A very expensive shopping trip, and I have one Helios Covert operations frigate named "The Mighty Mouse". This one won't be seeing low-sec (much) - but is fitted with lots of cool technology.... 2x Gravity Capacitor Upgrade 1 rigs for a start, so its not a cheap ship. I think all-in, it cost me around 60 mln ISK. An investment in my scanning/probing career for sure.
The good news is, the investment has proved worth it. I had a radar site probed out around 60 seconds after entering a system yesterday, and had "hacked" the nice Invention tools (50mln ISK) out after about 3 minutes - way better than the 15 mins minimum I'd got pre-Apocrypha. Several other bloggers have been reporting just how nice the "Deep Space Probe" and I can attest to this. Scan once at 4 or 8 AU, and then centre in at 2AU. That simple, and now I'm practiced with probes (and have way more scan strength) it allows a very quick evaluation/warp in point to a hit.
The downsides are other people appear to have found same trick - so much so that the entire constellation and the one next door quickly had had every single probe hit (cosmic signatures at least) well and truly finished - only hits being wormholes. I need to pick up some combat probes, if only so I can keep an eye on my back when in W-space. Is anyone else doing similar?
I also finally last night found my first two wormholes. I swear they were hiding from me before - as
Next plans are to have an extended low-sec roam on Sunday for possible locations for another FoB. People probably know I'm a 'bear' at heart, and I want a nice "safe-ish" place to stay and probe in low-sec, where the bounties are higher.... I think I'll be looking at my eve-maps book for possible locations soon. Myself/Jax had made a run to one potential site down in Amarr low-sec, which is a nice amount of jumps from high-sec (8-9), and low population.... The downsides being I am KOS in high-sec Amarr space so logistics may be a problem. If only I had a jump-drive ship. Logistics though are dealable.
On subject of Industry, well, was amazed yesterday. Some kind individual brought over 100mln ISK of items from DSTIC stores (this is normal tech-1 gear). Corp cash reserves (even with 50 mln in buy-orders) now stand at 400mln, with 250mln on market. Mineral stocks are also okay - but Mexallon is becoming a problem (down to 250k, with 3mln outstanding in buy-orders). The issue is just how quickly the buy-orders are being filled - they are not keeping up with module production for sales. Planning to spend cash on a corporation hauler or two (or three) - for movement of goods quicker - and some POS parts to get ready for POS operations in the medium term (I accept this is a high-risk endeavor, so will be going "cheap" at first.
I'm also considering getting the region-wide market skills sorted, so I can place remote-buy-orders, and alter existing orders. It should allow some interesting market manipulation without having to jump 20 hops.
The training plan for next two weeks is looking like:
Deafplasma: Iteron V (4 days left), Transport ships, Anchoring to V (about 10 days).
Deafturret: Rapid firing V (4 days), Weapon Upgrades V (6 days), Medium Blaster Specialization/Medium Railgun..
What I am missing though is other corporation members/friends to hit w-space/low-sec with - so either need to get recruiting or wait for Jax's return. As I've got most of Sat evening (UK time) to play EVE you should be able to contact me online if you're interested (character is Deafplasma). Corporation primarily based in Ours, but have operations in a few other areas....
Showing posts with label exploration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exploration. Show all posts
Friday, 20 March 2009
Monday, 16 February 2009
Industry update
Well, its been a few weeks, so heres the DSTIC trading update as far as my characters go - I havn't had a chance to catch up with Jax to see his stock situation:
Corporation cash on-hand: 100mln ISK (give or take).
Mineral stockpile (at last count): 150mln ISK or thereabouts.
Stock on-hand to be sold (but not on market): 50mln ISK or thereabouts + 50mln ISK's worth of minerals tied in production that finishes Wednesday.
On-market: 170mln ISK. Sold out 100% of several lines over past few days. What is it with people buying batches of > 100 items!
Personal wallets: Low - really low - under 75mln on hand. Expect even this to take battering. Have placed a snake implant for sale at lowest in region price, in Ours - to top this up by 60mln. Its a false reading though really as got about 1/2 a billion of goods out in low-sec, which I need a covert operations ship (can fly one in days now thankfully). Will be flying out to recover said goods asap this week.
