Calling in for Corp Help

My WH partner and I called in mining support from our corpmates as there was just too much ore for our 3x Hulks to handle in our new home system. 6x Hulks worked on two Exceptional Core Deposit this weekend and mined the following:
  • Arkonor 10,500 units = 82.95 M ISK
  • Bistot 116,230 units = 581.150 M ISK
  • Crokite 278,750 units = 1.338 B ISK

This totals around 7 M M3 of minerals that need to be refined. We had to put up 5 Corporate Hangars to hold all of our ore!

5x Hangars

5x Hangars

 Right now each member is looking at around 400 M ISK each and we haven’t even touched the following sites:

  1. 3x Ordinary Perimeter Deposit
  2. Unexceptional Frontier Deposit
  3. Average Frontier Deposit
  4. Rarified Core Deposit

Organized POS Attack

We packed up and moved into a neighboring C5 last night. My WH partner and I found an excellent new system with some 35 signatures:
  • 11 Grav (3 core)
  • 15 Ladar (4 core)
  • 7 Radar
  • 2 Mag
  • 4 WHs

Core sites in C5 WH space usually have around 1 to 1.5 B worth of Arkonor, Bistot, and Crokite guarded by a Sleeper BS or a BS and two support Battlecruisers so we jumped at the opportunity to move into this new system.

Our move procedure is as follows:

  1. Get our alts in cloaked ships on any active WHs in system.
  2. Send cloaked hauler into new system to anchor and online Small Tower.
  3. When Small Tower is up and has fuel, begin to move all ships into Small Tower POS bubble. Start with valuable ships such as Orcas, Hulks, and Battleships. Tip: always, always have more than 24 H worth of Strontium in your tower.
  4. Take down Large Tower from old system and launch in new system.
  5. Once the Large Tower is up, setup defenses, launch Hangars, move ships, etc.
  6. Take down Small Tower

Why not just launch a Large Tower and do the move in one step? Well, a small tower can be up and running in 15 minutes while a large tower can take over an hour to bubble. You can land and claim a home in a new system ninja-style with a Small POS. While moving an interesting thing happened.

In between steps 3 and 4, my alt was attacked and podded by a Phobos (Heavy Interdictor) and a support Battlecruiser right outside the connecting WH between our old and new systems. I was able to identify the gankers and warn my partner. We immediately stopped moving all valuable assets and switched our main accounts into Covert Ops ships.

If you are a anti-pirate WH corporation, set Endless Destruction (END..) to red; they attacked and podded my alt character and began a POS assault.

My main character was at the Small POS and within a few minutes, the Phobos and support Battlecruiser were outside the Small POS. Next a Carrier arrived, followed by two BS’s, a Nighthawk (Command Ship), and a T3 ship. It seemed that they want all the juicy ships inside our Small POS and were hoping that we didn’t have any Strontium.

Enemy carrier attacking POS

Enemy carrier attacking POS

 
Bouncer I‘s were launched from the Carrier and then the missile/laser spam started. We had a full complement of Strontium in our Small POS so we sat and waited. My WH partner zoomed around in a Covert Ops, watching them in our system. They came in from a neighbor C5 system that we had not yet explored.
 
A hauler came up on directional and was soon at the POS. Two Mobile Large Warp Disruptor II‘s were setup to enclose our POS in order to lock down any ship trying to get out.
 
Double Bubble

Double Bubble

These people apparently meant business and wanted our POS down. After around 1.5 hours of POS bashing, we went into reinforced mode with a 1 D 16 H timer. Their guns went silent and every ship remained still for a number of minutes.

I knew they were chatting about what to do — keep a scanner ship logged off in system and scan down an empire link for them to attack once were out of reinforced mode? simply leave the system and forget about us?

After 5 minutes, ships started to warp off or dock up in the carrier. The Mobile Warp Disruptors were taken down and they left the system. Whew. It was very fun to watch as I have never been on the offensive end of a POS attack.

WH Rule #1: Don’t talk about WH space. Er, I mean… WH Rule #1: Always have Strontium in your towers.

