As I previously mentioned, I have been in the process of wrapping up my occupancy of the C4 system, J213139, in which I have been living for the last year and a half. It's been a good run.
J213139 is a great system for a medium sized wormhole corp. It's got good PI, which is a great income source in wspace. It's a pulsar system, meaning it gives a huge boost to shields and capacitor. This makes running local sites a lot easier than normal if you are using a shield tank. (We used several fleet comps over the years, finally settling on Rattlesnakes after they got their huge buff in summer '14.) J213139 also has a great moon for siting a tower at, if you want to make a devilish tower trap, which I did. I don't know, but I'd guess my tower is among the most prolific killers in wspace. Finally, C4 systems are pretty good to hunt from, due to their dual statics. With its C4 static, there are always at least six system within two jumps; usually there are considerably more due to incoming K162s.
Why am I leaving? Well, in part due to gaining a second static in Hyperion. This made it much harder to close up our system for running sites. It would not be a problem for most corps to close an extra wormhole, but I have just a few guys. It becomes tiresome, cutting into our already limited time in our corp nights. On the upside, we did get access to C5s, and started running sites there. Great ISK in that, much better than running C4s.
Another factor was my corp mates drifting away from the game. It has been gradual, but by now I am the only one of us that is very active. But that process started a year ago, and it did not cause any problem because I was still actively hunting every night. I did not really realize it then, but as a side effect of hunting I was always finding enough good highsec connections reasonably close to my Jita alt, that I could keep my tower supplied all by myself. However, over the past six months I have started to tire of hunting in wspace, so I started hunting less. And that meant that I found fewer connections, making it hard to run in and out with supplies. Then maintaining my tower (and hence occupancy of my system) became a chore.
When EVE becomes a chore, you should stop doing what you're doing. It's a game and supposed to be fun.
Anyway, all that is just an explanation of why I am leaving. I am not quitting the game, at least not now. And therefore I am not about to abandon my tower and leave its contents for the vultures. Rather I am trying to extract all the value from it, leaving with as much as I can.
I've been slowly moving stuff out for two months. I took down and exported my reaction tower. By this point my mates and I have flown out all the ships of substantial value, and we've moved out almost all of our considerable collection of crap other than a dwindling supply of PI goods. So, we're ready to leave just about any time. I am finishing up the PI in a few days.
If you are interested in a nice C4 system, please let me know via email, in or out of game. (My gmail address is in the upper right of this blog.) I want to sell, at minimum, the six POCOs we have constructed in the system. These I will sell you at the build cost of their components. The system location itself is free if you'll buy the POCOs. I have a large Minmatar POS with a full complement of POS parts. I'd be happy to sell that to you at cost. In addition we have a Chimera and a Moros, currently with full parts on them. These we will strip and insurance-fraud if I cannot sell them. I will sell you either or both hulls at a cost halfway between their normal kspace value and their insurance fraud value. The parts I will sell at Jita prices, since I can get them out. Finally, we have an assortment of cheap ships (gas mining Ventures, a few rock miners that we barely used, Epithals and Iteron Vs). These I'll also throw in for free if you buy the POCOs.
Showing posts with label Transporting Stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Transporting Stuff. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Wspace Logistics in C4
No, not logistics cruisers. These horribly-named cruisers ought to be called "repair cruisers", since that's what they do, and logistics has a different meaning than repair. Logistics is "the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet some requirements, of customers or corporations". In wspace, logistics is about getting in the stuff needed to keep a corp functioning. This is in particular POS fuel, but it also can be other consumables: ammunition, PI inputs, manufacturing inputs, strontium for capitals, etc.. Logistics is also about moving goods out of wspace, to sell them in kspace. This includes blue loot and sleeper salvage, but also items produced in wspace: gas, PI goods, manufactured stuff, etc.
This article is a discussion of logistics in C4, where I live. Logistics in other parts of wspace is similar, though easier in many cases. I have lived in a C1/hs (logistics was easy there, at least as far as getting to highsec), a C4/C3, a C4/C4, and now a C4/C4+C5. I have no experience of living in C5 or C6.
Cargo Ships
There are many small and valuable goods that enter and leave wspace. Most particularly, blue loot and sleeper salvage leave. These can be carried in almost any ship, although small and fast, and cloaky, is better. A blockade runner fit for agility and speed is good for this. Since Hyperion, cloaky ships never appear within decloak range of the wormhole, so they are safer to move goods in than before.
What about larger goods? These won't fit in a blockade runner in large amounts. Here, we have to use ships with substantial cargo capacity. These ships can be caught, so they need to be used properly.
In upper wspace (C5 and C6), you can bring a freighter directly in if coming direct from known space. I have not lived in upper wspace, but this is what I think I would aim to do. One freighter with full cargohold expansion can carry over 1.1 million m^3 cargo, which is roughly 17 times what the next-largest carrier holds. It's probably worth waiting for that rare highsec connection. Support your freighter with webbing to speed it into warp.
In lower or middle wspace, you can't use freighters. So you have to make do with lesser transports: T1 carriers, T1 specialty carriers, and deep space transports. DSTs used to be practically useless, being expensive, and yet far slower and carrying little or no more than a cheap Iteron V. However, after their update in Crius, they have become quite nice.
Recon and Surveillance
You must always scan to get out of wspace, even if it is just a static highsec. So, that is the first thing to do. In deeper wspace, scanning a way out can take substantial time. It helps if you have hunters in your corp, since scanning to hunt and scanning to find paths out are very similar.
Highsec exits are preferred. However, it is possible to use lowsec as well. A lowsec system adjacent to highsec is fine if it is largely abandoned. You can count the people in local to get an idea of how busy it is.
Generally, you want as short of a path as you can get. Often my paths are two wormhole jumps, typically going through a C2/hs+C4 that has connected to my system. Sometimes we will do three hops. Longer paths than that are unnecessarily dangerous; you'll get a path of length two or three soon enough.
It's nice to have a relatively short trip to Jita. (I am using Jita as your assumed highsec base, where you have a freighter and an alt to drive it. This is how I do it.) Remember that a freighter takes 3 minutes per jump when piloted, and more like five per jump on autopilot (and also that autopiloting in highsec is relatively dangerous, especially through Uedama and Niarja). And that is if you leave immediately; if you need time to put together stuff to bring, it will be longer. Running stuff in and out of wspace will also take time. Schedule to the playtime you have.
When a scout does exit out into highsec and finds a good route, he should bookmark the nearest station in the system. (We call it "nearby - stationstring", where stationstring is the string that is put into the bookmark by default when you select the station and make a bookmark.) If there are no stations in the exit system, or it is lowsec, the scout should go one hop towards Jita and bookmark the nearest station to that gate. The nearby station is the station that your freighter pilot will fly to, and also pilots carrying goods down out of wspace. Goods are passed between them by station trading (if they are there simultaneously, which is typical), or by contract.
When you have found a nice short path out to highsec (or sometimes lowsec), it's time to reconnoiter it. You'll want a look at each system in the path, and also each adjacent system. Is there anyone in the systems in the path? No? OK, proceed. Yes? Probably not a good time to run logistics.
Is there anyone in any adjacent systems? No? Then go ahead. Yes? Be cautious. At minimum you'll want to keep a sound picket on the wormhole between them and your path. If you can't do that, it's probably too dangerous.
Once you've decided to run goods, it's time to bring the freighter out from Jita. This can take time. While the freighter crawls across highsec, you should monitor the system(s) in the path as much as you can. Any probes are a bad sign, although scouts will tend to move on. Don't leave your probes out where anyone can see them and get interested. Don't move lots of ships except as below. Don't do anything to attract attention to your path.
Escorts and Eyes
Before running goods, get escorts ready in the path. And get on coms. Falcons are the ideal ship for the job, but you can use any cloaky.
The primary job of the escort is simply to alert people if he sees anything. He should sit in a system near (15 km off of) one wormhole in the path, and ideally have dscan surveillance over any live towers and/or the other wormhole. If there is substantial traffic in anything larger than an unarmed frigate, you should consider scratching the logistics attempt. There will be another day.
The secondary job of the escort is a last-ditch attempt to save your transports by jamming out attackers. (That's why Falcon.) However, it is risky and very undesirable to rely on this. If you suspect attack, it's better to just not do logistics.
Ideally, you should have at least one escort for each dangerous system you are moving goods through. For example, if the path is C4a->C2a->hs, use two escorts -- one in C4a, the other in C2a. You can run with fewers escorts (or indeed, none), but it is is riskier. If you have to leave systems unwatched, it should be your home system, systems with no live towers, systems with occupants who play at other times, and/or systems with few wormholes except the two directly in the pipe you are using.
