Alpha Rat

With the introduction of Alpha Clone States in November I got to thinking how one might utilize the limited skills available to the best effect. The obvious choices are exploration frigates going for that dank Relic site loot or Ventures filling HiSec mining belts, but I'm talking about maximum results on minimum skills. I think, all things considered, that living can best be made by ratting.

Probably some of the lowest risk, highest earning potential with ratting comes from either HiSec DED sites or Class 1 Wormhole Sleeper sites. The HiSec ones can be a bit hit and miss but the loot drops can be outrageously good. In Guristas infested areas the Scout Outpost is rated as a 4/10 but can easily be handled in a Tier 1 cruiser and if it drops a C-Type Invulnerability field, well, that's several hundred million ISK for about 5 minutes work. The wormhole sites are less lucrative but a lot more reliable. Each site in a Class 1 wormhole will pay out + or - 25 Million ISK and it's relatively low risk, albeit much more dangerous than HiSec.

Having established your method of F2P Eve ISK farming, how best to execute it? I initially thought a Caldari Navy Caracal with meta Heavy Missile Launchers would be the best option. With a passive tank and great reach it could kite high damage NPCs and act much like a passive drake, admittedly with less damage potential. Which is where I stalled. Even with three Ballistic Controls and Faction missiles the DPS was a miserly 270. That'd be OK for HiSec I suppose, but it won't cut it in W-Space if you're solo. The Navy Vexor was another strong contender but being limited to medium faction drones, especially considering the Sleeper's affinity for munching on them, makes it a HiSec only option also. Which drew me to the Omen Navy Issue.

Now, I know what you're thinking, it looks pricey. And yeah, it is a bit on the spendy side, but not outrageously so. The faction beam lasers can be swapped out for the Meta 3 or 4 versions as needed and the same applies to the hardeners. But really, when you look at the stats of this ship with the clone that will be flying it, it needs all the help it can get.

The Important Stuff

Tank DPS: 115
Gun DPS: 316
Drone DPS: 100
Speed: 751 m/s
Capacitor: 44% stable

If you're not comfortable taking this into a high risk area it'll run level 3 combat missions comfortably too, not to mention the random pirate and drones sites that pop up in HiSec. But if you've got big balls and you know how to maintain a little hole security, I'm very confident it'll handle almost all Class 1 wormhole sites too, with the obvious exception of the Phased Catalyst Node and its litany of Sirius gun batteries. So if you see your corporation filling up with F2P scrubs that are bitching about their inability to earn enough income to buy the odd skill injector, maybe put them onto the Navy Omen, provided they were smart enough to select the chosen people for their preferred race.

Don't even try to be the good guy.

My activity of late, both in the blogosphere and in the EVE Universe has left much to be desired. I tried to find my Mojo again, I really did, but it just felt more like a job than entertainment. I guess that's what being a bitter vet is, isn't it? I can't really explain it, I love and hate this game all at the same time; it's like a drug habit I can't kick.

When I set up my little PI Farm in the Class 1 Wormhole the writing was on the wall. I knew that the daily log in to reset my extractions wouldn't last and, sure enough, I'm resetting every fortnight now. But that doesn't really pay the PLEX bill and my stash will exhaust itself in a little over a year without an income. I'm sure as hell not going to rat for it so I thought I may as well play Land Lord for a while.

This is probably one of the most convenient aspects of the Citadels. Allowing select individuals or corporations to come and go as they please makes life in W-Space more appealing to the casual player. If they could find someone with an open port, or at least negotiate docking rights, a mutually benefical arrangement could be made. I'm not the first to think of this, of course. There was the failed Oasis project recently that had promised much but probably over reached in the end. That individual made his Citadel a free port and really, if that's what you want, you need just go set up in Thera. At least those stations won't get exploded.

