I actually, for once, had a couple of afternoons this weekend to play online.
Started with scanning out a few systems locally. In my usual place there were 3 Wormholes - this system usually doesn't have a single WH, so I think the wormhole gods were making up for lost time. I didn't poke my head in.... I had my eyes on a combat site, a drone one as I hadn't done one before. It was "The drone hive", a 5/10 complex. 3rd room in, my ishkur could handle the site comfortably until we hit the first battleship - on which it could not beat its tank at all. This was most disappointing. I tried the Enyo - same result - just not enough dps.
It was good, even if not hugely profitable. The salvage ship salvaged the previous two rooms and the 3rd one (while the battleship was aggrod). 2 cargo holds full of drone stuff, it returned.
Now at this point I was peeved, as until now, not a single site had be beyond the reach of the ishkur. I decided to dump loot to high-sec, and fly up there to buy a new ship to beat this complex in. I built and fitted a cheap-ish Vexor with tech 2 blasters, T2 drones, armor repairer, and the standard low-sec tackle kit. Also purchased 100mln of t2 gear to move to low-sec to fit to other disposable frigates/cruisers as necessary. I'm also probably going to move a T2 fitted thorax down to low-sec - so I have disposable ships for pvp.
On Sunday I returned, and the site had respawned. I got to the penultimate room - The Vexor handles the site admirably, even when it hit the room with 6 battleships beating on it. However it got well and truely beat by the last battleship spawn (this must have been a t15 or higher overseer) and warped out with 25% structure. Filled 4 ships with salvage, and got about 100mln worth of salvage loot. Next thing to do is to get a Battlecruiser down here too for the real big guys...
In the meantime, HAC's are training, and will take approx 2 months to complete to a satisfactory level - it'll take one month to get into a HAC... but about 2 months to use it properly. Then finally I'll start on getting core skills to a far higher level..
My invention skills are almost usable now also - almost got enough skills to l4 to be able to start inventing some modules and ships.
The disappointing thing really has been the store/sales situation. Sold a lot of ships for a tidy profit (about 6 mil profit), but really don't have time to keep that situation tended, and a bit short on high-end minerals right now. The issue is the usual "strong sellers" - I have some competition in the local market - and basically folk don't appear to be buying items quite as frequently as they were... The turnover per week is down at 50mln.
The store has enough in it to keep going a while - but I will drop in time to time to place more mineral buy orders for the next batches of items to be sold.
Will be online more this week prior to the weekend when I'm away until Monday grrr.
Monday, 27 April 2009
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Apocrypha 1.1 Update
As many of my readers will know - I like to explore - especially around low-sec now, so the scanning changes in the new patch intrigued me, so I knew I had to try it asap.
I didn't want to comment until I had had the chance to properly play in the past 2-3 days post patch. Overall though - I like it - yes occasionally the arrows disappear, and its hard to grab a probe to move it - but remembering sites once found, and allowing bookmarking of sites straight from scanner (ie without warping in first), its just plain brilliant. It means I can scan out a site, and then send in a more specialised team to retrieve the loot or do the combat site (and even swap to a salvager if needed)... Being able to tell which "hits" are from which site is also another positive improvement...
Unlike some I don't think the changes are bad - they just need refinement. Being able to see the arrows and squares a little better would surely help a little.
I had some fun yesterday sitting cloaked and scanning while a 6 strong low-sec roaming gang were trying to probe me out in my nice hidden covert-ops frigate. Guys... it ain't gonna happen. After 15 minutes they left local, and stopped searching for little me :)
In an hour, probed 1 combat site, 2 wormholes, 8 ladar!, 1 gravimetric, 1 radar and 1 magnemetric site - looting the radar and mag site. The rest I decided to leave to another day...
Before retiring I took my drones on a trip to a nearby repair station - as most were truely in a battered state. With the cost of T2 drones, taking a cargohold or two full for repairs is a weekly event for me - as my drones do tend to get battered a bit by the enemy...
