A few days ago was my corporation's "Corp Night", which is our weekly get-together to run C4 or C5 PVE sites to make ISK. (We also will attack small-gang targets of opportunity if we find them, but this is rare.) We have been doing almost solely C5 sites because they pay better than C4. Because of this, our home system has gradually filled with anoms. There were enough of them that I felt it was getting embarrassing. It's like having a messy house; even if you don't have guests, you know. So we ran our own sites for a change.
Among the sites we ran were four data sites: two Unsecured Frontier Trinary Hubs, and two Unsecured Frontier Digital Nexuses. Among the four, we got one of the "site escalation" waves, which is an extra sleeper battleship and an abandoned talocan cruiser. The latter is a loot can requiring a relic analyzer, which opens via the normal minigame. It normally contains one or two hull sections in some state of repair (intact, malfunctioning, or wrecked), which are used to make T3 cruiser hulls. Typically one of the cans is worth a few million in loot; not bad, but nothing earthshaking.
Well, this time in the one talocan can, we got a small wrecked hull section. It showed no price on the mouseover, because this is a new item introduced in Rhea to build into the new tactical destroyers. In the long run, it is likely that the prices of small hulls will drop to below that of the equivalent cruiser hull. However, in the short run the prices for these hulls are very high. People are paying a huge premium for the first Confessors.
(Here's the EVE Central search for "hull section". As of this writing, Jita has the following prices for high buy/low sell:
Intact Hull Section: 23m/33m
Malfunctioning Hull Section: 2.2m/9.4m
Wrecked Hull Section: 500k/3.0m
Small Intact Hull Section: 215m/350m
Small Malfunctioning Hull Section: 100m/269m
Small Wrecked Hull Section: 36m/100m )
Nice. So moral here is: do not ignore your data sites! Even if you don't feel them worthwhile to run for the normal blue loot and salvage, warp in to check for the Talocan relic. If it is there, cargo scan it to see what it's got. If there is a "Small [X] Hull Section", you want it! Crack it in a tank with logis [update: this doesn't work; any sleepers on site means you cannot crack a can], or clear the site and crack it.
Continuing with the story... the next day I noticed that all the data sites had despawned, except one. In that site, I had not bothered to open any cans because all the data cans in these sites are essentially worthless. (Yes, I scanned them all. I keep hoping for a nice blueprint or something, but it does not seem to be in the loot tables.) Anyway, this one extra half-dead site left a slightly unkempt system. It annoyed me enough that I decided to fly over there and crack a can just to get rid of the site.
So I jumped into my exploration Buzzard, and warped on it. Much to my surprise, there was a Sleeper battleship on grid! I tried to cloak, but no, too near a can! Uh oh... Warp! Warp! ... and I escaped. Whew. As I warped off, I noticed an abandoned Talocan cruiser.
Now, I am quite certain that can was not there two days ago. If it was, I'd have looted it. Nor was the Sleeper battleship. I'd have noticed that, too, when I entered the site and scanned all the cans.
What happened here? Evidently, you get a "die roll" each time a sleeper data site is instantiated, and if lucky, you get the escalation wave (which includes the Talocan can). We did not get it on corp night, but then the site got de-instantiated at downtime. Coming back two days later, I instantiated the site again; the site records that all the sleepers are dead, but I got a fresh check for the escalation, and more luck.
So, the moral here is: when you check out a sleeper data site, and there is not a Talocan relic, or there is but it contains relatively low-value stuff... don't give up! Come back the next day, and the next, and the next, and try again! (Sites despawn on the fourth downtime after they are first instantiated, so four tries is what you get.)
Showing posts with label Farming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Farming. Show all posts
Friday, December 12, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
Basics: Safety in Wormhole Space
It has come to my attention via a couple interactions with some ships in wspace, that people don't know how the discovery scanner works and/or are not using it right. Since this is more relevant to wspace miners than ever before, due to the compression changes in Crius, now's the time for a Basics article. But really, everyone needs to know this stuff: miners, site runners, gassers. A new wormhole opening into a system is something that every wspace resident needs to be aware of quickly.
The Discovery Scanner
The discovery scanner, for those unfamiliar with the terminology, is CCP's new name (as of Odyssey) for the overall probing system. It shows you the anomalies and signatures in the system you are in. It mostly displays in the Probe Scanner window, which you can see screenshots of below. The Probe Scanner window shows anoms and sigs in a spreadsheet. However, the discovery scanner also displays in the main window. You can also see anoms and sigs out in space.
Note that the discovery scanner is a distinct and different thing than the "dscanner" aka the "directional scanner". Even though both have a "d" and a "scanner".
Game Mechanics Used
Here's how the discovery scanner works. First, contrary to popular belief, it does not automatically push all new sigs to people in the system. Rather, it pushes all sigs in just one circumstance: when any existing sig or anom in that system despawns. Anom despawning happens naturally when running sites, which is how I think the common view got started. Other than anoms, despawnings are rare.
There is a second way to get new information, but this is per-ship, not everybody at once. A ship gets an update whenever it enters a system (duh). It also gets an update when the player clicks certain buttons on the probe scanner window. Since this must be done repeatedly to stay up to date, similar to dscanning, I call it "strobing" the discovery scanner. (I don't think that is a common usage, but you are invited to steal it.)
I usually strobe the discovery scanner by clicking the "Show Anomalies" checkbox. Assuming there are nonzero anoms, this has the big advantage of causing a very obvious change in the appearance of the probe scanner's spreadsheet. You can see this by comparing the two screenies to the right.
Other people strobe by clicking a "Show" button in the bottom right of the Probe Scanner. You can also get it by clicking the spreadsheet's column labels (which sorts by that column). There are other ways too. Basically, almost anything you click on the Probe Scanner will cause an update.
Using the Discovery Scanner to Stay Safe
So how do you use the discovery scanner to harvest resources safely in wspace? Relatively safely, anyway. First, you want to get your system to be as safe as possible. Zip it up! If you cannot zip it up, or are too lazy, then at minimum you want a sound picket at every wormhole. Of course, every sound picket means one less pilot who could otherwise be doing something. And it makes a single point of failure: if your picket guy happens to go to the bathroom for a few minutes, you have no backup. But that's your call.
Now that you're zipped and/or fully picketed, you can start doing whatever you want very safely. Mining, for example. However, you must stay there at the keyboard and strobe the discovery scanner frequently. How often? No less than a minute, and I would probably want more. 30 seconds is about right.
If you do see a new signature, and you are out in space doing stuff, immediately warp to safety. (The same is true, of course, if you have a wormhole picket who hears or sees anything unexpected.) Once you have safed up, get a scanner ship out and see what the new signature is. If it is a wormhole, it is very likely that someone will come through. Prepare yourself. Indeed, it is very likely that someone has already come through it. If it is not a wormhole (which is unlikely, but it does happen), no problem. Get back out there and continue doing your thing.
Note that a fleet can use a fleet/wing/squad commander to fleet-warp the whole fleet. Thus, it is possible to make just one guy at a time responsible for the fleet's safety. The commander sits there strobing the discovery scanner, while everyone else watches movies in another window, goes to the bathroom, etc.
The Discovery Scanner
The discovery scanner, for those unfamiliar with the terminology, is CCP's new name (as of Odyssey) for the overall probing system. It shows you the anomalies and signatures in the system you are in. It mostly displays in the Probe Scanner window, which you can see screenshots of below. The Probe Scanner window shows anoms and sigs in a spreadsheet. However, the discovery scanner also displays in the main window. You can also see anoms and sigs out in space.
Note that the discovery scanner is a distinct and different thing than the "dscanner" aka the "directional scanner". Even though both have a "d" and a "scanner".
Game Mechanics Used
 |
| Probe Scanner window |
There is a second way to get new information, but this is per-ship, not everybody at once. A ship gets an update whenever it enters a system (duh). It also gets an update when the player clicks certain buttons on the probe scanner window. Since this must be done repeatedly to stay up to date, similar to dscanning, I call it "strobing" the discovery scanner. (I don't think that is a common usage, but you are invited to steal it.)
 |
| After clicking "Show Anomalies" |
Other people strobe by clicking a "Show" button in the bottom right of the Probe Scanner. You can also get it by clicking the spreadsheet's column labels (which sorts by that column). There are other ways too. Basically, almost anything you click on the Probe Scanner will cause an update.
Using the Discovery Scanner to Stay Safe
So how do you use the discovery scanner to harvest resources safely in wspace? Relatively safely, anyway. First, you want to get your system to be as safe as possible. Zip it up! If you cannot zip it up, or are too lazy, then at minimum you want a sound picket at every wormhole. Of course, every sound picket means one less pilot who could otherwise be doing something. And it makes a single point of failure: if your picket guy happens to go to the bathroom for a few minutes, you have no backup. But that's your call.
Now that you're zipped and/or fully picketed, you can start doing whatever you want very safely. Mining, for example. However, you must stay there at the keyboard and strobe the discovery scanner frequently. How often? No less than a minute, and I would probably want more. 30 seconds is about right.
If you do see a new signature, and you are out in space doing stuff, immediately warp to safety. (The same is true, of course, if you have a wormhole picket who hears or sees anything unexpected.) Once you have safed up, get a scanner ship out and see what the new signature is. If it is a wormhole, it is very likely that someone will come through. Prepare yourself. Indeed, it is very likely that someone has already come through it. If it is not a wormhole (which is unlikely, but it does happen), no problem. Get back out there and continue doing your thing.
Note that a fleet can use a fleet/wing/squad commander to fleet-warp the whole fleet. Thus, it is possible to make just one guy at a time responsible for the fleet's safety. The commander sits there strobing the discovery scanner, while everyone else watches movies in another window, goes to the bathroom, etc.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Ghostbusting: Accomplishment Unlocked
Recently I completed Hacking V and Archaeology V. Since then, I've had a number of situations where I was cracking cans. Level V (and the T2 parts) make a big difference. You get 40 virus strength instead of 30, meaning you can plow through those nasty 80/10 Restoration Nodes in two clicks. 80/20 Firewalls go down fast; it's a feeling of power. It reminds me of one of the Greaseman's old schicks: "these hands... have been touched by God!"
Again, having completed Hacking V, I have been back to ghostbusting when my wspace chain has an exit to null, and no targets I can find. (Hunting > Ghostbusting.) For those not aware, "ghostbusting" is basically a farming method where one traverses a long chain of systems looking for ghost sites. This is best done in nullsec, which is largely abandoned most of the time. You need an interdiction-nullified T3; my old fit is discussed in this post. It's not exactly what I am using now, but the general principles discussed there apply. Some time I will put up what I am using now.
Anyway, I had something happen the other day that I've never done before. I found a ghost site while ghostbusting out in null, and managed to complete all four cans! Accomplishment unlocked!
What about the loot? In the screenie to the right is the loot. It includes the loot from one previous ghost site, which I got just one can at. It had a Packrat BPC and some Covert Research thingies. But the Ascendancy and the other BPCs, and four of the stacks of Covert Research all came from one site. Huzzah.
 |
| Loot |
Anyway, I had something happen the other day that I've never done before. I found a ghost site while ghostbusting out in null, and managed to complete all four cans! Accomplishment unlocked!
 |
| Four cans complete! |
What about the loot? In the screenie to the right is the loot. It includes the loot from one previous ghost site, which I got just one can at. It had a Packrat BPC and some Covert Research thingies. But the Ascendancy and the other BPCs, and four of the stacks of Covert Research all came from one site. Huzzah.