So I've taken a different tack. I've offered up docking rights and low tax PI in my system for pretty much anyone that wants it. I'm being selective about who gets the rights to dock, I really don't want PvP entities in there making life a misery for the industry or sleeper farming bears, they are a potential source of my income, after all. So  advertised in the Science & Industry sub forum and soon had a small Industrial Corporation setting up shop. Obligingly they're taking full advantage of the ample PI resources in system and I'm seeing a nice trickle of tax income flowing in. It won't make me rich, but with a few more people extracting it'll go a long way to making my subscription ISK neutral. As such, I've been canvassing pilots on the forums that have been asking for PI advice, you know, trying to be the good guy for a change, only to be met by this...

Now, I get that there are a lot of scams getting about and one has to be cautious, but what can I possibly have to gain from this? You have a HiSec static and secure storage and somehow it's a trap? I think Tisisan from Hard Knocks summed it up best.

"If you let billions of isk of PI stack up in a system with a HS static, youre an idiot. Honestly, its a really low risk offer given the cost of PI infrastructure (compared to site running, t3 production, other WH isk making stuff). Just don't be a lazy ****. Take the 2 minutes to scan out the HS and move your crap out every few days.

You know what IS risky? Setting up as solo citadel, investing a bil or two on pocos, with limited characters when you dont know jack about operating in wormhole space. Oh, and being a condescending **** to people trying to help you is a good way to get on the eviction list if you do actually move in to a hole solo."

I couldn't have said it any better. :) Oh, and if you want to take me up on the offer, join the in game channel "The Farm." [note the period at the end]

As an aside, I took Night Fever out for the first time in ages a few days ago. I didn't really intend to go hunting and was just idling 100 km's off of a connection when I noticed an Astero and Probes on D-Scan. I had all of the anomalies scanned out so I thought "Why the hell not?"

Dutifully, the little Astero scanned for a while, his ship appearing on scan every so often but never in an anomaly. So I waited, cloaked, 100km off of a Wormhole.

Next thing I know the Astero is on grid with me, coming out of warp very close to my position. How close? About 2,600 metres, that's how close. I quickly realised I wasn't imagining things, uncloaked, smashed F1 to F5 and the inevitable happened...

Bob is good.

Multi Boxing is Hard

With a day off from work tomorrow I had some free hours to invest in the service of Bob post down time. Clearly Bob was pleased by this turn of events and immediately gifted me an Astero in our home system. What a splendid start to the evening! I moved on down the chain searching for more post down time activity and stumbled upon a C4 with a few active pilots shuttling goods around in a pair of Occators. The first instinct was to set up camp on the Lava planet customs office but it soon became evident that it wasn't PI goods they were moving, it was equipment from a pair of POS to their newly anchored Astrahus Citadel.

The POS towers and the Citadel were parked quite close together however, so setting up a drag bubble would be impossible without being spotted. Moreover, the Occators weren't moving simultaneously, with one idling on the undock of the Citadel as the other ferried goods back and forth. We surmised that the pilot was multiboxing both characters so we took a punt and set up a trap anyway, about 600 kilometres off of the Citadel, in full view of one of the Occators. Our Devoter then warped in, popped his bubble and waited. Several minutes passed as I watched over the other Occator idling in his POS and we were pretty close to calling it off when, unbelievably, the Occator began picking up speed. Sure enough, he was heading straight for our poorly concealed trap.

Yes, that really just happened. I mean, I can understand someone not checking D-Scan, but this guy was on grid with us on his other character. A second monitor could be a sound investment, lest people might think you're as dumb as a box of hammers.

In for a penny...

It seems the transients that have been lurking in my C1 PI Farm have called it a day since losing their POCO and defence fleet. It's been several days since there's been any sign of the Falcon that would occasionally uncloak to combat probe the system and considering how frequently he'd been probing up until this point, I'd say it's a fair assumption. The lack of a watch list leaves a fair degree of uncertainty of course, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

With the system seemingly secure some of my new Corpmates in Low-Class have expressed an interest in putting their PI farmers in system too. I've got fourteen planets to extract from, there's plenty to go around, so it's probably high time I bit the bullet and put up an Astrahus Citadel.

