YC119.01.05

YC119.01.05

Well, the reboot bluescreened, so I'll finally admit that this is just an occasional thing.

Niceness
Urged on by the fuzzy warm feelings induced by giving P1 PI materials to the CEO and utterly not giving a shit about balancing the outputs of different ECU's, I thought I might help someone out.

I had a mail exchange with someone I had transacted with and offered some help, but no response. In another burst of pleasantry and absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the fact I really couldn't be arsed to undock, I put up a 40mil ISK buy order for a 35mil NPC sold skill book from 2 jumps away and logged. It got filled by the next log on and I can now fly Bowheads. Unfortunately they are gank magnets and I'd never buy one.

CSM 11

Not a clue mate, though Fuzzy Steve is still there so everyone wins. And Jin - his videos are great

Victim of changes
Corp activity was down and 0.0 was a bit to unstable for us, so we began the process of evacuating to new (old) homes in hi & low sec. I had always been scared of low, but they seem like a nice bunch, tbh. My cyno alts have had some very nice convos while they are getting blown up +/- watching the aggressors get given the good news by station guns.

So it's onwards and upwards, as Culture Shock said in 1988 and do svidaniya tovarisch, as the Russians have been saying for quite some time.

Fly bad

Caisman o7

YC118.04.06 - Dates for your diary

YC118.04.06 - Dates for your diary

Shameless...
...ly stolen from http://updates.eveonline.com/ but the wheat without the chaff.

CSM11 elections 
YC118.04.21 - Results are announced at Fanfest. See how our bloc candidates fared, then wait a year to see if those valuable moments you spent randomly selecting those with the cutest avatar / best name, even mattered.

EVE Online: Citadel
YC118.04.27 - The big one patches on Wednesday 2016.04.27 and will include, er, Citadels. And capital ships, not that there are any capital ships where I live; I've never even seen one. Except Chribbas Veldnaught. In Amarr. Once. On an alt. Now biomassed.

If however, one might have a capital ship on ones Goonswarm / PL alt, particularly a carrier, it might be prudent to note that by the power of CCP it will automagically become one of the new Force Auxiliary class of capital ships if but a single criteria is met. This criteria is the possession of an assembled carrier with any Triage module fitted.

It will then become a Force Auxiliary of the same race is the carrier you don't have. If no Triage module is fitted, the CCP hamsters will pass it by and it will remain a carrier, but not like the carriers of today. They will have new squadrons of teeny tiny fighters, augmented by the skills Light Fighters and Support Fighters.

The dev blog is here. Note that CCP have deemed the newly seeded racial Force Auxiliary skills a mistake and are not required. CCPls.

[Citadels] Carriers

Train the new skills Light Fighters and Support Fighters to V for T2, because the T1 are a bit squishy. Advanced Drone Interfacing will become Fighter Hangar Management and will provide a bonus to the size of your fighter hanger. Train it to V for moar fighters. The Fighter Bomber skill has been converted to Heavy Fighters, and now gives a 5% damage bonus to heavy fighters per level, but that's supers stuff and what are supers?

All combat capitals have reduced base Shields/Armor/Hull. There are now capital armor plates and capital shield extenders that you should use to increase the buffer of your capital ship. 

To compensate, capital modules will come in new and different colours, just like the normal sized ones do (T2, Faction, Deadspace) - so train the appropriate skill to IV for T2. Probably.

Real capital ships, like freighters and jump freighters are not affected. Capital Q&A here

Fly big things, but safely and not for ratting, eh?

Caisman o7

https://www.thevolitioncult.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/voltalliance/

YC118.03.26 - Rebooted

YC118.03.26

Rebooted 
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and they might just be right. I reached a few IG milestones, did Evesterdam and promptly lost interest in EVE and simply played Skill Queue Online™. The alt factory PI carried on at a much reduced rate and the P1 swapping contracts even expired a few times.

In a parallel to RL, unable to escape the inexorable grip of EVE and finding the spreadsheets still worked, I eventually became bored of being bored, threw some of the alts money around, drove his factory drones harder and started riding the incoming Citadel materiél gravy train. I also made a conscious effort to log myself in and interact with the corp.