Monday, April 21, 2014
ISK in Wspace: Small Sites
Most income in wormhole space comes from running sleeper combat anoms. Above C2, this is usually done as a small gang activity. But there are other sites, the "small" sites, as I think of them. These are sites with only modest sleeper defenders, which can easily be done solo. This is true of all of the gas sites, excepting the two "core" gas sites that are only found in C5/C6. Similarly it is true of all of the mining anoms (aka "rocks") in C4 and below. There are two sites found only in C5/C6 that are considerably more difficult: Rarified Core Deposit and Exceptional Core Deposit.
These small sites are a source of income that I think many people in wspace ignore. This post is a guide on small sites: ship fittings, how to run them, and what you can expect to earn doing so.
Preparation
To kill small sites, first you must find them and summon their sleepers. Each site should be scanned down and bookmarked. In addition, you should instantiate each site as soon as you find it. To instantiate a site, you must initiate a warp to it. Note that you do not have to actually warp there; you can cancel the warp immediately (control-space to cancel) and the site will still be created. "Triggering" a site is a synonym for "instantiating" it. When a site is triggered, a timer is started. In about 20 minutes, the site's sleepers will appear. Obviously, the sleepers must be there for you to kill them!
Beyond triggering all the sites, you should explore with an eye towards operational security. Note all the towers: if none, great. If one, so-so. Check wormhol.es to see when they are active; hope it is sometime else. If many tower and wide activity, probably not a good system to run sites in. Similarly note any ships or probes you see: seeing any ships/probes at all is a bad sign. Bookmark all wormholes, and find out where they go. If the system next door is active, don't run sites. In your home system, you might zip up (pop all wormholes).
Sleeper Killing
EFT using my skills shows its offense as 555 DPS, with defense 386 against omni damage. There are two things to note. First, use a tech-II shield boost amp if you have the skill for that. (I don't.) This increases the tank to 402 DPS. Second, recall that the max damage for small sites is about 300 DPS, and I like a bit extra. If your skills are low you might find not enough defense; in that case, replace a ballistic control with a damage control. Alternatively, buy a faction shield booster. A Pithum C-Type Shield Booster costs about 90m ISK and will multiply your defense by about 1.6x. Or even more alternatively, just warp out and return. None of the sleepers in any small site has warp scrambling.
I use basic T1 assault missiles to save money. Assault missiles perform well against sleeper frigates and cruisers, and have just enough range to get to most of the cruisers even when they have moved out to their preferred orbit. Note that there are some of the cruisers (in the Bountiful) that want to orbit just beyond the range for normal assault missiles, at least with less than all-level-V missile skills. For these, bring along some Scourge Javelins, or just run the site fast. I sometimes could not quite run the site fast enough when I had a similar Tengu but lacking one of the launchers. With the sixth launcher, I can.
Running small sites is straightforward. Warp in, park, lock up sleepers and start killing them. Put out a mobile tractor. When the tractor has looted the second-to-last wreck, scoop up the tractor and grab the blue loot it has collected. Concurrently, kill the last sleeper. Warp to the next site.
There is a slight variation that is helpful in some of the rocks sites. Some of these sites have sleepers which start 100km or so from the warp-in point. You can wait for them to come to you, but you can speed things up by warping closer to them. Look for asteroids in their general direction that are at least 150km from you, then warp to one such rock at 70 or so. This will cut the range to about 50km; from there you still have to close. And also in this case, you'll want to bookmark your tractor's location so that you don't waste time later on in the salvager.
Salvaging
Once you've run all the small sites you want, switch into a light salvager, return, and salvage. For this you want a salvaging ship with one tractor beam (neither more nor less), many salvagers, and plenty of capacitor. Ideally you'd have a lot of targets (8 or so). There is a decent chance of being ganked while salvaging if you mess up on opsec, so you want the salvager to be as cheap as possible. Here's the fitting I recommend; note that similar performance is possible using many destroyers.
Testing
So, how does that Tengu perform given a plethora of gas sites? I did an empirical test the other day. The particular system available through our static had seven gas sites. It had one each of the Barren Perimeter Reservoir, Minor Perimeter Reservoir, and Token Perimeter Reservoir. The "perimeter" sites are the lower difficulty ones; they appear in all wspace system. The system had four of the medium-difficulty gas sites: one Bountiful Frontier Reservoir and three Vast Frontier Reservoirs. The "frontier" sites appear only in C3 or higher wspace. In addition, there was one mining anom which I ran. This site has two cruisers at the warp-in.
The system had only my home system and its own static (to C3) open. Both it and the C3 were quiescent. I put an alt in a Falcon at the C3 wormhole as early warning and, if things went bad, a chance to jam out an attack. Then I took my Tengu in and ran all the aforementioned sites.
I timed the run via the handy alerts that show in the Local chat, notifying you of wormhole transitions. This particular time I was in C4b in my Tengu was from 18:45:46 until 19:08:23. While salvaging, I was in from 19:10:09 until 19:20:08. The time in between is what it takes to cross a system, change ships, and cross back. Each warp takes about 45s.
The Tengu collected most of the blue loot in each site, though not all of it. As you can see in the screenshot, the total I collected from the sites I ran is 60.8m ISK. This is pretty good for spending 23 minutes.
What about salvage? The salvager collected the rest of the blue loot, as well as salvaging all the wrecks. Because the wrecks are already gathered together, except for the last one in each site, this is pretty efficient. The salvage proper was worth about 32m ISK, with the remainder of the value being the small amount of blue loot. Note that the amount you get in salvage will tend to vary a lot, because the only sleeper salvage worth anything substantial is Melted Nanoribbons, and the amount you get is a random small integer, and so it varies considerably.
Altogether in this particular run, I took 35 minutes to clean out the system's small sites, and got 91.4m ISK worth of blue loot and salvage. This is a bit on the high side: I think I got some luck with the nanoribbons. Nonetheless, we can compute the ISK per hour rate: 156.6! Typically I see rates of 100m/hour or more. So you can see that running the small sites can be quite lucrative.
That's it. Now, get out there you C3 and C4 inhabitants, and start running those small sites!
These small sites are a source of income that I think many people in wspace ignore. This post is a guide on small sites: ship fittings, how to run them, and what you can expect to earn doing so.
Preparation
To kill small sites, first you must find them and summon their sleepers. Each site should be scanned down and bookmarked. In addition, you should instantiate each site as soon as you find it. To instantiate a site, you must initiate a warp to it. Note that you do not have to actually warp there; you can cancel the warp immediately (control-space to cancel) and the site will still be created. "Triggering" a site is a synonym for "instantiating" it. When a site is triggered, a timer is started. In about 20 minutes, the site's sleepers will appear. Obviously, the sleepers must be there for you to kill them!
Beyond triggering all the sites, you should explore with an eye towards operational security. Note all the towers: if none, great. If one, so-so. Check wormhol.es to see when they are active; hope it is sometime else. If many tower and wide activity, probably not a good system to run sites in. Similarly note any ships or probes you see: seeing any ships/probes at all is a bad sign. Bookmark all wormholes, and find out where they go. If the system next door is active, don't run sites. In your home system, you might zip up (pop all wormholes).
Sleeper Killing
Once you have a system and you've triggered all the sites, and you think it is safe to run sites in, the next step is killing all the sleepers. For this you will want a ship with the following attributes: high DPS at close to medium range (6 km for frigates, out to 17 km for most of the cruisers, with 30 km max for a few of the cruisers). Decent defense: an omnitank of at least 300 DPS. Ideally, as small of a ship as possible to reduce time wasted in warp. Ideally, a cheap ship since you might well get jumped.
The sleeper-killer ship I use in small sites is a Tengu, kitted out with assault missiles. Here's the fitting:
[Tengu, Small Sites]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
EM Ward Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Medium Shield Booster II
Cap Recharger II
Phased Weapon Navigation Array Generation Extron
Shield Boost Amplifier I
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Heavy Assault Missile Launcher II, Scourge Heavy Assault Missile
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Tengu Defensive - Amplification Node
Tengu Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Tengu Propulsion - Gravitational Capacitor
Tengu Engineering - Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Tengu Offensive - Accelerated Ejection Bay
I use basic T1 assault missiles to save money. Assault missiles perform well against sleeper frigates and cruisers, and have just enough range to get to most of the cruisers even when they have moved out to their preferred orbit. Note that there are some of the cruisers (in the Bountiful) that want to orbit just beyond the range for normal assault missiles, at least with less than all-level-V missile skills. For these, bring along some Scourge Javelins, or just run the site fast. I sometimes could not quite run the site fast enough when I had a similar Tengu but lacking one of the launchers. With the sixth launcher, I can.
Running small sites is straightforward. Warp in, park, lock up sleepers and start killing them. Put out a mobile tractor. When the tractor has looted the second-to-last wreck, scoop up the tractor and grab the blue loot it has collected. Concurrently, kill the last sleeper. Warp to the next site.
There is a slight variation that is helpful in some of the rocks sites. Some of these sites have sleepers which start 100km or so from the warp-in point. You can wait for them to come to you, but you can speed things up by warping closer to them. Look for asteroids in their general direction that are at least 150km from you, then warp to one such rock at 70 or so. This will cut the range to about 50km; from there you still have to close. And also in this case, you'll want to bookmark your tractor's location so that you don't waste time later on in the salvager.
Salvaging
Once you've run all the small sites you want, switch into a light salvager, return, and salvage. For this you want a salvaging ship with one tractor beam (neither more nor less), many salvagers, and plenty of capacitor. Ideally you'd have a lot of targets (8 or so). There is a decent chance of being ganked while salvaging if you mess up on opsec, so you want the salvager to be as cheap as possible. Here's the fitting I recommend; note that similar performance is possible using many destroyers.
[Coercer, Cheap Salvager]Note that this is a more general-purpose salvager than just this particular mission. In small sites, there is never a reason for a microwarpdrive. The Auto Targeting system should never be turned on; it is there only to increase the number of targets.
Mark I Generator Refitting: Capacitor Power RelayMark I Generator Refitting: Capacitor Power RelayLocal Hull Conversion Nanofiber Structure I
Eutectic Capacitor Charge ArrayLimited 1MN Microwarpdrive I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager I
Salvager ISalvager I
Salvager ISmall Tractor Beam I
Auto Targeting System I
Small Salvage Tackle I
Small Salvage Tackle I
Small Salvage Tackle I
Testing
So, how does that Tengu perform given a plethora of gas sites? I did an empirical test the other day. The particular system available through our static had seven gas sites. It had one each of the Barren Perimeter Reservoir, Minor Perimeter Reservoir, and Token Perimeter Reservoir. The "perimeter" sites are the lower difficulty ones; they appear in all wspace system. The system had four of the medium-difficulty gas sites: one Bountiful Frontier Reservoir and three Vast Frontier Reservoirs. The "frontier" sites appear only in C3 or higher wspace. In addition, there was one mining anom which I ran. This site has two cruisers at the warp-in.