Reasonable week - now got 500mln on market, a nice, although disparate mineral stash (some hauling of minerals is required in next couple of weeks)... But basically now my high-sec operations should not need touching for 2-3 weeks at least allowing me to concentrate on low-sec endeavors, and isk-earning for a short while.
Short term planning now is to:
I didn't want to comment until I had had the chance to properly play in the past 2-3 days post patch. Overall though - I like it - yes occasionally the arrows disappear, and its hard to grab a probe to move it - but remembering sites once found, and allowing bookmarking of sites straight from scanner (ie without warping in first), its just plain brilliant. It means I can scan out a site, and then send in a more specialised team to retrieve the loot or do the combat site (and even swap to a salvager if needed)... Being able to tell which "hits" are from which site is also another positive improvement...
Unlike some I don't think the changes are bad - they just need refinement. Being able to see the arrows and squares a little better would surely help a little.
I had some fun yesterday sitting cloaked and scanning while a 6 strong low-sec roaming gang were trying to probe me out in my nice hidden covert-ops frigate. Guys... it ain't gonna happen. After 15 minutes they left local, and stopped searching for little me :)
In an hour, probed 1 combat site, 2 wormholes, 8 ladar!, 1 gravimetric, 1 radar and 1 magnemetric site - looting the radar and mag site. The rest I decided to leave to another day...
Before retiring I took my drones on a trip to a nearby repair station - as most were truely in a battered state. With the cost of T2 drones, taking a cargohold or two full for repairs is a weekly event for me - as my drones do tend to get battered a bit by the enemy...
Reasonable week - now got 500mln on market, a nice, although disparate mineral stash (some hauling of minerals is required in next couple of weeks)... But basically now my high-sec operations should not need touching for 2-3 weeks at least allowing me to concentrate on low-sec endeavors, and isk-earning for a short while.
Short term planning now is to:
- Start T2 invention skills and get to reasonable levels
- Get a full T2 equipped HAC - should be able to do this in about 2 months & also get some basic battleship/large weapons skills.
- Finish moon-surveying and deploy a POS to moon-mine. (ready now, but funds a bit lacking). All moons locally with anything useful have already been taken so this will entriely depend on what is found.
- Purchase and get full set of Caldari frigate/cruiser/destroyer blueprint originals researched. The POS may help with this but will not be essential.
- Get full set of T2 drone skills
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
Market fun in 30 minute.....
Back from stag do, and managed to squeeze one single 1/2 hour of EVE time in the entire weekend. All down to matters outside my control, such as working the Easter weekend.
In that time however, I was productive, moving all the low-sec stuff back to high-sec. Next time I'll be bringing a different class of hull back to low-sec base with me however... so I simply can take more equipment each direction and more refinables back in the next batch.
I also moved 90% of the minerals in storage, in just 2 trips in the "Mighty Badger" - ie the rigged/expanded Iteron Mk 5. Discovered something very useful - the megahauler can carry enough minerals to build around 50 destroyers in a single trip.. Probably more for frigates. I'm considering running mobile "ship" building runs to populate ships in areas in which they are needed, but generally are not sold.
Stockpile of items for sale is "excellent". Got > 450million up for sale still - and the bulk orders for items continue to pile in. I think Gallente empire corporations may have realised I sell almost everything they may need in one single station at "reasonable" prices - only slightly above Ours, but available in greater volumes.
Future thoughts:
One issue is proving to be the POS fuel situation - lets just say POS fuel isn't readily available on market in my area. This means I'm going to have to use a POS fuel delivery service to get my 1st 2-3 months of fuel bunkered up in a storage facility. I'll still get weekly deliveries - but I think needing a good supply locally for the initial startup phases will be essential. This fuel can then be transported in from high-sec in a transport ship of some description.
