EVExplorer

Tales from deep space

[evexplorer-blog]

Too busy to write

My bad.  Been busy and haven't taken the time to write.  Corp is growing nicely which is nice to see but my latest adventure now is that I have one of my exploration alts parked in a C5/C4 wormhole looking for a C4/C3 wormhole that our corp can expand into.  Should be interesting to see how active the corp is, whether or not I get spotted, and how easy it is for me to find an unoccupied wormhole.  It is why I love this game.  What other game do you have the opportunity to deal with content on this level and not have it handed to you on a platter to consume.

[evexplorer-blog]

Way to go boys!

I fell like a proud papa.

My guys have found and killed two Ship Maintenance Arrays in the past week with the latest holding nearly 3B in assets with about half of that dropping for them as loot.

Nothing quite as exciting as logging on to find chatter about ships and loot and rushing to move an Orca 20+ jumps to be able to help them haul their catch out. They were generous enough to offer me a share though instead I simply took possession of a Skiff that I needed that happened to also put us over the edge in a shipping contract.

I always wonder what happened to a corporation of an apparently active alliance that managed to allow their tower to run out of fuel and go offline. We took a Leopard out of the loot which is a ship that came into the game only four months ago. So much can happen in a relatively short period of time in EVE apparently

[evexplorer-blog]

Helping myself

I used a friends Recall invite to reactive my 2007 character which is left over from my first attempt at getting into EVE.  Poor guy has only 1.5M skillpoints for being so old.  He still had a Vexor with 5 high slots (the current only has 4) and it was totally shit fit with mixed tank *and* a hull repper on it.  What was I thinking?

I've decided to start a little side project with him and create an open recruitment exploration corp based in Domain. It might be an interesting way to feel out pilots for inclusion in our wormhole corporation where finding trustworthy pilots is an ever present challenge. As a result I was hanging out in the Help channel thinking to at least get my name out there and have some exposure. Instead of finding people for the exploration corp, I came across a pilot who was solo living in a C3 and had gotten evicted. A short conv and an exchange of API keys and we have a new member in the wormhole. 

Funny how that works

[evexplorer-blog]

Feeling bad

Bad weekend in the hole.

Corpmates lost expensive ships in encounters where I made it out alive. Don't feel much like the captain going down with the ship but that is the risk we each take when we undock. Awarded the newbro a medal for his willingness to stick his neck out. Stepping up looking for members to bolster numbers. We're close but not quite at that critical mass of people ready for anything.

[evexplorer-blog]

1v1

So trouble came to our corner of wormhole space the other night in the form of a C5 wandering wormhole. With our HS static being only a few jumps from Jita, I expected at least that we would be used as frequent transit. I happened to have been feeling under the weather and had taken the day off work so I had plenty of time to observe. Not much happened other than a few pilots capsuling out and returning in ships. The appearance cut short my time farming in our C1 which had a strange collection of two corps with towers and a third with ships in space.

In the early evening I had to step away for an hour or so but upon returning, I found a half dozen corpmates online, somewhat unusual but becoming more common now as our numbers are slowly increasing. I quickly got up to speed with reports of a Proteus cloaked on the C5.  I had myself and an alt with eyes, or rather ears, on. Then we started to get more action from the high-sec hole with a Caracal jumping in and sitting on the hole. Wanting to see what would happen next, we waited and then a Paladin jumped in. I recognized the corp as one from the C1. Now, if you're not familar with wormhole space, our C2 high-sec static can fit a battleship. A C1 cannot. We have seen this before where someone tries to jump a battleship into a C1 not realizing the mass limits. I was hoping the same would happen here and within a minute, both ships warped off in the direction of the C1. I called out for people to warp to the hole but we were not fast enough and landed as the two ships warped back to the high-sec hole, realizing their mistake.

All this time, in the back of my head, I remembered the Proteus who now decided to simply uncloak and sit on the hole. Checking the pilot, I realized that it was a fairly notable wormhole podcaster, one known for PvP. Great. Knowing what I know about C5 wormhole PvP corps, they would expect a fight, especially with us chasing down battleships. Our PvP capabilities, however, are fairly limited. Many of our guys are barely a month old, certainly not in any shape to take on a T3 fleet. One of our online members, however, is also a podcaster and begins discussions with the pilot. After some time, they offer to downship to T1 if we want to have a go. Seems we outnumber them maybe 5 or 6 to 4 which I don't expect will make any difference but our guys are ready to go which I just love about them.