I thought I had it all figured out, anchor it about five minutes before downtime and no one would have the opportunity to interrupt it the following day but CCP, in their ultimate wisdom, have apparently closed that little loophole so a more conventional approach was needed. I began the anchoring process in US TZ Prime Time, when the glut of my new Corp mates would be online and also coinciding with a free Sunday morning for me or anyone else in the AU TZ. Moreover, I closed my only connection [to HiSec] and left it scanned but unspawned whilst I cleared every site from system bar the ore sites. I did this to discourage any would be explorers from poking around too much and stumbling upon my still anchoring station. It's not unheard of to go without transient connections for a few days at a time, with any luck a defence fleet would be entirely redundant.

Now, I've had loads of experience with setting up POS towers. I've assembled and destroyed all manner of set ups, had a highly memorable siege against La Division Bleu's large tower when they had at least three characters manning their weapons and even killed three Revelations, an Archon and a Bhaalgorn with a small tower in one memorable assault in LowSec, but these structures are utterly foreign to me. Fortunately, I was ably assisted by Kalseth with a fitting that was promised to be the Citadel version of a Dickstar. In the event of an assault on my Citadel it was unlikely that I'd have a character immediately available with the required fighter skills, so the prospect of a station that was going to be an utter nuisance to reinforce was an appealing one. In case you're curious, it looks something like this. ==>

Fighters are up to you. I'll probably load mine up with a mixture of Templars and Firbolgs but only because I've got quite a lot of them lying about.

For the purpose, it's quite ideal. I can set standings so that my out of corporation characters and friends  have secure access, it's significantly more formiddable than a small or medium tower, dramatically more defendable and, considering I really have no use for a market, refining or a clone bay, costs me nothing to run. Considering I'm such a tight wad that I used to mine my own ice for fuel, that's a significant ISK and time saver. Not to mention the amount of nanite paste I'll save...

Epistaxis is now in business and other than the outrageously long anchoring time, I can confidently say I'm very pleased with the result. Well played, CCP. This is a big step forward in player owned star bases.

The Struggle for J105837

I've been quiet for a couple of weeks but not through lack of activity. The C1 PI Farm that my alts occupy has a pesky Customs Office located at planet one that I need gone. Trouble is, the owners like it just where it is and have kept a scan alt in system despite leaving the system unoccupied for quite some time. I found this out the hard way when I left some Combat Recons to grind away at it whilst I was AFK. They scanned their way in and halted my little party in its tracks.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I conclude a more dedicated effort is required. As such, I get some friends together and we reinforce the POCO in short order with a kitchen sink fleet. No effort is made to interrupt us but I suspect that we were operating well outside of their normal time zone. Accordingly, the timer for the destruction would be 6am. Great. I have a fat chance of getting my AU bros out of bed that early so I logged in alone in a bomber and pecked away at it to see what sort of response I would get. For a while nothing happened and then a Proteus appeared on D-Scan. I cloaked and moved off of my position to see him land close to me moments later. So clearly he had a scout. 

By this time I had joined No Vacancies and managed to get a few of their guys together to have another crack. They have an active US TZ contingent so even if there was a bad timer for me, it was likely it would work for everyone else. Again, the reinforcement went smoothly enough and this time I was rewarded with a 4am timer. Yay! Undeterred, I left my new corporation mates all the details and the promise of a good fight and looked forward to logging in to see some kill board activity. Alas, nothing transpired. I'm told only one of my corporation members logged in and, coupled with a demonstrable lack of activity from fellow corporation members in general, decided No Vacancies, who clearly have vacancies, was no place for me.

Unable to get a reinforcement timer to suit but determined to remove this customs office I thought to engage some Mercenaries for the job. Most that I spoke with either couldn't be arsed or didn't do wormholes, until I spoke to Low-Class.

Low-Class were very accommodating, inviting me onto their TS3 for a briefing. Their rates were spectacularly good seemingly more concerned with getting a good fight than they were in ISK. So plans were laid and we were soon working on the POCO for a third time. As per fucking usual it was a shit timer, this time at 2:30am, absolutely no chance I'd be there for that, but Low-Class were more than happy to proceed.

