The Threat from Marauders

My POS, currently near death's door, is a large dickstar.  (This charming name for it I found online, not my fault.)  The design uses almost all ECMs, along with a modest number of guns and webs, etc. to make it possible for the tower to focus enough nasty to kill a solo pilot who accidentally uncloaks.  But it is the ECMs (and shield hardness, to some extent) that are the crux of the idea.  My tower has some 40 ECMs, around 10 of each kind.  However we also have an x-large ship maintenance array.  (In retrospect, bad idea; see below.)  By skimping on ship storage we could get up around 64 ECMs.

Now, I don't know exactly how ECMs work in the event of attack.  (I should have paid more attention in the recent unpleasantness.)  But my naive model for what they do is randomly pick a ship, then lock it and jam it.  Then they randomly pick again.  So they will waste a fair amount of time locking and relocking.  Still, each jam hits with a jam strength of 15 if it's of the wrong flavor, or 45 if it is lucky.  45 will jam about any ship other than those with ECCM, and even them, often.  Even 15 will jam most ships most of the time.  (Most battleships have a strength of around 25, and the chance to jam is the jam strength divided by sensor strength, so about 60% against a battleship.)

So, to attack a dickstar takes a substantial number of ships, especially at the beginning.  A fleet of 20 would spend most of its time jammed out.  The chance for any given ship to be jam-free for a cycle is about (19/20)^50, which is about 7.6%.  Of the ones with at least one jammer attempting, at minimum 60% are jammed; many have more than one jammer trying or they have one of the faction-specific auto-jams.  It's harder to analyze this mathematically, so I'll just wave hands and declare another 5 ships are jam-attempted but once; about two of them will thus go unjammed.  So some damage does get through, usually about 3 ships.  Against 64 ECMs, it's worse.  Anyway, it was until Rubicon.

Enter bastion mode.  The bastion module was introduced in Rubicon, and only Marauders can fit them.  In bastion mode, a Marauder gets much more tank: 30% more hardness for shields and armor, which does not have a stacking penalty.  Also, it gets +100% shield and armor self-repping.  It becomes ECM-proof.  On the downside, it is immobile and cannot get remote-repaired.  But the ECM-immunity is the key.  A fleet of 10 Marauders (this is what the Late Night Crew brought to my system) can simply ignore ECM.  They can focus on any defenses which they don't like, with full fleet firepower.

A marauder in bastion mode can rather easily tank anything on a tower, excepting neuts.  For example: a Minmatar tower can dish at maximum about 2500 omni DPS with decent range -- and that if it only onlines guns.  Get out your EFT and design a Golem with a Pith-C extra large shield booster, and otherwise tech II.  Get the cap-stable tank above 2500.  Pretty easy.  The only way a tower can possibly kill a Golem like this is by neuting it out.  If you are willing to control shield repairing by hand, you can get an even better tank.  You can also push the tank to impressive levels by spending on faction stuff.

So what about a POS with lots of neuts?  Well, for one thing, neuts are very hard on your power budget.   Every neut you online means taking offline about 200 DPS.  But also computer-controlled neuts are just as stupid as ECMs.  They won't try to neut out an enemy, and then keep him flat while hammering with guns.  They'll neut a bit, then randomly pick a different target.  Neuting a bit here, a bit there, won't slow down a fleet larger than a small gang at all.

Still, even if it is rare, a few neuts which luckily focus on the same ship for a while, along with guns applying damage, would get some kills.  Marauders are quite expensive.  So it's worth thinking about how the Marauder fleet might counter the threat from automated neuts.  And that's pretty easy, actually.  Have a mobile depot; deploy it where you are parked.  Now if the tower starts really neuting hard, swap out low-slot items for capacitor flux coils.  Voilà!  A dramatic boost to cap recharge.  Once the neut moves on and the capacitor rebounds a little, swap the damage mods back in.

This does require a bit of attention to the capacitor.  However, it only requires attention during the relatively short period when the attacking fleet reduces the neuts, which is probably the first thing they will do.  Once the neuts are all incapacitated, the fleet is safe from anything the tower can do.

What about neuts and guns with humans running the weapons?  Well, that would work.  But I cannot rely on it, and probably you cannot either, unless you are a relatively large corp.  There are large swaths of time when I am sleeping or at work.  Since I want to play at the same time as my few corpmates, I discriminate against people not my general timezone.  Thus my tower has large periods of non-coverage.  All an attacker would have to do is consult a killboard, searching for our kills.  Or, for that matter, don't even bother with research.  Just attack.  If an enemy actually appears in time to man guns, and he has neuts to use and is using them properly, pull out.  Or use logis with ECCMs.

So what about defending with a larger fleet?  That works.  Bigger blobs beat small blobs, other things equal.  But I don't have that fleet, and you probably don't either if you're a relatively small corp.  And of course a fleet, like POS gun operators, won't be around most of the time anyway except for a very large corp.

Right now I feel the only defense for the small POS operator is cheapness.   So, don't use X-large ship arrays.  No capitals, or at most one carrier.  Ships overflowing?  Cut the fat.  I violated both of those rules, and that's probably a significant reason why the Late Night Crew chose to attack my POS.  More loot is better than less loot.  Make your POS shield hard (44%).  This at least buys some time before your POS is reinforced.  With extra time you might get online and can move stuff out of storage into ships.

There's one other thing that would work: occupy a C1 wspace system.  Marauders, like battleships, are too massive to enter C1.  You can still use dickstars in C1.  Gevlon has a good primer on occupying C1 that he recently published at his blog.

Killing a Tractor

I've just sat down at the computer, after having decided to wait for an EOL wormhole to die.  That did not go so well -- it turns out the wormhole must have been very freshly EOL when I found it.  So I waited about four hours for it to die.  But finally it is gone, and I will have a new static wormhole to explore through.  First things first: must find it.  I am in my Manticore in case there is someone I can attack in the new system-to-be.  I launch probes, and quickly pick out the new sig from among the three gas sites we have.

Now I align to the signature, and make sure I am up to speed.  Then I warp.  I want there to be the minimum amount of time possible between my instantiating the wormhole and my being through it.  I land on grid, and I cross.  Let's see if there's anything interesting.

Usually, there is not anything interesting.  I've had a whole week of nothing.  But this time, there is.  There is a tower and four ships: Rattlesnake, Tengu, Noctis, and Probe.  That might not be anything by itself.  but there are also sleeper wrecks.

Spider tanking

I burn off the wormhole, not forgetting to bookmark it.  Then I get dscan up and get a general bearing on the anom where the wrecks are.  Then I narrow it.  I miss on the first two tried -- several anoms are quite close together -- but on the third try I am in a Frontier Command Post, along with the Rattlesnake and Tengu.  I warped to 100km, and they are almost exactly 100km from me.  Actually a bit further: I cannot look at either of them.  But I can look at one of their wrecks, which I do so I can see them better.  It's a spider setup.

At this point, if Jayne were around, I'd try to gank them.  A couple battleships with heavy neuts... But Jayne is asleep.  Hiljah has one character logged on, but he's AFK.  So, it's just me.  Being just me, I doubt I can gank this pair.  But the Noctis (and lack of mobile tractor unit) give me hope.  Let's hang out, make a perch, and see how these guys do salvaging.