I'm also running down the research for blueprints right now - so slots are free for some of the research that I'm aiming to run locally. I'll get additional BPO's to move to low-sec soon for the items that are planned in this space. With the Helios covert operations ships available to me, moving expensive BPO's though low-sec is a very low-risk option.
Hope everyone else has had a good weekend - looking forward to getting some time in-game this week - even if a lot of it will be focussed on Industrial endeavours.
In that time however, I was productive, moving all the low-sec stuff back to high-sec. Next time I'll be bringing a different class of hull back to low-sec base with me however... so I simply can take more equipment each direction and more refinables back in the next batch.
I also moved 90% of the minerals in storage, in just 2 trips in the "Mighty Badger" - ie the rigged/expanded Iteron Mk 5. Discovered something very useful - the megahauler can carry enough minerals to build around 50 destroyers in a single trip.. Probably more for frigates. I'm considering running mobile "ship" building runs to populate ships in areas in which they are needed, but generally are not sold.
Stockpile of items for sale is "excellent". Got > 450million up for sale still - and the bulk orders for items continue to pile in. I think Gallente empire corporations may have realised I sell almost everything they may need in one single station at "reasonable" prices - only slightly above Ours, but available in greater volumes.
Future thoughts:
One issue is proving to be the POS fuel situation - lets just say POS fuel isn't readily available on market in my area. This means I'm going to have to use a POS fuel delivery service to get my 1st 2-3 months of fuel bunkered up in a storage facility. I'll still get weekly deliveries - but I think needing a good supply locally for the initial startup phases will be essential. This fuel can then be transported in from high-sec in a transport ship of some description.
I'm also running down the research for blueprints right now - so slots are free for some of the research that I'm aiming to run locally. I'll get additional BPO's to move to low-sec soon for the items that are planned in this space. With the Helios covert operations ships available to me, moving expensive BPO's though low-sec is a very low-risk option.
Hope everyone else has had a good weekend - looking forward to getting some time in-game this week - even if a lot of it will be focussed on Industrial endeavours.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
Low sec fun
Well, the missions continue - as do the rewards.
Myself and Jax had a mission session on Tuesday (I think) - week has gone by so quickly. Completed several cosmic Anomolys, as the system was emptied of signatures of interest... Some of these in 0.1 space are interesting - you're talking missings with only BC's and Battleships in them. Decent bounties, and salvage a plenty - one mission alone took the salvager 2 round trips to complete.
Since Tuesday I've only really been able to login to change skillplans - which are now sorted until next week thankfully....
Due to this the hauler is almost full of refinables for high-sec use, so a hauler run back to base can be expected shortly. However I'm not actually around much this weekend so this will have to be postponed for a while... Maybe until 2 loads are ready..
Also I noted through my view of market trading that people seem to be buying in bulk from my stores recently (but not completely selling me out to resell). I think this is someone building up their own corp hanger, not manipulation by another player, due to them not buying the entire stockpile. This is resulting in some small stock shortages on the market while I catch up & recover stocks to their usual levels..
I have a very rauchous stag weekend planned back on Earth.... 8 men, a undisclosed location, with some Exotic dancers, dog racing to be attended (that isn't the dancers btw), Friday lunchtime -> Sunday lunchtime. What will occur? I'm also working in London Friday and Monday - resulting in effectily a long weekend when I'm not getting a long-weekend. Hope to see you all online during Sunday however... even though I'll be getting an early sleep.
Enjoy the long weekend for those who enjoy it. See you guys on Easter Sunday/day after.
Myself and Jax had a mission session on Tuesday (I think) - week has gone by so quickly. Completed several cosmic Anomolys, as the system was emptied of signatures of interest... Some of these in 0.1 space are interesting - you're talking missings with only BC's and Battleships in them. Decent bounties, and salvage a plenty - one mission alone took the salvager 2 round trips to complete.
Since Tuesday I've only really been able to login to change skillplans - which are now sorted until next week thankfully....