Why the above changes - well blueprints were purchased and researched, and theres a few months backlog before profit can be taken from these... More blueprints also need purchasing, so I sense a spending trip is required.
Skills also are getting expensive - spent around 50mln this past week on new skill books for Deafplasma/DeafTurret.
Overall - its positive. EVE-mon is also showing DeafPlasma may overtake Jax for 1st time in overall Skillpoints over coming days/months due to my training rate being vastly greater currently.
Overall industry also needs to start research on T2 component BPO's for the items we're planning to make...
All looking like will be setup for the new expansion in terms of readyness - probing/scanning skills - check - Cov Ops capable - check. Only thing missing for one of my plans is Gallente Industrial 5. This is the next skill on the list once Covert Operations ship is mine.... Only downside is total available funds (as ever) not being huge. Once covert ops ship is mine, plan to go on a moon surveying run and look to deploy a POS in low-sec as the next overall phase to the plan... and deploy science labs + moon mining (yes I know this is a 300mln or so investment - but by that stage we should have that on-side as petty cash.
Is anyone else hoping surveying missions into W-space could be cash cows? Jax is setup for battleships (so need to get him ready for PVP fit battleships)... I'll be flying a Myrmidon fit out with T2 drones, tracking computers (speed script) + medium turrets (possibly T2 rails or blasters). Hopefully 2 characters will cut it (+ a hauling & salvaging covert ops blockade runner or covert operations). We'll see.
Anyone else in the "just can't wait" mode for the new expansion?
Corporation cash on-hand: 100mln ISK (give or take).
Mineral stockpile (at last count): 150mln ISK or thereabouts.
Stock on-hand to be sold (but not on market): 50mln ISK or thereabouts + 50mln ISK's worth of minerals tied in production that finishes Wednesday.
On-market: 170mln ISK. Sold out 100% of several lines over past few days. What is it with people buying batches of > 100 items!
Personal wallets: Low - really low - under 75mln on hand. Expect even this to take battering. Have placed a snake implant for sale at lowest in region price, in Ours - to top this up by 60mln. Its a false reading though really as got about 1/2 a billion of goods out in low-sec, which I need a covert operations ship (can fly one in days now thankfully). Will be flying out to recover said goods asap this week.
Why the above changes - well blueprints were purchased and researched, and theres a few months backlog before profit can be taken from these... More blueprints also need purchasing, so I sense a spending trip is required.
Skills also are getting expensive - spent around 50mln this past week on new skill books for Deafplasma/DeafTurret.
Overall - its positive. EVE-mon is also showing DeafPlasma may overtake Jax for 1st time in overall Skillpoints over coming days/months due to my training rate being vastly greater currently.
Overall industry also needs to start research on T2 component BPO's for the items we're planning to make...
All looking like will be setup for the new expansion in terms of readyness - probing/scanning skills - check - Cov Ops capable - check. Only thing missing for one of my plans is Gallente Industrial 5. This is the next skill on the list once Covert Operations ship is mine.... Only downside is total available funds (as ever) not being huge. Once covert ops ship is mine, plan to go on a moon surveying run and look to deploy a POS in low-sec as the next overall phase to the plan... and deploy science labs + moon mining (yes I know this is a 300mln or so investment - but by that stage we should have that on-side as petty cash.
Is anyone else hoping surveying missions into W-space could be cash cows? Jax is setup for battleships (so need to get him ready for PVP fit battleships)... I'll be flying a Myrmidon fit out with T2 drones, tracking computers (speed script) + medium turrets (possibly T2 rails or blasters). Hopefully 2 characters will cut it (+ a hauling & salvaging covert ops blockade runner or covert operations). We'll see.
Anyone else in the "just can't wait" mode for the new expansion?
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
Back from a short leave of absense.
Well, it's been a week between postings, which I try to avoid but are sometimes necessary. Reasoning was my g/f moved in finally (been awaiting the day a while) meaning time was limited Fri-Mon while all was sorted and the stacks of boxes packed then unpacked, and the office tidied so was finally usable. Works also been totally crazy busy with problem after problem - so time to play has been limited to 15 minute bursts here and there.
Crazykinux has added me to the EVE blog pack - as of last week (I missed the posting due to above issues - but linked here!) so I'd like to say Hello to any new readers who have discovered this blog using this method.