Faster, please.

I head away from the pair to make my perch.  This takes time as they oh so slowly kill the sleeper wave.  I finally get out so that all of the wrecks are at least 150 from me, and I make my perch.  And finally the spider pair kill the last sleeper.  But wait, it's not the last.  That was wave two.  Here's wave three: three battleships and four cruisers.  Ugh, this is taking too long.  I check the clock.  It's already 11:30.  I go to bed at midnight.  Hurry up you guys!  I want to kill you sooner rather than later!

There's time, so I decide to locate the tower.  This turns out to be almost trivial: it's at a planet with just one moon.  I warp over and land on grid.  The Noctis is there, but unmanned.  The Probe is also there, and it is manned.  The name of the pilot suggests it's an alt of one of the spider-tankers.  So, I have the feeling that this is just one guy, or maybe two.  Having seen what there is to see, I warp back over to my perch.

The last sleeper wave is slowly getting killed.  Finally, it's over.  (Whew.)  The Rattlesnake and Tengu warp off -- but not before deploying a tractor unit.  It starts pulling in wrecks.  Ugh.  Well, that they have a Noctis out at all suggests they mean to use it.  So I am still hopeful.  And that they left suggests they might be getting it now.  I am watching dscan like a hawk.  But the Noctis does not appear on my grid.  Instead, I see a new small sleeper wreck appear.

Well, evidently they have decided to run another site.  I warp to the tower: no, not here.  I spin around dscan and find them in a new anom.  I warp over to it at 100km.  Four wrecks, so I know it is right.  But they are not here.  Where are they?  I look around.  Back at the tower.

Evidently they have just noticed the new sig in the system.  This may be because the first anom despawned.  (I am still holding to my theory that new sigs are not pushed, but there is an update when sites go away.)  In any case, something has spooked them.  Let's see what they do.  I warp back to the perch, keeping an eye on dscan.

I expect to see probes of some kind.  But after a minute or two, no probes.  Instead, I see a new sleeper wreck.  Surprise.  They've gone back to ratting without determining the threat level.

This would be great if I had a fleet to drop on them.  But instead it causes me a problem.  I want to be in bed in 15 minutes.  Given how long the last site took, I don't have time to wait around for them to get around to using that Noctis.  I want to get things done now, so I can do my PI and log off.  So... I think it's time to go after the tractor.

Unfortunately, the Snake and Tengu are just within dscan range.  So, unless they are totally clueless, they'll see me.  Either ship can easily drive me off.  But I think the odds are good I'll have some time before they notice, and my recollection is it does not take that must time to kill a tractor.  If they reship, that's more time I have.  Or if they waffle on attacking me because they have no information.  I think it's worth a shot.

Predamaged.  Nice.

First, I get set.  I set my dscan range to 11 AU.  This is just shorter than the distance to the other anom; this way I get warning of them moving.  Then, I warp in from my perch to 30km from the tractor.  I set an orbit at 25km, uncloak, lock it, and open fire on it.

I am a bit surprised to see it has significant armor damage already.  That's helpful.  It takes only two volleys to smash the shields and another for the armor.  Wow, this is going much faster than I thought.  I turn on my afterburner and head straight for the tractor.  Is it going to pop in three volleys?  No -- it's got a lot of structure.  My next volley destroys perhaps 1/8 of the structure.  Well, at least it won't die before I get close.  I set an orbit for 5km, then set to watching dscan.

Im in ur base killin ur tractor

The first few dscans I make are clear.  But then I see the Rattlesnake and Tengu, and this calls for a decision.  I could bail now, on the theory they are coming to get me.  But the POS is close, and I expect them to bail to the POS if they see anything untoward, and only then decide what to do.  So I decide to push it.  Let's see if they land on grid.  If they do, I'll bail.  Meanwhile, I am killing their tractor.

Seconds tick away, with my volleys every 8 of them.  Still nothing on grid.  Still nothing.... and boom.  Tractor killed.  I swoop in and grab the loot from the wreck.  Mmm, 36m ISK worth of blue loot.  Then I warp off ASAP.  I could stick around and pop wrecks if I was mean, but I'm not really.

Now I am done.  I'd like to stick around and perhaps ninja-salvage until they do something.  But I have no time for that.  It's PI, and logoffski for me.

Loot fairy: you're all right

All told, killing the tractor took 10 volleys of Caldari Navy Scourge torpedoes.  My cycle time is 8.25 seconds; thus, the total time spent killing the thing after uncloaking was about 75 seconds.

They could have shooed me off with either of their ships, but they did not.  Why?  To understand it, I think it helps to see it from their perspective.  There they are running sites, when all of sudden, they see a Manticore on scan.  OK, they bail and get safe at the POS.   Manticore still on scan -- evidently it is not just briefly seen moving off of a wormhole  Where is it?  It takes a while to locate; presumably they think to look at their tractor, and they see I am in that site.  Do they attack?  Seems obvious except they don't know I am alone.  For all they know, I am bait.  This stays their hand just long enough.  Maybe they even decide to go for it with a PVP ship or two, but by that time, I am gone.

Of course, the proper way to run sites is to keep updating your discovery scanner and bug out ASAP whenever you see a new signature.

ESS in Wspace Disabled

I tried out an ESS and they've already disabled them:

"Amarr"?  It was Caldari.  Bug.

Good for CCP.

Invasive Monitoring

It's the weekend.  I am out in my Buzzard, just returning home.  I usually explore in my Manticore, just in case I find someone.  But our static opened into a system with 20 sigs, and nobody around.  For so many sigs, the additional scanning power is nice.  The system scanned, I now head back home.

I jump across the K162 wormhole into my home system, and as usual, dscan.  Nothing unexpected.  But my probe scanner shows three sigs.  That is unexpected; there were two when I left.  A new sig might be something innocuous like gas.  But it is most likely a wormhole.  I want to find it to know what is there and possibly get a route out to highsec.  We have trade needs.

I am not concerned with locals seeing my probes, because I am the locals.  So I fire probes as I burn off the wormhole and then cloak.  From my cloaked position, I can now search in safety.  The new sig is obvious enough, separated from the others.  I put the probes on it and have the wormhole scanned in two scans.  Then I fly to it.  I consider getting my Manticore, but a new sig often comes with ships that a Manticore cannot kill.  My Buzzard has better evasion, so I stick with it.

I land on grid about 7000m from the wormhole.  Nobody obviously here.  So I head for it.  Just as I get to jump range, a Tengu uncloaks.  Evidently it was cloaked from its jump.  It's too late for me to back out, so I just head forward and jump.  On the other side, nobody is there and I burn off the hole immediately, fearing the Tengu might jump back.  It does not, and I am safely cloaked again.

"Caldari"?  This is wormhole space!

Now I dscan, as usual.  Dscan shows a force field, and an Orca and a Thanatos.  These are unlikely to be anywhere but safe and unpiloted in at the POS, so I don't worry about them.  There are also about a zillion warp disruptor bubbles.  Too many for a siege.  I wonder what is up with that.  But now I see something unusual.

