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..
Monday, 30 March 2009
Blog Banter #6 - One small chip changed the world
Welcome to the sixth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's topic comes to us from Quintrala of Speed Fairy . She suggests to "write a short fiction story about the dissolution of the BoB alliance. It could be from BoB's point of view, the Goons', by neutrals in 0.0, civilians in Empire, NPCs or even rats. Write about before, during or after the coup; give us stories of market, war, people or love. In-character or roleplay. We want to know what happened, from those fictional characters that, in your mind, were part of it."
Personally I found this task hard - I don't usually do fiction. This is written over 2 days, please let me know your thoughts good and bad! Total fiction and the events told DO NOT represent the reality of the situation. Anyway lets begin:
*//
Senx sat in the bar in the Federal Navy station in Algogille. He was sitting uncomfortably, at a bar stool by the edge of the bar, with a good view of both entrances to the bar. He was noticeably on edge, and was to any observer clearly nervous. He ordered another drink, a Fried-Marble - a strange multi-coloured beverage which resembled a Whiskey sour in taste, but not looks. He sat at the bar looking more and more concerned by the minutes passed.
A group of Caldari walked in the bar, and he looked up alertly. He quickly settled again as their arrival hadn't bothered Senx at all - They didn't have the swagger or confidence of immortal pod-pilots so he resumed waiting, and casually observed the new arrivals getting a drink and sitting down in the corner of the bar.
Senx was a industrial hauler pilot, and had been hired to travel some 35 jumps through high-security space to deliver a encrypted data chip, but was required to deliver the item in person. This was unusual, but such was the items value, it was not being trusted to any electronic means such as contracts - on the off-chance the data would be stolen in-view by hackers en-route. A strange hooded gentleman, naming himself "TheMitani" had handed over the chip, a 100mln deposit, and instructions to leave quickly. He had explained that hiring a private contractor to move the chip was required, as a shipping company would get less attention from moving the goods than a personal flight from one of his corporation's members or friends (who would be mostly known by the enemy) . He also explained the delivery method and the fact he would know Darius by the fact he would order a "SuperNova" from the bar Senx now found himself sat in.
At the time Senx left quickly rubbing his hands with glee, as carrying a simple datachip all this way was great news as it meant that Senx had an empty cargohold to fill. With glee he used the deposit monies to fill his hold with Zydrine, as he knew it would sell for way more money in Gallente space than it would locally in low-sec.
He thanked the local station staff for their help loading the piles of minerals, then undocked in his Iteron "The Badger Baiter". He had an uneventful journey - and didn't notice anyone following him.
He eventually made it to Algogille, where we resume the story:
Senx was inwardly concerned "Where is Darius" he muttered under his breath. Why is he late... He knew what he was carrying must be dynamite. The fact he was delivering the item to personally to the CEO of one of the largest Alliances in the Universe indicated the items value. The other item that indicated this was unusual was the fact he was being paid enough to retire comfortably or buy a brand new freighter and skills to pilot it - a figure around 2 billion ISK once his taxes had been accounted for. He inwardly was wondering what data chip could be worth all this hassle...
In the bar, a rather bedraggled man was sat in the corner, in the shadows, watching Senx out of the corner of his eye while pretending to be interested in the attractions of a female who was openly flirting with him. She was obviously a professional - but this didn't bother him. He knew that in this area, in this bar, being seen with a professional was the perfect cover for his trade. Professional girls were generally not looked at, and were not seen by people not looking for their trade - and thus were ignored out of social habit. This man was a pod-pilot, a assassin & a spy and was thus a man who very rarely was seen by anyone. He operated in the shadows, and was also watching one of the doors. It had been said in the past by others who knew his name and reputation that this killer worked for a "higher" power, but in truth, he was a merely a hired gun. No-one who hired him had ever seen his face, and he had never been caught. He merely was known by the moniker "The Don" to those who did know of his services. Although Senx did not know it, The Don was here to protect him from threats known and unknown.... and was in the employ of TheMitani.
Senx however had no clue of Don's presense in the room. He was almost pacing in his seat at the bar. The barman came over and was looking concerned - he'd seen this behaviour before, and he was aware it usually resulted in either a a fight or flight without paying the bill. He decided to present Senx with the tab. As he did so, he noticed that his customer noticeably relaxed as he saw a tall confident swaggering gentleman enter the bar and start walking towards the main bar area. Senx watched carefully as the barman walked to the other side of the bar to greet the tall gentleman.
The tall gentleman ordered a "Luminaire Frogian" and sat down. He also was keenly surveying the bar, and didn't take long to settle his gaze on Senx. In fact he stared disconcertingly at Senx for a good minute before breaking his stare to look at the paraphernalia from the ball-games situated behind the bar. He reached under his coat and camnly started screwing a silencer onto the barrel of the old fashioned projectile gun he held there. It was a classic weapon, designed to avoid the modern world and CONCORDs weapon checks in this high-security station. Before he could finish screwing the barrel on, he was disturbed and embarressed by "The Don" putting a hand on his sholder & injecting some neuron-toxin into his neck to paralyse and kill him instantly. The tall gentleman slumped on the bar looking in like a drunk to any casusal observer, and "The Don" grabbed his gun from under his coat to add to his personal stash. He then simply & quickly walked out of the bar giving a subtle nod to the table of Caldari.
Senx was unaware of all this occuring however, and was just finishing paying the bill that had been presented in front of him. A dark faced guy from the group of Caldari he had spotted earlier came over, sat next to him, and ordered a "Supernova". He quickly turned and said "I'm Darius, we better get this done quickly". Senx wondered why, and before he could voice the question he got the response "Look, you're unware of the trouble you were in here. See that chap by the bar? He was going to kill me and possibly you when we met if we had not anticipated the attempt and dealt with it. Here is your money, give me the chip, you don't need to know the contents - its safer if you just leave now". "Forget me, forget my face, and you were never even in this bar today".
With that he left. Senx was 2 Billion ISK richer. He was elated. He quickly got back in his Iteron hauler and flew the short trip to Oursulaert to stay in the most expensive orbital hotel he could while he awaited the order of the Obelisk he had ordered from a local vendor to be delivered.
The next morning in the hotel room, listening to his favourite morning DJ, FunkyBacon, he heard the news on the radio. BoB disbanded, taken out using insider knowledge and encryption keys Goonfleet had acquired apparently. Senx was elated, and dismayed simultanously - He now knew what that chip had contained and realised he had played a part in one of the biggest changes in the world of the 0.0 lawless space - but no-one could know. Senx knew he would be the most wanted man in the galaxy if anyone knew. He also felt sorry for the ordinary civilian residents in Delve, as he knew he had turned their life upside down - they had been used to the stability of Bob, and now faced all out war.
/**
Participants:
- Speed Fairy, The Hand of BoB
- CrazyKinux's Musing, No where to go...
- A Mule in EVE, Rolling to the Warzone
- The Ralpha Dogs, Two Tales of Glory and Honor
- One Man and his Spaceship, Times they are changing
- OZ's House of the Evil Dead, Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side
- The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Who the Hell are They?....
- I am Keith Nielson, He Gave Up the Stars
- Life in Low Sec, Six Degrees of Seperation
- A Merry life and a Short One, Die Bard
- Roc's Ramblings, Mythology
- Dense Veldspar, EVE Blog Banter #6
- Letrange's EVE Blog, A toast to the disolution of BoB
- Fumbling in Space, Scarnan Vs The Fleeing Bankrupt Hordes
- More coming soon...
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