Running Goods
Once the freighter is getting close, you may want to send out your first loads of bulky stuff. PI goods can be done in Epithals, particularly if there are also PI goods to come in. All goods can go in DSTs. Try to carry out your most valuable stuff first, because the risk of attack will increase with the more runs you make. This is your first run; it's the least predictable.
Transports should move as a group; that is, a convoy. Being in a convoy will get them ganked as a group if you are unlucky enough to get bubbled and multiply-pointed. However, that is extremely rare if your escorts are paying attention. More likely is an attack by a lone bomber or T3 hunter. Here, the convoy makes sure most of the goods get through.
Escorts should make sure each system in the path is clear before transports jump in. Both wormholes must be clear to proceed. You can see if a remote location is clear on dscan if it is within 14.3 AU: it is not clear if there are any ships there of any kind, and/or if there is a bubble there. If the other wormhole is out of dscan range, warp over there (at 30km), and check.
Transports should meet up with the freighter at the nearby station for goods transfer. Be ready to turn around promptly. Wait out polarization in highsec. I usually don't wait out polarization in wspace because any attacker will just cross-jump to get you anyway.
If you do get attacked, then you'll have to figure how to proceed. A small attack (i.e. one stealth bomber) can sometimes simply be run by. Epithals and DSTs should be heavily warp core stabilized. If the attack is larger, getting by safely becomes less likely. DSTs may be able to micro jump past bubbles; others will have to turn back. Falcons can assist here by jamming out the ships pointing the DSTs. If you do get attacked, don't try to keep moving. Wspace hunters are like sharks. Let them get bored. Don't run any logistics at least an hour. Make sure to log off your characters or cloak them up; leaving them sitting at a POS is too visible and will keep hope alive.
When transports have just passed through a system, and you are planning more passes through there, the escorts there should be particularly alert. (I.e.: dscan more.) You are looking for any change, which would tend to indicate that someone saw your run and is getting ready to ambush.
This article is a discussion of logistics in C4, where I live. Logistics in other parts of wspace is similar, though easier in many cases. I have lived in a C1/hs (logistics was easy there, at least as far as getting to highsec), a C4/C3, a C4/C4, and now a C4/C4+C5. I have no experience of living in C5 or C6.
Cargo Ships
There are many small and valuable goods that enter and leave wspace. Most particularly, blue loot and sleeper salvage leave. These can be carried in almost any ship, although small and fast, and cloaky, is better. A blockade runner fit for agility and speed is good for this. Since Hyperion, cloaky ships never appear within decloak range of the wormhole, so they are safer to move goods in than before.
What about larger goods? These won't fit in a blockade runner in large amounts. Here, we have to use ships with substantial cargo capacity. These ships can be caught, so they need to be used properly.
In upper wspace (C5 and C6), you can bring a freighter directly in if coming direct from known space. I have not lived in upper wspace, but this is what I think I would aim to do. One freighter with full cargohold expansion can carry over 1.1 million m^3 cargo, which is roughly 17 times what the next-largest carrier holds. It's probably worth waiting for that rare highsec connection. Support your freighter with webbing to speed it into warp.
Recon and Surveillance
You must always scan to get out of wspace, even if it is just a static highsec. So, that is the first thing to do. In deeper wspace, scanning a way out can take substantial time. It helps if you have hunters in your corp, since scanning to hunt and scanning to find paths out are very similar.
Highsec exits are preferred. However, it is possible to use lowsec as well. A lowsec system adjacent to highsec is fine if it is largely abandoned. You can count the people in local to get an idea of how busy it is.
Generally, you want as short of a path as you can get. Often my paths are two wormhole jumps, typically going through a C2/hs+C4 that has connected to my system. Sometimes we will do three hops. Longer paths than that are unnecessarily dangerous; you'll get a path of length two or three soon enough.
It's nice to have a relatively short trip to Jita. (I am using Jita as your assumed highsec base, where you have a freighter and an alt to drive it. This is how I do it.) Remember that a freighter takes 3 minutes per jump when piloted, and more like five per jump on autopilot (and also that autopiloting in highsec is relatively dangerous, especially through Uedama and Niarja). And that is if you leave immediately; if you need time to put together stuff to bring, it will be longer. Running stuff in and out of wspace will also take time. Schedule to the playtime you have.
When a scout does exit out into highsec and finds a good route, he should bookmark the nearest station in the system. (We call it "nearby - stationstring", where stationstring is the string that is put into the bookmark by default when you select the station and make a bookmark.) If there are no stations in the exit system, or it is lowsec, the scout should go one hop towards Jita and bookmark the nearest station to that gate. The nearby station is the station that your freighter pilot will fly to, and also pilots carrying goods down out of wspace. Goods are passed between them by station trading (if they are there simultaneously, which is typical), or by contract.
When you have found a nice short path out to highsec (or sometimes lowsec), it's time to reconnoiter it. You'll want a look at each system in the path, and also each adjacent system. Is there anyone in the systems in the path? No? OK, proceed. Yes? Probably not a good time to run logistics.
Is there anyone in any adjacent systems? No? Then go ahead. Yes? Be cautious. At minimum you'll want to keep a sound picket on the wormhole between them and your path. If you can't do that, it's probably too dangerous.
Once you've decided to run goods, it's time to bring the freighter out from Jita. This can take time. While the freighter crawls across highsec, you should monitor the system(s) in the path as much as you can. Any probes are a bad sign, although scouts will tend to move on. Don't leave your probes out where anyone can see them and get interested. Don't move lots of ships except as below. Don't do anything to attract attention to your path.
Escorts and Eyes
Before running goods, get escorts ready in the path. And get on coms. Falcons are the ideal ship for the job, but you can use any cloaky.
The primary job of the escort is simply to alert people if he sees anything. He should sit in a system near (15 km off of) one wormhole in the path, and ideally have dscan surveillance over any live towers and/or the other wormhole. If there is substantial traffic in anything larger than an unarmed frigate, you should consider scratching the logistics attempt. There will be another day.
The secondary job of the escort is a last-ditch attempt to save your transports by jamming out attackers. (That's why Falcon.) However, it is risky and very undesirable to rely on this. If you suspect attack, it's better to just not do logistics.
Ideally, you should have at least one escort for each dangerous system you are moving goods through. For example, if the path is C4a->C2a->hs, use two escorts -- one in C4a, the other in C2a. You can run with fewers escorts (or indeed, none), but it is is riskier. If you have to leave systems unwatched, it should be your home system, systems with no live towers, systems with occupants who play at other times, and/or systems with few wormholes except the two directly in the pipe you are using.
Running Goods
Once the freighter is getting close, you may want to send out your first loads of bulky stuff. PI goods can be done in Epithals, particularly if there are also PI goods to come in. All goods can go in DSTs. Try to carry out your most valuable stuff first, because the risk of attack will increase with the more runs you make. This is your first run; it's the least predictable.
Transports should move as a group; that is, a convoy. Being in a convoy will get them ganked as a group if you are unlucky enough to get bubbled and multiply-pointed. However, that is extremely rare if your escorts are paying attention. More likely is an attack by a lone bomber or T3 hunter. Here, the convoy makes sure most of the goods get through.
Escorts should make sure each system in the path is clear before transports jump in. Both wormholes must be clear to proceed. You can see if a remote location is clear on dscan if it is within 14.3 AU: it is not clear if there are any ships there of any kind, and/or if there is a bubble there. If the other wormhole is out of dscan range, warp over there (at 30km), and check.
Transports should meet up with the freighter at the nearby station for goods transfer. Be ready to turn around promptly. Wait out polarization in highsec. I usually don't wait out polarization in wspace because any attacker will just cross-jump to get you anyway.
If you do get attacked, then you'll have to figure how to proceed. A small attack (i.e. one stealth bomber) can sometimes simply be run by. Epithals and DSTs should be heavily warp core stabilized. If the attack is larger, getting by safely becomes less likely. DSTs may be able to micro jump past bubbles; others will have to turn back. Falcons can assist here by jamming out the ships pointing the DSTs. If you do get attacked, don't try to keep moving. Wspace hunters are like sharks. Let them get bored. Don't run any logistics at least an hour. Make sure to log off your characters or cloak them up; leaving them sitting at a POS is too visible and will keep hope alive.
When transports have just passed through a system, and you are planning more passes through there, the escorts there should be particularly alert. (I.e.: dscan more.) You are looking for any change, which would tend to indicate that someone saw your run and is getting ready to ambush.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Kronos: Transports
The buzz in the EVE blogosphere is all about the revisions to transports that will be coming with Kronos. There are three forum posts detailing proposed changes: freighters, blockade runners, and deep space transports.