On dscan, and also on my overview, I can see a "Caldari Encounter Surveillance System". What is that? Then I recall the recent release of Rubicon 1.1. ESEs are things that are supposed to be used in nullsec to tax ratters, and maybe drive some conflict. What's one doing here? I dunno. There are no bounties here, so I doubt there is any use. Sometimes you see people who have anchored a Territorial Claim Unit. It does not do anything in wspace, but it does make a beacon. I figure ESSs may be like that. Someone just wanted to see how it worked or something.

Well, forget it.  Time to scan.  It's a small system, so there is nowhere to hide to launch probes from.  I use a random customs office at 100km.  Probes out, I recloak and get busy.  First I resolve the wormhole I came through, so I can ignore it.  Then two gas sites.  Then another wormhole.  I warp to it at 50, since there is a lot more scanning to so.  It's blue -- C2.  That's nice perhaps for later getting stuff out to highsec.  Now I scan another wormhole, and it is coincident with the ESS.  Hmm.  I warp over at 20 to look.

I come to a stop, and there is a bubble covering the wormhole.  The wormhole is reddish, from dangerous unknown -- it's from a C5.  I recall reading something about ESS having a warp bubble to make it hard to take from.  So, this is interesting.  Perhaps they are cheaper than normal warp interdictor bubbles?  That must explain it.

Seeing as I have no interest in being here, I warp back out to near the wormhole to my system, and continue scanning.  I get three more gas sites, when I hear the wormhole strum.  A scout comes through, then warps in the direction of the C5.  Interesting.

Hey!  That's my name!

I am about to go back to scanning when I see something move on my screen.  What was it?  Then I notice my local chat window.  I have local chat up to time the polarity of wormhole transitions.  But now I see something unexpected.  The ESE has reported my presence by name (and that of the scout) in local!

Now I understand the use.  The warp bubble might be helpful.  But getting warning of and the name of a cloaked scout you've never seen?  That's mighty powerful.  Kudos to you, nimon, or whoever it was that came up with the idea. 

Here's the description from the Dev Blog on ESSs about what it does:

• Whenever a ship warps to the ESS, a broadcast is made in local informing everyone in the system that player X is in the vicinity of the ESS. This triggeres even if the approaching ship is cloaked.

Personally, I feel this is not right for wspace.  In nullsec, giving away people warping is kind of obnoxious, but at least the unit functions there.  In wspace, the ESS is giving away information that it should have no way of knowing.

UPDATE: CCP has disabled the ability to anchor ESSes anywhere in wspace.

An Old Ghost Site

My corp moved to a new wspace system, a C4 with C4 static.  The reason for this is so that we can have lots of C4 sites to run and make lots of ISK.  We have been bi-located in wspace for a while, because we have left some characters in our old system, as we tried to sell it.  But we have liberated several of them via insurance fraud.  Tonight we run some sites in C4b.

We are a New World timezone group.  I've had several applications from people in Europe or Asia, and although they seemed like dedicated players and generally looked great, I want them to be able to play with everyone else.  Be on coms, swap small talk, work together in fleets.  So I regretfully declined those applications.  Anyway, all of that is to point out that we are playing at about 9:00PM, Eastern time.  This is 15 hours past downtime.

One of these sites is not like the others

First we seal off our home system, using the novel method of running our battleship fleet through the wormhole until it dies.  Then we start running sites.  We have staked out the static wormhole in C4b with a listening alt.

As we tear into the third Frontier Barracks, I notice something: there is a ghost site in this system!  Not only that, but its tag -- CEF -- is right towards the end of the sequence formed by the other sites.  This means that it was here at downtime, 15 hours ago.  It may have been here for over a day. 

After we get done killing Sleepers, the guys form up a few T3s to run the ghost site.  (I can't join because my main, Von, is busy selling our old system.  Nosey (my ghostbusting Tengu) does get used, though.)  Unfortunately, the guys get pretty much nothing.  Win some, lose some.  This is the second ghost site we have seen in wspace.

I Steal from a Siphon

I've been out ghostbusting a lot recently.  When I do, I don't always dscan systems I enter.  But sometimes I do.  I almost always do a dscan in the system our wormhole comes down in, as well as searching it down.  Partly that is because I am in my exploration Buzzard.  Partly it is because I like doing small amounts of exploration, even though I have been doing more ghostbusting.

slurp

The other day I found the first siphon I have seen.  This was in Mafra, in Amarr lowsec.  There was nobody in local, so I knew I could check it out safely.  Still, there might be POS guns.  So I cautiously flew to thing at 10 km, just in case.  In fast the POS had no guns at all, just a bunch of hardeners.  So I gleefully grabbed a full Buzzard-load of moo goo.  (This did not get all of it.)  Then I headed back in to wspace.

Returning in my ghostbusting Tengu, I grabbed the rest of what the thing had stolen.  Then I went on my way, said Hi to Sugar, and eventually out into null for serious ghostbusting.  Eventually it was getting late and I returned.  There were people in system, but I threw caution to the winds and warped straight to the siphon.  One of them was there -- in a rookie ship.  I uncloaked and started locking, but this was not fast enough.  He warped.  Then I stole one more small portion of moon goo and headed back into wspace.

That's my complete story of interacting with siphons.  I have looked on many dscans in nullsec and never seen one.  As well as many other scans in lowsec.  Since I cannot stick to any given bit of kspace for long, I cannot really deploy them effectively myself.  But I can see what others are doing.  And on that count, I have to say that much of the debate before Rubicon on them seems to have missed the point.  They are not economical in most situations.  And people just don't want to grief when it does not cause tangible grief.  So they are not being used much.

Robbed by a Tractor

It's Sunday, and things being as they are, I have been on and off all day.  I opened and scanned down C3a some hours ago.  Then I went out to lowsec.  Just as I was jumping from C3a into lowsec, I dscanned and saw sleeper wrecks and two ships.  (I should have scanned the inner system earlier.)  If people are running sites, they may have a scout watching the wormhole, who'd be happy to grab up a nice polarized Tengu.  So instead of coming back in immediately, I searched down the lowsec system I was in.  I found several nice sites (two relic, one drug manufacturer), but the system had five other people there.  Danger.  Time pressed, so I came back in.  Saw some wrecks, but unable to get at them.  The PVEers seem to have gone idle, probably spooked by my earlier blundering by.  Nothing I can do, and have to go anyway.  So I went back home.

Hours later, I am done sucking gas in a C4 that connected up to our system.  My thought is to head back out to lowsec and check out those nice sites.  It's now 10:00 in the USA, so hopefully all those Euros are in bed.  I get into Nosey, my exploration Tengu, and cross into C3.

A routine dscan, and my plans change.  Sleeper wrecks.  Hmm.  I quickly recon the system, and find two guys running a sleeper site in the inner system.  Now I bookmark all anoms, and warp into the site.  It's a Proteus and a Gila.  There are still a few sleepers left, which they are killing.  I have a bit of time.  So I think it's time to ditch Nosey, which is expensive, and get my Manticore.  I warp out, cross, warp to my POS, and refit.  Then warp back, and cross again.  And back to the site.