Of course the above being away from EVE doesn't really mean away - I've used the time to set some long skills going, and gave the corporation shop a full restock. Hit an amazing barrier as of Sunday - 250mln ISK of items for sale - all in the one single station - all on my personal character. Doing industry jobs with only 15 mins of playtime here and there works a treat.... its one reason I continue to play EVE whereas other MMO's just tended to lapse due to the high input required.
For the moment, similar to my corporation member Jax, I've moved both my characters back to the Ours central hub from which the corporation operates on a day to day basis, but left jump clones over in the "exploration area" where I've found great spoils - allowing quick jumps back to do a few days exploration. Obviously I've also left the ships required for this back in same area.
I can't wait for next week - as finally Gallente Frigate 5 will be done on my "scout" - meaning Covert-operations frigates and thus the reduced scan times are but a few hours away. Vital for the upcoming expansion.... which I can't wait for.
On the subject of which, once its out I think the corporation will have to go on a recruitment drive for characters interested in joining us in exploration/combat in late Feb/early March - as based on the recent Dev blogs - I think it'll need a group to be able to be effective - though we may be able to do with myself and Jax on, we probably ideally need 2-3 others with AF, BS, BC type ships. We also likely will need more industrialists later this year when Jax/myself start hitting limits on amount of production slots..
Crazykinux has added me to the EVE blog pack - as of last week (I missed the posting due to above issues - but linked here!) so I'd like to say Hello to any new readers who have discovered this blog using this method.
Of course the above being away from EVE doesn't really mean away - I've used the time to set some long skills going, and gave the corporation shop a full restock. Hit an amazing barrier as of Sunday - 250mln ISK of items for sale - all in the one single station - all on my personal character. Doing industry jobs with only 15 mins of playtime here and there works a treat.... its one reason I continue to play EVE whereas other MMO's just tended to lapse due to the high input required.
For the moment, similar to my corporation member Jax, I've moved both my characters back to the Ours central hub from which the corporation operates on a day to day basis, but left jump clones over in the "exploration area" where I've found great spoils - allowing quick jumps back to do a few days exploration. Obviously I've also left the ships required for this back in same area.
I can't wait for next week - as finally Gallente Frigate 5 will be done on my "scout" - meaning Covert-operations frigates and thus the reduced scan times are but a few hours away. Vital for the upcoming expansion.... which I can't wait for.
On the subject of which, once its out I think the corporation will have to go on a recruitment drive for characters interested in joining us in exploration/combat in late Feb/early March - as based on the recent Dev blogs - I think it'll need a group to be able to be effective - though we may be able to do with myself and Jax on, we probably ideally need 2-3 others with AF, BS, BC type ships. We also likely will need more industrialists later this year when Jax/myself start hitting limits on amount of production slots..
Friday, 23 January 2009
Big profit
Okay, Exploration IS brilliant. On just one combat site yesterday, I picked up a Snake implant which I could sell right now (instantly) for 100 million isk, but is worth > 200mln if I move and sell more centrally. Same guy also dropped a Serpentis small blaster POS Tower gun BPC (3 run). Yet to investigate what thats worth, but can't imagine it'll be cheap. Also picked up some named shadow serpentis modules - armor hardners which I'll also need to investigate sales price for (or keep).
Also found a radar site that had been bugging me for days (incredibly weak signal). When I finally scanned it down I was rewarded with 30mln's worth of decryptors...
I'm also amazed at just how quiet space is where I'm basing myself (I'm not saying where due to fact I like it quiet!). Last night in 3 systems I was the only active pilot - it was almost 0.0 in quietness. I note this is in high sec, when > 38000 pilots online. New record in one system, scanned, and found > 20 cosmic anomaly's in one system on a single scan!..
Basically overall, doing L3 missions, for 2-3 hours, I was lucky to earn 10 mln in an hour... doing this, I seem to easily average > 25.... though it can be more sporadic.
The big downside is the fact I have to really wait until I've got a cov-ops to do the run back to Ours (via low-sec) to actually liquidize all these assets and get my personal wallet healthy again - as exploration does not = big bounties. As it'll be a few weeks for this, scarily I may be flying with at least a billion isk's worth of modules in the ship... That does scare me immensely. Any idea on ship-fit-outs for a Cov-ops to avoid being caught in a gatecamp anyone?