The system had only my home system and its own static (to C3) open. Both it and the C3 were quiescent. I put an alt in a Falcon at the C3 wormhole as early warning and, if things went bad, a chance to jam out an attack. Then I took my Tengu in and ran all the aforementioned sites.
 |
| Blue loot on the Tengu |
The Tengu collected most of the blue loot in each site, though not all of it. As you can see in the screenshot, the total I collected from the sites I ran is 60.8m ISK. This is pretty good for spending 23 minutes.
 |
| Salvage on the Coercer |
Altogether in this particular run, I took 35 minutes to clean out the system's small sites, and got 91.4m ISK worth of blue loot and salvage. This is a bit on the high side: I think I got some luck with the nanoribbons. Nonetheless, we can compute the ISK per hour rate: 156.6! Typically I see rates of 100m/hour or more. So you can see that running the small sites can be quite lucrative.
That's it. Now, get out there you C3 and C4 inhabitants, and start running those small sites!
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Evading a Hunter
It's 11:00PM, and I have to get to bed within the hour. I've been exploring tonight, hoping for a gank. I found a gang in a C5 that appeared to be attempting to jump on someone out in nullsec. But I missed whatever they did (if they did anything). Now they are gone, and I have just the right amount of time left to ninja two nice gas sites I found.
I warp back up the chain in my Manticore, from C5a to C2a to C4c to C4b to home, C5a. While I do this I log my second account. Then I log off my main and get one of his alts on. Both of my guys have Gas Mining V, and both get in an appropriately fit Venture. I fleet them up, then I fleet-warp them off down the chain.
At each link I dscan, but nothing unexpected appears. Finally I am in C5a again. I dscan; nothing unexpected. So I fleetwarp to the first Vital Core Reservoir. As I warp across the inner system, I dscan again, and I see a Proteus. It's the Proteus from the gang before. Did he see me? I can't know. So now there's some risk here. But I figure that (a) he might not have seen me, (b) I am in a hard-to-scan gas site, (c) in Ventures which cost almost nothing, (d) in Ventures which are naturally stabbed up, (e) and I'll be moving, and (f) I am bright yellow. So, on with the show.
I land on grid. No sleepers; the site has not been instantiated yet today. This is good; if sleepers were here I'd have to leave immediately or die. I microwarp both Ventures 40km to the cloud of C320, get in orbit, and start sucking gas. This done, I get a dscan in. No Proteus. Perhaps I am clear.
A few minutes pass. I am dscanning every 10 seconds or so, fully paranoid. After about five minutes, I see Sisters Core Scanner probes. I expect this means the Proteus is hunting me. The good news is that he has not scanned down the system. If he had, my first clue that he was coming for me would probably be when he uncloaked a few kilometers from one of my guys. And it's also good news that he is using core probes. Combat probes would lead him straight to me. But the system has 11 sigs, many of which are quite weak, including the one I am in. So I probably have minute or two more. It depends on how fast he scans, whether he scans intelligently (by using dscan to find my general area), and whether he is lucky. He might scan the site I am in first or last.
I want to keep gassing; can I do it safely? Pretty much. To scan down a weak site like this, I have to get the probes within 0.25 AU of it. (In fact their scan radius is 0.25 AU; each probe is perhaps half that distance from the scanning area in the middle.) Even with scan strength bonus from the T3, and top skills, I doubt that this guy will be able to resolve the site at anything higher than 0.5 AU (and even that is unlikely). Both of my characters dscan ranges are current set to the maximum, 2147483647 km. It is easy to chop a digit off the end the range. I do this with my character on my right screen. He scans at 214748364 km, which is about 1.4 AU. He sees nothing; I am still safe.
Now I return to dscanning, alternating between characters. I can see the probes with the character on the left scanning at full range. I cannot see them on the right.
Dscan, dscan, dscan. Minutes pass. I feel that at any second the probes will close in on me, but they don't. This guy is taking forever. My grandma can scan a system faster than this! And she is in an unbonused ship!
Dscan, dscan, dscan. More minutes pass. My guys suck out all the gas from the C320 cloud. I microwarp them up to the C540 cloud, and start sucking again.
Dscan, dscan. Finally, on my right screen I dscan and I see a single probe. This is bad news; it probably means he is scanning for my sig. He's not close yet, but it should only take him a few scans to scan it down.
I dscan again, and I see seven probes, then eight. Now I halve my range (more or less), by selecting the "2" in the dscan's range field and replacing it with a "1". I dscan again, and again I see all eight probes.
This is no time for math, but I estimate it's time to go. I'd really like to go to the second gas site, but I have no way to know if it has been compromised. And since it has taken so long, I figure the guy is likely to have found it. So I give up the idea of mining it. Right now the question is can I escape from the system? If this guy has friends, they could set up a trap at the exit wormhole. If they know where I am from. In this respect, the many wormholes incident to the system help me.
I fleet-warp to the C2 wormhole. I know it's not bubbled because it is in my dscan range. But what of the other side? I think it is unlikely that this guy (who I am fairly certain is from null) will have anyone back there. But it's possible, so I send one Venture through first. Nobody there. The second Venture jumps, then I fleet warp back up the chain, and finally home safely.
What's 15 minutes of gassing worth? If it's the good stuff, 18.5m ISK. Per character. Well worth the time.
I warp back up the chain in my Manticore, from C5a to C2a to C4c to C4b to home, C5a. While I do this I log my second account. Then I log off my main and get one of his alts on. Both of my guys have Gas Mining V, and both get in an appropriately fit Venture. I fleet them up, then I fleet-warp them off down the chain.
At each link I dscan, but nothing unexpected appears. Finally I am in C5a again. I dscan; nothing unexpected. So I fleetwarp to the first Vital Core Reservoir. As I warp across the inner system, I dscan again, and I see a Proteus. It's the Proteus from the gang before. Did he see me? I can't know. So now there's some risk here. But I figure that (a) he might not have seen me, (b) I am in a hard-to-scan gas site, (c) in Ventures which cost almost nothing, (d) in Ventures which are naturally stabbed up, (e) and I'll be moving, and (f) I am bright yellow. So, on with the show.
I land on grid. No sleepers; the site has not been instantiated yet today. This is good; if sleepers were here I'd have to leave immediately or die. I microwarp both Ventures 40km to the cloud of C320, get in orbit, and start sucking gas. This done, I get a dscan in. No Proteus. Perhaps I am clear.
A few minutes pass. I am dscanning every 10 seconds or so, fully paranoid. After about five minutes, I see Sisters Core Scanner probes. I expect this means the Proteus is hunting me. The good news is that he has not scanned down the system. If he had, my first clue that he was coming for me would probably be when he uncloaked a few kilometers from one of my guys. And it's also good news that he is using core probes. Combat probes would lead him straight to me. But the system has 11 sigs, many of which are quite weak, including the one I am in. So I probably have minute or two more. It depends on how fast he scans, whether he scans intelligently (by using dscan to find my general area), and whether he is lucky. He might scan the site I am in first or last.
I want to keep gassing; can I do it safely? Pretty much. To scan down a weak site like this, I have to get the probes within 0.25 AU of it. (In fact their scan radius is 0.25 AU; each probe is perhaps half that distance from the scanning area in the middle.) Even with scan strength bonus from the T3, and top skills, I doubt that this guy will be able to resolve the site at anything higher than 0.5 AU (and even that is unlikely). Both of my characters dscan ranges are current set to the maximum, 2147483647 km. It is easy to chop a digit off the end the range. I do this with my character on my right screen. He scans at 214748364 km, which is about 1.4 AU. He sees nothing; I am still safe.
 |
| I see nothing. Nothing! |
Now I return to dscanning, alternating between characters. I can see the probes with the character on the left scanning at full range. I cannot see them on the right.
Dscan, dscan, dscan. Minutes pass. I feel that at any second the probes will close in on me, but they don't. This guy is taking forever. My grandma can scan a system faster than this! And she is in an unbonused ship!
Dscan, dscan, dscan. More minutes pass. My guys suck out all the gas from the C320 cloud. I microwarp them up to the C540 cloud, and start sucking again.
 |
| Where there is one, seven follow |
 |
| Busted! |
 |
| This stuff pays well. |
I fleet-warp to the C2 wormhole. I know it's not bubbled because it is in my dscan range. But what of the other side? I think it is unlikely that this guy (who I am fairly certain is from null) will have anyone back there. But it's possible, so I send one Venture through first. Nobody there. The second Venture jumps, then I fleet warp back up the chain, and finally home safely.
What's 15 minutes of gassing worth? If it's the good stuff, 18.5m ISK. Per character. Well worth the time.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
A Waste of Frigates
It's the weekend, and I am exploring in my Buzzard. C4b had a lot of sigs, and nobody around after the initial occupant fled from me. I scan down C4b. There are three wormholes incident: my static, another C4, and a C5. I elect to go with C5a.
Upon jumping, I see an interesting dscan: Archon, two Revelations, two Lokis, two Damnations and an Anathema (?). There is also a tower. This looks like a escalation fleet if anything does. But there are no wrecks. I move off the wormhole, bookmark it, and get cloaked. Then I work dscan. One Damnation and a Revelation are at the tower. The others are out in space somewhere. I bookmark the two combat anoms, but they are not there. They are out in space somewhere I cannot trivially fly to. I'll have to probe. The system has eight sigs. Are they perhaps running a data site?
My guess is confirmed a moment later when a Sleeper large advanced wreck appears. OK, they must have just started on a site. There is an outer planet about 15AU out. I warp out to launch combat probes. Fortunately they are off scan. I launch probes then throw them out of the system. Now I warp back in to find their tower. This takes just a moment, as it is at a planet with just one moon.
Now I sit at the tower and get range to the wrecks and ships: it's about 5.3 AU. That's convenient; I use the 4 AU scan distance and I place the bubble edges on me. Now I start pointing dscan, in ever smaller angles, then searching for the group. Finally I have it down to a five degree arc. This is as good as I can do without getting closer. But it should be good enough. Capitals are huge. I bring the probe distance down to 1AU, then I scan. 100% on several ships, and I throw the probes out of the system as fast as I can. (While the probes warp and start their scan I remember to warp to the Archon at 100km.) Did they see?
Either they do not see, or they do not care. Huh. Bad opsec. I wish I had a fleet to drop on them, but I don't. Maybe they feel safe running with C4s open because we can't drop carriers? Dunno. Anyway, I am in the site, and now I sit. I can't do anything with a Buzzard, except make a perch. So I start slowboating away from them. Once I get far enough out, I bookmark the position and then warp off towards home. A Manticore is just as impotent as an unarmed Buzzard against capital reps, but they might make a mistake.
Hop, hop, and home. Reship. Then hop, and back to C4b. Now I think about polarization and decide to wait two minutes for it to abate on the C5 wormhole. That done, I warp to the wormhole and jump. Then I burn off the hole, hoping they don't see me. And I warp to my perch.
The fleet is still there, still slowly killing sleeper battleships. So, now I sit and watch. This goes on for a very long time. They kill all the battleships, then they escalate with a Moros. Eight more sleepers. More waiting.
I am wondering what they will do for salvage. If they make a mistake, maybe I can slip in and gank something. But so far, nothing. Finally, they deploy a tractor unit. (Guys: do when first in the site.) So, that is one question answered. I bookmark it and keep watching.