I am greeted with a new tableau: the Proteus and Gila are still there, along with a Dragoon which shows on dscan as "Salvager".   Is a Dragoon a destroyer?  I look it up: yes.  He is salvaging with salvager drones.  Novel.  He already has cleaned the site pretty well, but there are several more wrecks to go.  Of course, I am not attacking with his friends there.  I head back to make a perch.  Let's see if they make a mistake.

watching from my perch

And sure enough, not a minute later, the Gila warps.  And shortly, so does the Proteus.  I watch on dscan: they disappear.  This is what I expect, as this is the last anom in the inner system.  There are several in the outer system, which is probably what they are doing.

I watch a bit longer.  There are only three wrecks left.  I am surprised at how efficiently the destroyer is tractoring things.   And then I see him tractor something that has to be 50km away!  WTF??  Well, it is the second to last wreck.  Since you cannot warp to things-being-tractored, I take my chance and warp to 20 from the last wreck.  I figure he will have to get within 20 (24 max) to be in tractor range.  He will come to me.

I zoom up.  Now that I am close, I see what is happening.  He has deployed a mobile tractor, and I have not seen it in the scrum of wrecks and him.  And of course the tractor is a new module with Rubicon, and I have not realized until now that I do not have it showing on my overview.  (I fix that now.)  Well, that explains his seemingly huge tractor range.  But, it also puts him 50km from me.  I cannot slowboat that in time.

I think fast, then bookmark the tractor and bounce off the nearest celestial.  I warp back in at 10.  It looks perfect: the last wreck is rapidly approaching.  His drones are out on it.  At I am at 11 km.  I close to 9, then set my orbit around him at 1000m.  Then I decloak and get my systems active.  My torps crash into him.  Shields down in two cycles.  Then armor in two more, and finally two more into structure.  The whole time I am watching dscan like a hawk.  But the Gila and Proteus do not appear.

my loot, sadly diminished

He dies.  I look for the pod, but he warps immediately.  I am 1000m off the wreck, so, hands ashake I open the wreck to get my loot.  For a second, I see nice loot.  And then... no loot.  What happened?  I check again: the wreck is really empty.  It cannot be.  It was not empty a second ago.  It is empty.  And then I get it: the *!$% mobile tractor!  I made a wreck.  The tractor "saw" it, sucked it in (all of 500m), and looted it.  Hey!  THAT'S MY LOOT!

Oh well.  Fearing reprisal, I cloak and move off 20km and watch.  Dscan is clear.  After about a minute, I decide to go look for them in the outer system.  I warp out there.  There are some sleeper wrecks, but no ships.  Maybe they fled?  I warp back to the ambush site.  Well, that tractor has MY LOOT in it, and I wants it, oh yes!  Time to kill the tractor.  I set an orbit at 20km, then uncloak and start shooting.  Dscan remains clear.  The tractor goes down pretty quickly: boom.  OK: what's it got?

Well, I get a bit of loot.  But really not what I had hoped for.  You can see in the killmails almost all the value got blown up.  The Dragoon had 107m worth of stuff; it dropped 33m.  Then the tractor had 80m, and dropped 12m.  (I was seriously screwed by the loot fairy.)

every POS needs one

via zephyr express

I head home.  But there is still that large sleeper wreck... and the destroyer and tractor unit... so I get in a light salvager and return to grind them.  No nanoribbons, sadly.  Back home again.  But there are still those wrecks in the outer system... I rummage around, and pull out our handy Zephyr.  Then I head back over and get another few million in blue loot.

sleepers that are not shooting at me

Lesson learned: when trying to kill a salvaging ship who has a deployed tractor nearby, try to do it when the tractor is just grabbing a distant wreck.  Otherwise, you risk having your loot stolen by it.

I never did make it back out to lowsec.   

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!

Finally!

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.

PVP danger

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.

ghostbusters that pass in the night

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.

I Fail Some More Ghost Sites

It's the day after yesterday.  Well, it always is, but the yesterday in question had me leaving off out in Stain, having found an unused section of null where I found two ghost sites.  I did not get anything from either.  One despawned before I even saw it; the other one had nothing special in any can, and someone in local.  Not worth the risk of hacking.  I have a bit of time to play this morning, so I figure to find some more.  This time, I hope to get some actual loot.

I set off, on pretty much the same path as yesterday but backwards.  And voila -- two jumps in, I find a ghost site!  Nobody in local!  Huzzah.  I warp to it, decloak, and then start scanning cans.  And it's almost a replay of yesterday: nothing much in any can.  However, today I have nobody to stop me, so I might as well go for it and see if I can hack a can.  Or who knows, two.

I burn over to a can, and start hacking.  Ugh -- restoration node.  Kill it, ouch.  Onward.  80/20 firewalls everywhere, and another restoration node.  Kill it.  More clicking, and I get a utility.  More clicking, another restoration node.  I have almost lost.  A few more clicks for desperate hope, and it is done.  My virus is too weak to prevail.  I head towards another can, and exit the minigame.  Boom!  The can blows and knocks off 20% of my shields.

As I am right in the middle of the site, suddenly I am in amidst a bunch of red crosses.  The timer is up: Serpentis pirates arrive.  I veer away from them, afterburner almost full ramped.  They shoot me and knock off another third of the shields or so, then swoosh, they all take off in all directions.  (Once again I admire this effect.)

Another ghost site, another failure.  I set out again.

And, next system: another ghost site!  Again, nobody.  Again, I warp over and scan all the cans.  Now something new: a can with actual treasure.  A 'wetu' mobile depot blueprint!  An ascendancy gamma blueprint! 

Goodies!

Ooh.  I head to it.  I enter the minigame.  It is the same hard minigame.  This one I do better on, but I still don't find the core.  I fail again.  Sighing, I head towards another can, and all that nice treasure explodes (and takes a chunk of shields).  Then the same thing happens as before: before I can get to a second can, the timer is out, and the pirates blow the site.

I don't find any more gas sites today.

A Ghost Site Disappoints

Two nights ago, I went ghostbusting in Stain.  Skunked.  Last night, I did it again in lowsec, out to the EVE gate.  Very few people around, but no ghosts.  Skunked again.

Tonight I fly again.  (I need to think of a name for my exploration Tengu.  Nosey, perhaps.)  Tonight our static C3 has a lowsec, and it comes down in Harner, which is in a corner of Solitude.  I scan down the local system.  Nobody is here but me.  There's a data site, which I run, to modest gain.  And there are two lowsec gas sites.  One has a low-value gas.  But the other... Celadon Cytoserocin.  Currently second most valuable gas in the game.  I think about it a while, then log out to bring in my farming alt.  (He has better gas skills than Von does.)

I mine on and off for a while, twice interrupted by people entering the system.  I mine the gas orbiting at 1000, so it is easy to move off and cloak.  Jayne shows up later and brings down two characters; we suck it dry quickly.  Now back into wspace, dump gas, and change characters.

Back to my original plan.  Ghostbusting.  Where?  Well, let's see if highsec Solitude is well populated.  I would not mind finding a site there first to run, so I could get the feel of it.  But that's unlikely unless it is pretty abandoned, and I just don't know how populous the place is.  So I set course for Gererique.  All of the systems I go through have people in them, lowsec and highsec.  So, I guess this is not the place to bust.  OK, plan adaptation: I am heading for nullsec.  Fortunately, Solitude borders nullsec.  So I can get into Syndicate in just a few jumps.  OK, off I go.

