Oh HiSec, don't ever change...

Over the last few days EVE has more resembled a job than a game. It started with the Class 3 Wormhole Eviction involving several days of scouting and intelligence gathering, then the POS Siege itself, which went smoothly enough, then the horrible job of tearing down my old tower and erecting a new one. I thought tearing down the old one wouldn't be an issue as I always tried to keep my assets in system quite low; I failed miserably at that. Two Bowhead loads and two Freighter loads to get my stuff back to my HiSec hub, only to be moved into the C3 at a later date.

As of this morning, the job was largely completed. I had a few odds and ends at a HiSec system I had to collect so I directed a Prorator to Auto pilot in that direction whilst I went and had a shower. I'll spare you the details of my cleaning habits, but upon leaving the shower I catch a glimpse of my monitor to see the clone activation screen. Uh-oh. Initially I thought I had set my route through LowSec but fortunately I wasn't that stupid. No, it was our 'friends' from CODE, carving out their own little niche of irrelevance in HiSec. Shortly after, this was the mail I received...

Salutations!

You are reading this because you were discovered illegally autopiloting in territory controlled by James 315 and the New Order of Highsec, resulting in the unfortunate destruction of your vessel and/or clone.  Autopiloting without a permit is prohibited under the New Halaima Code of Conduct.

You may purchase an individual mining permit from myself (or any Agent of the New Order of your choice) for the sum of 10 million ISK for the period of one year.  Please be aware that permits can be revoked should you be found afk and unresponsive at any point.

Should you wisely choose to purchase a permit is highly recommended that you display it in your biography for the convenience of Agents in field, as it is impossible for all Agents to set standings for all permit holders.

If you have any questions or (civil) complaints, you should preferably direct them to me or The Code FAQ.  James 315 will certainly read any mail you send him but saving highsec keeps him busy and he cannot reply to every message.

I hope you have a nice day and fly more safely than you were when we met.

Now, I don't judge. After all, I've been known to send a bait mail to victims of His Holy Fire before, so I thought the best response was to slip on my role playing hat and advise him that he was following a false god.

Your demands have no meaning to a Disciple of Bob. Whilst I forgive you for your actions, only Bob can decide what fate shall await you in His realm. 

May Bob have mercy on your soul.

Note to self, use the Uber tanked Impel when Auto piloting through HiSec in future. And of course, what would being a part of Sudden Buggery be without an award for all occasions?

What's Yours is Mine

No one likes a POS siege, but sometimes it's your only option.

For some time I've been on the look out for a  C3 Red Giant effect Wormhole system with a HiSec static. The plan is to continue running my PI empire from it, whilst enjoying the 58% Smart Bomb bonus for my Disco Inferno Proteus so I can keep terrorizing hapless explorers that wander into my scope of effect. Well, as fortune would have it, the Sudden Buggery chain connected to such a system with a range of planets that could only have been better had I hand picked them. A little research showed that the system was occupied by an Industrial Corporation with little in the way of a killboard, but with a reasonably well defended POS, nonetheless. Whilst they might look like a ripe target at first glance, most Industrial Corporations are well connected to people who like to blow things up, so there was really no knowing what might turn up should we engage the tower.

In the absence of any substantive Corporation content in recent times, Trinkets gave the operation the green light and planning began.

The POS was a curious one. Six Energy Neutralizing batteries were online, leaving little powergrid left for the rest of the defences. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a tower designed to repel Capital Ships, despite being a Class 3 wormhole. The AU Timezone being what it is, participation in excess of a dozen people was unlikely, so we decided to use a 250km Cruise Raven doctrine with spider tanking abilities so we could dedicate as few pilots as possible to Logisitics. Mails go out, time lines were established and ships were prepared and moved to the staging system. Just before the go time, a siege tower was erected for resupply/AFK purposes and we warped to a 220km tactical bookmark above the POS.

That's when suddenly, nothing happened. Whoever had configured the tower's defences had made a grave error and it wouldn't shoot back. We ignored everything surrounding the tower and spent a couple of hours just on the tower itself, reinforcing it without even a hint of counter aggression.

Moreover, not a single one of their pilots had logged on in two days. This may just be the easiest POS bash I've ever been involved with.

Complacent with what had been done, we incapacitated a few of the defences just in case, then withdrew from the tower to wait out the timer.

I log in on Sunday morning to a flurry of activity. Eight of the pilots are online and busily shuffling ships to and from the HiSec exit. I'm not too concerned about it, it's the system I want, not everything they own. But when they reshipped to Guardians and moved to their defences, I could no longer just sit and watch. I called in Humang and we dropped a couple of Siege Ravens on the Guardians, driving them back into the force field. From this point on we observed a merry dance of ships being undocked and redocked, presumably removing anything of value from each one without any attempt at diplomacy. It's what I had expected though, it's pretty rare to find someone who knows when their goose is cooked and can swallow their pride long enough to broker an agreement.