0.0
Feeling the need to undock in 0.0 again and too rusty / scared for PVP or Logi, I thought about setting up a PI chain involving extractors. Once the hallucinogens had worn off a bit and remembering that I'd rather dip my bollocks in boiling pod goo than manage a full chain again, I thought it might be nice to help someone else out with theirs. 2 planets later and with no extraction balance nightmares to make that clicking noise like that girl off The Ring makes intrude above the tinnitus, I have a reason to undock with reasonable regularity and converse with people once again.

Heresy
While out in null, I noticed a mining barge lurking in my hanger. Yes, a mining barge. Sorry. It did however, in the usual manner of Caisman vs any form of industrial ship, generate some slightly amusing anecdotes.

I glanced at the fit of ‘Procurer, rigged’, undocked and went for some Veld. Everyone needs Trit, right? Shortly after starting the first cycle, those pesky Sansha turned up, no problem for a Procurer’s tank and these Hobgoblin II’s though. The tank went a bit quicker than I seem to remember it going last time and I thought I'd align back to the station and recall the drones. Ah, ok, I'll just leave the drones, warp back for repair, pick them up in a bit and start again. Repaired, I warp back but can't find the drones, there's no Reconnect option on the HUD and the Sansha are still there. Ah fuck it, it's late, I can afford to replace them; warp to station and log.

Idiocy
Checking Dotlan the next day (not from work though, oh no), I find I have 5 drones listed as still in space. WTF? Before logging in that night, I have a look at PYFA to see what went wrong with the tank. Hmm nothing, there's plenty. Back in game and my Procurer has 3 high slots, PYFA’s has one. Eh? Ah, ‘Procurer, rigged’ is not a Procurer, it's a Retriever and probably explains a few things.

Droney Squad
Buying and fitting an actual Procurer, I warp out to the belt and see my drones. Rt click, Reconnect, scoop to drone bay. I thought they disappeared at DT? Clearly not and knowing me, I had probably warped to the wrong belt to find them last night. On the sage advice of our new CEO (I, for one, welcome our new Gallente overlord, and thanks for halving the corp tax rate) who graciously stepped up to cover retirement, and in light of the Boaty McBoatFace lark, I rename the squad to the only thing that makes sense.

Their first engagement was a tense affair, too much Dark Lord and Plague Lord business going on and though I'd clearly forgotten what to do, my shield was holding at 22%. The last rat had moved out of lock range and Droney squad was still hitting, but I had no idea what was happening to the rat. Fortune however, favoured the incompetent and an alliance buddy warped to the belt unbidden and despatched it for me. Asking him later, it appears I had almost got the rat into structure, so Droney squad would probably have finished it eventually.

Legends
The second engagement was a much more clear cut victory for my revered squad. 6 Sansha warped in, the Droneys despatched 4 of them in a more correct range order as my higher cognitive functions had managed to locate the right thing to do lurking somewhere in my cerebellum, and the last 2 bottled it and warped off. Strike 2 to Droney McDroneFace.

So there it is, EVE for idiots rebooted. A blog post about mining. By the eyes of the Empress, I never thought I would / could write such a thing. At least I'm back in the game.

The moral of this story is - fly however and whatever, just fly.

Caisman o7 

https://www.thevolitioncult.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/voltalliance/

Out of the gutter

Y115.11.11

Firstly, thank you and may you find the peace your sacrifice has given us.

Secondly, apologies to my reader for not being very active for some months. Send me that EVEmail and I will give you the 1mil I promised. Busy IRL, busy in EVE, hell even busy at work. Enough about RL though - it's dull.

Y115 recap
Busy. Any small amount of evewhoing will reward you with the priceless and probably not particularly valuable information that I reside in Providence, or Provistan as we affectionately call it. Every nullite comes here to play at some point as further interaction with your search engine will show. Internal drama, external drama, we have it all and although often referred to as the ginger kid of EVE, people still come to our house quite a lot. So, very busy - one bunch come and kick / get kicked / get bored / get kicked by someone bigger or more important somewhere else, leave. Rinse, repeat. No shortage of good fights here though, but sadly those 30-man one-way kitchen sink WH roams for lulz are now largely a thing of the past. Probably good for the wallet.