I am a little bit scared of a camp at the border, but I have been this way before and there was none.  (There was a camp going the other direction coming from contiguous empire, but I am not going there.)  And today there is none.  Also no ghost site, but now I am into null and there is nobody here.  So things are looking good.  I am planning to hit the local cluster here, since I don't have a lot of time.

Angry Concord Guy never sleeps.

When I enter Iggy (as I think of I-YGGI), there is a ghost site!  It shows up on my scanner as a normal combat anom, named "Improved Serpentis Covert Research...".  But there's also another player.  Hmm.  I order a warp to the site anyway, and cloak immediately.

Before I leave grid, I see the other player on grid.  He's leaving.  Nice!  It's all mine!  Except... it isn't.  I get a popup for the ghost site when I warped to it, but when I land, there is no ghost site.  And it has disappeared from my list of anoms.  Hmm.  My guess is, the guy I saw leaving just ran the site and left.  It despawned between when I warped and landed. 

A minimalist site -- very un-CCP-like

That's a disappointment.  Nothing to do but keep looking.  I set course north.  Two hops later, in A-ZLHX, I get lucky again!  Another ghost site.  And also another player.  I warp to the site, cloaked.  Here is what it looks like: there are four cans in a square, with about 20km between cans.  You warp into the center of it, I think.  (I warped to 10, being cautious, and ended up near the lower-left can.)  Above each can is a flavor object (bunker, small tower).

I sit for a second gathering my thoughts.  I do not really want to run the site with anyone in local.   On the other hand, if she is in local in a frigate maybe I can kill her when she comes to the site.  So I look at dscan for her: no ship appears.  I check out the system: it's all in range.  This makes me suspect she is cloaked.  But then I notice there is a station.  OK, she's probably there.  No way for me to check, though.  And it's been long enough that I doubt she is going to come in a frig.

Well, Nosey is designed to run away pretty well.  And I can't just sit here.  So, I mentally formulate and rehearse my escape plan, and then uncloak and start scanning cans.  I will want to get the can with the best stuff first, since it may be all I have time for.  First can: some minerals and some junk.  Second can: junk.  Third can: junk.  Fourth can: minerals and junk.

BOOM

Hmm.  Should I hack for basically nothing?  I would if alone, but it's not a good risk:reward proposition.  So I don't.  Still, I am curious to see what will happen.  So I back off from all four cans, and wait.

It all goes down as I have read on the forums. After about a minute and a half, Serpentis pirates appears.  I am cloaked so they are no problem.  Shortly, they blow up all the cans, and then they warp off in all directions.  (I don't think I have ever seen NPCs do this; it's kind of cool.)

I have a look at the rest of the small area I am in.  No more ghost sites.  And that is about it for my play time tonight.  Then I decide to log off here, so I can try again tomorrow. 

Wormhole Noise to be Fixed

A quick note for wspace denizens.  Since Rubicon, you may have noticed, as my corp has, the complete absence of wormhole sounds.  This obviously makes sound-based pickets useless, which would be a fairly dramatic change to wspace life.  Well: this has been reported to CCP and, according to CSM rep Chitsa Jason, it is a bug which they intend to fix.

Whew.

A Ghostbusting Bust

Rubicon day 2.  Last night, I noticed the market spikes in PI goods that Rubicon has caused.  Since we make some of them, and had a big load ready to export, the corp pitched in and did a supply run and return.  We made a nice windfall, too.  But I did not have time to really play with Rubicon much.  (The log in screen is spiffy.)

Tonight, I am eager to go out and find a ghost site.  I have my fit all dreamed up, but not yet created.  So the first thing to do is find my way out of wspace.  I spend a while scanning.  C3a has a highsec; very handy.  But the highsec is quite a few jumps to Jita.  I keep looking.  There is a second C4 linked to C3a, which I go into so I can activate all the things.  Just doing my part.  And there is also a C2 link.  I go to scan down C2a; it also has a highsec.  But there are some live pilots, so I go and get my Manticore to watch a while.  They don't do anything foolish, though, so eventually I give up and scan the system down.  There are four sigs, and three of them are wormholes.  There's the C3 connection I came in, but also the expected highsec static, and a nullsec.  Oooh, nullsec is nice.  This is just what I was hoping for: an easy way out to null for some ghostbusting.  The highsec is just four jumps to Jita.  That is also quite handy.  Clearly, Bob wants me to go ghostbusting out in null tonight.

I go back home to get Artemis, my cloaky Tengu.  She's fallen on hard times; I don't use her much any more.  I keep getting killed in her and not getting kills.  She's going to be converted to my ghostbusting fit.  (Artemis will return as a Loki, real soon now.)  I exit without running into anything nasty in C2a, and head to Jita.  Buy this, buy that.  My trade alt is sitting idle in The Forge, so I bring him back to trade a few items I know I have.  Gradually the fit takes shape.  I also get parts for a similar exploration fit, and a spiffy new mobile depot (1.8m and dropping.)  Now I am ready to go.

I fly back through highsec to the highsec entrance to C2a, and go in.  Nobody around, so I warp to the nullsec wormhole, and transit.  And I am... where?  Out in Stain somewhere.  JS-E8E.  Nobody in system, so that is nice.  But no ghost site.  Don't forget to bookmark the wormhole on this side!

OK, time for dotlan maps.  I have a Firefox window dedicated; I raise it and type in JS-E8E and... nothing.  Try again.  Nope, dotlan is down.  Argh!

Um.... help?  I realize with a small shock how hopelessly reliant I am on dotlan.  I am dropping out into lowsec and nullsec in new locations every day.  (I try to get dotlan again; still nothing.)  I am never going to memorize where I roam; I have to use maps.  I certainly cannot navigate using the in-game map -- that's too painful.  But I recall there is another map I have seen out there on the Internet.  So I do a search and call it up -- Ombey's.  It is a static map -- nowhere near as useful as dotlan.  But still, I can use it.  I find the Stain map and determine my direction: from JS-E8E to G-ME2K.  Let's go.

Where I was, and Ghosts were not.

I warp to the first system, TG-Z23.  Two in local, no ghost site.  Oh well.  Off to a side branch.  Nobody and nothing.  Back to the main path.  Hop.  Nothing.  Hop.  Nothing.

WHOOOSH!  OK, the engine noise is annoyingly loud.  I am zoomed in all the way.  Were they always this loud?  I don't think so, but then I never zoom in this much.  I zoom out.  Jump.  Warp to next gate.  WHOOOSH!  Wait -- I am zoomed in again!  Back off again.  And the next gate: zoomed in again.  WHOOSH!!  Ugh, a bug.  I hope they fix it.

On the plus side, this is the first time I have been in nullsec with interdiction nullification.  And I must say, it is wonderful to have.  I don't spend a minute thinking about bubbles.  I just warp, gate to gate, as if it was lowsec.  It's mindless movement.

I explore all the side branches as I go.  No ghosts anywhere.  Stain is not haunted in this direction.  Systems are mostly unoccupied; out of the 21 I go through in this direction, three of them have two players other than me, another four have one, and the remaining 14 have zero.  So I feel like I am in the right place.  There's a decent chance that I will get a ghost site -- if it is here.