Most of the hubbub in the larger 'verse is coming from nullsec and lowsec people worried about jump freighting. Some of it is about normal freighters. I don't use a jump freighter so I have no opinion worth sharing on that. However, I do run a normal freighter from time to time, and the changes there don't seem to me to be terrible. Basically I can get similar performance to today, just by paying some for rigs. I probably won't attempt to rig my post-Kronos freighter to replicate its current stats, though. Instead I will go with probably one cargo expander and two hulls, since I'd like to be able to autopilot and I am more paranoid about ganking than many.
People seem happy with the blockade runner changes, which includes having two highslots on all of them. This makes me happy because I currently use Viators, which have one highslot. Obviously a stealth cloak is a must-have; much higher priority than a probe launcher. Still, a probe launcher would mitigate the possibility of being trapped when using EOL wormholes, and/or having one popped on you intentionally.
My big disappointment is the Deep Space Transport revision. I had hoped that the DST revision would position DSTs more or less between T1 industrials and Orcas in EHP and cargo. (T1: 20k EHP, 40k m^3; Orca: 200k EHP, 120k m^3. I was hoping for something around a geometric mean, 60k EHP and 70k m^3.) The current proposal does not really do that. What CCP proposes is to basically remove the cargohold as such, instead giving each DST a 50000m^3 corp hangar. (The unexpanded cargohold will drop from around 4000m^3 to 1000m^3, so expanding it won't really be worth doing.) This is a change in the right direction, but really 50000m^3 is not that much more than an Iteron V carries. The DST is going to be harder to kill, of course. A lone stealth bomber won't do it, so there is some value to it. They will be able to fit the new medium micro jump drives, so you have to tackle with a warp scrambler. But I think most people in wspace, at least, are using scramblers anyway. It's an argument for putting two scramblers on my default fit, but I'll have to actually see them being used, and used riskily, to do that.
The one thing I do see going for new DSTs is that you can't just bubble them; they can micro jump out. But this does not seem very valuable, since everyone will have a warp scrambler, and in wspace everyone appears within about 6-8km of a point. (Warp scramblers turn off microwarpdrives and micro jump drives.) Sabres will still be a problem.
Overall, you get a ship that has little more cargo capacity than an Iteron V, for many times the cost, and somewhat more survivability. I am underwhelmed.
Most of the hubbub in the larger 'verse is coming from nullsec and lowsec people worried about jump freighting. Some of it is about normal freighters. I don't use a jump freighter so I have no opinion worth sharing on that. However, I do run a normal freighter from time to time, and the changes there don't seem to me to be terrible. Basically I can get similar performance to today, just by paying some for rigs. I probably won't attempt to rig my post-Kronos freighter to replicate its current stats, though. Instead I will go with probably one cargo expander and two hulls, since I'd like to be able to autopilot and I am more paranoid about ganking than many.
People seem happy with the blockade runner changes, which includes having two highslots on all of them. This makes me happy because I currently use Viators, which have one highslot. Obviously a stealth cloak is a must-have; much higher priority than a probe launcher. Still, a probe launcher would mitigate the possibility of being trapped when using EOL wormholes, and/or having one popped on you intentionally.
My big disappointment is the Deep Space Transport revision. I had hoped that the DST revision would position DSTs more or less between T1 industrials and Orcas in EHP and cargo. (T1: 20k EHP, 40k m^3; Orca: 200k EHP, 120k m^3. I was hoping for something around a geometric mean, 60k EHP and 70k m^3.) The current proposal does not really do that. What CCP proposes is to basically remove the cargohold as such, instead giving each DST a 50000m^3 corp hangar. (The unexpanded cargohold will drop from around 4000m^3 to 1000m^3, so expanding it won't really be worth doing.) This is a change in the right direction, but really 50000m^3 is not that much more than an Iteron V carries. The DST is going to be harder to kill, of course. A lone stealth bomber won't do it, so there is some value to it. They will be able to fit the new medium micro jump drives, so you have to tackle with a warp scrambler. But I think most people in wspace, at least, are using scramblers anyway. It's an argument for putting two scramblers on my default fit, but I'll have to actually see them being used, and used riskily, to do that.
The one thing I do see going for new DSTs is that you can't just bubble them; they can micro jump out. But this does not seem very valuable, since everyone will have a warp scrambler, and in wspace everyone appears within about 6-8km of a point. (Warp scramblers turn off microwarpdrives and micro jump drives.) Sabres will still be a problem.
Overall, you get a ship that has little more cargo capacity than an Iteron V, for many times the cost, and somewhat more survivability. I am underwhelmed.
Sunday, May 4, 2014
Kronos: the Prospects
What are the prospects for Kronos? Here's my me-centric view, that is, I am just discussing stuff as I think it will affect me and my corp. We live in wspace, do a lot of PVE and other carebear-type stuff, and we do some hunting when we can. So that's my frame of reference for this.
There's a lot of stuff in Kronos I don't care much about, like ship model changes, sounds, etc. There's new faction ships, which look good for PVP -- maybe I will get one -- but are not of any use in PVE. There's the industry changes. The ones to industry itself won't affect me much because I don't do much of it. They are largely good changes, though, in my opinion. Except for the "teams" thing. That one seems awful to me, trying to imagine running an industrial operation. Anyway, all in all I am pretty neutral to the whole expansion. And I don't think most of it will affect wspace very much.
The changes to refining, along with the changes to the POS refining modules, will probably be the biggest change for me and my corp, as well as the rest of wspace. We've dabbled in mining before, but currently it is not very viable. The hourly rate is not great, and that won't change. But there is always down time when we are zipped and don't want to open up. The main problem with mining is that it creates really huge volumes of stuff, with low value, that clog up our storage. If we mine a full fleet for an hour, that's about all we can store. After Kronos, we should be able to mine and compress, getting ten times the effective value out using Miasmoses. It is even possible that we might refine our own ore and manufacture something from it. This is something I need to look into. In any case, in Kronos CCP are finally abolishing the punitive automatic 25% refining lossage at POSes. Thus, refining and manufacturing is by no means out of the question.
Even if we don't mine more, I expect a lot of other wspace corps will. So, I am hoping for more targets, even if they are only the new jumped-up Skiff. My fondest dream is to perpetrate a mining-op massacre, solo, in a Onyx. I wanna be like Penny.
One ship that they are revising that we might use is the revamped Rattlesnake. Currently we use both Ravens and Gilas in our sleeper-killing PVE fleet. Snakes might fit right in there.
What else do I like? Well, CCP has announced hull-boosting rigs, as well as the ability to rig freighters. The combo looks good for autopiloting, or looked at the other way, a modest nerf to freighter ganking. Or, possibly, agility rigs for non-autopiloting. Either way, it's a welcome improvement to a tedious task.
They have announced that they will be revising the Deep Space Transports. A dev blog on that is promised but has not appeared yet. This has the potential to be something we use a lot. As I write this, I am moving stuff in and out of my wormhole using multiple runs of Epithal and Iteron V. Imagine a ship in between an Iteron V and a freighter in size and EHP. And which fits into sub-C5 wormholes. I'd buy that.
Finally, about the "Prospect". A Prospect is a tech II Venture (dev blog here). It is very similar to a Venture with just a few key changes:
But will I use them? Hard to say; depends on the price. I am guessing they should cost about what other T2 frigates do, that is, about 20-30m. Right now most of the gas mining I do is not very constrained by the ore bay. Usually I mine in my own system, where a trip to/from a POS takes perhaps two minutes after mining for half an hour. The additional risk of loss (due to the price) does not really seem worth it to me.
In an alien system, travel time is a bigger deal. There, maybe I will want them. So, I'll think about it. Still, because none of my characters have Mining Frigate V, and none are mapped for it, I will probably just put it off for a while.
I really wish they had added a small additional bonus to gas mining. For example, 1% faster gas mining per level of, er, "Expedition Frigate" (that's the T2 mining frigate skill). Then I'd be all over them.
There's a lot of stuff in Kronos I don't care much about, like ship model changes, sounds, etc. There's new faction ships, which look good for PVP -- maybe I will get one -- but are not of any use in PVE. There's the industry changes. The ones to industry itself won't affect me much because I don't do much of it. They are largely good changes, though, in my opinion. Except for the "teams" thing. That one seems awful to me, trying to imagine running an industrial operation. Anyway, all in all I am pretty neutral to the whole expansion. And I don't think most of it will affect wspace very much.