Kerching
So, the wallet - how on Sarum Prime can I afford this lavish PVP lifestyle, I hear you ask. Well I don't play as much as I did, so losses are less. Also, as the Provibloc fleet size has grown, there are more [and more juicy] targets for the OPFOR to choose. I also tend fly logi a lot at the moment, which although often means primary, also means I am already on my logibros watchlist. And logi is SRP'd :P

Talking of logi, I still can't understand why people are so reluctant to fly it - ships are cheap / SRP'd, everyone loves you, you can turn fights and you get one or 2 more channels to watch. Most importantly, you get to hang with the logibros - and a finer bunch of miscreants I have never met. You need more tactical awareness and are constantly watching your WL / broadcast history, juggling targets, reps, cap chain, prop mod, orbit, anchor, align point, etc. Have even if I have done my share of logi FC'ing and I reckon it's the best buzz in EVE for me right now. Or go DPS and press F1 / assign drones to the drone bunny. Of course, as logi, I would never use my drones to whore on KM's. No Siree, not me. Purely for defence from ECM drones and small tackle, honest.

Oh yes, ISK generation. PI, primarily - 1 system, 4 planets harvesting P0 / producing P1, 1 factory planet turning P1 into P3, 2 characters, 1 Epithal, some hauling, 1 week cycles to reduce the RSI. Pretty much covers the losses. I think I have tried every PI guide off the internet and have now come to the conclusion, that the only real way to make any money off PI without wanting to committing seppuku, is to do it in null and keep it simple. Sure there is more money to be made off it, it doesn't sell so quick in null, reds in system can be a pain in the arse and you always wonder if you would get better money if you hauled it all to hisec, but to use common chatroom parlance - meh. As PI guides go, the ones I have found most useful recently are, yes, you guessed it, EVE Uni's, see the bit about colonies for some great set-up info. Thanks again. I wonder if I would be rich if I had just joined them at the bloody start.

One interesting nugget I picked up from somewhere, is that if you are PI'ing in sov null, you need to be in the holder alliance to plant a Command Centre. Once it is planted however, you can build a colony from it and don't need any affiliations. Except those you may want to stop yourself getting exploded or reduce import / export taxes.

Training
Can't remember where I got to. All T2 subcap guns in the bag, just got T2 HAM & Light missiles, working on T2 Cruise, I think.

Fly safe, sportsfans

o7

Blah, blah, blah

Y115.05.20

2 posts in a week, good stuff.

Pie
Well, the 1 ECU per planet thing is ok, but requires some micro-management on the 3 day cycle thing. I gashed the silo’s as it was either that or field less than 10 heads and that defeats the object of alternating / maximising the resource stripping. Also, in hisec there is no real need for one as the LP is [just] big enough. So it’s now –

EH x10 > ECU > LP > P1 [basic] factory x3 > LP > P2 [advanced] factory x2 > LP

…with 6 basic factories [one for each resource] & 2 advanced. I have tried retasking the basic factories to speed up P1 production, but it’s a PITA resetting all the routes, which is what I am trying to avoid. On next iteration, I will go with 3 basic factories per resource and therefore leave one side of the chain empty but still routed. I might also try with just one advanced factory to free up some PG / CPU [whatever it is I am short of trying to run 10 heads and requiring me to gash either the unused ECU or its link to the LP].

EH x10 > ECU > LP > P1 factory x3 > LP > P2 [advanced] factory x1 > LP
EH x10 > ECU > LP > P1 factory x3 > LP ^
*note – one side is unused for 3 days then extraction swapped [and just one LP]*

Of course, the other thing I forgot is that not all P0 comes out at the same rate, meaning I have more than enough of some P2 to feed the P2 > P4 factory planet and nowhere near enough of the others. So it looks like when I get it sorted, I will be rearranging heads and transferring product to the POCO every 3 days [just need to be undocked in system for that], haul every week or so and make less P4, but at maybe double the profit per unit over solely producing P2 > P4. Once I have an ISK buffer built up, I could always top up the low P2 with market bought stuff through buy orders, something the alt has not really trained up yet.