If we didn’t have any Strontium, the bubble would have gone down. Multiple Battleships, support Battlecruisers, an Orca, and haulers from every race would have been theirs for the taking — a multi-billion ISK loss and a podding back to Empire.

A few hours after they had left, we finished hauling over the Large POS from the old system and got it online in the new system. Ah, so nice when that Large POS bubble goes online.

Nice try Endless Destruction. Now to make some money!


September Haul

The last week has not been as productive as the last few weeks. Having 4 out of 6 characters podded back to Empire, and the destruction of our Orca, has caused major setbacks.

Today a C5 (us) -> C5 -> C4 -> C5 -> Highsec (0.5) route opened up so we took the opportunity to bring our minerlas to Jita. Here’s our haul. We hit a good sized Crokite roid (120K+ units) for a few days, hence a lot of Zydrine.

A weeks worth of refined minerals.

A weeks worth of refined minerals.

eve-central.com Estimated Value:

Tritanium: 611,706
Pyerite: 187,266
Nocxium: 9,507,899
Zydrine: 658,035,408
Megacyte: 516,153,896
Morphite: 112,095,000

Total: 1.297 B ISK

Jita buy prices were a little low today. 3,994 ISK for  Megacyte and 1,500 for Zydrine so we decided to stockpile and not sell at this time.


Regrouping Post Gank

It has been a lonely few days in WH space. My WH partner and I were podded and we used our then offline corpmate, with the help of a Blue in a neighbor system, to scan a new entrance. I’ve gotten my main in, but my WH partner hasn’t been able to successfully time a good link.

I am finding that our C5 will always link to another C5, which will link to a C4 or nullsec. We haven’t gotten a nullsec link all week in the C5, so we have to turn to the C4. The C4 will usually link to another C4 or a C3, which will eventually go to empire or lowsec. The weak part in the chain is the C4 <-> C3 as these WHs tend to have 16 H lifetimes which makes logistics a little more interesting.

I’ve been scanning for a 3 days trying to find a safe route in and getting faster at pinning down signatures with each system that I practice on. Last night I started scanning — ah, a fresh WH of type H432 in our C5 which leads to another C5. I entered and scanned it down; 6 signatures and the second signature one was a WH of type H296 that leads to nullsec.

Not bad, as I have been scanning down C5s with 10+ signatures and of course the last one is a WH. Pinned, bookmarked and warped to. After coming out on the other side, I ended up in The Syndicate, also not bad. I’m afraid of ending up deep in the Drone Region or Goonswarm space, but hey, that’s part of the excitement.

I cycled the MWD, hit the cloak, bookmarked the entrance WH, and brought up the map. Success, we have a nice route to Empire.

  1. Our C5
  2. Empty neighbor C5
  3. PVH8-0 (-0.10), The Syndicate
  4. 6-CZ49 (-0.16), The Syndicate
  5. Reblier (0.40), Verge Vendor
  6. Chesiette (0.57), Verge Vendor
  7. … 20 Empire Jumps to Jita

PVH8-0 had 7 neutrals in local and even had a station in it! I warped to docking range and when the station came into view, I was targeted by a Manticore (Caldari Stralth Bomber). *click* *click* *click*  – I spammed the dock button. He got off one round which took out my shields and put me 50% into armor. I knew that I wasn’t able to take another round, as I was in a scanning Helios (Gallente Covert Ops) with paper-thin armor. I got away and safely docked, repaired and contracted the bookmarks to my WH partner and corpmate.

Within a minute, the Manticore docked up. I knew that he was going to play station games and was waiting for me to undock so he could scram me fresh out of station. I might be new to nullsec, but not that new. I had time to kill as these were fresh 24 H WHs so I noted his name, added him to my addressbook and ate dinner. I came back later and saw him leave station, then a few minutes later local count went to zero. Good timing, I scooted back into our WH system and into our POS bubble.