The changes to refining, along with the changes to the POS refining modules, will probably be the biggest change for me and my corp, as well as the rest of wspace. We've dabbled in mining before, but currently it is not very viable. The hourly rate is not great, and that won't change. But there is always down time when we are zipped and don't want to open up. The main problem with mining is that it creates really huge volumes of stuff, with low value, that clog up our storage. If we mine a full fleet for an hour, that's about all we can store. After Kronos, we should be able to mine and compress, getting ten times the effective value out using Miasmoses. It is even possible that we might refine our own ore and manufacture something from it. This is something I need to look into. In any case, in Kronos CCP are finally abolishing the punitive automatic 25% refining lossage at POSes. Thus, refining and manufacturing is by no means out of the question.
Even if we don't mine more, I expect a lot of other wspace corps will. So, I am hoping for more targets, even if they are only the new jumped-up Skiff. My fondest dream is to perpetrate a mining-op massacre, solo, in a Onyx. I wanna be like Penny.
One ship that they are revising that we might use is the revamped Rattlesnake. Currently we use both Ravens and Gilas in our sleeper-killing PVE fleet. Snakes might fit right in there.
What else do I like? Well, CCP has announced hull-boosting rigs, as well as the ability to rig freighters. The combo looks good for autopiloting, or looked at the other way, a modest nerf to freighter ganking. Or, possibly, agility rigs for non-autopiloting. Either way, it's a welcome improvement to a tedious task.
They have announced that they will be revising the Deep Space Transports. A dev blog on that is promised but has not appeared yet. This has the potential to be something we use a lot. As I write this, I am moving stuff in and out of my wormhole using multiple runs of Epithal and Iteron V. Imagine a ship in between an Iteron V and a freighter in size and EHP. And which fits into sub-C5 wormholes. I'd buy that.
Finally, about the "Prospect". A Prospect is a tech II Venture (dev blog here). It is very similar to a Venture with just a few key changes:
- doubled ore bay
- large enough cargo bay to hold a mobile depot
- four low slots, but no built in warp-core stabilization
- covert ops cloak allowed
But will I use them? Hard to say; depends on the price. I am guessing they should cost about what other T2 frigates do, that is, about 20-30m. Right now most of the gas mining I do is not very constrained by the ore bay. Usually I mine in my own system, where a trip to/from a POS takes perhaps two minutes after mining for half an hour. The additional risk of loss (due to the price) does not really seem worth it to me.
In an alien system, travel time is a bigger deal. There, maybe I will want them. So, I'll think about it. Still, because none of my characters have Mining Frigate V, and none are mapped for it, I will probably just put it off for a while.
I really wish they had added a small additional bonus to gas mining. For example, 1% faster gas mining per level of, er, "Expedition Frigate" (that's the T2 mining frigate skill). Then I'd be all over them.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Don't Panic, Manufacturers
CCP has apparently decided to focus the summer release on industry. Certainly this is an area of the game that needs work, so that is good. I do think it's brave in the sense that few players do industry, and so they probably won't get the income bounce they normally get for new releases. No one is going to resubscribe to look at a pretty UI that they don't use. I expect there to be at least a few new gee-whiz features unrelated to industry to try to draw resubscribers back.
In any case, I have seen quite a lot of complaining about it from industrialists, even to the point of threatening to unsubscribe. I find this ludicrous, at this point anyway. And here is why. The basis of much of the complaining is that people want to do their industry in highsec, and they believe they are being "forced" out to null. But so far as we know, this is not true. What is true is that industry "slots" are going away; instead there will be surcharges at busy stations. The surcharges are from 0-14%: "Expect costs ranging from 0% to 14% of the base item being produced for the most extreme case." (emphasis theirs).
People seem to be looking at the high end 14%, the "most extreme case", thinking that's general, and panicking. But this is crazy. We know from the quote above that 0% will be a thing. What we don't know yet is where the #jobs N where will draw the line between 0% and 1%. And then also (though less interesting), other lines from 1 to 2%, and on up. But in any case, I think it is pretty safe to assume that N is going to be, at least, a small integer. (If it's not, then I must revise this opinion. Expect me to revisit the subject when it is announced.)
The current behavior is 50 slots and then a queue; it seems reasonable to me to scale the 0 to 14% over that range, so that there are perhaps 5 jobs per 1% of surcharge. So I am going to make a wild guess that the crowdedness cost will be 0% for zero to four jobs, 1% for five to nine, etc., capped at 14. Where exactly these percentages are does not matter that much; what matters is only just that there are, say, four jobs per station at 0%, nine jobs per station at 1%, and then (less so) for more crowdedness. I take it as given that more than a few percent of surcharge is not sustainable for most industry, whereas zero percent definitely is, and 1% is probably. 2% maybe.
So the question here is: are there currently enough empty slots in highsec such that after the summer release, we can still do all the industry there, and competitively? And I think the answer is pretty clearly "yes". There are completely unused stations, right now, even in the Forge. I went and looked: the nearest one to Jita -- with zero jobs -- is in Obe. Obe is eight jumps from Jita. OK, that's lowsec. So, how about the nearest highsec station in the Forge, with zero jobs installed It's in Uchosi, 10 jumps out. There are many stations with only one to four jobs.
I feel confident that The Forge does the most industry in New Eden, due to the presence of Jita. Remember the dev blog posting Insights into 2013 Production and Destruction. See the picture, and notice all the tiny circles that are blue and green. There are more of them than there are large or even medium blue and green circles.
There are currently a lot of empty slots out there; probably more empty ones than filled. Enough for everyone, especially after a substantial amount of the competition moves to POSes or to null.
So, don't panic manufacturers. There will be plenty of room for profit. What we are seeing here is not the evil Nullsec Cartel taking your profit for themselves. We are seeing a leveling of the playing field, so that manufacturing can be done in nullsec and reasonably compete with highsec. You are losing your massive cost advantage, but you are not being made uncompetitive.
That said, there will be some manufacturers that will be better off moving to null, and some better off staying in highsec. This will be a function of transportation cost. Mynnna, though not doing much in his recent blog post to quench the alarm of his critics (here's my comment), did have some useful numbers there on the transportation costs faced by nullsec: "30k isotopes per round trip". Isotopes cost between 700 and 1000 ISK right now, depending on type. And CCP is going to increase fuel requirement for jumping by 50%. So, using a lower end isotope price, we predict transport costs of about 30m ISK for a round trip for a jump freighter. That is a few percent for anything but a very low value load. (To be fair, we must factor in other costs: the capital cost of a jump freighter is one. The effective cost of losses to gank is another. Opportunity cost is also worth mentioning. These are impossible to know.) In any case, the point is that transport costs are significantly higher to and from nullsec than in highsec. Also, there is a balance factor preventing too much industry from moving to null: fuel costs will rise with demand. In highsec, you can autopilot a billion ISK in substantial safety with no fuel cost at all.
So, what we can see is that to the extent nullsec does have a cost advantage in manufacturing proper, industry should be done there first for the things with high value:volume, then decreasingly for things with lower value:volume. The very largest yet low value things, for example T1 ship hulls, will be manufactured in highsec because of the transportation cost advantage. Small, high value stuff, for example most T2 ship parts, will probably move to null. Medium sized stuff will be where the breakeven point is, and might be done in both regions.
In any case, I have seen quite a lot of complaining about it from industrialists, even to the point of threatening to unsubscribe. I find this ludicrous, at this point anyway. And here is why. The basis of much of the complaining is that people want to do their industry in highsec, and they believe they are being "forced" out to null. But so far as we know, this is not true. What is true is that industry "slots" are going away; instead there will be surcharges at busy stations. The surcharges are from 0-14%: "Expect costs ranging from 0% to 14% of the base item being produced for the most extreme case." (emphasis theirs).
People seem to be looking at the high end 14%, the "most extreme case", thinking that's general, and panicking. But this is crazy. We know from the quote above that 0% will be a thing. What we don't know yet is where the #jobs N where will draw the line between 0% and 1%. And then also (though less interesting), other lines from 1 to 2%, and on up. But in any case, I think it is pretty safe to assume that N is going to be, at least, a small integer. (If it's not, then I must revise this opinion. Expect me to revisit the subject when it is announced.)
The current behavior is 50 slots and then a queue; it seems reasonable to me to scale the 0 to 14% over that range, so that there are perhaps 5 jobs per 1% of surcharge. So I am going to make a wild guess that the crowdedness cost will be 0% for zero to four jobs, 1% for five to nine, etc., capped at 14. Where exactly these percentages are does not matter that much; what matters is only just that there are, say, four jobs per station at 0%, nine jobs per station at 1%, and then (less so) for more crowdedness. I take it as given that more than a few percent of surcharge is not sustainable for most industry, whereas zero percent definitely is, and 1% is probably. 2% maybe.
 |
| You didn't choose me. |
I feel confident that The Forge does the most industry in New Eden, due to the presence of Jita. Remember the dev blog posting Insights into 2013 Production and Destruction. See the picture, and notice all the tiny circles that are blue and green. There are more of them than there are large or even medium blue and green circles.
 |
| Production. |
There are currently a lot of empty slots out there; probably more empty ones than filled. Enough for everyone, especially after a substantial amount of the competition moves to POSes or to null.