Judging by the kill reports a good fight was had. Half a billion in ISK was lost by my Mercs but they inflicted over 1.2 Billion in losses upon the enemy. More importantly, the POCO was finally destroyed too. I'll reimburse the losses to my hired help, it's well worth it for the service provided, but something tells me this isn't over yet. Even this morning, as I erected a new POCO on the planet, I spotted combat probes from their scan alt. I think they were expecting me to drop it at 0. ;)

Curse the lack of Curse!

Having a NullSec static is a new experience for me, as a Wormholer. I mean, sure you get transients and those delightful Q003 connections, but with a static you come across new and interesting things more often.

I had only just logged in and got on comms when I heard someone call out the presence of a Tengu on our NullSec static in our home system. I expected he was a cloaky prober that would just jump and warp away when someone tried to tackle him so didn't make a move immediately but it soon became clear the Tengu was there for a fight. We were disorganised and unprepared but #YOLO so a few pilots tumbled through the Wormhole into NullSec to continue the chase. Obligingly, the Tengu didn't try to escape, instead pointing and firing on a fleet mate until he was forced to withdraw, and then my late arriving Cerberus until I was forced to withdraw. My 700+ DPS Cerberus had put him into very low shield but I was very suspicious he was bait tanking me to get me off the connection, so I played it cautious until reinforcements arrived. I've tangled with enough bait tanked Tengus to know my buffer tanked Cerberus can't hope to crack it without help.

Help soon arrived but it was light on eWar. The speculation was that it was a dual ancillary shield booster fit and that eventually he would run out of charges and die. Well, the speculation was wrong and when a Gila joined the Tengu we soon lost a Sabre and a Cerberus. The Gila was driven off and soon replaced by a Dominix which was quickly primaried whilst maintaining tackle on the uber tanked Tengu. With the neuting Dominix gone attention was once again focused on the Tengu until the Dominix pilot returned in his Gila. Once again, DPS was focused on the new arrival and he was dispatched before he could cause any headaches and, once again, we refocused on the Tengu. Try as we might, his tank just would not break. Heavily webbed down, scrammed and being bombarded with all kinds of damage types he just kept on boosting.

Finally someone brought the neuts, our Bhaalgorn landing on field and sealing the Tengus fate. The kill mail does make for some interesting reading...

As interesting as the fit is, the pod mail deserves a lot of the credit. We know he had skirmish links so I'm going to assume there were Siege links in system too, combined with the High Grade Crystal set and a pretty shiney Deadspace fit, it would certainly account for the damage he sustained.

The whole engagement dragged on for about 45 minutes with the Tengu tanking almost half a million hit points of damage before finally succumbing. Despite being very slow to get neuts on the field it was a pretty ISK positive engagement however, costing us about 350 Million ISK for about 3.5 Billion in kills, not to mention the important lesson that comes from not having a neuting ship in your gang. Always bring a Curse people. Always.

Space Presents!

After a somewhat eventful evening of scouting our chain and catching out a Skiff, Venture, Hyena, Astero and a Heron, I was heading back to our Astrahus when I noticed a POS that had a forcefield up only minutes earlier, now did not. I resolved it's location just to make sure it wasn't a fly swatter set up and was pleased to see it anchored about 300,000 km's from their Astrahus Citadel with no pilots visible. So we formed up and joked about the Archon that would inevitably drop from the Ship Maintenance Array and moved into position. The SMA went pop soon enough and the rest of the structures around it, including a Capital Ship Assembly Array followed suit. And guess what? An Archon dropped. :S

Sadly, it was completely unfit. Even worse, we were in a Class 4 Wormhole with no way of getting it out. The only logical solution was to self destruct the ship and collect the insurance and pretty soon I had a 519 million ISK insurance credit in my wallet. Beats the shit out of ratting, hey? To sweeten the deal, a heap of capital components worth several hundred million ISK dropped from the Capital Assembly Array and a steady flow of Deep Space Transports got all the goodies home just in case we are taken with the urge to build Capitals of our own.

Would've been nice to siege out their Citadel with it, but hey, half a billion ISK is half a billion ISK.