Eventually they get down to four sleeper frigates and one cruiser. My guess is that this is the minimum level to keep the site around so they can milk it. Anyway, they have left these guys alive for 20 minutes now. And I see a Noctis on scan. Then it enters the site.
Strangely, the Noctis does not seem to have tractors, or it's not using them. Ever so slowly the tractor collects wrecks, and the Noctis grinds them. Some of the ships leave, but the Archon and a Loki are still present. So I cannot gank. I keep watching.
Finally the Noctis seems to have realized it has tractors. I see lots of wrecks moving. They are rapidly sucked in and salvaged. And the Noctis warps, leaving just the Loki and Archon.
At this point I expect them to bring in jammers to jam out the peskies and spring everyone free from their warp scrambling. But this does not happen. Instead, they bring in a Merlin. What? Maybe they can draw fire with it, freeing up the Loki or Archon? It zooms off on microwarp, but before long it warps. Well, that was about what I expected.
Finally the carrier gets free and warps. Now it's just the Loki. Since I am not going to get any action myself, I warp in closer to get a better look at what's going on. How will they spring their Loki free of five sleeper scramblers?
Again I expect jammers, but no. Instead they warp in another Merlin.
It starts zooming off, and then boom. Dead. Ha ha ha! This is funny. What else will they try?
A shuttle and a merlin. The shuttle dies in one shot:
And then the Merlin:
This is officially too funny.
Next, an Executioner:
Two more Merlins:
Two Merlins and an Executioner:
This last wave finally does the trick. The Loki warps off. The C5 guys lose another two ships.
Ha ha ha. Um, guys, jammers?
Upon jumping, I see an interesting dscan: Archon, two Revelations, two Lokis, two Damnations and an Anathema (?). There is also a tower. This looks like a escalation fleet if anything does. But there are no wrecks. I move off the wormhole, bookmark it, and get cloaked. Then I work dscan. One Damnation and a Revelation are at the tower. The others are out in space somewhere. I bookmark the two combat anoms, but they are not there. They are out in space somewhere I cannot trivially fly to. I'll have to probe. The system has eight sigs. Are they perhaps running a data site?
My guess is confirmed a moment later when a Sleeper large advanced wreck appears. OK, they must have just started on a site. There is an outer planet about 15AU out. I warp out to launch combat probes. Fortunately they are off scan. I launch probes then throw them out of the system. Now I warp back in to find their tower. This takes just a moment, as it is at a planet with just one moon.
Now I sit at the tower and get range to the wrecks and ships: it's about 5.3 AU. That's convenient; I use the 4 AU scan distance and I place the bubble edges on me. Now I start pointing dscan, in ever smaller angles, then searching for the group. Finally I have it down to a five degree arc. This is as good as I can do without getting closer. But it should be good enough. Capitals are huge. I bring the probe distance down to 1AU, then I scan. 100% on several ships, and I throw the probes out of the system as fast as I can. (While the probes warp and start their scan I remember to warp to the Archon at 100km.) Did they see?
 |
| I get to watch a C5 site be run. First! |
Hop, hop, and home. Reship. Then hop, and back to C4b. Now I think about polarization and decide to wait two minutes for it to abate on the C5 wormhole. That done, I warp to the wormhole and jump. Then I burn off the hole, hoping they don't see me. And I warp to my perch.
 |
| Eight more Sleeper battleships |
I am wondering what they will do for salvage. If they make a mistake, maybe I can slip in and gank something. But so far, nothing. Finally, they deploy a tractor unit. (Guys: do when first in the site.) So, that is one question answered. I bookmark it and keep watching.
Eventually they get down to four sleeper frigates and one cruiser. My guess is that this is the minimum level to keep the site around so they can milk it. Anyway, they have left these guys alive for 20 minutes now. And I see a Noctis on scan. Then it enters the site.
Strangely, the Noctis does not seem to have tractors, or it's not using them. Ever so slowly the tractor collects wrecks, and the Noctis grinds them. Some of the ships leave, but the Archon and a Loki are still present. So I cannot gank. I keep watching.
Finally the Noctis seems to have realized it has tractors. I see lots of wrecks moving. They are rapidly sucked in and salvaged. And the Noctis warps, leaving just the Loki and Archon.
Finally the carrier gets free and warps. Now it's just the Loki. Since I am not going to get any action myself, I warp in closer to get a better look at what's going on. How will they spring their Loki free of five sleeper scramblers?
 |
| Sucks to be him. |
 |
| More ships! |
 |
| Welp. |
 |
| That didn't work. |
Next, an Executioner:
 |
| Keep trying. |
 |
| How about two Merlins? |
 |
| OK, two frigs did not work. Let's try three. |
 |
| The final Merlin goes boom. |
Saturday, February 8, 2014
The Discover Scanner Doesn't Push New Sigs
Nobody is around but me. Earlier today, I ganked a Heron downstream from my EOL wormhole. Now, our static wormhole has timed out and poofed. I check: three sigs in my home system, as expected. We have a Sizeable Perimeter Reservoir (a gas site) that I've been eyeing for a while. Carebears gotta care. Since we are now zipped up via the hands of Father Time, it's a good time to suck some gas. In fact I have been planning this since I came back out of the old C4a: I already have my second-account alt logged on and ready in a Venture.
I warp over to see if the gas site has been instantiated yet today. Yes, there are sleeper frigates. Great. I warp back to my POS and refit into a Drake. Precision heavy missiles will do the job efficiently, off a cheap platform. I warp to the gas site and engage. It takes three hits to kill each frigate, and the job is soon done. As I kill the last frigate, I warp in my alt to the C50 cloud and start sucking gas. When the sleeper dies, I warp back to my POS to get a salvager.
Now I warp out and salvage. It's a lucky day for me: four nanoribbons from the six frigates. (Often you get none.) Now I warp back home and dump off my salvage. My plan is to log out and log on my "peasant", a same-account alt character with just production skills relevant to wspace life. (Those being: PI, sucking gas, and mining rocks, and also scanning in case of emergency.) Von can only use T1 gas miners, whereas my alt can use T2, which means a 50% higher gas sucking rate. It's worth the minute or two logging in and out.
I log in the alt and warp to the C84 cloud, and start sucking gas. Then I get my two alts into a fleet so I can fleet-warp off if needed. And then, I notice the discovery scanner.
There are four sigs on my "peasant's" discovery scanner. I look over at the other screen. There are still three sigs on my alt's scanner. Interesting. It's probably a wormhole; most new sigs are. I check dscan, and there are no probes or ships other than mine. We are in a gas site, which must be probed down. I am in Ventures, which are tiny and moving and have warp core strength built in. So, I feel reasonably safe. I keep gas mining, at least for now. First priority is to check and see if the new sig is a wormhole.
I fire probes and study the system map. Yes, there is a new sig in the outer system. I put my probes there and start scanning. A few cycles later, and I have it: it is a wormhole, and it is a fat one. K162 by the signal.
Now I check my second-account alt, and it still does not have the new sig yet. Since I have noticed a character not seeing a new sig before, I figure this is a great time to perform an experiment. I am not going anywhere, and I can dscan just fine on my main screen. I will not do anything on my second account, and just wait for the new sig to be pushed to me. How long will it be?
Meanwhile, I am sucking gas and hitting dscan like a fool. Nothing. Minutes pass. The C50 cloud is sucked, and I microwarp over to the C84 cloud. Dscan, dscan, dscan. More minutes pass. Finally, the site is exhausted, and I warp both characters back to my POS.
The second account was never updated that I noticed, and I was watching. It had three sigs the whole time. When I get back to the POS, I notice three sigs still. When I compare, I find that both accounts now see the same three sigs. My guess is that when the gas site despawned, it triggered the discovery scanner to update. But the new sig, whenever it came, did not.
Looking back on it, I think it likely that the new sig was there when I was killing the sleepers in the Drake. (Shudder.) It had not been pushed to me when I was sitting there AFK before, and I probably did not check my discovery scanner when I changed ships.
My current theory on how the discovery scanner works is that new site spawns (which includes K162s in particular) do not trigger its autoupdate. Old sites despawning do trigger an autoupdate. This means that hunting through wormholes you instantiate should still work, assuming the potential victims do not know to force-update their discovery scanner.
If you have information confirming or falsifying my theory, please do make a comment. Further research, as they say, is indicated.
Update: several commenters say I am wrong. I know it is buggy sometimes, because I explore and see the lack of update in new systems. So, maybe what I observed is a bug. Still, even if that is so, it gives one the hope that hunting in wspace through non-K162s can be successful.
I warp over to see if the gas site has been instantiated yet today. Yes, there are sleeper frigates. Great. I warp back to my POS and refit into a Drake. Precision heavy missiles will do the job efficiently, off a cheap platform. I warp to the gas site and engage. It takes three hits to kill each frigate, and the job is soon done. As I kill the last frigate, I warp in my alt to the C50 cloud and start sucking gas. When the sleeper dies, I warp back to my POS to get a salvager.
Now I warp out and salvage. It's a lucky day for me: four nanoribbons from the six frigates. (Often you get none.) Now I warp back home and dump off my salvage. My plan is to log out and log on my "peasant", a same-account alt character with just production skills relevant to wspace life. (Those being: PI, sucking gas, and mining rocks, and also scanning in case of emergency.) Von can only use T1 gas miners, whereas my alt can use T2, which means a 50% higher gas sucking rate. It's worth the minute or two logging in and out.
I log in the alt and warp to the C84 cloud, and start sucking gas. Then I get my two alts into a fleet so I can fleet-warp off if needed. And then, I notice the discovery scanner.
There are four sigs on my "peasant's" discovery scanner. I look over at the other screen. There are still three sigs on my alt's scanner. Interesting. It's probably a wormhole; most new sigs are. I check dscan, and there are no probes or ships other than mine. We are in a gas site, which must be probed down. I am in Ventures, which are tiny and moving and have warp core strength built in. So, I feel reasonably safe. I keep gas mining, at least for now. First priority is to check and see if the new sig is a wormhole.
I fire probes and study the system map. Yes, there is a new sig in the outer system. I put my probes there and start scanning. A few cycles later, and I have it: it is a wormhole, and it is a fat one. K162 by the signal.
Now I check my second-account alt, and it still does not have the new sig yet. Since I have noticed a character not seeing a new sig before, I figure this is a great time to perform an experiment. I am not going anywhere, and I can dscan just fine on my main screen. I will not do anything on my second account, and just wait for the new sig to be pushed to me. How long will it be?
Meanwhile, I am sucking gas and hitting dscan like a fool. Nothing. Minutes pass. The C50 cloud is sucked, and I microwarp over to the C84 cloud. Dscan, dscan, dscan. More minutes pass. Finally, the site is exhausted, and I warp both characters back to my POS.
The second account was never updated that I noticed, and I was watching. It had three sigs the whole time. When I get back to the POS, I notice three sigs still. When I compare, I find that both accounts now see the same three sigs. My guess is that when the gas site despawned, it triggered the discovery scanner to update. But the new sig, whenever it came, did not.
Looking back on it, I think it likely that the new sig was there when I was killing the sleepers in the Drake. (Shudder.) It had not been pushed to me when I was sitting there AFK before, and I probably did not check my discovery scanner when I changed ships.