So, don't panic manufacturers. There will be plenty of room for profit. What we are seeing here is not the evil Nullsec Cartel taking your profit for themselves. We are seeing a leveling of the playing field, so that manufacturing can be done in nullsec and reasonably compete with highsec. You are losing your massive cost advantage, but you are not being made uncompetitive.
That said, there will be some manufacturers that will be better off moving to null, and some better off staying in highsec. This will be a function of transportation cost. Mynnna, though not doing much in his recent blog post to quench the alarm of his critics (here's my comment), did have some useful numbers there on the transportation costs faced by nullsec: "30k isotopes per round trip". Isotopes cost between 700 and 1000 ISK right now, depending on type. And CCP is going to increase fuel requirement for jumping by 50%. So, using a lower end isotope price, we predict transport costs of about 30m ISK for a round trip for a jump freighter. That is a few percent for anything but a very low value load. (To be fair, we must factor in other costs: the capital cost of a jump freighter is one. The effective cost of losses to gank is another. Opportunity cost is also worth mentioning. These are impossible to know.) In any case, the point is that transport costs are significantly higher to and from nullsec than in highsec. Also, there is a balance factor preventing too much industry from moving to null: fuel costs will rise with demand. In highsec, you can autopilot a billion ISK in substantial safety with no fuel cost at all.
So, what we can see is that to the extent nullsec does have a cost advantage in manufacturing proper, industry should be done there first for the things with high value:volume, then decreasingly for things with lower value:volume. The very largest yet low value things, for example T1 ship hulls, will be manufactured in highsec because of the transportation cost advantage. Small, high value stuff, for example most T2 ship parts, will probably move to null. Medium sized stuff will be where the breakeven point is, and might be done in both regions.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Phoenix and Vulture
It's been a quiet few days for me. Mainly that is because my main and my second account lesser main are trapped out in highsec. I have an emergency backup scanner alt on one of my accounts, and he is in my system. But I dislike trying to scan out using a Heron. And that's especially true when there are squatters in my wormhole.
Squatters? Well, perhaps vultures is a better label. They moved in the day after TNC killed my tower. I am guessing that someone found the siege underway and decided to set up shop. However they have not committed firmly to it. They have a small tower set up at our outer planet, with no hardeners or defenses.
We are not leaving this system, at least not without a fight. But to get ready for that fight, we need a tower up first. We need some new ships brought in. Our existing ships are mostly packed with various stuff that I don't want to PVP with. So we need a place to put that. Also, we need the fittings we stripped off of our Ravens and other ships.
To fight the enemy, we need a working tower. But to get the tower working, we need a lot of bulky parts. To get in bulky parts, we need some dangerous hauling. To mitigate the danger, we need characters in cloaky ships watching and guarding wormholes. So, we have plans to move in characters and lots of replacement stuff. However, for a couple days EVE has not been cooperating. Last night our only connection went to nullsec. I cannot roll our hole without exposing some serious ISK to danger, because our logged-out ships are all packed with stuff. Indeed, I personally cannot roll our hole at all, by myself.
Tonight our kspace connection goes ls->C3a->C5a->C4b->home. That's fine for getting in a cloaky ship, and probably also fine for a pod or very nimble frigate. But it's not the sort of connection you'd want to run an Iteron V or Orca through, especially one stuffed to the gills with expensive POS parts.
When I get home from work, I take the opportunity to get Otto in, though, in a newly bought Cheetah. There are two lowsec connections into C3a; he uses one about 10 jumps from Jita. The C3->C5 wormhole is EOL, but he has no trouble. It's nice to have a scanner back in. I check around the system, and don't see any of our new enemy. Then I log Otto out and get busy with my Jita alt buying all sorts of stuff that we will need. A tower, guns, ECMs, more fuel. I am trying using buy orders now, trying to save some money. (I accidentally buy a big chunk of the wrong fuel, then immediately sell it, making a very modest profit.)
Otto is in; Von is not. I still cannot do very much. I need my guys and a better connection. And also I have things to do: dinner, etc. I go offline for an hour.
First thing I do once back is try to get Von in. There is a second lowsec connection to C3 that is closest, about 15 jumps away out in Aridia. I head out, while tweaking market orders on my Jita alt. I am worried about the EOL wormhole I found earlier, but I don't want to check it out from above since I am busy. Finally I get out to the right system, only to find out that the lowsec connection wormhole is gone. Rats. It's about 30 jumps to the other lowsec wormhole, and given that the EOL one is probably also expired, I am not inclined to try to go there. I just sit cloaked out in Aridia while I wait for my guys to show up.
Jayne shows up first and tries to get a character who is at Jita in. This must be via the lowsec wormhole that Otto used. As he goes there, I log in Otto and search down from above. And it does indeed turn out that the EOL wormhole has gone poof. There is good news, though, sort of. Our static has gone EOL. Since I have not been watching, I don't know when it did. I am not even sure it was not EOL when I brought in Otto. So it might go any time. But it is most likely to go in a few hours.
Since we cannot pop it, there's nothing to do but wait. Jayne does a few things then logs off. I'll text him if we get a good connection before 11:00. I sit watching the wormhole, but I am paying scant attention. I am listening to music and reading EVE blogs. And I fly Von from the rear end of nowhere back to Jita. Jita is always a good place to base from.
Eventually I pay attention, and our static is gone! It's just 8:30. I had not expected that. It must have been EOL earlier and I just did not notice. Real alert there, dummkopf. I deploy probes and start scanning.
C4b has 9 sigs. The first one I search down is a wormhole. I warp to it: blue. That's a C2, and it will have a highsec static. Bingo. I search does the other sigs to look for other wormholes. There is a C3 static, which may or may not lead anywhere useful. Then there is a second C2 wormhole, so I will have some options. And there's a bunch of gas and relic sites which I don't resolve.
I head into C2a. It has ten sigs, six of which turn out to be wormholes. I came in one. I find a nullsec link, a highsec that is EOL, another C2, a C1 (I think -- hard to tell them apart from C2), and finally the penultimate sig I scan down is the static highsec. The final sig is also a wormhole. I bookmark it for later, then head out into highsec. Where am I? Nice: out in the Forge about 6 jumps from Jita. That'll do quite nicely. Our new connection is hs->C2a->C4b->C4a. Not ideal, but much better than average. I text Jayne. Timmay showed up while I was scanning, so I link the system in corp chat. He has a guy to get back in.
I fly Von over and up, leaving him in C4b watching the wormhole to C2a. Then I wait, keeping eyes on our static with Otto, while people come in. I don't see anyone. Jayne gets a blockade runner, and exits out to fly to Jita to pick up our new tower and some fuel to online it. Timmay takes over scout-duty on our static. I log in my Jita alt, and start buying stuff.
Jayne gets the tower in, and gets it anchoring. He also grabs the six large bubbles that TNC had deployed there -- they could not fit them, but unanchored them before leaving as a nice gesture to us. As the 30 minutes anchoring time tick down, I buy an Orca-load of various stuff to come in: POS parts, fuel, and stront. I have to cut it down a lot to fit. But finally I am off. There's a moment of excitement when Jayne goes to online the tower. He puts fuel in and does the online command, when a stealth bomber uncloaks. Luckily, it's not in range to scram (or perhaps has no point) and Jayne gets away without a scratch. But now we know the enemy is on and watching us. We'll have to be extra careful moving around stuff. We put Timmay in a Proteus guarding the static.
My alt brings the Orca across wspace to our system with no problems. Then he warps to a random celestial at 100 km, and cloaks. We wait for the tower to online. Once it does, Jayne and I swap ships so that he's got the Orca and I have just a pod; I pod back out to kspace and head to Jita. I'll get the Orca out later; for now it's needed to hold and move bulky stuff. Jayne starts deploying the POS, starting with the ship maintenance array (i.e. ship hangar) and the component assembly array (storage). Then he deploys a few small guns and other defenses. The guns have no ammo (oops), and I forgot the neutralizer. But it is a start.
At Jita, I now buy two new Ravens. Then I buy fittings for a mostly travel arrangement, enough torps to fire for an hour or two straight from four Ravens, ammo for our POS guns, etc. All this stuff goes in a freighter. Also I load in the other POS parts and some more fuel which I had to leave at Jita earlier. Then I set off for the highsec transfer system.