Also found a radar site that had been bugging me for days (incredibly weak signal). When I finally scanned it down I was rewarded with 30mln's worth of decryptors...
I'm also amazed at just how quiet space is where I'm basing myself (I'm not saying where due to fact I like it quiet!). Last night in 3 systems I was the only active pilot - it was almost 0.0 in quietness. I note this is in high sec, when > 38000 pilots online. New record in one system, scanned, and found > 20 cosmic anomaly's in one system on a single scan!..
Basically overall, doing L3 missions, for 2-3 hours, I was lucky to earn 10 mln in an hour... doing this, I seem to easily average > 25.... though it can be more sporadic.
The big downside is the fact I have to really wait until I've got a cov-ops to do the run back to Ours (via low-sec) to actually liquidize all these assets and get my personal wallet healthy again - as exploration does not = big bounties. As it'll be a few weeks for this, scarily I may be flying with at least a billion isk's worth of modules in the ship... That does scare me immensely. Any idea on ship-fit-outs for a Cov-ops to avoid being caught in a gatecamp anyone?
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Escalations!
Last night, I intended to stay in my little low-ish-sec area, where low-sec is as safe as it can be (ie - its not heavily populated). Scanning for Radar/Magnemetric sites.... Hit a combat site...
Then I had a huge escalation chain yesterday that had both DeafPlasma and DeafTurret characters flying over half of Gallente space. End result, some t2 salvage, some named ammo/modules. Oh and another of those all-to-nice Snake implants. Quite profitable all in (although still to sell the Snake's - aim is to sell all of them in a full-set contract). The escalation was quite interesting, in I was chasing a "named" character all over space, and kept losing him and getting further "escalations". Certainly a change from missions, and I think a tad more profitable than level 3's with the loot found.
Skills wise, over past week I'm still concentrating on scan-time reductions, and quality of scan. Expect another 2 weeks of this for DP before I'm fully happy and ready to start moving towards cov-op's frigate. DT's drone skills are what I'm concentrating on right now - and Drone Interfacing 5 is my main aim (another 20% damage is worth the 24 days I think). Past the Drone skills, next aim will be general skilling up of some Shield skills. As I'm happy flying an Assault Frigate for now, doing general "core" skills seems a sensible option, and also will help me should I hit PvP in low-sec.
Then I had a huge escalation chain yesterday that had both DeafPlasma and DeafTurret characters flying over half of Gallente space. End result, some t2 salvage, some named ammo/modules. Oh and another of those all-to-nice Snake implants. Quite profitable all in (although still to sell the Snake's - aim is to sell all of them in a full-set contract). The escalation was quite interesting, in I was chasing a "named" character all over space, and kept losing him and getting further "escalations". Certainly a change from missions, and I think a tad more profitable than level 3's with the loot found.
Skills wise, over past week I'm still concentrating on scan-time reductions, and quality of scan. Expect another 2 weeks of this for DP before I'm fully happy and ready to start moving towards cov-op's frigate. DT's drone skills are what I'm concentrating on right now - and Drone Interfacing 5 is my main aim (another 20% damage is worth the 24 days I think). Past the Drone skills, next aim will be general skilling up of some Shield skills. As I'm happy flying an Assault Frigate for now, doing general "core" skills seems a sensible option, and also will help me should I hit PvP in low-sec.
Friday, 16 January 2009
Personal wallet issues
All this exploration and recent ship and skill buying (of t2 ship/fittings) has had its costs...
My personal wallets (for the 2 characters) are well both below 50mln.. A concern - I usually have 200m of non-corp funds available for "fun"..... and ship replacements. I worked out with my current low loss-rate (and amonut of ships kept for various purposes) its cheaper to self-insure all ships. Also a concern when I have ~ 100mln of skillbooks I need to buy in next few weeks ideally... (well when in high-sec). That said, collected items that looking at market could well be worth 100mln, so the exploration does represent quicker isk-gain than level 3 missions. Downsides are I'm not taking the local regional price so need to fly said items up to Ours/Jita to sell..