My current theory on how the discovery scanner works is that new site spawns (which includes K162s in particular) do not trigger its autoupdate. Old sites despawning do trigger an autoupdate. This means that hunting through wormholes you instantiate should still work, assuming the potential victims do not know to force-update their discovery scanner.
If you have information confirming or falsifying my theory, please do make a comment. Further research, as they say, is indicated.
Update: several commenters say I am wrong. I know it is buggy sometimes, because I explore and see the lack of update in new systems. So, maybe what I observed is a bug. Still, even if that is so, it gives one the hope that hunting in wspace through non-K162s can be successful.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Ghost Site Success
It's another day, and another static C3a that connects to nullsec. This means another shot at ghostbusting.
In a very strange coincidence, the wormhole connects to the exact same system that I was in a few days back when I was ghostbusting. Weird. I set off vaguely north.
After about 10 systems of nothing, I head south for a bit to do a small loop I have bypassed. At the last system, I turn around and burn the 15km to the gate. But when I am still 11k off, a guy "black top" lands on grid; another Tengu. Is he after me? I doubt he can stop me in time, but I take no chances and cloak anyway. As I drift up to the gate, he jumps. On the other side, I hold gate cloak for a while until I feel silly. Then I just warp and cloak.
I am running parallel with black top for a while, which is not surprising since there are no branches yet. I wonder if he is ghostbusting too. After two systems, we get to SNFV-I. Ecidently he goes another direction. I keep heading north. Two hops later, I enter MY-WV1; I'm alone again, and there is a ghost site!
I warp to it, anxious that black top will come this way. But he is not in system by the time I am on site. I lock up the four cans and start scanning them. In one there is a 'Wetu' mobile depot blueprint. That may actually have some value. (Later I look it up: sell price at Jita is 40m ISK, probably dropping fast.) No ascendancy implants. I head over and start hacking.
I am expect the "hard" minigame. That is the one that is typical in nullsec (at least in my limited experience). But instead it is the "medium" difficulty minigame, featuring 50/20 firewalls and none of the nasty nodes. I tear across the minigame map and find the core! Woo! Click click, and I can loot the can. Cha-small-ching!
This was fast; I hope there is time to do a second can. I head across 20km to the nearest can, but before I arrive the Serpentis spawn appears. I head off into space as they warp scramble me and start shooting. As I flee, waiting for the 30 seconds or so, I notice local and I see that black top has just entered the system. That's a bit scary -- he may notice the ghost site and perhaps fly to it, and here I am warp scrambled. Still, it should take him time to arrive and I will probably be cloaked by then. In any case, he does not appear. The Serpentis damage my shields a bit, then leave. I immediately cloak. Instead of warping off, I hang out to see if black top will appear on the site. But he does not after about 20 seconds, and that's probably as long as it should take him. The site has despawned so he cannot even try. So I continue northwards.
The next system, he speaks in local. Asks what I got. So he did see the site was there. I tell him I got a 'Wetu', just as I jump 4M-HGL, and lose him.
Now I head north then west (directions in terms of where they are on dotlan), all the way to E3-SDZ, and find no sites. Then I head back towards the cluster to the east. I have skipped on site on the way, B-XJX4, which I hit this direction. Ghost site! And nobody here again.
I do the now standard procedure for unopposed ghost sites. Warp to the site, lock the cans, scan them all looking for something good. There is another mobile depot blueprint, but no Ascendancies. I burn over to the can with the blueprint, setting an orbit for 2500m in case I need to GTFO. I am hopeful that it will be another medium minigame. But it is not. It's hard. I hit one Restoration Node, then a second. But I get some good utilities. I click across the map, and before I even have to use a utility, hey, there is is. System Core.
Just as I find the core, the pirates arrive. OK, I have to get the stuff fast! Kill the node: click click click, and it dies. Now I can loot the can -- but I can't! Crap! I am too far. I am orbiting at 2700 because of my earlier order! OK, "loot". Seconds tick away. I have the can selected, hitting "loot", "loot", over and over. My ship turns to the can, ever so slowly, as the pirates lock me and start shooting. I am sure I can tank this long enough, but will they explode my loot?
All at once, I get the loot window, and the can blows up, and I loot it. Did I get the loot? I did. OK, maybe I got the order wrong there, but honestly I am not sure. I burn off, and the pirates get me down to about 30% before they warp. Whew. Lesson learned: in future, I will orbit the can at 1000m, not 2500m.
The rest of the run yields no further sites. I return to my wormhole, and enter C3a. As I am crossing it, I pay attention to my loot and I notice that the second mobile depot blueprint I got is not another "Wetu", as I had thought. It's a "Yurt". A quick look at Jita via my Jita alt shows the price: 450m (also most likely still dropping like a stone). Whoa. A good run.
Ghostbusting has more potential for those of my modest skills than I thought.
In a very strange coincidence, the wormhole connects to the exact same system that I was in a few days back when I was ghostbusting. Weird. I set off vaguely north.
After about 10 systems of nothing, I head south for a bit to do a small loop I have bypassed. At the last system, I turn around and burn the 15km to the gate. But when I am still 11k off, a guy "black top" lands on grid; another Tengu. Is he after me? I doubt he can stop me in time, but I take no chances and cloak anyway. As I drift up to the gate, he jumps. On the other side, I hold gate cloak for a while until I feel silly. Then I just warp and cloak.
I am running parallel with black top for a while, which is not surprising since there are no branches yet. I wonder if he is ghostbusting too. After two systems, we get to SNFV-I. Ecidently he goes another direction. I keep heading north. Two hops later, I enter MY-WV1; I'm alone again, and there is a ghost site!
 |
| Finally! |
 |
| PVP danger |
This was fast; I hope there is time to do a second can. I head across 20km to the nearest can, but before I arrive the Serpentis spawn appears. I head off into space as they warp scramble me and start shooting. As I flee, waiting for the 30 seconds or so, I notice local and I see that black top has just entered the system. That's a bit scary -- he may notice the ghost site and perhaps fly to it, and here I am warp scrambled. Still, it should take him time to arrive and I will probably be cloaked by then. In any case, he does not appear. The Serpentis damage my shields a bit, then leave. I immediately cloak. Instead of warping off, I hang out to see if black top will appear on the site. But he does not after about 20 seconds, and that's probably as long as it should take him. The site has despawned so he cannot even try. So I continue northwards.
 |
| ghostbusters that pass in the night |
Now I head north then west (directions in terms of where they are on dotlan), all the way to E3-SDZ, and find no sites. Then I head back towards the cluster to the east. I have skipped on site on the way, B-XJX4, which I hit this direction. Ghost site! And nobody here again.
I do the now standard procedure for unopposed ghost sites. Warp to the site, lock the cans, scan them all looking for something good. There is another mobile depot blueprint, but no Ascendancies. I burn over to the can with the blueprint, setting an orbit for 2500m in case I need to GTFO. I am hopeful that it will be another medium minigame. But it is not. It's hard. I hit one Restoration Node, then a second. But I get some good utilities. I click across the map, and before I even have to use a utility, hey, there is is. System Core.
Just as I find the core, the pirates arrive. OK, I have to get the stuff fast! Kill the node: click click click, and it dies. Now I can loot the can -- but I can't! Crap! I am too far. I am orbiting at 2700 because of my earlier order! OK, "loot". Seconds tick away. I have the can selected, hitting "loot", "loot", over and over. My ship turns to the can, ever so slowly, as the pirates lock me and start shooting. I am sure I can tank this long enough, but will they explode my loot?
All at once, I get the loot window, and the can blows up, and I loot it. Did I get the loot? I did. OK, maybe I got the order wrong there, but honestly I am not sure. I burn off, and the pirates get me down to about 30% before they warp. Whew. Lesson learned: in future, I will orbit the can at 1000m, not 2500m.
The rest of the run yields no further sites. I return to my wormhole, and enter C3a. As I am crossing it, I pay attention to my loot and I notice that the second mobile depot blueprint I got is not another "Wetu", as I had thought. It's a "Yurt". A quick look at Jita via my Jita alt shows the price: 450m (also most likely still dropping like a stone). Whoa. A good run.
Ghostbusting has more potential for those of my modest skills than I thought.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
We Steal Some Gas
It's Rubicon eve in EVE. I log on late. Jayne and Hiljah are around. Jayne has scanned down our surrounding systems du jour. We have a C5 incident, in addition to our static C3. The C5 is interesting: many anoms (30? 40?), and just six sigs. Evidently these people are not much for sleeper-killing as a key form of money making.
There are three towers, with a manned Buzzard sitting at one. And they appear to be Americans: one tower is named CostCo. A look on dotlan shows activity about 48-42 hours ago. So, perhaps American west coast. So we are not too keen to do anything substantial. However, Jayne points out that the guy is aligned to his tower. This probably means he's been sitting there a while.
I ask about C3. It's not particularly interesting. It attaches to a C3b, which is evidently Russian owned, and there are some sites. But now that we have gotten used to C4 sites, C3 anoms just don't have the same allure. And also it's a bit late to run sites. If it was 8:00 PM, that's what we'd do.
I decide that given the time constraints, we should scan down the C5 hoping for one of the two best gas sites. So Hiljah and I go in there and scan it down. One sig is their static wormhole, which connects them to us. That's easily ignored. I get the four sigs in the middle while Hiljah is busy on the outer one. (Gotta work on the in-game and/or out-of-game skills!) Anyway, I find two gas sites, but they are relatively low value ones. Not worth the risk. (I instantiate them both, as I have started doing for all gas and rocks in whatever system I find them in. I figure that although it's obvious that C5 sites are constrained to only appear in C5s, it may well be that gas and rock sites that I find anywhere in wspace may be able to come to us, assuming they are the sort that ever appear in C4.) I also find two relic sites. Or maybe data; whatever. No luck for me.
Hiljah finds a good gas site: a Vital Core Reservoir. OK, let's consider running it. On the one hand, we'd be quite exposed. And the inhabitants have someone there, that Buzzard. On the other hand, the Buzzard is apparently inactive. He has reacted to our probes. Also, the Reservoir is out of his dscan range (though the entrance wormhole is not). And finally: ISK. Nice gas. And since we don't have that much time anyway, and we are not going to bring in combat ships to kill the gas guardian sleepers, the time we have works with the 20 minutes or so before the guardians appear. I decide to go for it. Jayne is not interested and logs off for the night.
Before we do anything, I have an alt that I will be using whose medical clone needs to be upgraded. He's in a Heron ready to go. So, out to C3a and then lowsec. A medical station is one jump away. Nobody is in the first system except me. One guy in the second; I never see him. I upgrade the clone and get back into wspace.
While I am gone the Buzzard in C5 logs out. That's nice for us. Everyone into a Venture!
Now we are ready to go. Three characters will be sucking gas. We plan our opsec: Hiljah already has an alt on the tower; he will dscan the inner system. Any of us at the gas can dscan the outer planet; that will be my job. We discuss a few contingencies. In particular I worry that the C5 guys will notice us and put a bubble up at the wormhole. In that case... well, what do we do? We go to a safespot and log out. Try to get back later on and sneak back home. If they close the hole? Well, our Ventures have probe launchers. Everyone clear? Clear. Let's go.