I make it to the end of the line, and head back.  11 hops, all of them retracing my steps.  So perhaps a small chance of a ghost site popping up.  No ghost sites.  I am back to JS-E8E.  I check, and dotlan is back up.  Hurrah!  Now I can get a decent map showing number of jumps.  I decide to head south, towards a cul-de-sac with almost zero traffic in the last hour.  Set course for 9O-ZTS.  16 jumps.

Hop.  Warp and WHOOSH.  Hop.  Warp and WHOOSH.  Initially a few systems with people, but then even fewer people than the other way.  But also no ghosts.  I explore a few side-systems on the way.  Then I get to the end, and explore the rest of the cul-de-sac.  No ghosts.

It's getting late, so reluctantly I head back.  Again I am retracing my steps, but I check for sites and there are none.

Total tally for the evening: 43 systems hit, 27 of them twice.  Of those, perhaps 12 had anyone in them other than me.  No ghost sites.  Skunked.

In wspace, I check out all four systems in our constellation tonight: no ghost sites there, either.

A Ghost Site Fit

So-called "ghost sites" are a new feature in Rubicon that I have been eager to try.  The idea is a rare site that everyone in the system can see easily on scanner, with good treasure, but a timer.  As soon as the first uncloaked player is on grid, the timer starts.  This can be from a few seconds to a few minutes.  When the timer is up, some rather nasty rats show up (they warp scramble).  They shoot at you a little, then BOOM.  The site's cans and all the treasure goes bloey.  Then the rats shoot at you a bit more, and warp off.  Given the nature of the site, it seems likely to create some interesting PVP situations.

There's been enough info come out on the site that I feel fairly confident in publishing a fit for it.  I'll revise this if I ever find one (see next post), and have actual experience.

To run a Ghost site, you want a ship that can tank a couple of 10000+ explosive blasts, plus more tank to deal with the rats for 30 seconds.  And it also should be good at escaping from human hunters, which means a good tank, some PVP ability especially against tacklers, and speedy enough to escape from bigger things.  I got the latest Rubicon-updated EFT, and played with it.  I thought the new SOE ships might work, but not really.  The Asteros is a frigate, and there is simply no way to make them work against explosions of the size we are talking about, not to mention the rats and PVPers.  The Stratos, although it can easily tank the site, has three things going against it.  First, it does not have enough lows do more than a buffer fit.  So, if you did get damaged, repair is an issue.  Second, its PVP escapability is relatively low.  Its recloak delay is a concern to me.  Finally, unlike a T3 it cannot get bubble nullification, and since I plan to do most of my busting in nullsec, this is a big problem.

I can almost fly Lokis, but since I want to do this now, that leaves me with just a Tengu as the ship of choice.  Here's what I came up with:

[Tengu, Explorer-Ghostbuster]
Damage Control II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
'Halcyon' Core Equalizer I

Data Analyzer I
PL-0 Shipment Probe
Pith A-Type Explosive Deflection Field
EM Ward Field II
Core C-Type 100MN Afterburner
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Large Ancillary Shield Booster, Cap Booster 150

Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile
Prototype 'Arbalest' Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Inferno Light Missile
Covert Ops Cloaking Device II
Expanded Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I

Medium Memetic Algorithm Bank I
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Medium Polycarbon Engine Housing I

Tengu Defensive - Supplemental Screening
Tengu Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Tengu Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Tengu Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration
Tengu Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier

The probe launcher is there because I live in wspace and plan to scan in it.  And also because power is tight and I cannot fit another rapid light launcher.  (A non-rapid light missile launcher, though, or rocket, I could.)  Players with better skills than I have can use T2 launchers.

This thing is going to be hard to tackle and keep tackled.  A single long point won't work.  It's immune to bubbles.  It goes 1300m/s using its afterburner, so it will outrun heavy ships.  It uses a few of the new rapid light launchers to generate a bit of damage against tackle.  It tanks explosive like a champ; Pith Explosive Deflection Fields are in low demand and therefore cheap.  And finally, it can roam in nullsec ignoring bubbles.

To use it, get to nullsec (and/or maybe less-trafficked parts of lowsec).  Get your dotlan maps ready, and plot out a long string of systems.  Ghost sites are rare.  You need to look at a lot of systems to have a chance to find a ghost site.  Now you just hop from system to system, checking local and your scanner each time.  

If you do find a ghost site, warp there ASAP.  If anyone else is in local, go in cloaked.  Once there, if you see someone you'll have to figure out how to proceed by ship type.  If a frigate, I would not worry about it; a T3 is probably more likely and potentially worth skipping the site for.  

Assuming you are alone, head for a can as you lock up all four cans and start cargo-scanning them.  Go to whichever one has the best items.  Crack it, grab the loot, and repeat as indicated.  If you are lucky enough to have nobody else in local, keep an eye on just local.  Otherwise, keep an eye on dscan if you can.  I would hack the cans orbitting at 2500m if possible, so that you may be able to cloak.

How to Make ISK from Highsec POCOs

Gevlon has a business idea for making money using highsec POCOs after Rubicon drops.  Since I did a lot of thinking about it to criticize him, I figured I would amalgamate my comments into a post.  For background, go read (or review) my Highsec POCO Predictions for Rubicon.  I'll wait.

Gevlon's Idea Will Fail

OK.  Gevlon's idea is to form an alliance specifically to raise wardec costs.

The alliance is just a price cartel agreement. Anyone can join... By joining you have to set the tax rate the same as everyone. ... You can't wardec a player owned corp if it's in an alliance, just the alliance itself. Such act has high cost if the alliance is huge, protecting the alliance from wardecs for their customs offices. 

But not for mutual defense:

What about PvP-ers, who wardec the alliance not because they want POCOs, but to get fights? Well, they won't get any. The in-alliance corps never fight.  ... So for their max-cost wardec they get nothing but the opportunity to shoot customs offices. How can you defend your customs offices? If anyone wardecs the alliance, it makes the war available for mercenaries, so you can just join with your shooter corp and defend your POCO.

This, as I told him, is a bad idea.  You must defend your POCOs or there is very little reason for the alliance.  This is because of the relatively high value of POCOs relative to the cost of wardec.  I pointed this out two weeks ago in my Predictions:

I have seen people say the wardec cost would have a big effect, and initially I agreed with them.  It seems plausible that a 10x cost difference for war would matter a lot.  But after thinking about it, I feel it will affect only small corporations.  

Consider a medium sized corp with 25 pilots.   In a battleship, each pilot can do about 1000 DPS.  POCOs have 10m shields and reinforce at 25% shields.  Thus this corp can hammer one into reinforced in just five minutes.  Killing a POCO after reinforcement is easier.  They have 250k armor and 200k structure.  So it would be very fast.  In a week of war, and unopposed, a corp could reinforce or destroy 20 POCOs a day.  Since POCOs cost about 100m ISK, the cost of the wardec is a small percentage of the capital at stake.  The cost of the fleet is much more than the POCOs it destroys.

