Ratting, you’re killing me Smalls

With Incursion 1.4 on April 6th, CCP changed the way anomalies work.

Below is a report showing the ratting statics of a 165 member nullsec corporation from February 14 to April 23, 2011. Our income from ratting is nosediving.

As a player that started in 2008, I’ve seen a lot of changes come to Eve and honestly this one is the first change that I really found unnerving. I feel as if I gave my dog a new chewtoy and while he was enjoying it, I took it away.

I believe that this feeling can best be described in a modern form of art called a ragecomic.


CCP Communication

I spent the first five years of my professional career out of college working as a consultant for small and medium sized business in the IT world in Chicago. At that job I learned a number of important business rules. One of them was boiled down to a single phrase that the CEO said to me during my first month – perception matters.

In the client’s eyes, it is not so much that a problem has occurred; there will always be problems and obstacles to work around. It doesn’t matter if you reformatted the server, lost an email, or simply forgot. What matters is what you are aware, working on it, and that this message is effectively and clearly communicated.

I toughly enjoy reading CCP’s Devblogs as they give me warm and fuzzy feelings.  I am the eager client awaiting the new item and the Devblogs placate me.

In CPP Sreegs’ latest Devblog, New Forum Security Blog – Cookie Derp, the highly public facing issue of the new forums’ security measures were addressed: Yes, there were oversights. Yes, there was a breakdown of internal QA processes. Yes, there was mismanagement of resources. They are working on it and we have to wait. I would much rather know the details of the situation as outlined in the Devlog than be told that there simply ‘was an issue’. For this type of transparent client communication I am grateful.

I understand that many people are citing this as another one of CCP’s 80% implemented deliveries. I am also starting to notice these trends (or perhaps I am becoming a bitter vet) but you know what? I still subscribe, I still am involved in the community, and I am looking forward towards the next series of expansions.


Trading 201: Nullsec Station Trading Logistics

Intro

This article discusses a trading strategy that involves more capital than pure Highsec trading, but if you have the means it can result in higher gains. If you haven’t read them, review Trading 101 and 102; these are a quick refresher course on my trading strategies.

Logistical Overview

The goal is to move goods from Jita to a Highsec station that is within short jump range of your Nullsec trading location and to then jump them into your Nullsec trading system. Since Jump Freighters cannot jump into Highsec, you need to return to a Lowsec system next to a Highsec system.

Items Needed

1, Jump Freighter.
1, Freighter.
1, Freighter alt in Jita in a NPC corporation to avoid war declarations.
1, Nullsec trader with cyno skills. Minimum of Accounting IV, Broker Relations IV.
1, Lowsec cyno alt. Keep this character under 900,000 skill points so you never have to update the clone.
Racial Isotopes specific to your Jump Freighter
Trade Goods

Assumptions

  1. You understand the basics of capital ship jumping (Eve Wiki review).
  2. You are flying what you can afford to loose (including cargo!) (!!).
  3. Destination nullsec system is not cyno jammed.
  4. Lowsec system, that connects to Highsec, has a station.

Tips

  1. You will never want to jump into a lowsec system while cynoing from a safe-spot. Jump Freighters take some 10-20 seconds to align and get into warp and since you cyno beacon appears on the overview, anyone in lowsec can warp to you and scramble you.
  2. Do your market research.
  3. Never haul more than 2B worth of cargo out of Jita. You will be a target for ganking.
  4. Get a Jita insta-undock bookmark. This will help you avoid the freighter bumps outside of Jita 4-4 while attempting to warp to a gate.
  5. If the Jump Freighter character’s corporation gets wardec’d, use your lowsec cyno alt to scout into highsec before entering highsec.
  6. Hardwiring – Eifyr and Co. ‘Rogue’ AY-1 implant for 3% bonus to Ship Agility
  7. Hardwiring – Eifyr and Co. ‘Rogue’ CY-1 implant for 3% bonus to Ship Velocity

Stocking Goods

What in the heck do I sell? Think of what people do in nullsec: PVP, ratting, mining. Do you market research. Get your trading alt into nullsec and start going through the market.