Due to this the hauler is almost full of refinables for high-sec use, so a hauler run back to base can be expected shortly. However I'm not actually around much this weekend so this will have to be postponed for a while... Maybe until 2 loads are ready..
Also I noted through my view of market trading that people seem to be buying in bulk from my stores recently (but not completely selling me out to resell). I think this is someone building up their own corp hanger, not manipulation by another player, due to them not buying the entire stockpile. This is resulting in some small stock shortages on the market while I catch up & recover stocks to their usual levels..
I have a very rauchous stag weekend planned back on Earth.... 8 men, a undisclosed location, with some Exotic dancers, dog racing to be attended (that isn't the dancers btw), Friday lunchtime -> Sunday lunchtime. What will occur? I'm also working in London Friday and Monday - resulting in effectily a long weekend when I'm not getting a long-weekend. Hope to see you all online during Sunday however... even though I'll be getting an early sleep.
Enjoy the long weekend for those who enjoy it. See you guys on Easter Sunday/day after.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Monster shopping weekend
This weekend, I went shopping in the Oursulaert mini-market of fun...
Ships purchased include:
Total costs for above must have been in region of 3-400million ISK.
I still also need to purchase a deep-space transport for moving lower-value items around in... This as I can move cruiser sized hulls around in such a ship...!
Made friends with the corp "Nungunnerz", who I ran a mission with last Thursday night. Had about 24-30 Serpentis battleships testing the tank of the Carboneater - they had no joy as the repper could easily keep up with the incoming damage when pulsed. Made about 10-14 million bounties, and got some salvage to go sell in high-sec to split. (Don't worry Mugman, its in a container with your corp name so I know its a split of loot operation when it finally does goes up the pipe).
Overall though I'm still undecided on low-sec. I like the place, and like knowing the locals (they are generally more talkative than the folk in the other places I've frequented so far). I also pretty much know who to avoid, and who is a threat to me... The downsides - well, right now I just haven't had the quality of exploration finds I've had in the other areas of Genesis and Verge Vendor I've tried in the past. The good news however is that invention materials are dropping well - and the drops so far should greatly reduce my costs when I do finally start invention. I also have completed some moon-surveying, and have eliminated 3 systems from my inquiries - it appears ALL moons with deposits worth having have been taken already. Most annoying. As it takes about 30 mins to an hour to survey a system I will hold off doing any more until I'm more POS ready. I expect it to be a month before the basic pre-req's of deploying a POS are completed.
I've also found some potentially very lucrative mining sites in low-sec (gravimetric sites). What a shame I don't have a ship capable of dealing with them (in terms of a low end retreiver). I've started cross training a basic mining facilities - purely to just get in a barge.
Ships purchased include:
- Enyo "Friendly Fire"
- Ishkur
- Helios
- Rigged Iteron mk 5 "Mighty Badger", rigged for max-cargo (ie about 48,000 m3 when containers used)
- Viator - Gallente cloaked blockade runner. For running the more valuable items from low to high-sec for sales. Also used over weekend to transport above ship hulls from high-low sec.
Total costs for above must have been in region of 3-400million ISK.
I still also need to purchase a deep-space transport for moving lower-value items around in... This as I can move cruiser sized hulls around in such a ship...!
Made friends with the corp "Nungunnerz", who I ran a mission with last Thursday night. Had about 24-30 Serpentis battleships testing the tank of the Carboneater - they had no joy as the repper could easily keep up with the incoming damage when pulsed. Made about 10-14 million bounties, and got some salvage to go sell in high-sec to split. (Don't worry Mugman, its in a container with your corp name so I know its a split of loot operation when it finally does goes up the pipe).