We discuss for a while what to bring while the C5 guys actually fly out to get ships. Seems they recently moved into their hole and don't even have T1s to fight in. We end up with a kitchen sink of T1 cruisers and I decide to bring my alt in a Blackbird just for fun. I believe they brought a Vigilant, Enyo, Ferox, and Exequor which basically wiped the floor with us. Afterwards, the Ferox offerd to take on all of us at once. I flipped over to my main in an Astero and we went at him, driving him back into the wormhole. After that it was a podcaster duel between the Enyo and our "fleet" Talwar which handled the assault frigate well.

But I had the itch. I didn't want us simply be fodder for their guns and I fly the Enyo myself so I know its capabilities. I thought it would be a great fight taking my Astero against it so I offered on our comms to relay the request. Their diplo accepted and our two frigates went guns hot.

I wish I could say I remembered much of the battle. It was fast and furious and it took me some time to get into the groove, not being in PvP often. I chose to go right at him, despite knowing he would be blaster fit. I hoped that my neut plus tracking disrupt and tight orbit with webs could make the difference letting my drones pile on while I avoided most of his blaster damage. It was tricky staying in range as we slingshotted around each other and quickly we were both in armor. I threw my deadspace repper on and it made all the difference. I held on with 50% structure while the Enyo exploded under my drones. 

Later we threw a few ships we had lying around at a few of them just for the fun of the fight and in the end, they returned to their home hopefully satisfied with the encounter.  I know I was.

[vincepaladin]

Reblog and add your opinion. Use a format like this:

Name of ship: Type of fit(eg. Brawler, snipe): Tank type: Why you chose it:

This time, what is your favorite t1 frigate? My answer:

Merlin Brawler fit (electron blasters) Shield buffer tank I chose the Merlin as it has gotten me through...

[evexplorer-blog]

Slasher Tracking disruption (autocannons) Shield booster tank So much fun to fly, feels like the seat of my pants most of the time

Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rq2jjSuzjA

[evexplorer-blog]

5 is the magic number

Apparently five wandering wormholes in a foreign system is enough to make us put an end to our adventure. Overall, it was a success. We duo cleared three C3 sites. My cohort cleared a few gas sites in his T3 solo. Our speed of operation left something to be desired, but given our lack of experience with the sites, it was still successful. A warp out per site, at least by me, was common as I tweaked my Dominix tank for the sites. My first adjustment kept the guns at bay but left me open to much from missile strikes. My final fit, which I never really got to test, on paper, should provide ample protection from both as well as neut endurance as well.

I'm excited to try the same fit in our home C2 as I expect it to feel like "easy mode" and I plan to incorporate some of the lessons learned even in our static C1 if I ever transition to a boosting Myrmidon when we do more small fleet operations as our new members continue to grow in their skills. Right now they're PI monsters in training and getting their income stream solidified.

Now we are back home and getting back into our routine. My PI infrastructure certainly does suffer when I am away. But there is fuel to haul, gas to collect, and somehow I'd like to figure out who the two pod kills were. None of the killboards seem to have them and they were not from our corp. Guess some visitors ran into bad luck.

[evexplorer-blog]

For clearing C3 sites, I prefer the raw power of mounting a Legion into my Dominix high-slot.  It is a serious cap drain but the DPS is worth it.

[evexplorer-blog]

Finally into the unknown

It has been a while since I have had something to post.

I'd like to say that I've been tremendously busy with new pilots in our corporation and other fun and exciting things but truthfully, I have been in a bit of a lull. Our new corpmates are getting along nicely and even getting kills while setting up inside the wormhole. It is fun to watch and good to see that we are able to offer an environment where they can thrive creating their own content.

We are also undertaking some new industrial minded activities to produce our own fuel blocks and fund a second tower that was donated by a new member who has now gone absent. We have debated taking the tower down util his return since it puts us on the hook for the fuel bill, but I like having the second tower. He was interested in manufacturing and having it available gives us more options for members. I hope our new friend returns both for the addition to the corp as well as his desire to keep the tower operational for us. I'd certainly rather put the additional reaction income we're generating into the corporate coffers rather than into fueling the tower but either way works. 