Buy a few items of differing market groups and see how fast each one sells.

Cyno Jumping Tips

Review this article by S.W. on the proper creation of a cyno under the “Where the heck is that cyno – at the station” heading; you want to light the cyno next to the nullsec station within 5,000 m of the structure while still being within docking range.

The below example shows that you will want to light your cyno greater than 5,000 m away from the station physically (use the tactical overlay), but still within the station docking range.

After you jump to your cyno, do not issue any navigational directions to the Jump Freighter. The session timer post jump will make your Jump Freighter untargetable and therefore invulnerable for 20 seconds. Once the timer is up, dock up. This will refresh your ship’s capacitor back to 100%.

What? I need an concrete example!

9UY4-H II – Chribbas Cottage UNITY station in Providence is a station with no docking fees and is open to the public.

Highsec Staging -> 9UY4-H
9UY4-H -> Lowsec next to Highsec, Irshah
Irshah,  lowsec next to Highsec -> Highsec

I’m lazy, give me the Dotlan jump map.
http://evemaps.dotlan.net/jump/Anshar,444/Esescama:9UY4-H:Irshah


April fools failure

For those who clicked this link hoping for another story of failure in an april fools prank, there isn’t one. Apparently we’re part of W.I. now and something about not pissing the rest of the NC off and keeping a good name intact or something silly like that.

The fittings took longer than expected to plan, working out logistics and cyno timings were a nightmare, I couldn’t find the right static in time and warp bubbles are harder to anchor than I thought.

In addition, the covops pilot was started late, the Thanatos wasn’t in position due to early unforeseen circumstances, one of the Orcas got stuck in a c4 for a while and apparently some NC alliances get touchy about where you scan.

The Nomad pilot chickened out at the last minute, I wasn’t able to achieve the NC/drone coalition temp ceasefire needed for step seven, I forgot a skill I needed for covert cynos and PL was just plain unhelpful.

Learning passable Russian took longer than expected, the towers ran out of fuel and apparently Atlas was still a bit touchy about that whole broken renter agreement thing.

In addition, CCP Soundwave was too busy with Fanfest, The Mittani didn’t think it would be very funny and I am deeply sorry about mixing up “jump” and “hold gate”, everyone involved will be reimbursed.

I’d like to apologize to CCP Fallout, Dreddit, that one covops pilot who saw too much, most of Mostly Harmless and that one corp in the C4 we had to evict. My bad.

Thanks to everyone involved, I’m sorry about those carriers and I’ll do better next year, once my corp gives me back my diplomat and pos manager roles. Sheesh, some people can’t take a joke.

Edit: Last year’s failure.


happy anniversary

So, about a year ago I won a few of Roc’s Ramblings Advent contests. I got some nice ammo, a cynabal, a few dramiels and other ships I could not fly, didn’t know how to fly and those that know me personally would never trust me with due to my abysmal kill/loss record.

SO, I instantly sold all of the ships, modules and other items that would make a pvper very happy for a week or two to the tune of about 600-800 mil, more than my little mining self had ever seen due to losing several hulks and never really mining anything harder to find than scordite.

Being a bit of a simpleton, I asked around “what would you do with 800 mil”. I recieved various responses like “faction mods”, “rattlesnake”, “awesome mission ship”, “go t3”, and more than a few “give it all to me lulz”

Then, I had a flash of insight: PASSIVE INCOME!

For those who just play Eve to spin ships in station, here’s a list of the various ways you can get isk in Eve, ordered from “most involved” to “least involved”:

Piracy/ransoming
WH pos ransoming
WH sleeper farming
WH mining
l5 missions
nullsec ratting
l4 missions
ninja salvaging l4 missions
nullsec mining
highsec mining
station trading
courier contracts
contract scamming
moon reactions
t2 component construction
spamming jita chat with scams.