In our system, the guys are logging in some of the ships we had logged out in safespots. We need Hiljah for the bash, so we shoot him an email. I get someone else to watch the C2 wormhole so that I can fly in the two Ravens. I head to our new tower, which looks awfully empty. (No more x-large SMA for us. Our in-system fleet will be minimal.) Then I pod out to highsec. When my alt gets there, I spend some time fitting up the Ravens.
There's a bit of excitement: the enemy brings in a blockade runner. Timmay tries to stop it, but blockade runners are hard to catch. I had not realized they had explored the wormhole: we've been on it almost all the time. But it is possible they got to it before I did. It zooms off to the tower to do who knows what. Eventually it leaves.
I ferry in the two new Ravens, seeing nothing. I am actually hoping that the guy in the bomber takes a shot at me, but he doesn't. I refit back into my Tengu so that I help watch the static. If they try another run in, perhaps I can lock in time or decloak it.
Hiljah appears, happily. This means our bash will happen. But before that, we still have over 180000m^3 of stuff to go in. We also have a bunch of stuff to go out (gas, PI goods, etc.) that was saved from the recent attack. Hiljah and Jayne each get an alt into an Orca, then head out together, with me escorting. Orcas warp painfully slowly. But there is no attack, and they make it safely. They give their cargo to my alt, and he gives them POS parts and stront. It does not all fit even in two Orcas, so we have to triage. Then the guys undock and return to wspace. (I can now log off my Jita alt and get Otto back on to watch the enemy tower.) I escort the Orcas back up. Again the slow transit of wspace is nerve wracking, but no attack comes, and we get to the tower safely.
It's getting late, but everyone will stay until we get that tower in reinforcement. We all hope it is not stronted and we can kill it. It takes us quite a while to get our ships together, fitted as we want, etc. Finally we are ready to go.
We form a small fleet of Ravens and start plonking at the tower. I have been watching the enemy tower for a while; it has four empty ships in it. As guys show up, Jayne sees a Nemesis off in space. I tell him, silly, it's unmanned at the tower. He says it's not at the tower. I look again. He's right -- it is not at the tower. I was right it is not piloted. Hiljah starts killing it. Hey, we can capture it! Stop! But it's too late. Well, at least the enemy does not have it.
(Later, we try to concoct a story as to why anyone would eject from a fitted T2 frigate near, but not within, a force field. Here's mine: he was about to log off. He was going to warp back to his tower but then decided to log out in space near his tower, so he could activate his cloak on logon and not be seen warping back into the tower. So he warped to ~50 from the tower. He has become used to ejecting before logging out, and that's what he did, forgetting that he was not within the force field.)
Long story short: no enemy seen, we hammer the enemy tower, and the enemy tower did indeed have stront. (I bet that is what the blockade runner was for.) The enemy tower is reinforced; it will come out on Thursday at ~6:00 PM. We'll see what happens then.
We get back to our tower, and people head to bed. But not me -- there is a POS to put up. I anchor and online the most important modules, and put ammo in the guns. It's still not great, but it will have to do until tomorrow. Gad, what an awful interface. But I'll admit I kind of like playing internet-spaceship-tinkertoys.
Squatters? Well, perhaps vultures is a better label. They moved in the day after TNC killed my tower. I am guessing that someone found the siege underway and decided to set up shop. However they have not committed firmly to it. They have a small tower set up at our outer planet, with no hardeners or defenses.
We are not leaving this system, at least not without a fight. But to get ready for that fight, we need a tower up first. We need some new ships brought in. Our existing ships are mostly packed with various stuff that I don't want to PVP with. So we need a place to put that. Also, we need the fittings we stripped off of our Ravens and other ships.
To fight the enemy, we need a working tower. But to get the tower working, we need a lot of bulky parts. To get in bulky parts, we need some dangerous hauling. To mitigate the danger, we need characters in cloaky ships watching and guarding wormholes. So, we have plans to move in characters and lots of replacement stuff. However, for a couple days EVE has not been cooperating. Last night our only connection went to nullsec. I cannot roll our hole without exposing some serious ISK to danger, because our logged-out ships are all packed with stuff. Indeed, I personally cannot roll our hole at all, by myself.
Tonight our kspace connection goes ls->C3a->C5a->C4b->home. That's fine for getting in a cloaky ship, and probably also fine for a pod or very nimble frigate. But it's not the sort of connection you'd want to run an Iteron V or Orca through, especially one stuffed to the gills with expensive POS parts.
When I get home from work, I take the opportunity to get Otto in, though, in a newly bought Cheetah. There are two lowsec connections into C3a; he uses one about 10 jumps from Jita. The C3->C5 wormhole is EOL, but he has no trouble. It's nice to have a scanner back in. I check around the system, and don't see any of our new enemy. Then I log Otto out and get busy with my Jita alt buying all sorts of stuff that we will need. A tower, guns, ECMs, more fuel. I am trying using buy orders now, trying to save some money. (I accidentally buy a big chunk of the wrong fuel, then immediately sell it, making a very modest profit.)
Otto is in; Von is not. I still cannot do very much. I need my guys and a better connection. And also I have things to do: dinner, etc. I go offline for an hour.
First thing I do once back is try to get Von in. There is a second lowsec connection to C3 that is closest, about 15 jumps away out in Aridia. I head out, while tweaking market orders on my Jita alt. I am worried about the EOL wormhole I found earlier, but I don't want to check it out from above since I am busy. Finally I get out to the right system, only to find out that the lowsec connection wormhole is gone. Rats. It's about 30 jumps to the other lowsec wormhole, and given that the EOL one is probably also expired, I am not inclined to try to go there. I just sit cloaked out in Aridia while I wait for my guys to show up.
Jayne shows up first and tries to get a character who is at Jita in. This must be via the lowsec wormhole that Otto used. As he goes there, I log in Otto and search down from above. And it does indeed turn out that the EOL wormhole has gone poof. There is good news, though, sort of. Our static has gone EOL. Since I have not been watching, I don't know when it did. I am not even sure it was not EOL when I brought in Otto. So it might go any time. But it is most likely to go in a few hours.
Since we cannot pop it, there's nothing to do but wait. Jayne does a few things then logs off. I'll text him if we get a good connection before 11:00. I sit watching the wormhole, but I am paying scant attention. I am listening to music and reading EVE blogs. And I fly Von from the rear end of nowhere back to Jita. Jita is always a good place to base from.
Eventually I pay attention, and our static is gone! It's just 8:30. I had not expected that. It must have been EOL earlier and I just did not notice. Real alert there, dummkopf. I deploy probes and start scanning.
C4b has 9 sigs. The first one I search down is a wormhole. I warp to it: blue. That's a C2, and it will have a highsec static. Bingo. I search does the other sigs to look for other wormholes. There is a C3 static, which may or may not lead anywhere useful. Then there is a second C2 wormhole, so I will have some options. And there's a bunch of gas and relic sites which I don't resolve.
I head into C2a. It has ten sigs, six of which turn out to be wormholes. I came in one. I find a nullsec link, a highsec that is EOL, another C2, a C1 (I think -- hard to tell them apart from C2), and finally the penultimate sig I scan down is the static highsec. The final sig is also a wormhole. I bookmark it for later, then head out into highsec. Where am I? Nice: out in the Forge about 6 jumps from Jita. That'll do quite nicely. Our new connection is hs->C2a->C4b->C4a. Not ideal, but much better than average. I text Jayne. Timmay showed up while I was scanning, so I link the system in corp chat. He has a guy to get back in.
I fly Von over and up, leaving him in C4b watching the wormhole to C2a. Then I wait, keeping eyes on our static with Otto, while people come in. I don't see anyone. Jayne gets a blockade runner, and exits out to fly to Jita to pick up our new tower and some fuel to online it. Timmay takes over scout-duty on our static. I log in my Jita alt, and start buying stuff.
Jayne gets the tower in, and gets it anchoring. He also grabs the six large bubbles that TNC had deployed there -- they could not fit them, but unanchored them before leaving as a nice gesture to us. As the 30 minutes anchoring time tick down, I buy an Orca-load of various stuff to come in: POS parts, fuel, and stront. I have to cut it down a lot to fit. But finally I am off. There's a moment of excitement when Jayne goes to online the tower. He puts fuel in and does the online command, when a stealth bomber uncloaks. Luckily, it's not in range to scram (or perhaps has no point) and Jayne gets away without a scratch. But now we know the enemy is on and watching us. We'll have to be extra careful moving around stuff. We put Timmay in a Proteus guarding the static.
My alt brings the Orca across wspace to our system with no problems. Then he warps to a random celestial at 100 km, and cloaks. We wait for the tower to online. Once it does, Jayne and I swap ships so that he's got the Orca and I have just a pod; I pod back out to kspace and head to Jita. I'll get the Orca out later; for now it's needed to hold and move bulky stuff. Jayne starts deploying the POS, starting with the ship maintenance array (i.e. ship hangar) and the component assembly array (storage). Then he deploys a few small guns and other defenses. The guns have no ammo (oops), and I forgot the neutralizer. But it is a start.