In terms of my personal activities in space, they have been relegated lately to managing PI to keep the income stream alive and little else. I am enjoying Tripwire and using it to map our wormhole chains as it puts how connected we are on any given day into a very visible perspective. This is good for all of our members to understand what might be lurking around every corner. But mapping and scouting are not terribly fun activities...

What prompted my post though is that I've gone camping again, but not gates.

Last night as I came online, I was informed via Tripwire and by my co-founder that we had a C3 adjacent to us. It was an outbound connection from our perspective which sparked my interest as it could end up leading to an otherwise quiet hole.  Most of the C3s I've found via their k-space connection have, of course, been occupied and relatively clean. I have been looking for a C3 in order to try out a couple ships which I think will be able to handle the sites after my initial foray into one. This is important for my long term desire to move some or all of the corp into a C2/C3/HS hole. Upon investigation though, this C3 connection was already at end-of-life and appeared to have only an hour or so of time left.

Not wanting to leave any stone unturned, I jumped in with my scanning Helios and quickly located the single tower to find it occupied by a two-man corp who also did not appear to run their sites as I found over a dozen combat anomalies and the same number of signatures blinking at me on my discovery scanner. Time to make a decision. I quickly discussed with my co-founder our options and we decided to make a go of it. He was anxious to try out his new T3 Legion and I had a Domi fit I wanted to use. Unfortunately, my plans called for a shield fit and I was rigged for armor in the hanger when I jumped into the Dominix. Some quick calculations showed that the capabilities should be similar, perhaps even more advantageous on the armor side in terms of pure numbers. I launched the Battleship into action and got into the system, making a safe spot to park and cloak while we investigated. 

Within a few minutes we realized that we had jumped without a few key components including salvagers. In the C2 we can salvage anything other than the battleships using drones so we often bring a salvaging ship in at the end just to clean up. I also normally have some in my hold along with a mobile depot for the quick refit but since this Domi was a relatively new addition to my hanger, I had not included salvagers though I had remembered the depot. Jumping onto my alt found that we also lacked any salvagers in our General Storage. Ugh. What a time for the cupboards to be bare. He jumped out to high-sec and found a large number for sale at a reasonable price just one jump out. A quick trip in the speedy frigate but upon returning to the hole found the C3 just collapsed. The wormhole was gone but the signature was still on the scanner...oh, there it goes.  Dead.

We were able to source a few via the low-sec static after scanning all the signatures but we may need a supply run brought in since we do not want to keep that entrance open inviting others into our party. It should be interesting over the next few days as we get time to actually run the sites, hopefully without encountering the locals. I very much want to get a sense of the site difficulty, how tactics differ from our own C2 sites, and what the loot and salvage value is comparatively. And of course, not dying.

[evexplorer-blog]

Tripwire

Found via a post on the Wormholes subforum for EVE, our corporation has started using Tripwire to map our wormhole chains.  What I truly love about a tool such as this for a corporation as small as ours is that it can be a content creator for some of our newer pilots. It doesn't take a ton of skill points to be an excellent and efficient wormhole mapper. By contributing to this tool, even the most green pilot can feel a sense of accomplishment in seeing the time they invested being put to use by the corporation. This type of contribution is unusual for our corp which does very little on a corporation level other than to provide support for our pilots individual efforts. We are not at the size yet where we can count on active pilots to be present to do regular roams (PvP or PvE) so each pilot tends to operate somewhat independently. Looking forward to seeing how actively it gets used by our members

[evexplorer-blog]

Distraction kills

Things you should not do:

Leave your logi alt at your tower because you "don't need him yet"

Take a phone call during a solo combat site

Right before you stupidly trigger a second battleship 

1 + 2 + 3 = Dead HAC

[evexplorer-blog]

Corporation membership

Been musing this week on corporation membership. We seemed to be in a lull recently with many members absent and unaccounted for. Not a big deal for me in terms of corporation management. I'm a fairly independent player and like to treat others the same and not get in the way of their game but at the same time, I wonder where they have gotten off too. A few days, no big deal, but when you haven't seen someone logged on in weeks, you start to wonder if they're ever going to return. And then I start to wonder, when do I purge inactive members? Not sure on that yet.

On the flip side, we got three new members in the past 24 hours. Maybe that influx of new players is been felt everywhere, even in wormhole space. I hope we can provide enough content for them to want to stick around for a long time.