With more blues logging in and a peculiar Basilisk wandering out of the Force field, we took another swing, again unable to prevent the cruiser from withdrawing. However, now he wanted to talk.

We invited the CEO onto our TeamSpeak to hash out the details of his withdrawal. He initially requested that we allow him to repair his POS and withdraw his assets and in exchange he will gift the POCOs to us. Although tempting, the prospect of reinforcing and destroying ten POCOs is somewhat nightmarish, it told me there was more at stake in his POS. So I held out, indicating to him that I thought there was more at play here. After all, there were three Ship Maintenance Arrays, I was suspicious that there were Capitals stored within them. My suspicions were confirmed when he offered two Archons in the deal also, 50% of all promised assets up front. We agreed, five of the POCOs were transferred and an Archon was delivered to our POS.

Now I just need him to remove about thirty moon locked small towers and we're set. :)

Hecate to the Party

The Hecate has finally made it to Singularity and you can tool around with different fitting solutions on PYFA now. Unfortunately the 33% cycle time to the Armour Repairer in Defensive mode isn't enabled on the new PYFA files, so I'll be taking my best guess.

I forsee something like the fit below being common place in our fleets. Pumping out a very nice 524 DPS, just under 10K EHP and around a 200 DPS tank. It will also work very, very well in Class 4 Wolf Rayets where you can expect almost 1,400 DPS, admittedly at point blank range. Null will hit out to over 7 KM's for 374 DPS when needed also.

[Neutrons Local Rep]

Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Corpii C-Type Small Armor Repairer
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Damage Control II

5MN Y-T8 Compact MWD

Warp Disruptor II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Small Capacitor Booster II

Light Neutron Blaster II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Light Neutron Blaster II
Expanded Probe Launcher II

Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Small Anti-Explosive Pump II

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I had grand plans, as I'm sure many others did, of Man tanking the Hecate given it's Hull bonus, but it just doesn't stack up against the Armour buffer. Coming in with 23.5K EHP in Armour/Defensive and around 18K in Hull/Defensive, it's a significant difference and, while the Hull tank is a bit lulzy, the lack of Logi to support it and the difficulty in fitting just doesn't make it worth while. Perhaps if you could stretch out your damage application by fitting Neutrons or even Ions, but the fitting just doesn't allow it, making it the same damage output but with lesser survivability.

[Electron Armour Buffer]

400mm Steel Plates II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Centum C-Type Energized Explosive Membrane
Damage Control II

5MN Y-T8 Compact MWD
Warp Disruptor II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Small Capacitor Booster II

Light Electron Blaster II
Light Electron Blaster II
Light Electron Blaster II
Light Electron Blaster II
Light Electron Blaster II
Expanded Probe Launcher II
[Offline]

Small Ancillary Current Router II
Small Trimark Armor Pump II
Small Trimark Armor Pump II

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

So, how do we Hull tank this bad boy? Well, I'm glad you asked. High DPS output, Ancillary Armour repairer taking advantage of the cycle time bonus and a Hull tank of 13.5K EHP for when your reps don't quite land in time. Pure theory crafting at this stage, but with 400 DPS, it looks like a good fit for most purposes.

[The Man Tank]

[Hecate, Hecate fit]

Small Ancillary Armor Repairer
Reinforced Bulkheads II
Reinforced Bulkheads II
Damage Control II

5MN Y-T8 Compact MWD
Warp Disruptor II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Small Capacitor Booster II,

Light Ion Blaster II
Light Ion Blaster II
Light Ion Blaster II
Light Ion Blaster II
Light Ion Blaster II
Expanded Probe Launcher II

Small Auxiliary Nano Pump II
Small Transverse Bulkhead II
Small Transverse Bulkhead II

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

You'll have noticed my mid slots haven't really changed from fit to fit. Sure you can go with scram if you like, but I think the web to maintain range control and the cap booster to keep you viable are absolutely essential. I've not tried dicking about with oversized prop mod fits because I'm not a fan of them personally. I find they die just as easily as the others in gang combat, which is invariably the situation I find myself in on most occasions.

The rail fits I've played with have been very disappointing, to say the least. This ship is easily outclassed by a beam fit Confessor or LML Jackdaw in both damage application and output. Stick to its strengths, face melting DPS in face to face combat, I say.