The actual op runs easily. We warp to the wormhole and transition, and hold cloak. I send in one of my alt with a microwarp to make sure the sleepers have not already been triggered. They have not. He zooms over to the C540 cloud and calls for the other two guys to warp to him. They come in; we all mine gas. Dscan, dscan, dscan. Nothing (dscan) appears. Dscan, dscan, dscan. Except (dscan) eventually the sleepers, 20 minutes later. Wake up! I fleet-warp us out, and we are all a bit richer with ninja'ed gas.
I spend a while yakking on coms, buying stuff Hiljah has produced and moving it to our main tower to be exported. Then I reship into my exploration Buzzard and head out into lowsec to explore. Half an hour later, I have 45m in loot from a nice relic site.
There are three towers, with a manned Buzzard sitting at one. And they appear to be Americans: one tower is named CostCo. A look on dotlan shows activity about 48-42 hours ago. So, perhaps American west coast. So we are not too keen to do anything substantial. However, Jayne points out that the guy is aligned to his tower. This probably means he's been sitting there a while.
I ask about C3. It's not particularly interesting. It attaches to a C3b, which is evidently Russian owned, and there are some sites. But now that we have gotten used to C4 sites, C3 anoms just don't have the same allure. And also it's a bit late to run sites. If it was 8:00 PM, that's what we'd do.
I decide that given the time constraints, we should scan down the C5 hoping for one of the two best gas sites. So Hiljah and I go in there and scan it down. One sig is their static wormhole, which connects them to us. That's easily ignored. I get the four sigs in the middle while Hiljah is busy on the outer one. (Gotta work on the in-game and/or out-of-game skills!) Anyway, I find two gas sites, but they are relatively low value ones. Not worth the risk. (I instantiate them both, as I have started doing for all gas and rocks in whatever system I find them in. I figure that although it's obvious that C5 sites are constrained to only appear in C5s, it may well be that gas and rock sites that I find anywhere in wspace may be able to come to us, assuming they are the sort that ever appear in C4.) I also find two relic sites. Or maybe data; whatever. No luck for me.
Hiljah finds a good gas site: a Vital Core Reservoir. OK, let's consider running it. On the one hand, we'd be quite exposed. And the inhabitants have someone there, that Buzzard. On the other hand, the Buzzard is apparently inactive. He has reacted to our probes. Also, the Reservoir is out of his dscan range (though the entrance wormhole is not). And finally: ISK. Nice gas. And since we don't have that much time anyway, and we are not going to bring in combat ships to kill the gas guardian sleepers, the time we have works with the 20 minutes or so before the guardians appear. I decide to go for it. Jayne is not interested and logs off for the night.
Before we do anything, I have an alt that I will be using whose medical clone needs to be upgraded. He's in a Heron ready to go. So, out to C3a and then lowsec. A medical station is one jump away. Nobody is in the first system except me. One guy in the second; I never see him. I upgrade the clone and get back into wspace.
While I am gone the Buzzard in C5 logs out. That's nice for us. Everyone into a Venture!
Now we are ready to go. Three characters will be sucking gas. We plan our opsec: Hiljah already has an alt on the tower; he will dscan the inner system. Any of us at the gas can dscan the outer planet; that will be my job. We discuss a few contingencies. In particular I worry that the C5 guys will notice us and put a bubble up at the wormhole. In that case... well, what do we do? We go to a safespot and log out. Try to get back later on and sneak back home. If they close the hole? Well, our Ventures have probe launchers. Everyone clear? Clear. Let's go.
The actual op runs easily. We warp to the wormhole and transition, and hold cloak. I send in one of my alt with a microwarp to make sure the sleepers have not already been triggered. They have not. He zooms over to the C540 cloud and calls for the other two guys to warp to him. They come in; we all mine gas. Dscan, dscan, dscan. Nothing (dscan) appears. Dscan, dscan, dscan. Except (dscan) eventually the sleepers, 20 minutes later. Wake up! I fleet-warp us out, and we are all a bit richer with ninja'ed gas.
I spend a while yakking on coms, buying stuff Hiljah has produced and moving it to our main tower to be exported. Then I reship into my exploration Buzzard and head out into lowsec to explore. Half an hour later, I have 45m in loot from a nice relic site.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
An Unexpected Sleeper
Two days ago my corp ran a C4 data site in my system. It was the easier one, Unsecured Frontier Trinary Hub. We killed all the ships and salvaged, then just left it. Nobody cared to crack the cans, which for these sites is very tedious (the hardest level of minigame), and the loot is very poor.
Today I logged on, and there were 3 sigs. One is always our static. The other two I had to figure out. I noticed a newish bookmark of a gas site, so between that and the data site, I figured we were nicely zipped up. However, you have to check these things. One way to check if a site is still around is to probe it down. But there's a faster way. You warp to it. If it is still there, it pops up its site description box, and you know it is still there. Note that you don't have to actually fly to it to find out. You just initiate a warp to it. Then you find out, and can cancel the warp.
Tonight, however, I decided not to cancel the warp to the Unsecured Frontier Trinary Hub, because I had already checked the gas site (still there), and I figured that since my system was nicely zipped up, I would have a go at the cans in the Hub. So I warp on over, and -- surprise -- there was a sleeper battleship! Just one, which is weird.
Of course I had to kill it, so I grabbed a battleship and did it in. No nanoribbons. Still, 7.5m in blue loot is well worth it for a few minutes of PVE.
I have experimented with respawn mechanics before, trying to see if there are any C4 sites that could be milked. Generally, not. Well, this is one that can be slightly milked. Run it, kill everything. Don't crack any cans. Now just leave it, and each day you get a nice new sleeper battleship. If you are keen to crack the cans, leave them until the 3rd downtime has passed.
UPDATE: ignore that last para. Jayne visited the site this morning: no new battleship. He points out the "Site Escalation Wave" has a battleship. And also, there is that one can sitting away from the others, which you can see in the screenshot. That's the Talocan cruiser. Now the funny thing here is we have warped in to the site at least twice (fleet, then salvager) without triggering the escalation wave. How does one trigger it? Please comment if you know.
Today I logged on, and there were 3 sigs. One is always our static. The other two I had to figure out. I noticed a newish bookmark of a gas site, so between that and the data site, I figured we were nicely zipped up. However, you have to check these things. One way to check if a site is still around is to probe it down. But there's a faster way. You warp to it. If it is still there, it pops up its site description box, and you know it is still there. Note that you don't have to actually fly to it to find out. You just initiate a warp to it. Then you find out, and can cancel the warp.
Tonight, however, I decided not to cancel the warp to the Unsecured Frontier Trinary Hub, because I had already checked the gas site (still there), and I figured that since my system was nicely zipped up, I would have a go at the cans in the Hub. So I warp on over, and -- surprise -- there was a sleeper battleship! Just one, which is weird.
Of course I had to kill it, so I grabbed a battleship and did it in. No nanoribbons. Still, 7.5m in blue loot is well worth it for a few minutes of PVE.
 |
| Not so tough without all your friends, eh? |
I have experimented with respawn mechanics before, trying to see if there are any C4 sites that could be milked. Generally, not. Well, this is one that can be slightly milked. Run it, kill everything. Don't crack any cans. Now just leave it, and each day you get a nice new sleeper battleship. If you are keen to crack the cans, leave them until the 3rd downtime has passed.
UPDATE: ignore that last para. Jayne visited the site this morning: no new battleship. He points out the "Site Escalation Wave" has a battleship. And also, there is that one can sitting away from the others, which you can see in the screenshot. That's the Talocan cruiser. Now the funny thing here is we have warped in to the site at least twice (fleet, then salvager) without triggering the escalation wave. How does one trigger it? Please comment if you know.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Farming Sleepers in C4: Not Very Valuable
My corp originally chose C4 to occupy because we wanted to run C3 sites. We probably would have gone with a C2/C4 (a C2 system w/ C4 static), but the first system we found that we liked was a C4/C3. So we bought it, and moved in.
At the time the C4 sites seemed difficult. We were using a pure Tengu fleet, and in C4 many of the sleeper waves appear 100km or more from the warp-in point. This is not a big problem for sleeper frigates and cruisers: they come to you quickly enough. But it is a problem for the battleships, which do not come very fast and many of which want to stay at very long range. You end up having to go to them.
For a while we ran primarily C3 sites. But then we got the idea that using cruise missiles and battleships, we could run C4s efficiently. And it is quite lucrative -- much better ISK/hour than C3 sites. We have gradually upgraded our pilots and our fleet so that by now we can run C4s fairly routinely.
There is a downside of running C4s, though, for us: they are finite. This is our home system, so unlike the case for C3s, we cannot just roll our wormhole until we find a system packed with anomalies.
I have read about people farming sites in high-end wspace (C5 and C6). The idea here is to exploit the capital escalations, which evidently do get reset at downtime. As I read it, the idea was that you run the site including full capital escalations (which get 28 sleeper battleships). You kill everything except one ship, ideally some worthless frigate. Then you bring in your salvager and salvage. While it is there, you keep it alive either with remote reps or via jamming out the sleeper. Then you wait until downtime, and voila! You can run the site again. Sites remain around for three downtimes after the day in which they were first instantiated (i.e. first flown to). So you can run each site on four different days, getting more or less four times the income.
Now, in C4 there is no capital escalation. So, that aspect of what I had read about we cannot exploit. But what about the site itself? My memory was unclear as to whether it regenerated. Maybe the whole site regenerated! (This is not actually so, as I found out; read on.) So on that basis, we decided to see if we could farm our C4s.
Since last year, I am fairly sure the despawn behavior of anoms and sig sites has been changed. They used to despawn only after you killed the last enemy; now they despawn... at some point before that. I don't know, and there is no indication of this on Eve Survival. So that's another thing I wanted to find out. We ran some sites a very deliberately.
First things first: we zipped up our system.
The first night of testing we had only one site type, Frontier Barracks, which we conveniently had four of. The first site, we killed all but one sleeper frigate. As we killed each ship we watched the scanner to see which one seemed to trigger the despawn. The trigger turned out to be the second of two sleeper battleships in the last wave (the Sleepless Preservers). Anyway, we salvaged the first site just after running it, using a Blackbird to jam out the frig, which one Blackbird did quite easily.
After we left, the site despawned, taking the frig with it. Oh well.
Then we ran the other three sites, leaving the last Sleepless Preserver alive. These, we did not salvage immediately. When we finished all three, we came back to salvage. First in was a Tengu to draw fire initially. We brought two Blackbirds running 6 well-amped jammers each; this was enough jamming. Even when we missed all jams once, the battleship did not have the firepower to kill a Blackbird in the few seconds of fire it got before the inevitable next jam hit.
As of the next morning, the three sites were still there. But I did not think to fly there to see what showed up. Then during the day while I was working, someone ran them. I saw this, helpless, on staticmapper. Strangely, the number of kills was 12: 1 then 6 then 5. When I got home, I checked and all three sites were gone. So I could tell the whole sites had not respawned. But what did happen?
After some googling, I found some useful info on the forums. Here is what one Jack Miton, who seems to know a lot about wspace, said in 2012:
We left the site for another day until downtime, and this morning checked it again. No change. This is what we expected, but still it was worth looking on the offchance that we'd get more regeneration.