I've noticed a distinct market opportunity I in the region I'm flying in, certain items sell well, and well over 100% of what they cost to make - in one day 2000 of said item sold!. Now flying a hauler full of completed items may seem risky, but I'm willing to do so for that kind of profit (considering having a hauler for the junk t1 loot will be required in a few weeks). As said items are things I'd be using here anyhow it makes sense to me (as I can worst case buy off myself if my personal stock runs low). So I sense > 2500 item build orders will be done over weekend for said items.
Plan for next week is to jump clone into "implantless/cheap implant" clones for a coupel of days, re-equip with a cloak on the scanner (keeping combat ship well hidden, only coming in if needed to clear a site)- and look to actually do exploration in very low-sec (0.1-0.3)/null sec to see if it improves the isk per hour rate. As I'm only flying frigates/AF's the total loss wouldn't be that big if blown up.
T2 frigate love has also continued yesterday, with the AF not even hitting armor on an "unknown" combat site... basic stategy with an AF seems to be orbit (to reduce traversal) with Afterburner on, taking out all frigates and small ships with drones/guns asap (as these are what can seriously damage the AF). Once small ships dealt with switch to large ships. With drones costing 400k each I did have to manage their aggro well so they didn't get popped by the enemy - but It was easy enough to recall a drone for 10-20s if it got below 50% armor. Nice thing is I got a snake implant from the site, which did make it well worth my time doing.
I'm not sure whether to share my ship fit-outs for operational security purposes - I know several of the piratey types who read my blog are based in the area of space I'm now in (Gallente/Mimmmitar low-sec primajavascript:void(0)
Publish Postrily)... so giving my low-sec exploration and combat fit-outs may place me at risk if they chose to chase me (not that I'm a big fish with only 100m isk total available to me right now (industry funds are usually tied up in stock/minerals). I know that you piratey types can use locator agents to find me in any case, but ship-fitouts may be harder to get...
My personal wallets (for the 2 characters) are well both below 50mln.. A concern - I usually have 200m of non-corp funds available for "fun"..... and ship replacements. I worked out with my current low loss-rate (and amonut of ships kept for various purposes) its cheaper to self-insure all ships. Also a concern when I have ~ 100mln of skillbooks I need to buy in next few weeks ideally... (well when in high-sec). That said, collected items that looking at market could well be worth 100mln, so the exploration does represent quicker isk-gain than level 3 missions. Downsides are I'm not taking the local regional price so need to fly said items up to Ours/Jita to sell..
I've noticed a distinct market opportunity I in the region I'm flying in, certain items sell well, and well over 100% of what they cost to make - in one day 2000 of said item sold!. Now flying a hauler full of completed items may seem risky, but I'm willing to do so for that kind of profit (considering having a hauler for the junk t1 loot will be required in a few weeks). As said items are things I'd be using here anyhow it makes sense to me (as I can worst case buy off myself if my personal stock runs low). So I sense > 2500 item build orders will be done over weekend for said items.
Plan for next week is to jump clone into "implantless/cheap implant" clones for a coupel of days, re-equip with a cloak on the scanner (keeping combat ship well hidden, only coming in if needed to clear a site)- and look to actually do exploration in very low-sec (0.1-0.3)/null sec to see if it improves the isk per hour rate. As I'm only flying frigates/AF's the total loss wouldn't be that big if blown up.
T2 frigate love has also continued yesterday, with the AF not even hitting armor on an "unknown" combat site... basic stategy with an AF seems to be orbit (to reduce traversal) with Afterburner on, taking out all frigates and small ships with drones/guns asap (as these are what can seriously damage the AF). Once small ships dealt with switch to large ships. With drones costing 400k each I did have to manage their aggro well so they didn't get popped by the enemy - but It was easy enough to recall a drone for 10-20s if it got below 50% armor. Nice thing is I got a snake implant from the site, which did make it well worth my time doing.
I'm not sure whether to share my ship fit-outs for operational security purposes - I know several of the piratey types who read my blog are based in the area of space I'm now in (Gallente/Mimmmitar low-sec primajavascript:void(0)
Publish Postrily)... so giving my low-sec exploration and combat fit-outs may place me at risk if they chose to chase me (not that I'm a big fish with only 100m isk total available to me right now (industry funds are usually tied up in stock/minerals). I know that you piratey types can use locator agents to find me in any case, but ship-fitouts may be harder to get...