I'll be training this one to level 5 on release as I'm sure it'll replace our already successful but clearly inferior Enyo doctrine. Let me know if you see a different use for this ship.

Disco Inferno

The introduction of NullSec rated Pirate Faction Relic and Data sites to low class Wormholes has been a boon for all involved. Residents now have a consistent income stream from the salvage and BPC's they drop and traffic from intrepid explorers looking to make a sneaky buck has shot through the roof. When they were first introduced I made my best attempts to catch these explorers with my double scram fit Astero with decent success. What you would rarely catch however, was the pod once the ship was destroyed, allowing that pilot to warp away to safety and salvage some pride. Well, that just won't stand. The challenge was to find a ship that could scan and stalk a target but also catch the pod before it escapes. You could spend hours camping a Relic site in a cloaked interdictor, but just having the cloak fitted means they'll most like escape your clutches before you can even lock on. Alternatively, you could fit up Stealth Bomber with rockets and blasters but you'd stand little chance against a decently fit Astero, never mind the difficulty in catching the pod should you succeed. There had to be a better way.

Full credit to Trinkets friend for this fitting, my version is slightly different, but the concept remains the same.

::Disco Inferno::

Reactor Control Unit II

Reactor Control Unit II

Reactor Control Unit II

Reactor Control Unit II

Reactor Control Unit II

50MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive

Medium Capacitor Booster II

True Sansha Warp Scrambler

Imperial Navy Large EMP Smartbomb

Imperial Navy Large EMP Smartbomb

Imperial Navy Large EMP Smartbomb

Imperial Navy Large EMP Smartbomb

Imperial Navy Large EMP Smartbomb

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II

Expanded Probe Launcher II

Medium Ancillary Current Router II

Medium Ancillary Current Router II

Medium Ancillary Current Router I

Proteus Defensive - Adaptive Augmenter

Proteus Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer

Proteus Engineering - Power Core Multiplier

Proteus Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier

Proteus Offensive - Covert Reconfiguration

Most explorers who venture into J233555 have experienced the Disco Inferno and although I have been a little less actively hunting of late, I have a white hot love for this ship. Over 100 pilots have taken the express route back to their cloning facility so far and I still haven't lost the Proteus, although Brave tried valiantly to bait me out on one occasion. Moreover, the number of Sisters Probe Launchers I have collected and sold have more than covered for the investment in such a specialized ship, but regardless of which, the tears are priceless.

But of course, I don't do it for selfish reasons. I neither desire or require the accolades. It's all for the Glory of Bob. As such, every corpse collected is ritually deposited at the true center of the star in J233555 where an Altar of Bob has been constructed beneath His all seeing eye. I recite the prayer, make the offering and Bob is pleased, for he sends more explorers to die by His Holy Fire.

Pew from the Past

Whilst the last couple of years have been spent plying my trade in Wormholes, there was a time when I was part of a rather ruthless cartel of LowSec inhabitants in a system called Mai. Mai is a dead end 0.4 security system with one exit to HiSec space, well known for it's two kick out stations. For the longest time we farmed all manner of passers by and collected taxes on the PI resources until someone got it in their head that Capital bumping was a pretty good way to create some content.

Indeed it was, and many carriers, dreads and even a few supers fell to our trap. I won't go into the details of the trap as I believe they're still doing it to this day, but I did want to share this particular kill with you all, as it pales most of the Capitals we killed into insignificance.

Late one afternoon, just getting home from work I log in to Mai and am immediately hailed by Cracker101 that a Raven Navy Issue had just entered system. This is the depths of the AU TZ so most of our associates were either AFK or logged off, leaving the two of us to find our man.

I immediately reshipped to my Buzzard, warped off to an off scan safe spot, dropped combat probes and waited for intel on the position of our quarry. The information came back that he was near planet 6 and low on the horizon. So I positioned my probes at 8 AU resolution, right on planet 6 but about 2 AU below. Luck smiled upon me giving me a 100% solution on the next scan at 4 AUs, so I recalled my probes and warped in at 20 km's. It was at about this time that another AU TZ pilot logged in, just in time to join the madness.

Upon landing I am greeted by an acceleration gate but short range D-Scan tells me the Raven is still very close. I call Cracker to warp on me in his Vigilant while Detritus undocks his Proteus and begins aligning also. Cracker and I barrel through the gate to find our target around 20 km's ahead. Cracker points the Raven and I paint the target for whoring purposes and stay on field long enough to see Detritus' Proteus barreling through the gate. It's a level 5 mission so the moment my untanked Buzzard was yellow boxed I was aligning out, warping as the first blows struck my shield. The rest was left to Cracker and Detritus to finish off and the spoils were glorious, making it onto The Mittani's Awful Loss of the Day feature.