It’s mine[ing]
Still the way to go for easy ISK – 5-odd mil ISK per hold plus the bounties for the belt rats and no real thinking involved. Just burned through the first set of T2 crystals :D Oh, and set up a POS on my own? Ahahahahahahahahahahaha. Just no. Well, not until there is a bil in the bank as change after Caisman has a bunch more ships are bought and fitted. I’ve let the alt’s corp CEO know he can POS gun out of someone else’s, though

Pop
Got me Naga popped trying to catch up to a big strat-op the other night, which was quite annoying, but the guns were only T1 anyway :/ Been line DPS grunt on a couple of blobs, sorry big fleets since then [and not primaried], so I have somehow made #1 leet killah in corp and #2 in alliance this week and learnt that I don’t really like lowsec, what with its safeties, flags, consequences and those colours in my overview that I can never remember what they mean malarkey. Red and not red is much easier. And flashing = shoot it. Will do what FC says though, ofc.

Reshipped to logi for the redux of these fleets, but the policing had been largely successful by then and no-one needed much logi loving. I have noticed a real problem with getting into logi chat lately though – I wouldn’t want to interrupt voice comms for such things, but requests in fleet chat are often ignored / unseen by those who can drag into the channel and I end up looking on the blues overview, sorting by type and convoing someone I know who is in logi to get me in. Being in logi chat is important for sorting the logi anchor / cap and rep chains and getting the those logi specific orders which get missed in the fleet chat [like my x’s for the chat]. At least it means I get away without being logi FC.

Logi watchlist tips – alliance op = corp mates on WL, bloc op = alliance mates on WL, hehe. Er, plus whatever the FC says, of course.

Blue on blue action
Last night was bloc free-ship Sunday and off I went in my free T1 fit Kestrel of arse, for some pure KB whoring / ISK correcting. Popped way more than I lost, but was a little surprised that top damage on me [17%] was done by a blue fleet member [highest red damage was 5%]. ‘Twas but a free ship, but best let him know in a sarcastic manner in case he needs to review his overview settings. Check my tips out here, btw :P Mail sent. Went for a tab after getting back to home system and missed the alliance roam and its shiny kills. That’ll learn me.

Training
Warfare Link Specialist IV to be able to inject Command Ships before its prerequisites are changed to all the Warfare’s V on 4th June with the Odyssey expansion. I may want them someday. Get on it kids, details here.

Fly safe

o7

Working in the coalmine

Y115.05.09

Posted later than written

To quote Culture Shock - time is money and money is time, on civilization street. There’s a couple of wars active ATM, so missioning is out and the need for watching chat channels, listening to comms when doing PVE stuff in 0.0 means I could do with another option for a bit. So I’ve been spending more time on the alt and not logging Caisman in, as this just means I’ll end up roaming. Led a couple of nice logi flights though, it really does rock.

The alt just tried a couple of factory planets making P2 > P4 PI goods, but the lowish profit margin needs a fair bit of investment into P2 and I hate to admit it, but I can’t really spare the cash. P4 also seems to be dropping in price a bit, making the margins even smaller. But I have 6 planets available, so I will set up 5 making the most expensive P2’s, buy the other 4, whack ‘em into the factory planet and see what profit comes out. It’s become a bit of a goal to make it work properly, but I am sure I will get bored and PLEX before too long.

Putting ‘eve pi p0 to p2’ into my favourite search engine, looking for those tips on how to maximise profits that everyone seems so keen to share :/ , I came across a novel [to me] idea which I have put into place on the 2 planets I have set up so far – thread here with interesting bits here and here. Essentially [and on one P0 > P2 planet], it advocates extracting just one P0 at a time for say 3 days, trashing that ECU, rebuilding & linking at the other P0 hospot and alternating. This allows 10 heads on the ECU. Seems legit to me, but not to the corp PI guru, so watch this space. My initial setup is -

EH x10 > ECU > silo > P1 [basic] factory x3 > LP > P2 [advanced] factory x2 > back to LP

I may not need the silo, but it gives me a buffer in case of RL. One more level of Interplanetary Consolidation for Cais will open up the plan I mentioned a while back of using 4 planets for P0 > P1 and then a dedicated P1 > P3 planet. Combine this with the 1 ECU at a time thing and we’re golden. Possibly. Or just left with overflowing silos.