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Exploration 2nd steps
Apologies for a 2 post day, but this post was prepared prior to recent happenings, and I'm now about 3 days behind whats actually going on - so am posting in advance of what was the scheduled release of this post...
Following my 1st steps to Exploration post - I've been having some decent results when flying with Jax on the last 2 evenings:
1st day, nothing special in a combat site - we did get an escalation but it wasn't feasible to complete sadly.. Radar site immediately after however yielded ~ 25 mln isk's worth of invention tools.
2nd day - magnemetronic site, combat site + a 2nd magenematronic. No special items on the 2x magnemetronic, except for ~ 2 mil total in salvage (which is being kept for corp stock). Really need a 2nd char able to do the salvage/analysing, as I keep the scan shit setup for Radar sites only - meaning once found I need to swap ship to a salvage/analyser destroyer to collect the spoils - a pain when said ship can be miles away. Just thinking if I really splashed and had a 3rd char with an orca, it'd be a perfect salvage ship - sit it cloaked in a safe, and can just fly to/from it with chars to swap.. Useful if, like, I am now, you are working in a system with 0 stations. Another option would of course be a tower setup in-system... I don' thave money for a 3rd account though, so I'll have to stay dreaming.
The big result on the 2nd day was a combat site, I'd say between level 3 and 4 in difficulty - almost had to warp out in fact in the battlecruiser. That resulted in 4 mil of bounties, and some overseers effects worth 2 mil - and some nice items..
Scan time now a more reasonable 350secs (600 is unmodified scan time!). Should have that down soon - scanning is now my no 1 skill to get trained before the March expansion.... and I suspect it'll now be a 2 month diversion from invention - just in hope I'll be able to get some tech 3 goodies come March.
Plans for rest of week are to stay doing exploration today, clone-jumping back to main empire hub to pick up the new Assault frigate I had planned to buy but didn't last week, and starting jobs to restock the "sales" hub. The new AF will mean I shouldn't have to swap so much between battlecruiser and incursis (as I am now).. due to some exploration sites being limited by ship-size.
As theres some pesky low-sec between me and main empire now, I'll also have to be looking to get into being able to fly DST's/blockade runners - just so can get all the loot and valuable invention items back from here to empire space. The FOB (Forward Operating Base in the area I'm doing exploration in) also needs stocking with flights in the other direction with ammo - with all the work yesterday, ammo stocks in the FOB are almost nil - and some types of scan-probe also need stocking. I am tempted to fly a low-value hauler full of ammo and probes over (if it got blown up total loss would be around 900k so its a possiblility)... Its annoying just how big scan probes are!
Following my 1st steps to Exploration post - I've been having some decent results when flying with Jax on the last 2 evenings:
1st day, nothing special in a combat site - we did get an escalation but it wasn't feasible to complete sadly.. Radar site immediately after however yielded ~ 25 mln isk's worth of invention tools.
2nd day - magnemetronic site, combat site + a 2nd magenematronic. No special items on the 2x magnemetronic, except for ~ 2 mil total in salvage (which is being kept for corp stock). Really need a 2nd char able to do the salvage/analysing, as I keep the scan shit setup for Radar sites only - meaning once found I need to swap ship to a salvage/analyser destroyer to collect the spoils - a pain when said ship can be miles away. Just thinking if I really splashed and had a 3rd char with an orca, it'd be a perfect salvage ship - sit it cloaked in a safe, and can just fly to/from it with chars to swap.. Useful if, like, I am now, you are working in a system with 0 stations. Another option would of course be a tower setup in-system... I don' thave money for a 3rd account though, so I'll have to stay dreaming.
The big result on the 2nd day was a combat site, I'd say between level 3 and 4 in difficulty - almost had to warp out in fact in the battlecruiser. That resulted in 4 mil of bounties, and some overseers effects worth 2 mil - and some nice items..
Scan time now a more reasonable 350secs (600 is unmodified scan time!). Should have that down soon - scanning is now my no 1 skill to get trained before the March expansion.... and I suspect it'll now be a 2 month diversion from invention - just in hope I'll be able to get some tech 3 goodies come March.