And note that Gevlon's alliance actually make things easier for an aggressor.  It's a one-stop shop for targets.  Say that Gevlon has gotten 50 corps to join, each with 20 POCOs.  Now you go to all of them and demand they hand over their POCOs to you for half their value, or war.  Each one individually cannot afford to hire Noir.  Collectively they could, but they have no organization.  Perhaps they all stand firm and hope that the aggressor attacks someone else.  So he wardecs anyway, and attacks all of them.  After they each lose a POCO or two, they'll sell the others.

How to Do It Right

Gevlon's idea of an alliance is a good one.  But it cannot be passive as he wants.  A passive alliance is easy to beat.

The alliance should offer substantial services to its members.  It should have its own fighting fleet (more on that in a bit), and make a standing offer to members to buy their POCOs at 80% of par.  It also insures their POCOs at 50% of par: if a member loses a POCO, you pay out half the value.  This gives the incentive to the alliance to defend, and some insurance to the members that you will, while not giving too much of a free ride.

Of course, getting a decent fleet able to fight and win will take a substantial amount of time.  There is no such time before November 19.  Yet the first-mover advantage will be huge.  How do you deal with that?  You retain the mercs necessary to defend all the members' POCOs. Find the best mercs you can -- Noir? multiple groups? -- and get a long term contract with them, six months at least, saying (1) that they won't wardec your alliance for any client, and (2) that they will be available to fight for you on call (other obligations permitting). Perhaps this is a billion per month. Who knows: ask them. It might be quite reasonable.

How do you pay for hired guns?  You charge a fee per POCO, perhaps 10 million ISK per month. (This is about 10% of its build cost; I should think that is cheap for decent protection.)  Charge more for rarer planet types (i.e. storm), or those in better locations (i.e. near Jita).  (What exactly to charge is a hard problem, but that's why you need a leader with spreadsheet chops.  I am sure Gevlon can figure out a good price structure.)  If 10m a month sustainable?  I think so; recall the analysis Mabrick did.  A single user of a POCO can generate that much in taxes.  If the POCO has more than a handful of users, the owner still makes good money.

With my guess of the merc's retainer fee of 1b per month, once you get 100 POCOs, you make money. If you cannot get 100 POCOs, you lose money. If the mercs you hire cannot beat some larger group and it kills your POCOs, you lose a lot of money. If you welp fleets, you lose a lot of money.  It will take a very deep pocket investor.  It will have substantial risk.

Note that hiring mercs as the primary defenders is only really applicable during the bootstrapping phase of the existence of the alliance cartel.  As soon as possible, you will want to start insourcing your protection, with mercs hired only in exceptional hard situations.  Find a good fleet commander, and hire him to organize a navy for you.  Men will flock to fight under a good FC.  Remember the lesson of nullsec: players in a game don't care about money so much as they care about "content".  If you offer them fun they'll pay you for it.  Fighting in massive battleship fleets should be fun.  I would join.

Why do you need your own fleet?  In part the reason is that relying on mercenaries is bad idea -- they may be working for the other side; they may turn on you; or they may just not be available due to other obligations.  But it is also because insourcing should be cheaper.  Noir has elite pilots that can fight anywhere in all types of situations; you need only be concerned with ships and tactics that are allowed in highsec.  Also, Noir's pilots have no reason to care about the POCO business.  And you should be under almost constant wardec as the biggest, fattest target around, and you will need a very substantial fleet to defend yourself.  (My guess is hundreds of pilots.)  If it takes raising POCO fees to support your fleet, so be it.  Any owner who does not like the fees is perfectly free to leave the alliance and defend his assets on his own.

A fleet can also aggress.  Most of the time it will probably be busily defending, but what if you get a slack week?  The alliance should be the aggressor, demanding that lesser corps join or lose their POCOs.  Forming a monopoly where there is no natural monopoly is not like normal market competition: it takes force.

Pondering Rubicon's New Auto Tractor Units

With Rubicon will come a new deployable structure, the automatic tractoring unit.  I don't know exactly what it will be called.  How will it affect the game?

Here is what I can find out so far about the auto tractor unit.  You can read it yourself in the thread where Fozzie announces them; these are taken from his posts:

• 100m3 volume.
• When deployed has storage of 27000m3 (just slightly less than a jetcan).  Cannot be deployed closer to 5km from other deployables.
• 125km tractor range.
• Can tractor one target at a time.  Checks for targets every 10 seconds.  Will tractor anything that the game would allow the owner to tractor.  It keeps tractoring all day long even when full.
• You can scoop and reuse it. If you scoop it while it has items in the cargo, it will spawn a jetcan with those items which you can then loot what you'd like from.
• Tractor speed is 1000m/s.  [Note: 2 minute tractor time at max range!  Ouch.]
• Rats won't target it.
• Has an automatic activation time [apparently its "onlining" time], currently set to 45 seconds.
• Only the owner can take from it.
• Can be probed and is visible on d-scan.  Easy to probe.
• It can be destroyed.  Hitpoints in the range of 80000 or so.  Drops loot just like a ship, 50% chance of each stack dropping.
• Shooting one in highsec gets you a suspect flag but no Concord.
• It has the same kind of decay timer that anchored cans do, where if you interact with the cargo often it never goes away but if left alone it disappears after 2 days.

As of now, on singularity there are bugs.  Or odd features.  From this thread:

• It does not work when nobody is on grid.  CCP says this will be fixed.
• Targets your ship, or other ships (including cloakies).  CCP stays this will be fixed.
• Two of them within range of each other "see" each other's wrecks and play ping-pong.

Assuming the two problems they say will be fixed are fixed, so that the thing is useful, I can see a lot of application for it.  Basically, anyone who is salvaging any substantial wreck field currently will probably do better to pack one of these (or more, assuming they fix the ping-pong feature).  Deploy it ASAP and let it tractor while you salvage.  It's like an extra tractor with super-long range.  If you currently use a Noctis with 4/4, go to 3/5 and go faster.  Or deploy more than one as close to each other as possible, and sit between going even faster.

Of course, if you can tractor a wreck, then you probably created it.  Since rats don't shoot at tractor units, and you can fit five of them confortably in your missioning battleship, the time to deploy it is not when you come back to salvage.  It's when you first land on grid.  (Or maybe after you initially move.)  So, deploy the unit as soon as you land on grid.  Bookmark it.  Kill all the things, then do the next room.  Come back in a few minutes and all your loot is collected, and all the wrecks in nice little ball.

It will also benefit mission-runners who currently do not salvage/loot.  So long as you are in a room sitting still for more than 45 seconds, it can get you at least a little loot, and a little is better than zero.  And possibly salvage too, if you have room for a flight of salvaging drones.

Salvaging will change radically.  No longer does a salvager ship need to combine salvagers and tractors.  It just needs salvagers.  Noctises may still be useful in a more limited way.  But I would expect to see a much larger set of ships being used to salvage, depending on the risk level.  Noctises will still rule highsec, I expect.  But not insecure space.