At Jita, I now buy two new Ravens. Then I buy fittings for a mostly travel arrangement, enough torps to fire for an hour or two straight from four Ravens, ammo for our POS guns, etc. All this stuff goes in a freighter. Also I load in the other POS parts and some more fuel which I had to leave at Jita earlier. Then I set off for the highsec transfer system.
In our system, the guys are logging in some of the ships we had logged out in safespots. We need Hiljah for the bash, so we shoot him an email. I get someone else to watch the C2 wormhole so that I can fly in the two Ravens. I head to our new tower, which looks awfully empty. (No more x-large SMA for us. Our in-system fleet will be minimal.) Then I pod out to highsec. When my alt gets there, I spend some time fitting up the Ravens.
There's a bit of excitement: the enemy brings in a blockade runner. Timmay tries to stop it, but blockade runners are hard to catch. I had not realized they had explored the wormhole: we've been on it almost all the time. But it is possible they got to it before I did. It zooms off to the tower to do who knows what. Eventually it leaves.
I ferry in the two new Ravens, seeing nothing. I am actually hoping that the guy in the bomber takes a shot at me, but he doesn't. I refit back into my Tengu so that I help watch the static. If they try another run in, perhaps I can lock in time or decloak it.
Hiljah appears, happily. This means our bash will happen. But before that, we still have over 180000m^3 of stuff to go in. We also have a bunch of stuff to go out (gas, PI goods, etc.) that was saved from the recent attack. Hiljah and Jayne each get an alt into an Orca, then head out together, with me escorting. Orcas warp painfully slowly. But there is no attack, and they make it safely. They give their cargo to my alt, and he gives them POS parts and stront. It does not all fit even in two Orcas, so we have to triage. Then the guys undock and return to wspace. (I can now log off my Jita alt and get Otto back on to watch the enemy tower.) I escort the Orcas back up. Again the slow transit of wspace is nerve wracking, but no attack comes, and we get to the tower safely.
It's getting late, but everyone will stay until we get that tower in reinforcement. We all hope it is not stronted and we can kill it. It takes us quite a while to get our ships together, fitted as we want, etc. Finally we are ready to go.
We form a small fleet of Ravens and start plonking at the tower. I have been watching the enemy tower for a while; it has four empty ships in it. As guys show up, Jayne sees a Nemesis off in space. I tell him, silly, it's unmanned at the tower. He says it's not at the tower. I look again. He's right -- it is not at the tower. I was right it is not piloted. Hiljah starts killing it. Hey, we can capture it! Stop! But it's too late. Well, at least the enemy does not have it.
(Later, we try to concoct a story as to why anyone would eject from a fitted T2 frigate near, but not within, a force field. Here's mine: he was about to log off. He was going to warp back to his tower but then decided to log out in space near his tower, so he could activate his cloak on logon and not be seen warping back into the tower. So he warped to ~50 from the tower. He has become used to ejecting before logging out, and that's what he did, forgetting that he was not within the force field.)
Long story short: no enemy seen, we hammer the enemy tower, and the enemy tower did indeed have stront. (I bet that is what the blockade runner was for.) The enemy tower is reinforced; it will come out on Thursday at ~6:00 PM. We'll see what happens then.
 |
| Today it's my system. |
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Boring Some Nullies
It's a moving-stuff night. Earlier, we rolled our static twice looking for a good system to run sites in, and/or a good way out. The second time, when we scanned out C4b, it had a C3 static. That C3 static had a nullsec static, but further scanning showed it had a random K162 coming from highsec. Since we have a lot of stuff to get in (we are firing up a ground-up level 4 PI goods pyramid), we decided to send out the freighters from Jita. They've arrived, and now we are prepared to run stuff in.
For operational security, we have placed two scouts into the wormhole chain. Timmay is watching at the tower in C3; from there he can see on dscan both the highsec wormhole out and the C3/C4 wormhole. I am watching on the C4 side of the C3/C4 wormhole.
We have some Itty 3s already at our tower. A couple guys pod out; we have freighted down three extra industrials for this run. We have 6 characters, total, in our Itty fleet. (I still think of all Gallente industrials as Iterons, and call them "Itties", and probably always will, unless they change what they look like.) We assemble the three new ones at the transfer station. Now we are ready to go.
We all leave the station, and I fleet-warp all six of us to the wormhole. The scout says all is clear inside, so we enter wspace and hold cloak. When everyone is in, I fleet-warp us to the C3/C4b wormhole. We all jump. Von is the scout in C4b, sitting on the C4/C3 wormhole. I check my dscan, and it is still clear. I warp us to the C4b/C4a wormhole. Here we have no scout inside, since this is the least likely system to have anyone in it. (We live there.) Still, when we enter I check the discovery scanner for any new signatures. We cleaned out our system last night: it should have one ore anom, one combat anom (new since yesterday), and one signature (our static). It does. I fleet-warp us to the tower.
Now everyone dumps off goods, and quickly we are ready to head out. We reverse the what we just did, hopping back out from C4a to C4b to C3 to highsec. This time is not so safe, though. Timmay in C3 reports a Rapier on scan. We get to the highsec wormhole safely, and jump. Then we warp to the nearby station, and everyone docks.
We each grab a new load of goods. Once that is done, we all undock and I fleet-warp us to the wormhole.
Timmay is seeing stuff on dscan: Rapier, Crow, Catalyst, Claw, Scythe, Sabre... Uh oh. We stop at the wormhole. Timmay reports a bubble. (The Sabre.) We are not getting back into wspace right now, so I fleetwarp us back to the station. We dock and talk. Timmay reports that they are sitting on the highsec hole. They fire another bubble. We cannot go in. Their timing was suspiciously good; they may have eyes in our highsec local, and have seen us. Our plan is to bore them and get them to leave. So we decide to log off our characters at the station. With none of us in local, eventually the enemy will get tired of nothing and leave. Anyway, that is our hope.
So, we all log off our guys in Itties. Hiljah has real life chores to do, and goes AFK. The rest of us sit there. The enemy sits on the wormhole for a minute. Five minutes. Then they warp, and come into C4b on grid with me. And they sit on that wormhole for a while. Obviously they realize that trapping people on a highsec wormhole is unlikely to get them anything much by way of kills. We would just back out. If they caught us here, by contrast, they'd kill us easily. But of course they won't, since we won't come here, since I am watching. (This is why you keep eyes on, while doing logistics.)
Jayne bets me that they are from nullsec. I bet wspace. I check them; all the same corp. And... hmm, I was wrong. They definitely look nullsec. I warp offgrid to find the local tower. I want to make sure they are not from here. I get to the right planet, then dscan the moons and find the right one. I warp. The owner is not related to the enemy. OK, that's good to know. And we know there is no other way into this system. So they must be from the C3's nullsec static.
After 10 minutes of watching, they decide to head back into C3. They go to sit on the highsec again. I have Tim fly to the two wormholes we had left unexplored. If it turns out we open a wormhole, perhaps it will bring in a third party who wants a scrap. (Unlike us.) Timmay flies to the first wormhole we have not scanned. It is the nullsec static, as we expected from its low signature. The enemy must have come from there. Then Timmay flies to the other wormhole. It turns out to be another K162 from highsec. Hmm... maybe they came from here. Or maybe we can use it, if it happens to come out close to the station we are logged-off in.
I don't really want Tim going out to check, because I want him to keep eyes on the enemy. And he may get jumped coming back in, and I have more experience with that. So I tell him to watch the nullsec wormhole. (He keeps an "eye" on the enemy at the highsec entrance via dscan.) I enter C3 and warp to the newly found highsec. I exit. It comes out in Metropolis, 35 long jumps from the other station. Well, so much for that idea.
I orbit the wormhole for five minutes just to be safe, letting my polarization abate. I rename my ship, just in case they are alertly dscanning, so they don't know I am the same guy as left. Then I enter; nobody is there. I decide to shake things up a little. Perhaps just seeing some probes would spook them, or at least get them interested in one of the wormholes other than ours.
So, then fly to a random moon near the local tower, and deploy probes. (If they manage to locate me on dscan, they may think I am local.) I push around probes, verifying all of our previously marked sigs. Soon I notice that there is sig we did not scan down. Either we missed it, or it is new. I scan it: wormhole. I fly to it at a safe range. It is a second nullsec. While I am pondering that, I see the Rapier at it. Hmm. It looks like we were wrong: the nullsec Timmay is sitting at is not where they are from. They are probably from here.