So, it appears that we cannot get very much by farming C4 anoms. In the case of Frontier Barracks, one can get one extra sleeper battleship per day, for three total. However, doing so is fussy (you have to bring in jammers or logi to salvage). And if you get your sites ninjaed, you may even lose (as we did the first time). So it hardly seems worth doing. Most other C4 sites are even worse. However, there is one that may be worth milking: Frontier Command Post. There is a group of three battleships in the final wave. If this group is the trigger, then one should be able to farm this for two battleships per day.
I still do not know for sure what happened the day after our first test. According to what I know now, there should have been 6 sleeper battleships there. My guess is that there was a small gas site, which the interlopers harvested fully, sleepers and gas, so that we had nothing to see.
At the time the C4 sites seemed difficult. We were using a pure Tengu fleet, and in C4 many of the sleeper waves appear 100km or more from the warp-in point. This is not a big problem for sleeper frigates and cruisers: they come to you quickly enough. But it is a problem for the battleships, which do not come very fast and many of which want to stay at very long range. You end up having to go to them.
For a while we ran primarily C3 sites. But then we got the idea that using cruise missiles and battleships, we could run C4s efficiently. And it is quite lucrative -- much better ISK/hour than C3 sites. We have gradually upgraded our pilots and our fleet so that by now we can run C4s fairly routinely.
There is a downside of running C4s, though, for us: they are finite. This is our home system, so unlike the case for C3s, we cannot just roll our wormhole until we find a system packed with anomalies.
I have read about people farming sites in high-end wspace (C5 and C6). The idea here is to exploit the capital escalations, which evidently do get reset at downtime. As I read it, the idea was that you run the site including full capital escalations (which get 28 sleeper battleships). You kill everything except one ship, ideally some worthless frigate. Then you bring in your salvager and salvage. While it is there, you keep it alive either with remote reps or via jamming out the sleeper. Then you wait until downtime, and voila! You can run the site again. Sites remain around for three downtimes after the day in which they were first instantiated (i.e. first flown to). So you can run each site on four different days, getting more or less four times the income.
Now, in C4 there is no capital escalation. So, that aspect of what I had read about we cannot exploit. But what about the site itself? My memory was unclear as to whether it regenerated. Maybe the whole site regenerated! (This is not actually so, as I found out; read on.) So on that basis, we decided to see if we could farm our C4s.
Since last year, I am fairly sure the despawn behavior of anoms and sig sites has been changed. They used to despawn only after you killed the last enemy; now they despawn... at some point before that. I don't know, and there is no indication of this on Eve Survival. So that's another thing I wanted to find out. We ran some sites a very deliberately.
First things first: we zipped up our system.
 |
| Sleepless Preserver in its native habitat |
After we left, the site despawned, taking the frig with it. Oh well.
Then we ran the other three sites, leaving the last Sleepless Preserver alive. These, we did not salvage immediately. When we finished all three, we came back to salvage. First in was a Tengu to draw fire initially. We brought two Blackbirds running 6 well-amped jammers each; this was enough jamming. Even when we missed all jams once, the battleship did not have the firepower to kill a Blackbird in the few seconds of fire it got before the inevitable next jam hit.
As of the next morning, the three sites were still there. But I did not think to fly there to see what showed up. Then during the day while I was working, someone ran them. I saw this, helpless, on staticmapper. Strangely, the number of kills was 12: 1 then 6 then 5. When I got home, I checked and all three sites were gone. So I could tell the whole sites had not respawned. But what did happen?
After some googling, I found some useful info on the forums. Here is what one Jack Miton, who seems to know a lot about wspace, said in 2012:
as for the respawn mechanics, the only things that respawn are the triggers.The next day we got another Frontier Barracks, and again we left the last sleeper battleship. The next morning we checked, and indeed things worked as Miton suggests. The group of two sleeper battleships which are the triggers regenerated. Nothing else did.
ie: if a site starts with 3 turrets, 5 frigs, 5 cruisers with cruisers being the trigger and you keep it up with 1 cruiser, after DT there will be 5 cruisers at it. frigs and turrets wont respwan.
this is not totally acurate on some sites, for example in a c6 core citadel the trigger is the warden BS but the keeper BS will also respawn.
We left the site for another day until downtime, and this morning checked it again. No change. This is what we expected, but still it was worth looking on the offchance that we'd get more regeneration.
So, it appears that we cannot get very much by farming C4 anoms. In the case of Frontier Barracks, one can get one extra sleeper battleship per day, for three total. However, doing so is fussy (you have to bring in jammers or logi to salvage). And if you get your sites ninjaed, you may even lose (as we did the first time). So it hardly seems worth doing. Most other C4 sites are even worse. However, there is one that may be worth milking: Frontier Command Post. There is a group of three battleships in the final wave. If this group is the trigger, then one should be able to farm this for two battleships per day.
I still do not know for sure what happened the day after our first test. According to what I know now, there should have been 6 sleeper battleships there. My guess is that there was a small gas site, which the interlopers harvested fully, sleepers and gas, so that we had nothing to see.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Making POS Fuel is Not Worthwhile
I have recently moved into a wspace system where one can make POS fuel from the ground up, via PI. Everything other than ice products can be made locally. I've commented before on the profit of making POS fuel: pretty pitiful. So that's one real strong reason not to make it in substantial quantities. But still, it might be worth making for a different reason: size.
I run a large tower. This requires 28800 blocks of fuel per month, which is 144000.00m3. I live in moderately deep wspace: I cannot always find a highsec exit. Also, the path out goes via random wspace systems, which may have hostiles present. So the bandwidth of goods in and out is a problem worth worrying about.
Worse, I am planning to do significant PI to make money. If each of 10 characters makes 5000m3 of PI goods per planet per 9 days, as I discussed in the previous post, then that is 833333m3 that have to be carried out per month. This can certainly be done; at 35000m3 per Iteron V load, it's 24 loads. But it would certainly be nice to reduce it.
One way to reduce it would be to create P3 goods. In the step from P2 to P3, some shrinkage is attained: the factor is either 0.6 (for P3 goods requiring 2 P2 inputs), or 0.4 (for those requiring three P2 inputs). So, one way to proceed is to produce P3s, particularly the ones which require three inputs. We have one of those we can make, so that's one thing I will do.
Another thing we might do to decrease bandwidth is to make POS fuel. (Certainly, that one should make one's own fuel is a popular idea among wspace dwellers.) What is the size reduction of POS fuel of its inputs? And what is the input volume of ice products? I don't know, but I am about to figure it out.
... OK, I just punched numbers into my spreadsheet (a copy of the one that I discussed before). The result is pretty clear. Here are the facts:
Given these findings, as well as the low profitability of POS fuel, and the fuss of having to set up PI to create its inputs, as well as the opportunity costs, I find no value in making POS fuel myself.
I run a large tower. This requires 28800 blocks of fuel per month, which is 144000.00m3. I live in moderately deep wspace: I cannot always find a highsec exit. Also, the path out goes via random wspace systems, which may have hostiles present. So the bandwidth of goods in and out is a problem worth worrying about.
Worse, I am planning to do significant PI to make money. If each of 10 characters makes 5000m3 of PI goods per planet per 9 days, as I discussed in the previous post, then that is 833333m3 that have to be carried out per month. This can certainly be done; at 35000m3 per Iteron V load, it's 24 loads. But it would certainly be nice to reduce it.
One way to reduce it would be to create P3 goods. In the step from P2 to P3, some shrinkage is attained: the factor is either 0.6 (for P3 goods requiring 2 P2 inputs), or 0.4 (for those requiring three P2 inputs). So, one way to proceed is to produce P3s, particularly the ones which require three inputs. We have one of those we can make, so that's one thing I will do.
Another thing we might do to decrease bandwidth is to make POS fuel. (Certainly, that one should make one's own fuel is a popular idea among wspace dwellers.) What is the size reduction of POS fuel of its inputs? And what is the input volume of ice products? I don't know, but I am about to figure it out.
... OK, I just punched numbers into my spreadsheet (a copy of the one that I discussed before). The result is pretty clear. Here are the facts:
- POS fuel blocks (5m3) are a little bit smaller than their inputs (5.75m3).
- The ice-derived inputs to POS fuel (4.5m3) are just slightly smaller than POS fuel itself.
- The PI-derived inputs to POS fuel (1.25m3) are a small fraction of its volume.
Given these findings, as well as the low profitability of POS fuel, and the fuss of having to set up PI to create its inputs, as well as the opportunity costs, I find no value in making POS fuel myself.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Low Work PI in Wspace
EIEIO. I have a farm in wspace, in a C1 system with highsec static. I was living there a while, part time. I found is that C1 space is pretty boring. You get a few anoms or sigs per week. Once you do these, and you do your PI, there's nothing to do. So I was doing exploration in highsec the other half of the time.
I recently I have moved up into higher wspace. My PI setup remains at the farm, along with the that of my corporation members and several alts. But I can no longer easily visit to move around planet goo. Thus, I am thinking about how to get optimize the PI income I can get, subject to the constraint of visiting as little as possible.
Currently, I make P1 goods on all planets. I make P2 goods on two planets, using the P1s from two others. (The P1 outputs from my fifth planet are handed off to a corp mate to make P2s). I run extractors for 24 hours and 45 minutes. Having a schedule of about a day means that I need to reset them every night, which I do most nights (occasionally I forget or am busy). The 45 extra minutes gives some leeway. Also, 24h45m is the largest time increment for extraction that I can use before the PI programming uses 30 minute blocks. I don't want 30 minute blocks because I have to cancel production fairly often to reset.
In terms of my time, it is almost trivial to reset each extractor on any logged in character. This might take a minute per character (for 5 planets) if I do it fast. If I linger and move around extractor heads, maybe 5 minutes total. And there is often slack time playing EVE anyway, for example when travelling or mining, or sucking gas. It is not trivial to log in PI alts to reset extractors. Often the main account is busy. Certainly you can never use slack time to do it. And in any case a login takes a minute or two. But still this is a pretty minor amount.
The substantial time taken doing PI is due to two things. First, if you have to move goods up or down to orbit, you must access the POCO, and that requires being in the system. Flying to a remote wormhole entrance can be very costly, and even a few jumps adds several minutes to a process which is short enough that the extra minutes are costly. (Actually moving the goods up or down if you already in the system is almost trivial.) So, my PI plans require no storage of goods in orbit. If you are reading this and thinking about setting up a farm where you live, moving goods up/down is easy and this will not constrain you. So you can use the POCO as additional storage for your PI installation.
The second substantial timesink in PI is unavoidable by everyone: you have to actually fly to the POCO and pick up goods. (You can drop off goods too in this step.) Obviously this requires presence in the system. It is this step that I am seeking to reduce in frequency to a minimum.
Now that my new constraints are clear, we can analyze several designs for extracting PI goods. Since all PI starts with extraction, let's look at that first.
2 extractors, 9 heads each
2 launchpad
Each extractor outputs directly to a launchpad. Doing a pickup is easy, just move the R0s into orbit then go there with an industrial capable of holding 20000m^3.
Planets in wspace seem to average about 1m R0s extracted per 24 hours, using 9 extractor heads. (This is what I see in my farm system. I expect it is valid across wspace, but don't know.) So, this setup will create about 2m R0s per day.