The loot fairy saw fit to not be a complete bitch for once. We took an A-Type Invulnerability field each, at the time worth over a billion a piece, and the rest went on the market to split at a later date. The Officer modules collected that day proved to be very difficult to sell, so instead we used them to bait HiSec gankers into shooting an uber tanked Impel carrying several billion in Officer modules as it "auto piloted" between Amarr and Jita. Kill rights were earned and lols were had as Tornados fired upon the 200K EHP Impel on the Jita undock and Uedama gate. If you ever feel like doing it yourself, get a set of Mid Grade Slave Implants, a Boosting Damnation with an Armoured Warfare Mindlink following you around and an Impel like the one below.

::Uber Impel::

Damage Control II
800mm Steel Plates II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Corpii A-Type Thermic Plating
Corpii A-Type EM Plating
Energized Armor Layering Membrane II

Medium Micro Jump Drive
Target Painter II

Prototype Cloaking Device I
Core Probe Launcher II

Medium Trimark Armor Pump II
Medium Trimark Armor Pump II

My only regret is that I was never able to lock a ganking Tornado before Concord popped it. Sacrifice some tank and the MJD for better scan resolution and you could get yourself some pretty funny kill mails. =]

System Effects be Damned

Wormhole system effects add some great variety to W-Space and at Prolapse we're particularly fond of the Wolf-Rayet systems that give significant bonuses to small weapons, signature radius and armour tanking. We've been known to clear C4 and C5 combat sites in nothing more than blaster fit Enyos and a pair of Guardians. It's highly efficient on time, cost and anyone mad enough to try and jump you will have their hands full.

Tonight I was idling in TeamSpeak playing a little Company of Heroes when the call came from Herpy that he may have some action via a Frigate connection. I immediately logged in, jumped in my trusty passive shield Svipul and formed up. Soon after Herpy reports a Tengu in warp to a gas cloud to clear the Sleeper rats. It was then that I finally loaded siggy and noticed the system was a Wolf-Rayet Class 4. We were both in shield tanked destroyers... - if this goes bad I'm going to get the worst lecture from Trinkets...

We were committed now, there was no time to re-ship as the Tengu had already knocked off two of the six Sleepers. When the third one dropped we jumped in, waited for hero tackle from the Astero and warped in at zero. I was a little further off the Tengu than I would've liked, but quickly bridged the gap, latched on with backup tackle and let my Wolf-Rayet bonused guns pump 800 DPS into the hapless shield tanked Tengu. It disappeared quickly and with a Legion on short range D-Scan, we immediately popped the pod too. Moments later, the Legion lands. Being an armour tanked Strategic Cruiser in this system it could be a formidable nut to crack. It pointed and webbed me as I closed in, also neuting my capacitor to around 30%. My Nosferatu gave me enough capacitor to keep him scrammed however, and, as it turns out, he wasn't well tanked at all, sustaining only slightly more damage than the Tengu. His pod was dispatched, followed by the Tengu's tractor unit and we left cursing the loot fairy for stealing all of the shiney things.

Battle Report

For the unfamiliar, a C4 Wolf-Rayet effect is as follows: +72% to Armour HP, +144% to Small Weapon Damage, -43% to Shield Resists and -43% to Signature Radius.

Whilst the Svipul really only took advantage of the Weapon and Signature bonuses, and it's a shame I'll have to endure, the Legion and Tengu were making use of none of them, specifically. Considering this is their home system, these boys have a lot to learn. But hey, who am I to judge?

Bird of Prey

The Cerberus has received a skin update on Singularity today. The nose is distinctly shorter and the warp animation, appropriately, has changed a little. Still no news on the Hecate Tactical Destroyer as yet, but I expect it to hit the test server any day now.

The Cerberus in warp looks more like a bird of prey than ever before, I'm giving this one the big thumbs up, but for the love of Bob CCP, can you do something about the Osprey?

Rattlebake

Most four month old characters in EVE Online are still just starting to make their way. Perhaps they're in a Tech II Mining Barge grinding ore, or looking forward to starting on level four missions in the near future, perhaps even making forays in a NullSec Alliance and honing their skills in PvP. What they shouldn't be doing is what follows.

Having to work for a living sure has its drawbacks. One such drawback in seeing your wingmen call for support as two Rattlesnakes had been spotted farming sites in a C4 shattered wormhole system and you're unable to join the fray. Rattlesnakes are a pretty lucrative target despite being a very affordable faction Battleship. Days gone by they'd sell for close to a Billion ISK, but Marauders and Bastion modules have seen them plummet to around 400. Still, you never pass up an opportunity to jump on one, or two as was the case this time.