This isn’t a complete nor completely accurate list, but I tried, darn it.

Anywho, after several pokes into the various passive incomes, I tried my hand at a pos farm. I was drawn in because it was the only passive income with a large income sum, and because it was something I wanted to do in Eve. So, I spent all that isk on two large towers and anchored them in a C1. Then, apologized profusely and moved to a different C1.

It has been exactly a year since then. Those two towers have grown to fourteen. Weekly maintenance has been about 10-15 hours and weekly cash flow has been about 300-400 mil.

As of this writing someone is blowing up those towers slowly, one by one. They will not be going back up. Whatever I can salvage from the wreckage (let’s be honest, it’s one guy and fourteen large towers, he’s gonna get bored soon) I will sell to fund future ventures.

Let me back up a bit. Typically, I refuel and rotate the towers on a weekly basis, anywhere from friday to sunday, depending on HW that week and upcoming tests, ect. So, this saturday I scan the highsec WH, check it annnnnnddd…..

Highsec island. And since I’m a moron and don’t keep a week of fuel in the towers, the towers will all offline soon. So, I take enough fuel to keep the main tower going for about a day and put alllllll the reaction profit in it.

Sunday night, the WH closes, I scan a new one. NOT a highsec island. I warp the freighter there, gets there at about midnight sunday night, before a 10 am psychology graduate-level class. And I’ve been doing boring stuff all day.

So I play a few rounds of Starcraft 2. Then bed. Wake up, am actually awake for psych class, am halfway to German when I realize that I forgot to refuel the main tower. Logon, everything’s swanky, I run a day’s worth of fuel in and online it. Go to German, leave, log back on….

Corp hangar gone. Carbide’s gone. Shield is up tho. So apparently in the 30 minute window of onlining they killed the corp hangar and hauled out about 360k m3 worth of carbides.

One sec… Nope, they’re not answering so I don’t know if they destroyed or hauled out the 2 bil worth of carbides. Meh.

Just to recap:
For the last year, these towers have been completely defenseless. They’ve all had two hardeners(offlined), have run out of fuel on multiple occasions, the actual main tower has assorted ECM and laser batteries(also offline) and I’m not even sure I actually put ammo in them or not.

And yet, these towers have stood proud against the multiple peoples coming in and out of a C1 highsec WH, devoters, eagles, falcons, ect, only to be laid low by a 2008 character in cane and hound with an impeccable sense of timing.

I’ve been thinking about it, and the only conceivable reason for this sudden bad luck in terms of total operational shutdown is that, for the last few days I’ve had 5 bil or so in wallet due to missing a few plexes and not spending the excess isk like water. This has been expressed to my various friends like so:

haav > hey, guess who has two thumbs and five bil?
haav > THIS GUY!

So, once again:

Murphy, you complete and utter asshole.

Spent 1.5 of that on fuel and reactants for this week, and assuming this hound and cane don’t destroy the 14 large towers, that’s another 2 bil.

So I’ll be using this to catapult myself back into an actual WH for sleeper killing, probably in tengus.

As a related note, I saved all the BMs for my static’s for the last year. If anyone wants all 113 of them for some charting purpose, here’s a teaser:

And here’s the last printscreen I’ll take of my WH. Fare the well, for you have paid a great deal of my account time for very little effort on my part.

Indiego Montoya > hey
Bacsalmas > hi
Indiego Montoya > just wondering how much carbide you got outta that hangar
Indiego Montoya > and wanted to ask you not to blow up my infrastructure.
Indiego Montoya > that was this week’s haul
Indiego Montoya > there’s nothing left in the silos
Bacsalmas > I think the danger of all pos 🙂
Indiego Montoya > but they’re a bitch to reanchor
Indiego Montoya > hmm?
Bacsalmas > you pay for, or shoot the POS ?
Indiego Montoya > go ahead and shoot
Indiego Montoya > i’m just saying there’s nothing there.
Bacsalmas > ok 🙂
Indiego Montoya > o/