R0s are very bulky. Each one is 0.01m^3; so we see that the production of a single day is 20000m^3. That fills up your storage. So, you'd have to tend a planet like this with a trip every single day. Needless to say, nobody does this. (Read on.)
Before we go on though, let's figure out how much this production is worth. The R0 market is thin (exactly because hauling such massive volume to and fro is a loser), but the prices we see range from about 0.75 ISK to about 8, with perhaps 4 being average. Assuming 4, we can see that our daily production is worth about 80m ISK, or about 2.4 billion per month. Even going with the worst good (0.75 ISK), we find the value is 450m per month. These values are much more than one can actually earn doing PI; what they reflect is the difficulty of moving bulky goods to market. If you really carried 2m of any R0 good to the market per day, you'd crash the market for that good. But it is interesting to see how the economics play out. (Just making this computation makes me want to bring a bunch of R0s to market.)
Each BIF processes 6000 R0s per hour, producing 40 P1s. Thus, 7 BIFs would be required to process the full output of an wspace extractor. Generally I use 6, either because that planet has lower concentrations of resources, or I am not running the full 10 heads. Also, since I plan to build in a storage facility per extractor to buffer, having a bit of extra production will often not be wasted. In any case, let us assume that each planet is getting 240 P1s per hour.
Each P1 is 0.38m^3. Thus, a day's production of P1s is 2189m^3. Thus after four and a half days, a launchpad is filled up with roughly 26000 P1s. Then I must fly there in a ship that can carry at least 10000m^3, and move them.
I can improve on this by building a second output launchpad. Route three of the BIFs' outputs to this launchpad, and the other half to the original launchpad. Then I can go about 9 days between visits. It requires 20000m^3 to carry off the goods.
If I cannot arrive in a timely manner, I can still run for about a day. This will fill the R0 storage.
P1s have a wide range of sale prices, from a low of about 100 ISK up to one that sells for 600 ISK. Several better ones sell for around 400 ISK. So assuming I produce the more valuable ones, my production on a pure P1 producing planet is around 69m ISK per month. 5 such planets produce 345m ISK -- more than half a PLEX.
On each P2 production planet, I bring 10000 P1s each time I visit, and put them down on the launchpad. The three AIFs are used to manufacture P2s from this input along with the P1 that is being extracted locally. The P2s produced are put back on the launchpad. Per hour, each AIF inputs 40 each of both input P1 types, and produces 5 P2s. 5 P2s are smaller than 80 P1s, so they fit on the launchpad. As time goes on, the volume stored on the launchpad slowly decreases. Locally extracted P1s are being taken from the launchpad at exactly the rate they are being produced. So there is neither a P1 buildup or shortage.
How long can a P2 production planet go without being attended? Well, compared to the P1 production planet, I have not changed the production leading to the P1 launchpad: it has three BIFs feeding it. So that launchpad will fill in the same 9 days as before. These locally extracted P1s will be exported normally; they are the input P1s to some other P2 producing planet.
What about the P2 launchpad? After 9 days, all 10000 of the imported P1s are exhausted. The launchpad has 3240 P2s on it. These are the net outputs from the P2 production planet.
What happens if I do not remove goods in a timely manner? I can still run for about 2 days. This will place about 2000m^3 of P1s on the P2 launchpad. The P1 launchpad is already full, so the system will back up and fill up the R0 storage.
P2s have a fairly wide range of output values, from a low of 2200 ISK to a high of 12000. The better ones average about 8000; using this as our value, we compute a production of 86m ISK per planet per month. For 5 planets, that is 430m ISK/month.
Can I improve on this? Not without changing what installations I am running. At least not in money terms -- money is only increased by running more installations. But I could push out the visitation time a bit, by bringing more inputs, and transferring some to the P1 storage, then drawing them from there. (I leave this as an exercise to the reader.) Although some gains could be made, I find the process fussy because it requires another expedited transfer, so I am not going to advocate it here.
I recently I have moved up into higher wspace. My PI setup remains at the farm, along with the that of my corporation members and several alts. But I can no longer easily visit to move around planet goo. Thus, I am thinking about how to get optimize the PI income I can get, subject to the constraint of visiting as little as possible.
Constraints
I have the skill to use five planets. (I do not feel that spending 20 days to get a level V farming skill is worth it. My main is less than a year old, and my alts are low skilled. There are more important uses for my skillpoints.) I have Command Center Upgrades IV. So these are the constraints on my PI setups.Currently, I make P1 goods on all planets. I make P2 goods on two planets, using the P1s from two others. (The P1 outputs from my fifth planet are handed off to a corp mate to make P2s). I run extractors for 24 hours and 45 minutes. Having a schedule of about a day means that I need to reset them every night, which I do most nights (occasionally I forget or am busy). The 45 extra minutes gives some leeway. Also, 24h45m is the largest time increment for extraction that I can use before the PI programming uses 30 minute blocks. I don't want 30 minute blocks because I have to cancel production fairly often to reset.
In terms of my time, it is almost trivial to reset each extractor on any logged in character. This might take a minute per character (for 5 planets) if I do it fast. If I linger and move around extractor heads, maybe 5 minutes total. And there is often slack time playing EVE anyway, for example when travelling or mining, or sucking gas. It is not trivial to log in PI alts to reset extractors. Often the main account is busy. Certainly you can never use slack time to do it. And in any case a login takes a minute or two. But still this is a pretty minor amount.
The substantial time taken doing PI is due to two things. First, if you have to move goods up or down to orbit, you must access the POCO, and that requires being in the system. Flying to a remote wormhole entrance can be very costly, and even a few jumps adds several minutes to a process which is short enough that the extra minutes are costly. (Actually moving the goods up or down if you already in the system is almost trivial.) So, my PI plans require no storage of goods in orbit. If you are reading this and thinking about setting up a farm where you live, moving goods up/down is easy and this will not constrain you. So you can use the POCO as additional storage for your PI installation.
The second substantial timesink in PI is unavoidable by everyone: you have to actually fly to the POCO and pick up goods. (You can drop off goods too in this step.) Obviously this requires presence in the system. It is this step that I am seeking to reduce in frequency to a minimum.
Now that my new constraints are clear, we can analyze several designs for extracting PI goods. Since all PI starts with extraction, let's look at that first.
R0 Extraction Planet
Imagine a planet that is optimized only for the production of R0s. (R0s are the lowest-level resources, created by extractors.) With an advanced command center, there is enough power to run the following PI setup:2 extractors, 9 heads each
2 launchpad
Each extractor outputs directly to a launchpad. Doing a pickup is easy, just move the R0s into orbit then go there with an industrial capable of holding 20000m^3.
Planets in wspace seem to average about 1m R0s extracted per 24 hours, using 9 extractor heads. (This is what I see in my farm system. I expect it is valid across wspace, but don't know.) So, this setup will create about 2m R0s per day.
R0s are very bulky. Each one is 0.01m^3; so we see that the production of a single day is 20000m^3. That fills up your storage. So, you'd have to tend a planet like this with a trip every single day. Needless to say, nobody does this. (Read on.)
Before we go on though, let's figure out how much this production is worth. The R0 market is thin (exactly because hauling such massive volume to and fro is a loser), but the prices we see range from about 0.75 ISK to about 8, with perhaps 4 being average. Assuming 4, we can see that our daily production is worth about 80m ISK, or about 2.4 billion per month. Even going with the worst good (0.75 ISK), we find the value is 450m per month. These values are much more than one can actually earn doing PI; what they reflect is the difficulty of moving bulky goods to market. If you really carried 2m of any R0 good to the market per day, you'd crash the market for that good. But it is interesting to see how the economics play out. (Just making this computation makes me want to bring a bunch of R0s to market.)
P1 Production
Imagine a planet that is optimized to produce P1 goods. The planet has 9 installations: extractor (10 heads), storage, 6 BIFs, launchpad.Each BIF processes 6000 R0s per hour, producing 40 P1s. Thus, 7 BIFs would be required to process the full output of an wspace extractor. Generally I use 6, either because that planet has lower concentrations of resources, or I am not running the full 10 heads. Also, since I plan to build in a storage facility per extractor to buffer, having a bit of extra production will often not be wasted. In any case, let us assume that each planet is getting 240 P1s per hour.
Each P1 is 0.38m^3. Thus, a day's production of P1s is 2189m^3. Thus after four and a half days, a launchpad is filled up with roughly 26000 P1s. Then I must fly there in a ship that can carry at least 10000m^3, and move them.
I can improve on this by building a second output launchpad. Route three of the BIFs' outputs to this launchpad, and the other half to the original launchpad. Then I can go about 9 days between visits. It requires 20000m^3 to carry off the goods.
If I cannot arrive in a timely manner, I can still run for about a day. This will fill the R0 storage.
P1s have a wide range of sale prices, from a low of about 100 ISK up to one that sells for 600 ISK. Several better ones sell for around 400 ISK. So assuming I produce the more valuable ones, my production on a pure P1 producing planet is around 69m ISK per month. 5 such planets produce 345m ISK -- more than half a PLEX.
P2 Production
Can I improve on the P1 production planet? Yes. The P1 production design has a small amount of spare power and a lot of spare CPU. If I run only 9 input heads, I can add 3 AIFs, and still fit within the power limits of a level four command center. Hopefully the 9 will still keep my 6 BIFs busy; I am assuming that they will. And the AIFs will produce P2s. Call it a P2 production planet.On each P2 production planet, I bring 10000 P1s each time I visit, and put them down on the launchpad. The three AIFs are used to manufacture P2s from this input along with the P1 that is being extracted locally. The P2s produced are put back on the launchpad. Per hour, each AIF inputs 40 each of both input P1 types, and produces 5 P2s. 5 P2s are smaller than 80 P1s, so they fit on the launchpad. As time goes on, the volume stored on the launchpad slowly decreases. Locally extracted P1s are being taken from the launchpad at exactly the rate they are being produced. So there is neither a P1 buildup or shortage.
How long can a P2 production planet go without being attended? Well, compared to the P1 production planet, I have not changed the production leading to the P1 launchpad: it has three BIFs feeding it. So that launchpad will fill in the same 9 days as before. These locally extracted P1s will be exported normally; they are the input P1s to some other P2 producing planet.
What about the P2 launchpad? After 9 days, all 10000 of the imported P1s are exhausted. The launchpad has 3240 P2s on it. These are the net outputs from the P2 production planet.
What happens if I do not remove goods in a timely manner? I can still run for about 2 days. This will place about 2000m^3 of P1s on the P2 launchpad. The P1 launchpad is already full, so the system will back up and fill up the R0 storage.
P2s have a fairly wide range of output values, from a low of 2200 ISK to a high of 12000. The better ones average about 8000; using this as our value, we compute a production of 86m ISK per planet per month. For 5 planets, that is 430m ISK/month.
Can I improve on this? Not without changing what installations I am running. At least not in money terms -- money is only increased by running more installations. But I could push out the visitation time a bit, by bringing more inputs, and transferring some to the P1 storage, then drawing them from there. (I leave this as an exercise to the reader.) Although some gains could be made, I find the process fussy because it requires another expedited transfer, so I am not going to advocate it here.
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