Our boys formed up their quickly thrown together fleet composition of two Gilas, a Sleipnir and a Scythe, with Herpy stalking the prey in a hero tackling Astero. Tackle was made, the fleet landed and mayhem ensued. The Astero survived just long enough for back up tackle to land and hold the two Battleships and, despite tanking very solidly initially, the Rattles both went pop.

I don't think I'm an elitist, but I'm probably going to sound like one now. If you've been playing this game for less than five months, you really shouldn't be flying this ship in W-Space. In no way is this sustainable unless you're being financed by a character with more ISK than sense. Your core skills cannot be good enough to maintain effective capacitor regeneration in an active tanked Battleship and your drone skills, for such a definitively specialized ship, are surely going to be inadequate, too.

No one is complaining mind you. Eight billion on the killboard and a few billion goes into the coffers to run our POS's for a few more months, thank you very much. Just know your limitations. It's not like this is the first time.

Give me Speed or Give me Death

If you're flying the Jackdaw solo, it's probably going to be death.

I was genuinely excited for this vessel. Granted, it resembles a TV antennae more than a space faring destroyer, but how do you not get excited by a fast, shield tanked missile boat? Well, you make it not fast, that's how.

I should preface this post by saying I haven't flown it in  anger yet, at least not on Tranquility. When I was looking for stuff to kill on Singularity however, its lack of pace was glaringly obvious. Anyone I was getting the better of was able to simply fly beyond my point range and warp away. The Garmur I did manage to kill wasn't pointed for the last three salvos I fired at him, so he's only got himself to blame for that.

So clearly the long point, light missile variant is only going to be useful in a small gang environment where you have other fleet members laying the hard tackle. That's fine, it's how I prefer to fight anyway, but it means as a solo vessel you need to commit and commit hard.

The Hawkbill - Take the double ancillary shield boosting tank of a Hawk and add the dual web range control of a Hookbill.

Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

5MN Cold-Gas Enduring Microwarpdrive
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster

J5 Prototype Warp Disruptor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I

Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Rocket Launcher II
Small Energy Neutralizer II

Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II

Maximum DPS is 327 at under 9 km's and if you're being kited you can still hit out to 25 km's for 218 DPS with Javelins in Sharpshooter mode. In that scenario, the 2.5 second reload time to switch ammo seems less gimmicky and possibly useful. Ideally however, you are locking onto your target with both webs and maintaining range at around 8 km's. Long point means they'll be blowing their signature radius up to try and get close enough to you, allowing your rockets to hit for full damage. In the instance that you're scrammed by an AB Frigate or Destroyer, you're really going to have to manage your boosters well to get off reloads and use your twin webs to get to your ideal range.

It's far from perfect, I know. I'd really prefer to have an Afterburner on there but it's just so damn slow without the MWD that I can't justify it. If you try this fit with success, let me know about it.

Small gang scenarios I see a much brighter future for the Jackdaw. With the fitting requirement of shield extenders changing as they have, the Large Shield Extender Svipul is once again, a very viable and tough tackler. Take a few of these and a handful of kiting Jackdaws through a Q003 connection to NullSec, and you're going to have some fun. For such an engagement, we came up with the following.

Dual Damp Kitey-Fag

Ballistic Control System II
Overdrive Injector System II

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
Medium Ancillary Shield Booster
Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender
Warp Disruptor II
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I
Phased Muon Sensor Disruptor I

Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Light Missile Launcher II
Expanded Probe Launcher [Offline]

Small Ancillary Current Router II
Small Auxiliary Thrusters II
Small Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer II

Kiting at the edge of point range, you travel at around 2.5K m/s, up to 3.5K over heated, all the while delivering around 220 DPS and Sensor Damps scripted to your situation. It's not super fast, but it's respectable, at least. And those ships fast enough to catch you will have to get very close with the amount of eWar you're putting on the field. A Garmur struggles to lock beyond 40 km's as it is, two sensor damps will make life very awkward for the Garmur pilot, forcing him to engage at a range he doesn't want to or disengage altogether.

I've heard of a few people talking dual prop fits for the Jackdaw and it sounds great in principle, but even in propulsion mode you're making less than 800 m/s with the Afterburner. Even a stealth bomber is out pacing you. Sure, you've got a nice tiny signature radius, but what good is that if you're always chasing your target, never being able to maintain transversal velocity? You're just going to be smashed in the nose for perfect damage time and again. GG Dual prop.

Having just completed level 5 training of the Jackdaw at the time of writing this article, I'm looking forward to field testing the dual damp kitey-fag Jackdaw tomorrow. Tears, kill mails or both to follow.