I stay at this wormhole, and tell Timmay to go to the highsec to watch the enemy there. The enemy remains there, and I finish scanning down the system. I find one more gas site which Jayne found earlier but did not scan down completely. I do scan it down and bookmark it.
We are pretty much out of clever ideas. The only thing left is waiting them out. Since we want to get to bed, we are starting to think about coming in tomorrow morning. We know we opened our own static. It still has 12+ hours of life. We think we opened the static in C4b. And we might have opened the one in C3, or might not. But in any case, there is a second highsec entry that might also last. So, the chances are good that a route in will exist tomorrow morning. This might be what we are going to have to do.
Just as we are about to call it a night, I see an Iteron V on dscan. Timmay reports it as being on grid with him, having entered the highsec wormhole. The pilot is the same one as was flying the Crow, earlier. I am pretty sure this is what we have been waiting for. Obviously, the enemy are not just waiting for us. They have been waiting for one of them to do something in highsec, most likely flying to Jita for supplies. I expect to see them leave. Sure enough, Tim reports they are warping. I see them land on grid, and one by one, they exit back out into nullsec.
We don't know if they are coming back. I tell everyone to log on their guys in the Itties at the station. While we do that, I tell Tim to get into C4b at the C3/C4. It is unlikely we will need him there, but we don't need him in C3 any more -- I have eyes on the enemy wormhole. We get everyone on except Hiljah's guys; he is still AFK. We will run without him.
We undock and fly to the wormhole. And in. Did we miss anyone from the null group? A cloaky of some kind? If they are sitting on their side of their null wormhole, and they have cloaked eyes in here, they can get a dictor in and to the C3/C4 wormhole before we get there. Then they can bubble the other side.
Apparently not. We warp without incident. To C4b, then C4a, and our tower. Whew. There is more to transport, and though we might send it back, we'd all prefer to get it in and done with. So we do two more runs before calling it a night. All of this goes the way it normally does: smoothly, us not seeing a soul.
For operational security, we have placed two scouts into the wormhole chain. Timmay is watching at the tower in C3; from there he can see on dscan both the highsec wormhole out and the C3/C4 wormhole. I am watching on the C4 side of the C3/C4 wormhole.
We have some Itty 3s already at our tower. A couple guys pod out; we have freighted down three extra industrials for this run. We have 6 characters, total, in our Itty fleet. (I still think of all Gallente industrials as Iterons, and call them "Itties", and probably always will, unless they change what they look like.) We assemble the three new ones at the transfer station. Now we are ready to go.
We all leave the station, and I fleet-warp all six of us to the wormhole. The scout says all is clear inside, so we enter wspace and hold cloak. When everyone is in, I fleet-warp us to the C3/C4b wormhole. We all jump. Von is the scout in C4b, sitting on the C4/C3 wormhole. I check my dscan, and it is still clear. I warp us to the C4b/C4a wormhole. Here we have no scout inside, since this is the least likely system to have anyone in it. (We live there.) Still, when we enter I check the discovery scanner for any new signatures. We cleaned out our system last night: it should have one ore anom, one combat anom (new since yesterday), and one signature (our static). It does. I fleet-warp us to the tower.
Now everyone dumps off goods, and quickly we are ready to head out. We reverse the what we just did, hopping back out from C4a to C4b to C3 to highsec. This time is not so safe, though. Timmay in C3 reports a Rapier on scan. We get to the highsec wormhole safely, and jump. Then we warp to the nearby station, and everyone docks.
We each grab a new load of goods. Once that is done, we all undock and I fleet-warp us to the wormhole.
Timmay is seeing stuff on dscan: Rapier, Crow, Catalyst, Claw, Scythe, Sabre... Uh oh. We stop at the wormhole. Timmay reports a bubble. (The Sabre.) We are not getting back into wspace right now, so I fleetwarp us back to the station. We dock and talk. Timmay reports that they are sitting on the highsec hole. They fire another bubble. We cannot go in. Their timing was suspiciously good; they may have eyes in our highsec local, and have seen us. Our plan is to bore them and get them to leave. So we decide to log off our characters at the station. With none of us in local, eventually the enemy will get tired of nothing and leave. Anyway, that is our hope.
So, we all log off our guys in Itties. Hiljah has real life chores to do, and goes AFK. The rest of us sit there. The enemy sits on the wormhole for a minute. Five minutes. Then they warp, and come into C4b on grid with me. And they sit on that wormhole for a while. Obviously they realize that trapping people on a highsec wormhole is unlikely to get them anything much by way of kills. We would just back out. If they caught us here, by contrast, they'd kill us easily. But of course they won't, since we won't come here, since I am watching. (This is why you keep eyes on, while doing logistics.)
Jayne bets me that they are from nullsec. I bet wspace. I check them; all the same corp. And... hmm, I was wrong. They definitely look nullsec. I warp offgrid to find the local tower. I want to make sure they are not from here. I get to the right planet, then dscan the moons and find the right one. I warp. The owner is not related to the enemy. OK, that's good to know. And we know there is no other way into this system. So they must be from the C3's nullsec static.
After 10 minutes of watching, they decide to head back into C3. They go to sit on the highsec again. I have Tim fly to the two wormholes we had left unexplored. If it turns out we open a wormhole, perhaps it will bring in a third party who wants a scrap. (Unlike us.) Timmay flies to the first wormhole we have not scanned. It is the nullsec static, as we expected from its low signature. The enemy must have come from there. Then Timmay flies to the other wormhole. It turns out to be another K162 from highsec. Hmm... maybe they came from here. Or maybe we can use it, if it happens to come out close to the station we are logged-off in.
I don't really want Tim going out to check, because I want him to keep eyes on the enemy. And he may get jumped coming back in, and I have more experience with that. So I tell him to watch the nullsec wormhole. (He keeps an "eye" on the enemy at the highsec entrance via dscan.) I enter C3 and warp to the newly found highsec. I exit. It comes out in Metropolis, 35 long jumps from the other station. Well, so much for that idea.
I orbit the wormhole for five minutes just to be safe, letting my polarization abate. I rename my ship, just in case they are alertly dscanning, so they don't know I am the same guy as left. Then I enter; nobody is there. I decide to shake things up a little. Perhaps just seeing some probes would spook them, or at least get them interested in one of the wormholes other than ours.
So, then fly to a random moon near the local tower, and deploy probes. (If they manage to locate me on dscan, they may think I am local.) I push around probes, verifying all of our previously marked sigs. Soon I notice that there is sig we did not scan down. Either we missed it, or it is new. I scan it: wormhole. I fly to it at a safe range. It is a second nullsec. While I am pondering that, I see the Rapier at it. Hmm. It looks like we were wrong: the nullsec Timmay is sitting at is not where they are from. They are probably from here.
I stay at this wormhole, and tell Timmay to go to the highsec to watch the enemy there. The enemy remains there, and I finish scanning down the system. I find one more gas site which Jayne found earlier but did not scan down completely. I do scan it down and bookmark it.
We are pretty much out of clever ideas. The only thing left is waiting them out. Since we want to get to bed, we are starting to think about coming in tomorrow morning. We know we opened our own static. It still has 12+ hours of life. We think we opened the static in C4b. And we might have opened the one in C3, or might not. But in any case, there is a second highsec entry that might also last. So, the chances are good that a route in will exist tomorrow morning. This might be what we are going to have to do.
Just as we are about to call it a night, I see an Iteron V on dscan. Timmay reports it as being on grid with him, having entered the highsec wormhole. The pilot is the same one as was flying the Crow, earlier. I am pretty sure this is what we have been waiting for. Obviously, the enemy are not just waiting for us. They have been waiting for one of them to do something in highsec, most likely flying to Jita for supplies. I expect to see them leave. Sure enough, Tim reports they are warping. I see them land on grid, and one by one, they exit back out into nullsec.
We don't know if they are coming back. I tell everyone to log on their guys in the Itties at the station. While we do that, I tell Tim to get into C4b at the C3/C4. It is unlikely we will need him there, but we don't need him in C3 any more -- I have eyes on the enemy wormhole. We get everyone on except Hiljah's guys; he is still AFK. We will run without him.
We undock and fly to the wormhole. And in. Did we miss anyone from the null group? A cloaky of some kind? If they are sitting on their side of their null wormhole, and they have cloaked eyes in here, they can get a dictor in and to the C3/C4 wormhole before we get there. Then they can bubble the other side.
Apparently not. We warp without incident. To C4b, then C4a, and our tower. Whew. There is more to transport, and though we might send it back, we'd all prefer to get it in and done with. So we do two more runs before calling it a night. All of this goes the way it normally does: smoothly, us not seeing a soul.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)