Overall though I'm still undecided on low-sec. I like the place, and like knowing the locals (they are generally more talkative than the folk in the other places I've frequented so far). I also pretty much know who to avoid, and who is a threat to me... The downsides - well, right now I just haven't had the quality of exploration finds I've had in the other areas of Genesis and Verge Vendor I've tried in the past. The good news however is that invention materials are dropping well - and the drops so far should greatly reduce my costs when I do finally start invention. I also have completed some moon-surveying, and have eliminated 3 systems from my inquiries - it appears ALL moons with deposits worth having have been taken already. Most annoying. As it takes about 30 mins to an hour to survey a system I will hold off doing any more until I'm more POS ready. I expect it to be a month before the basic pre-req's of deploying a POS are completed.
I've also found some potentially very lucrative mining sites in low-sec (gravimetric sites). What a shame I don't have a ship capable of dealing with them (in terms of a low end retreiver). I've started cross training a basic mining facilities - purely to just get in a barge.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Life in Low-sec #1
Well, it took a while, but the corporation now has 3 offices:
One, in high-sec in a market hub, Oursulaert.
One, in high-sec in the Unour constellation, nice and near low-sec (but NOT in it). This was chosen simply so flights into the Verge Vendor/Placid low-sec areas could be got into quicker than if flying from Oursulaert. Doing exploration in Old Man Star would I imagine not be a clever situation, so mainly I enjoy roams 4-5 hops in.
The new office is in deeply low 0.1 low-sec space - where I made some "friends" over the weekend. I also lost the Carbonater (the first AF). It went up in flames from a pirate in the "Pain" system while I was scouting for possible locations for a new home. My mistake though, I'd asked the ship to dock while the Helios "Mighty Mouse" scanned the system, and assumed it was complete while concentrating on radar sites in the immediate system - luckily I got the pod docked before it went pop though.... Pain is an apt name as I did suffer it here. I had no qualms about replacing the ship as its made > 1billion of profit or close with its combat skills, and is, I think, the ideal low-sec combat ship - it can warp out of low-sec gate camps prior to scram being applied every single time from the experience so far.
As mentioned, I've made a few friends in my new home, and even a lot of the flashy reds are leaving the corporation alone by mutual agreement. I am still on edge however - keeping a cloaked ship by the 1st acceleration gate does provide some warning to incoming hostiles, and allows both ships to dock up if required. No-one has decided to bother us however in reality thankfully so far.
The downsides - well so far 0.1 space has less decent scanning loot than the 0.5-0.7 high-sec systems in Verge Vendor/Essence I was frequenting before... Some missions are exactly the same, some a bit harder, but all are still soloable in a AF. Hope to get decent loot soon, or will have to consider wormhole space, hopping in via low-sec.
The good news : The personal wallet is, er, good right now. Sold some of the higher-value individual site findings, and have a cool 300mln available instantly. Also still got at least another 500 mln in modules available to sell if required. 300mln is nothing, but I didn't want to flood contracts with 2 or 3x the same module as I can make a lot more money trickling the items on the market. How many people can afford a Medium Armor repper than retails for 100-150mln.
The bad news: All this new cash will be spent by Friday on new ships - to be brought this weekend:
New toy 1/ A blockade runner transport ship (to get large volumes in/out of low-sec)
New toy 2/ An Enyo assault frigate to compement the Ishkur in low-sec.. + a backup Ishkur hull + fitout in case the 1st Ishkur gets ganked. Blockade runner should in theory be able to take both back to low-sec in relative safety.
New toy 3/ A fully rigged Iteron mk5 (for high sec larger volume transportation)
New toy 4/ Start of purchasing of small or medium POS, guns, and ammo + POS fuel + a moon harvesting array, corp hanger array and science labs. Need to investigate exact specifics of setting up moon mining arrays in next few weeks. Do not plan on immediate setup however, until we have POS gunners available in Corp.
New toy 5/ A load of moon probes, got about 50 moons to scan over weekend so need at least this many.
New toy 6/ Some more basic +3 implants
Quick industry update. Close to going over 500mln on market + 250mln mineral stash - will update more later in week. Approx 300mln cash in industry funds. We need to go blueprint shopping at the weekend for the next items we wish to build - I suspect a Battlecruiser blueprint may need to be purchased, along with frigates/destroyers from other races.