Plans for rest of week are to stay doing exploration today, clone-jumping back to main empire hub to pick up the new Assault frigate I had planned to buy but didn't last week, and starting jobs to restock the "sales" hub. The new AF will mean I shouldn't have to swap so much between battlecruiser and incursis (as I am now).. due to some exploration sites being limited by ship-size.
As theres some pesky low-sec between me and main empire now, I'll also have to be looking to get into being able to fly DST's/blockade runners - just so can get all the loot and valuable invention items back from here to empire space. The FOB (Forward Operating Base in the area I'm doing exploration in) also needs stocking with flights in the other direction with ammo - with all the work yesterday, ammo stocks in the FOB are almost nil - and some types of scan-probe also need stocking. I am tempted to fly a low-value hauler full of ammo and probes over (if it got blown up total loss would be around 900k so its a possiblility)... Its annoying just how big scan probes are!
Monday, 12 January 2009
Exploration 1st steps
Over last few days I've been getting to point when exploration was possible - and I've finally got it working..
I learnt some things:
1/ DeafTurret is now so badly KOS in Amarr space, that navy officers spawn at any point in high-sec (even a safe) within 2-3 seconds. Doing Exploration sites and dealing with Navy too = no fun, so going to have to stick to Mimmitar/Gallente space for the moment. Its annoying as I fully probed a nice combat site (4/10) in Simlar I think the system was... Still was good practise as the site was really hard to find.
2/ Skills for reducing scan time are essential. I'm skilling DP to that end now. Plan was always to have a CovOps frigate - this doesn't change that... just makes it a more pressing need.
3/ You get through scan probes at a horrendous rate - going to need to get some serious amounts of scan probes built! Next time I'm back in Ours I'll be doing that.
4/ Loot is meh, so far. Of the one RADAR site I had time to scout our - Around 1 million in spoils. That said, as scouting a site takes 15 mins or so... its not awful - just not as good as missioning.
5/ I need to get a salvager out to this area of space - right now I only have the scouting frigate + a combat ship. Downsides are (I admit it), its a bit sketchy low-sec here. Still at least corp offices are cheap (I'll be buying one shortly). I've parked the ships in one of those high-sec loc's with low-sec all around :) Good news is - lots of sites to survey, and its real quiet - in a lot of systems I was only person in on a Sunday night, which being busiest night of the week is no bad thing (I saw 46500 people on at same time).
6/ I'm still reasonably near Ours if I need to do a run back - however, I'm more likely to use jump-clones I think and leave my character around here and only make runs back/forward when I need the loot hauling.
Overall, however - despite the annoying delays - exploration is fun, and I'll be giving Jax a run on how it all works when I see him online...
I learnt some things:
1/ DeafTurret is now so badly KOS in Amarr space, that navy officers spawn at any point in high-sec (even a safe) within 2-3 seconds. Doing Exploration sites and dealing with Navy too = no fun, so going to have to stick to Mimmitar/Gallente space for the moment. Its annoying as I fully probed a nice combat site (4/10) in Simlar I think the system was... Still was good practise as the site was really hard to find.
2/ Skills for reducing scan time are essential. I'm skilling DP to that end now. Plan was always to have a CovOps frigate - this doesn't change that... just makes it a more pressing need.
3/ You get through scan probes at a horrendous rate - going to need to get some serious amounts of scan probes built! Next time I'm back in Ours I'll be doing that.
4/ Loot is meh, so far. Of the one RADAR site I had time to scout our - Around 1 million in spoils. That said, as scouting a site takes 15 mins or so... its not awful - just not as good as missioning.
5/ I need to get a salvager out to this area of space - right now I only have the scouting frigate + a combat ship. Downsides are (I admit it), its a bit sketchy low-sec here. Still at least corp offices are cheap (I'll be buying one shortly). I've parked the ships in one of those high-sec loc's with low-sec all around :) Good news is - lots of sites to survey, and its real quiet - in a lot of systems I was only person in on a Sunday night, which being busiest night of the week is no bad thing (I saw 46500 people on at same time).
6/ I'm still reasonably near Ours if I need to do a run back - however, I'm more likely to use jump-clones I think and leave my character around here and only make runs back/forward when I need the loot hauling.
Overall, however - despite the annoying delays - exploration is fun, and I'll be giving Jax a run on how it all works when I see him online...
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