Screw your ideas!

Expanding on where I left off with my last post, I decided to take to the EVE Online Forums and see what the playing public thought of my idea. A frigate sized industrial ship, based on the Venture hull, that would allow we intrepid Wormhole dwellers to carry various items via Frigate Wormhole connections.

I thought it was a fair enough suggestion. As it stands, frigate wormholes have serious limitations and, whilst they are great content drivers as they are, giving them extra traffic can only be a good thing, can't it? It's not like I'm calling for something stupidly overpowered, it would of course have stringent limitations for its very specialized role.



I'm also not calling for the agility properties or warp core strength of the Venture. Nor do I expect the Covert Ops ability or capacity of the Prospect. Just a general purpose industrial frigate with a Fleet Hangar of 4,000 to 5,000 cubic meters, based on skills. After all, the Venture already has an Ore/Gas capacity of 5,000 cubic meters that isn't skill based, so this is more in line with the fleet hangar properties of a Deep Space Transport, only far more compact.

Initial responses were somewhat positive, but then the trolls crawled out from under the bridge. The 'arguments' against are as follows:

1. This sounds like a thread asking for a way to get towers into Frigate holes.
2. A Heron can haul 1,000 cubic meters.
3. Ore hangars aren't the same as Fleet Hangars.
4. T1 Industrials have a lower base cargo hold.
5. Scaling isn't right.

Let's address these one at a time.

1. It's not, it's a fleet hangar. As such you cannot anchor anything from it.
2. Capital modules are 4,000 cubic meters and if a Heron was good enough, I'd be using it.
3. 5,000 cubic meters is 5,000 cubic meters regardless of what you put in it.
4. They do, but those with specialized hangars have far more. Moreover, they can fit cargo expanding rigs and modules.
5. Scaling does not exist in EVE. If it did, Jita 4-4 would have exploded from over population years ago. There are so many examples of bad scaling that it doesn't warrant discussion any further.

The finer details are the kind of thing I'll leave to CCP. Agility, Warp Speed, Bonuses, Tech level and the like are all best decided by those with a vested interest and understand how to maintain game balance.

Now, does anyone actually have a good reason why this shouldn't happen?

Confessions of a Frigate Hole Lover

When frigate sized wormholes were introduced, I was skeptical. I remember logging in after downtime to find seven frigate connections and thinking I'll never kill sleepers safely again. Since those early days I'm happy to admit I was wrong, the content they deliver and the hilarious fights that can be had on them mean I'm always happy to see one.

A particular favourite for me are the Q003 connections to NullSec. We have been known to lose security status from time to time, be it from LowSec shenanigans or the occasional HiSec gank, so getting access to null rats to fix your security status is always handy, not to mention any slightly AFK nullbears not paying close enough attention to local. The problem however, is killing NPC Battleships effectively in nothing bigger than a destroyer. Then along came the Tactical Destroyers.

The Confessor, to date, is by far the best at this job. Fitted with beam lasers and a local rep, they deal significant damage at tremendous range and have a resist profile that suits all enemies. The fit I'm sharing with you can even solo C2 Wormhole sites and I've also used it with awesome effect in Wolf Rayet effect wormholes up to C4 class, where its damage application is a long way better than any alternative.

[Confessor, PvE]
Corpii C-Type Small Armor Repairer
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
True Sansha Adaptive Nano Plating
Heat Sink II
Heat Sink II

Coreli C-Type 1MN Afterburner
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II

Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Small Focused Beam Laser II
Corpii C-Type Small Nosferatu
Expanded Probe Launcher II

Small Energy Metastasis Adjuster II
Small Energy Metastasis Adjuster II
Small Ancillary Current Router I

It pumps out >430 DPS with Gleam and around 250 with Aurora, hitting out to an impressive 30 km's in defensive mode. Switch to sharpshooter and you'll be hitting well @ 50 km's. C2 Wolf Rayet effect sees the DPS jump to 794 and >1000 in a C4. The lowest resist is thermal @ 74% and it's cap stable without the Nosferatu running, not that you really need it to be. Even though they are beams, the tracking is great, easily hitting small targets at close range, usually alpha'ing them off the field.

With the advent of C13 Shattered Wormholes with C4 Wolf Rayet effect, I challenge anyone to find a better alternative to efficiently clearing everything that spawns there.

The only warning I'll give you is about keeping transversal on your target. The Sirius turrets and the like in W-Space will send you into low armour very quickly if you're not moving, so make sure you're in defensive mode when you land.