Jax is also back regularly logging into EVE and using the mineral stockpile to increase his stocks of items for sale - I do need to find out exactly what volume of items he has up for sale at some point. He now can fly AF's similar to me, and thus we both may be doing low-sec activities shortly..
One, in high-sec in a market hub, Oursulaert.
One, in high-sec in the Unour constellation, nice and near low-sec (but NOT in it). This was chosen simply so flights into the Verge Vendor/Placid low-sec areas could be got into quicker than if flying from Oursulaert. Doing exploration in Old Man Star would I imagine not be a clever situation, so mainly I enjoy roams 4-5 hops in.
The new office is in deeply low 0.1 low-sec space - where I made some "friends" over the weekend. I also lost the Carbonater (the first AF). It went up in flames from a pirate in the "Pain" system while I was scouting for possible locations for a new home. My mistake though, I'd asked the ship to dock while the Helios "Mighty Mouse" scanned the system, and assumed it was complete while concentrating on radar sites in the immediate system - luckily I got the pod docked before it went pop though.... Pain is an apt name as I did suffer it here. I had no qualms about replacing the ship as its made > 1billion of profit or close with its combat skills, and is, I think, the ideal low-sec combat ship - it can warp out of low-sec gate camps prior to scram being applied every single time from the experience so far.
As mentioned, I've made a few friends in my new home, and even a lot of the flashy reds are leaving the corporation alone by mutual agreement. I am still on edge however - keeping a cloaked ship by the 1st acceleration gate does provide some warning to incoming hostiles, and allows both ships to dock up if required. No-one has decided to bother us however in reality thankfully so far.
The downsides - well so far 0.1 space has less decent scanning loot than the 0.5-0.7 high-sec systems in Verge Vendor/Essence I was frequenting before... Some missions are exactly the same, some a bit harder, but all are still soloable in a AF. Hope to get decent loot soon, or will have to consider wormhole space, hopping in via low-sec.
The good news : The personal wallet is, er, good right now. Sold some of the higher-value individual site findings, and have a cool 300mln available instantly. Also still got at least another 500 mln in modules available to sell if required. 300mln is nothing, but I didn't want to flood contracts with 2 or 3x the same module as I can make a lot more money trickling the items on the market. How many people can afford a Medium Armor repper than retails for 100-150mln.
The bad news: All this new cash will be spent by Friday on new ships - to be brought this weekend:
New toy 1/ A blockade runner transport ship (to get large volumes in/out of low-sec)
New toy 2/ An Enyo assault frigate to compement the Ishkur in low-sec.. + a backup Ishkur hull + fitout in case the 1st Ishkur gets ganked. Blockade runner should in theory be able to take both back to low-sec in relative safety.
New toy 3/ A fully rigged Iteron mk5 (for high sec larger volume transportation)
New toy 4/ Start of purchasing of small or medium POS, guns, and ammo + POS fuel + a moon harvesting array, corp hanger array and science labs. Need to investigate exact specifics of setting up moon mining arrays in next few weeks. Do not plan on immediate setup however, until we have POS gunners available in Corp.
New toy 5/ A load of moon probes, got about 50 moons to scan over weekend so need at least this many.
New toy 6/ Some more basic +3 implants
Quick industry update. Close to going over 500mln on market + 250mln mineral stash - will update more later in week. Approx 300mln cash in industry funds. We need to go blueprint shopping at the weekend for the next items we wish to build - I suspect a Battlecruiser blueprint may need to be purchased, along with frigates/destroyers from other races.
Jax is also back regularly logging into EVE and using the mineral stockpile to increase his stocks of items for sale - I do need to find out exactly what volume of items he has up for sale at some point. He now can fly AF's similar to me, and thus we both may be doing low-sec activities shortly..
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