On the subject of watching this space, the planetary planner I mentioned last time, seems ok, but the window is small, requires a bunch of annoying scrolling and it’s a bit clunky. Kind of like a solution looking for a problem, but fair play to the author.

Going down down
Paused training on the alt to put another one in Jita and maxed his Accounting & Broker Relations skills to minimise any taxes. This gives me the abiity to sell in 2 trade hubs with no lengthy / risky commute and I can get Red Frog or Push X to freight any stuff I make to where it sells for most. Could also maybe max Connections and run a mission or two at 4-4. Nah, sod that.

Miiiiiiining
You know, it’s really not that bad. Undock, warp to belt, check other occupants & ‘roids, mine ‘til hold full, dock up, rinse, repeat. The mining laser noise is great. Alt is now on T2 strippers & crystals and basing out of another hisec system which is quiet enough to see who is coming and going and seems to have the rocks I like at the times I am on. He now has a 100% refine and a slightly better standing there to reduce refinery tax and I’ll do a bunch of level 1’s one day to get it down further. Tristan FTW! Not sold any of the minerals yet, will wait until there is a tidy sum, haul or even freighter it all to the hub and do it as one market order. Or start making stuff with it. Of course it would be better to buy and research some BP’s, which would be far better done in a POS. Can he possibly set up a POS and keep it running on his own? New plan – mine and PI endlessly on alt until 7 figures are made > grind standings > build / buy & anchor POS > research BP’s > make stuff > PROFIT!!1. But what about Caisman, you ask? Aren’t you making ISK to keep him in PVP? Do you not have enough time even for that? By the Empress, do the things to do in this game never end? At a monthly fuel cost just shy of half a bil, I’d want to be grossing twice that to make it worthwhile, so it’s not going to happen this week, that’s for sure.

Training
With Large Hybrid V in the bag, Caisman is pushing Interplanetary Consolidation to IV, while the alt is on Hull Upgrades V for that elusive T2 EANM.

Fly safe

o7

Peace sells

Y115.04.11

But who’s buying
Another month flies by and at last most doctrines are open to me, as the only turrets missing at T2 are large hybrids, of which, V is in the cooker. Realized today I have never fired lazors or artillery of any size. I must rectify this soon.

Less success as Director of Recruitment - applicants are not replying to follow-up mails and characters I find, seem to enjoy piracy while we don’t. The hardcore of the corp is good though and we have now been in this alliance for nearly a year, which is a corp record. 5.15 is the magic number.

Feb looked a bit dismal on the KB as I tried to pull the logi together a bit and failed each roam to get a KM add – must mail high command to see if I can be trusted with the password. I think this would be a great way to get people into logi as everyone has a bit of KM whore in them and judging by my inability to lock anything before it pops in recent fleets, some have more than a bit. To be fair, some FC’s do dish out free Scythes pre-roam which helps and of course, some people actually like flying logi.

However, March was ok and there’s a few on the board for April already, so a logi-ing I will go for a couple of weeks. Gotta keep the corp as #2 1337 killah in the alliance, though.

In my darkest hour
The alt is now merrily mining away to keep his younger brother in ships, though I’m sure that geddon thing those dirty piwates do will rear its hydra-like badness soon enough and cost me something. Better sit down and work out how much mining he has to do to fund one barge. Also need to buff his refining skills and build up a little bit of standing with an NPC corp.

All pilots have an inherent 37.5% refining efficiency. Some internet trawling tells me that when using a station with 50% base yield, Refining V with Refinery Efficiency IV and a 3% refining implant gives 100% yield, whereas Refining V and RE V only needs a 1% implant [Tau Cabalander & EVE Uni again, thanks]. Refining implants are the Zainou ‘Beancounter’ Refining RX-80x – check your LP stores, kids.

Refinery tax is worked out at 5 - [0.75 x personal standing] %, so one requires a standing of 6.67 to achieve a 0% tax rate. Alt has no real skills for any red cross shooting, but can fly indy’s alright, so distribution missions it is. Fortunately, there is a L1 agent in his home station. Tidy darts.

Training
Large Hybrid Turret V, 18 days.

Fly safe

o7