It was via a Q003 that CCP saw fit to troll me in epic style a few days past. In my time in Curse, the one thing you wanted to find spawning in a belt other than an Officer spawn, was a Hauler spawn. It wasn't unusual to get a 500m ISK drop of various minerals. Well, you know where this is going, right? Sure enough, the Q003 I transited, deep in Venal, gave me a Hauler spawn at the second asteroid belt I warped to. Great.

After flailing about with various Devoter and Coercer options, I calculated that I would need to make about 25 trips in and out of the Wormhole to return my loot to POS. Yeah, no. That won't be happening. So that got me thinking. Maybe it's time for a tiny Deep Space Transport? Perhaps even base it on a Venture hull? I mean, a Prospect has a 10,000 cubic metre gas capacity, it's not like it'd be out of the ordinary. Am I crazy?

OK, don't answer the last part, and maybe I'm being a slightly selfish wormhole citizen for thinking it, but there's got to be a place for a ship like this if Frigate sized wormholes are going to be used for anything more than suicide raids.

Planet Profit!

Keeping an account subbed with in game ISK can seem like a daunting task to the new player. With PLEXs selling for around 900 million ISK, even skill point laden Incursion bears know there's a good nine hours of farming to be done each month to avoid spending the $15 a month to keep their account going. Even more baffling to me are those who try to mine their way there with ore or ice. Sure, the price of Ice has soared with ISBoxing no longer really being a thing, but it's still a mind numbingly boring and gargantuan task that confronts you. Then there are the Null bears with their 20 million ISK ticks they're so proud of. Even if they were 50 million ISK ticks, that's a lot of red crosses, err, I mean red Monopoly Hotels, that need to explode before you start making bank. For the casual player who prefers to spend his time hunting for fights than grinding for ISK, there are easier ways.

I have found Planetary Interaction to be the least skill intensive and a minimal time sink. But there are conditions to meet before it becomes seriously profitable.

My production centres around Wetware Mainframes and below is how I do it:

You very much need a horses for courses approach. When I scouted the C2 Wormhole I conduct this in, I looked closely at the planets and considered what P5 production I could do, I also highly recommend EVE Planets when doing this, then went with the one I thought was least open to obsolesence. Wetwares get used in Starbase production predominantly, and I don't expect that to change with the introduction of Citadels. Pleasingly, their value has jumped by almost 50% in recent months too, ever since the Jump Drive changes came into effect.

A maximum skilled PI toon can handle six planets. Above you seen nine. So this is clearly not a one character operation. I have two accounts going, each with three characters all reasonably well skilled in PI. Five of them can do 5 planets each and one can do six. So we're not talking max skilled PI toons or anything, this is roughly five or six weeks of training for each character.

Your PI skills should all be at level 4, the only one I would call absolutely necessary to 5 is for Command Centre Upgrades. This allows you much better flexibility for setting up your production colony and maximising your output. Think of every level of that skill as an extra 20% output, because that's essentially what it boils down to.

OK, so you have your characters trained, your plans in place, how do I set up my production? Well, I'm not going into the 'how to', there are ample instructional videos on YouTube for that, but I can tell you that once you get it sorted, eliminate bottlenecks and manage steady, even production among all resources, the maintenance demand is very much up to you. There was a time when I would log in every morning on every character and reset my PI. It took about three minutes per character, so maybe twenty minutes spent each day. Then once every fortnight I would make the rounds, collect the materials and move them to my final production planet to turn it all into Wetware Mainframes. That process takes maybe half an hour. The final stage of production does require you to log into the one character that manages it from time to time, just to make sure the storage facilities are as full or empty as they need to be, but that's about as demanding as it gets.

Now, as I've gotten space rich I've gotten much lazier. I only reset once a week now and it's still managing to meet my income demands, although less fruitfully. If you're even lazier still, I have good news for you.

Buy your materials direct from market on buy orders and just have one manufacturing planet. If you don't mind the market fuckery [I do mind it] and can balance what you buy, just turning raw materials into high end ones is still really profitable. It's also a low effort way to dip your toes into the PI pond and see if you want to dive right in.

Or you know, fork out real life monies and ignore this post.

Warp to who?

So in their infinite wisdom, CCP have seen fit to implement a major change with the July patch. Wing and Squad Commanders will no longer be able to wing or squad warp their gang to a bookmarked or probed location.

As announced on the o7 show we are making some changes to fleet warp. Fleet Commanders, Wing Commanders & Squad Commanders will no longer be able to warp to anything a fleet member couldn’t warp to on their own. This includes –

• Probe Results
• Bookmarks
• Any private deadspace item (missions, etc.)

