I am guessing we will upgrade one or more of those systems and rent out to one or more Industry corps looking to join the NullSec party! If interested, send Star Defender an Eve-Mail - guaranteed all the best ABC mining you will ever need...

My personal Eve Time has suffered from RL complications lately, so I am not online for extended durations lately, but I am still soaking up NullSec. Cannot imaging living in HighSec again...

Looong Blog Hiatus

Wow, has it really been 6 months since my last post?

With the move to NullSec and thus the end of my wormhole days came the end of my frequent postings and musings about WSpace, but I continue to learn something new every day in NullSec.

The obvious question is obvious: Do I continue to post about what I am learning in NullSec in a blog created specifically to capture WSpace experiences?

After some thought, the answer is no. I would rather keep this blog for capturing future Wormhole-Fu as a part of my corporation's practices on accessing and draining high-end C5/C6 WSpace from our NullSec base of operations. However, with our recent relocation to Tenerifis, our WSpace Ops are on pause until we get fully settled. The WSpace fleet is ready to go, awaiting the dust to proverbially settle.

If I had not said this before, here it is: I love NullSec. The resources are rich (depending of course WHERE you are in NullSec), there is always PvP available, and you have no limitations on trying new things.

List of new things I have been doing in NullSec:

• Moon Goo Harvesting
  
• Extensive PI (most of nullsec PI resources are on par with WSpace)
• Heavy Interdictor (Onyx) Piloting
• ECM (Blackbird) Piloting
• Bomber Piloting
• All-things Sovereignty - e.g Defensive systems (like cyno jamming), iHub Upgrades, Station Upgrades
• Diplomacy - e.g. establishing Blue/NAP/NSP/Supplier relationships with local and regional corps/alliances
• Logistics (the Carrier/Jump Freighter kind, not the PvP kind)
• Fattening my Wallet again
• Growing Star Defender's toon to be an effective PvP pilot
  

Check out last night's tasty 1.3 Billion ISK Cynabal kill.

I will continue posting here about direct Wspace experiences (and indirect regarding small fleet best practices) once we resume our WSpace "Incursions"...

Until then...Fly Safe!

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!