In wspace, this unit will obsolete the Noctis.  Tractoring and salvaging will be concurrent with combat.  Fleet warps in, immediately deploys 2-4 tractor units.  PVE as normal.  Wrecks are being sucked in as fast as they are created.  Salvager ship with the fleet salvages the wrecks.  Fleet has to wait a few extra seconds at the end of combat before warping, to guard the salvager.  Or else, maybe the fleet just warps and the salvager takes its chances.  But note that the salvager is not going to be a Noctis.  It does not need tractor range; the tractor units provide that.  It will be a hardened ship, probably a "combat" hull, perhaps stabbed up, with some salvagers in the highs.  Since it can salvage throughout combat it does not even need that many salvagers.

My corp is still discussing what we will do.  Partly it depends on details we don't know yet.  But I think the broad outline is present.  Currently, our salvager (a Noctis) trails the fleet; to maintain operation security we zip up, or we use observers on all the exits.  In Rubicon, the salvager will be a Raven, Scorpion or some other battleship.  (This gives it the option to mount a Micro Jump Drive for GTFO.)  The salvager will now move with the fleet.  We will deploy one or more tractors on grid, however many we need to gather all the wrecks in a timely manner.  The salvager will have enough salvagers to salvage all the things; this may be as few as two salvagers.  If say three or less, it can add DPS and will be used for that too.

Is it a conflict driver?  I do think it will make the life of a mission ninja more fun.  Imagine hanging around Osmon with combat probes, looking for these.  You pop into the mission with your ninja salvager destroyer and find a nice ball.  It's all there for you to salvage.  No driving around.  Then zip to the next room.  Do you blow up the thing for loot?  Maybe!  Missioners might get wise and start to watch for their auto tractors disappearing from dscan though.

How about null and wspace?  I am not as sanguine.  In both places hunters will certainly look for them.  And they might blow them up from time to time (certainly in wspace).  Whether this will be opposed seems less likely.  Meanwhile, at least in wspace they will kill one of the ganking types that keeps people on their toes: the Noctis salvager gank.

What will the economic effects be?  If I could short tech I salvage, I would.  And similarly for anything else that comes out of normal highsec mission grinding and nullsec anom smashing.  Meta 1-4 parts. 

Highsec POCO Predictions for Rubicon

A dev blog is out on the plans CCP has for highsec POCOs in Rubicon (coming, Nov. 19!).  Here is the summary in bullet points:

• Highsec POCOs will be attackable only while at war (that is, via wardec).
• Highsec POCOs will not be transferable while at war, or with war pending, to cut off the obvious shell-game counter to wardec.
• Highsec POCOs will still have 10% taxes to NPCs.  However the rate can be halved by the player by training the new Customs Code Expertise skill, 1% per level.  Also the assumed base value of PI commodities will be dropped somewhat, resulting in further reductions in effective taxes.
• POCO owners can set their taxes freely, in addition to the NPC tax.

I have been thinking about how this will play out.  Consider the wardec requirement.  Presumably anyone can take out Interbus COs, so there will be an initial gold rush.  But once a POCO is in player hands, it will be permanently.  And to even have a shot at it, you'll have to pay Concord for a war.

What's the cost for wardecs?  From CCP's wiki, Wars:

It costs 50 million isk, plus an additional cost for each member in the target corporation/alliance above 51. It will now start to increase with the 51st member and reach the ceiling of 500 million ISK at 2000 members.

I have seen people say the wardec cost would have a big effect, and initially I agreed with them.  It seems plausible that a 10x cost difference for war would matter a lot.  But after thinking about it, I feel it will affect only small corporations.

Consider a medium sized corp with 25 pilots.   In a battleship, each pilot can do about 1000 DPS.  POCOs have 10m shields and reinforce at 25% shields.  Thus this corp can hammer one into reinforced in just five minutes.  Killing a POCO after reinforcement is easier.  They have 250k armor and 200k structure.  So it would be very fast.  In a week of war, and unopposed, a corp could reinforce or destroy 20 POCOs a day.  Since POCOs cost about 100m ISK, the cost of the wardec is a small percentage of the capital at stake.  The cost of the fleet is much more than the POCOs it destroys.

I still expect large alliances to dominate POCO ownership.  But that is not because of wardec costs, rather because of the blobbing advantage in fleet combat, and the advantage that will accrue to any entity which can field fleets in all time zones.

It's worth discussing the time zone issue more explicitly.  POCOs reinforcement timer works differently than those at POSes.  At a POS, the reinforcement exit time is determined by time when attackers push the shields below 25%, and the amount of "reinforced mode fuel" (strontium clathrates) in the tower.  So a tower's exit time will be fairly unpredictable, but an attacker can always hope for the exit to happen at a time which is advantageous.  With POCOs, the owner specifies an exit time-window, a zone of a two hours.   Reinforcement mode lasts for a day at least, then enough time to get into the zone.  The timing of the attack has nothing to do with the exit time beyond fixing the day of the year.  Thus, a POCO's owner can set his times so that his POCOs always come out of reinforced at his best time.

One can imagine a seesaw battle between two large entities, both of which can prevail militarily at separate times during the day.  During the Australian evening, an Aussie alliance bashes all the POCOs it can get at, and defends its own towers coming out of reinforcement.  A European alliance does the same thing in its own evening.  Only on weekends can progress be made, which would be easily undone the next week.  The endgame here is all POCOs are killed and not replaced.  "They make a desert, they call it peace."

The situation would appear to be very unstable militarily.  This is especially true given that many highsec wardeccers would love to be able to wardec people and force a fight.  They would not necessarily care about actually killing your POCO, just getting you out to fight for it.  If you show up and fight, even though you lose, maybe they don't kill your POCO.  But if you don't show, they certainly do.

One other very important aspect of the economics of POCO is their return on investment.  Mabrick has a post with some relevance here: he estimates based on one player's reported PI that at 10% taxation, a POCO that is being used will earn about 19m ISK per user per month.  Unfortunately there is no hard data on how much PI actually goes on in highsec.  I would guess that most P4s are made there, though, because of their prices and the relative advantage highsec has for making P4s.  Potentially there is a lot of ISK to be made.  But it may be happening only in a very few places; hundreds of pilots make P4s in Sobaseki, one jump from Jita.  A POCO there would be golden if managed well.

But what is well?  If many Interbus COs persist, with their effective 8.5% taxes (half of 17%), then to compete players will not be able to set their POCO taxes above about 4%.  As such, their earnings per user are less than half of Mabrick's estimate.

My guess is that most POCOs in most highsec systems will not be worth much, because of the low tax rate they can command, and because very few pilots do PI there.  As such, POCOs are marginal investments.  They are risky, because always subject to wardec and cannot be taken down to escape loss like POSes can.  And they don't really pay well.  Individual corps will put them up to exploit places they are living better.  Then they will be wardecced by a larger corp and lose them, and learn not to do that.

If any group is to own any large numbers of POCOs in highsec, it will have to fight for them a lot.  Guerrilla action will make it very hard to hold onto large numbers of POCOs.  The only way I can see a single or handful of groups dominating highsec is an alliance of the vast majority of the wardeccers in highsec.  And that seems unlikely, to put it mildly.  Outsiders like the Goons simply will not be able to do it, because they will have to occupy highsec nearly continually to secure their assets, and even with a fleet in being, they are vulnerable to wardecs from guerrillas.

I do have an idea for how to make money off of highsec POCOs, but it's rather speculative, and this has gone on long enough.