[evexplorer-blog]

Take a minute and check out this podcast produced by two long time EVE players who happen to have been part of our corp in the wormhole for a good part of our time now. Can’t take credit for any of their success though, just glad to have them as part of the corp.

[asiem-of-guilt-deactivated20160]

Dear Eve Online,

I feel increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that I am paying 10 dollars a month for your online services and every time I open up my client it crashes. WHY YOU DO THIS EVE? 

[evexplorer-blog]

Hit the little gear in the upper right of the launcher and set the graphics to DirectX9. Lots of reported problems with AMD cards.

[evexplorer-blog]

About loss

Today in the EVE universe, everyone is talking about the giant fleet battle in null-sec where 70+ Titans were lost. The in-game value of the ships in terms of ISK, materials, time, is astounding.

As an individual player on a smaller scale, it is hard to imagine how the value of what was won as a result of the battle could even begin to outweigh the value of what was lost. I speak of this often with corpmates with the phrase "Fly cheap". Others may use calculations such as ISK/hr and for many it drives everything they do in the game. But I am also reminded that there is a stark difference between what we value in the PvE (Player vs. Environment) part of EVE vs. what we value in the PvP (Player vs. Player) part of EVE where you put the variable FUN into the equation. The hardest part is where those two parts of the game meet and where often, the most frustration lies.

Take our most recent corpmate. He was enthusiastic and very productive but he also suffered from what I like to call "too much of a good thing". He had ISK in abundance, whether from selling characters or wherever he got it, he had it. He flew a 3B ISK Tengu regularly. I've said before, I fly Vexors when I run anomalies. I feel exposed when I fly my Ishtar to clear a site. My level of ISK is small enough that I consider myself far more efficient than others because I fear losing what I have. I enjoy that fear though and it adds to my enjoyment when I play. It is probably tied to the fact that I fund all my game play with PLEX which requires me to keep a tight control of my wallet from month to month.

Anyways, back to our man. He contributed greatly to the corporate coffers in his Tengu until yesterday. Fate caught up with him in the form of a five man roaming gang which took down his shiny Tengu, although it did take them a good 20 minutes to do it. 3 billion lost. Our man left our corp shortly after. He has returned to his high-sec life. The loss was too much. No hard feelings though and he was very appreciative of what we tried to do for him. It just wasn't the life for him.

I can appreciate that. 3 billion is a tough loss. But you would never catch me flying a Tengu to clear a class 1 wormhole. Never. Not when a Vexor can do the job. Maybe not quite as fast, but I watched him clear some sites the night before. It wasn't a magnitude faster in the Tengu. Certainly not 3 billion ISK worth of value faster.

Would you catch me flying a Tengu into battle though? Maybe someday. Because despite the impact to ISK/hr and wallets, what I fly for PvP is lost in my mind already. It is the cost of doing business. It is why I don't mind losing my 150M Astero to a Retribution. If I ever get to the point where I can afford a T3, I will enjoy dying in it in flames and explosions because of that part of the equation called fun.

I hope that those 70 Titan pilots had fun. Otherwise, what are you doing it for?

[evexplorer-blog]

Seems to me to be the most reasonable and straight forward modifications to null doc I've heard yet.

[evexplorer-blog]

Back home

I realized today that I forgot to report on my exit from my C1 adventure. On the final day we breezed through the final 5 anomalies and gathered up our loot. While the take on this final leg wasn't outstanding, our total for the 30 or 40 anomalies was close to 400M ISK. Not bad for about 8 hours of work all in all but we had to get it out. We scanned down the wormholes earlier and now I began warping to each. The first was a C4 or greater "dangerous" hole. No thank you. I tried the second and found a C2. That could be promising. I jumped in and within seconds a Loki landed next to me. It wasn't quite close enough to break my cloak but I needed to escape. My a Vexor is not cov-ops so I was not optimistic. I warned my partner as I jumped back through the hole and began an immediate warp. I made it out and landed at a safe and quickly cloaked. It didn't take us long to put together the gang of three ships was jumped back into the dangerous wormhole and not interest in us. What a crazy coincidence. No contact for days of running sites and as we are looking for an exit we run into a random gang. No harm no foul and with some decent advance scouting we make it safe to the local lowsec station, jump our ships out, and make it back to high sec. I do want to thank PushX for the super fast hauling of our loot back to Jita for a very reasonable price. Now I have a new Ishtar to play with so hopefully more new space stories to come!