Commanders will still be able to warp their fleet to other fleet members, and all other ‘public’ objects.
The goal of these changes is to encourage more individual fleet member participation and reduce the speed at which fleets can get on top of targets (e.g bombers).

What does this mean, exactly? It means that in the absence of an Alliance Bookmark mechanic, things will move much more slowly in W-Space. The Prolapse Alliance of which I am a part has three active corporations scanning our chain at various times of the day. It's already tiresome to have to warp them through the chain when we're moving in a direction they haven't scouted personally, now we'll have to warp to it, wait for them to warp to us, bookmark, and then jump through and repeat. You're essentially doubling your travel time.

If we had Alliance Bookmarks I could live with this change but I am really at a loss to understand the logic behind it. Admittedly, I am seeing this from a Wormholers perspective; we live and die by our bookmarks. Credit where it's due, CCP have made giant strides forward in this area in recent times, but this feels like an enormous step backwards and a decision that was made, frankly, with scant consideration for Wormhole dwellers.

The head explosions on the forums are already underway and CCP claim they're open to discussion on the topic, let's hope that's true. Moreover, let's hope Corbexx can earn his keep as our CSM lest we leave everything to Chance. *rimshot*

Did you see what I did there?

The Butt Hurt is strong.

It's been a long time between blogs. Years actually. So much time has passed as to make those old posts irrelevant, so they're now relegated to the giant recycle bin in the sky.

In those years I've tried my hand at a few things. Spent some time in Providence, split time between LowSec and NPC NullSec, yet for the last couple of years it's Wormholes that have been my home, once again. I'm not certain what the attraction is; I suspect it's a combination of factors. The unknown, the inescapable paranoia, the hunt, the small gang combat, these are things I saw rarely in known space. Local just gives away far too much intelligence to your foe and good fights had to be forced upon them.

Wormholers are different like that. Not exclusively, of course. There are those who enjoy the sanctity of a forcefield a little too much. Just a casual glance at their defenses will tell you they prefer their POS to do the fighting for them. Usually, that sort of set up is common in low class wormholes or Russian Bearing corps in the high end ones. If grinding ISK is your thing, I'm down with that, but if you don't put your hard earned ISK at risk, what's the point? But they're not the people I'm talking about, of course. I'm talking about those who expressly want to risk their ISK, and I find they're more prevalent in W-Space than they are in K-Space, at least from a small gang perspective.

Those small gang engagements can seem as likely as a rainbow unicorn some days, others they are plentiful and from time to time, you can even set it up with like minded gangs in your chain. Which brings me to yesterday.

Chesterfield Fancypantz and his cronies were busy moving stuff in and out of their C5 via our static C2 that had a close Jita connection. Between their runs back and forth we managed to probe out their points of entry undetected and set up a cloaked Flycatcher to jump on something juicy. Whether that was a Deep Space Transport full of POS fuel or the Legion we saw go out earlier, only time would tell. We'd let a couple come and go without executing the trap, but when our scout called that Chesterfield himself was coming through in a Navy Omen, we couldn't resist the opportunity to pop the CEO. So he makes his jump from HiSec in his shiny new Navy Omen, Trinkets uncloaks the Flycatcher and pops a bubble, and we all jump in and warp to him. Our travel distance was, conveniently, much shorter than Chester's, so we landed well in advance of his arrival. He was subsequently sent back to HiSec in good humour, presumably not too butt hurt by his comments in local.

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=29250078

Anyone who's spent time in W-Space has been that guy at some point. No point getting bitter about it, just learn from your mistake and scout your route next time. Anyway, Trinkets was engaged in some post mortem conversation with Chesty and a fight was arranged. The audible groan from Wraith was one I shared but didn't broadcast, but history tells me arranged fights are rarely a good contest. Regardless, starved of content we formed up seven vessels. Three Cyclones, two Scythes, a Jackdaw and a Moa. Then the call comes that they're on their way. Brace yourselves.

Well, our small gang was met with, if memory serves me right, around 17-20 enemies. The only thing not appearing on the mails were the four, yes four, Exequrors. More frustrating still was the Kitsune. I mean, seriously, ECM is the highest form of faggotry, I thought we knew this? Well, with a dozen or more T3 Destroyers on the field, ample logi and ECM, our fate was sealed. It wasn't enough to outnumber us almost three to one, but they had to play dirty, too. Moreover, the 'no pod' agreement was breached when Trinkets was expressed back to HiSec, just proving for anyone that was unsure just how butt hurt Chester really was. Hilariously, the three Svipuls that had me hard tackled lost tackle through some creative neuting and I managed to warp to safety, but little else from our arranged fight survived.

https://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=29250355

I suppose that's probably why that's my last arranged fight. Thanks Chester.