A few hours later, my corpmate got his main account in WH space and fired up the refinery. He has good Arkonor, Bistot, and Crokite sills so I let him do the refining. We have a lot of ore to process from last week and will eventually need to go to Jita:

2009.09.26.13.17.59

2009.09.26.13.17.55

The moneymakers are the 11.99 K Bistot, 90.44 K Zydrine, 75.49 K of Crokite and some Mercoxit. The lower ends will either be abandoned when we move or go into ammo/drone production for fighting Sleepers. I sometimes get flack from new Carebears about abandoning Tritantium and Pyerite – trust me, it just isn’t worth the ISK/m3 to haul it in WH space.

Up next on the list? We need to get a lot of items in and the ore out:

  1. My WH partner’s alt in
  2. My corpmate who is eager to mine in
  3. 1x Orca (insured), got ganked last week
  4. 2x Hulk, got ganked last week
  5. 1x Skiff, my alt is going for Exhumers V
  6. Strip Miner I’s, always need more
  7. POS Fuel, 7D left
  8. Refined ore out to Jita

My partner and corpmate were unable to get a good haul in today due to some gatecamping on the Reblier gate in Verge Vendor. Maybe today… but we are going to wait for a C3 -> Empire link to bring in the Orca.

I’m glad to have my partner in WH space again. He’s really good at scanning and will move quickly to get the rest of our equipment in. It can get quite boring if you are alone so always bring some friends in WH space!


Wormhole Woes

The past two days in WH space has not been exciting at all. We have lost ships, my main WH partner is stuck in Empire, a corpmate has lost ships, and I have had to learn how to scan down signatures with my less than perfect scanning skills.

Tuesday 13:51 Eve Time

My WH partner and I had an Orca, 2x Hulks, and a Retriever on a Core site when a gang of hostiles came into the system. A Vexor, Dominix, Anathema and a Phobos bubble us and pod us.

After waking up in Empire in a fresh clone, I headed off to Jita to refit. Some 180 M later, I am on my way back to my home base system in the Essence region. I check up on some jobs, trends on the Empire markets and consolidate some goods from neighboring systems.

Tuesday 15:00 Eve Time

A blue in a neighboring C5 system found my corpmate in our C5. Since my corpmate does not have good scanning abilities, he offers to help us find a way out. After a few hours of scanning, they found a route.

C5 (us) -> C5 (empty) -> C4 (empty) -> C3 (idle Frigates) -> Lowsec Empire exit. I get my main and alt back in WH space, but my WH partner misses the C3 -> C4 connection as he tried the route a few hours after I got in.

Wednesday 13:00 Eve Time

Start scanning our C5 with my main character. After 2.5 hours of scanning, I finally find a route out. C5 -> C5 (empty) -> C4 (abandoned Frigate) -> C3 (abandoned 2x Mobile Small Warp Disruptor I‘s) -> C3 (idle Frigate) -> Lowsec Empire.

This was my first adventure on WH space scanning all on my own. It was up to me to find a route out since I was the only one left with some scanning skills.

I don’t have scanning skills trained up to an effective level; I had to get signatures down to 0.25 AU or 1 AU in order for them to finally come up as green which took a lot more effort than what I have heard from my WH partner who has invented in scanning skills. For now I’ve put Gallente Battleship V on hold in favor of:

  1. Astrometrics IV
  2. Astrometric Pinpointing I
  3. Astrometric Pinpointing II
  4. Astrometric Pinpointing III
  5. Astrometric Rangefinding III
  6. Astrometric Rangefinding IV
  7. Astrometric Pinpointing IV

With Astrometrics at III and Astrometric Rangefinding at II, I am having quicker success when pinning down signatures than I did a few days ago when these skills were not trained. I have also added 2x Small Gravity Capacitor Upgrade I’s to my Helios, which increase Scan Strength +10% with no stacking penalty, for improved scanning speed.

Thursday 2:00 Eve Time

A K162 opens up into our system and in comes a Wolf (Minmatar Assault Ship). Out of no where it ganks one of my corpmates and he looses a Mining Barge and ends up back in Empire. I found out that he came from C5 (us) -> C4 (empty) -> C5 (did not explore).

Not a good few days in WH space.

Well, tomorrow is another day. My goals are to get my WH partner in our C5, haul in some more fuel and some spare Hulks.