Meet Steve.

by In MMO Tagged , , , , , ,

Steve is the name of the drifter battleships that can sometimes make wormhole space a bigger pain than it already is. Not only does he put out about 2k DPS, he also neuts like crazy. And that’s the most annoying part of him really. The DPS is something most people are able to handle fairly well, but the neuts, my god the neuts.

Steve is here

I’m not sure where the name Steve came from. I just know that we’ve been using it for a while now, and supposedly the guys in corp that started using it had it from someone else they flew with. But his name is Steve now and I shall always know him as such.

Making ISK in wormholes can be done in multiple ways. There’s PI which is obviously the easiest one, there’s relic/data site hacking, there’s evicting people and stealing their stuff. And then there’s doing sites.

Which is what I’ve been trying to do in the past week or so. Sites can be done in multiple ways. You can do it with multiple people, or solo it (if you have two tinker rattlesnakes) Mostly when doing it with subcaps you’ll get roughly 300m per site. Without taking into account the fact that you need to close down incoming connections you’ll earn about 400m/hour, give or take a few.

At the end of the site, a structure will uncloak, and if you shoot it, Steve will spawn and he will try to fuck you up.

Luckily you can also use dreads for sites like this (if you are in a bear hole or if you have them in your own hole). Warping in a dread will “escalate” the site, spawning a few more battleships that are just a little bit harder to kill and drop a little bit more ISK in the end. But killing Steve with a dread is so easy. In the end you can make roughly 700 to 1b/hour per character doing it, IF you have this thing down. And that’s with just two dreadnaughts doing it.

I tend to forget about my speed from time to time. And bump things

I tend to forget about my speed from time to time. And bump things

I can’t even imagine what the income from this used to be. Supposedly it was a LOT better. Which kind of makes sense, most of the veteran wormholers don’t really have to worry about ISK at all.

With PI and doing sites. I might just make the ISK back that I put in this dread pilot. That makes me happy. I just hope I earn it back before the Naglfar dies. And it will die, I’m sure of it, I’ll probably do something stupid with it. That’s what normally happens when I let things die.

We’ll see

Stay tuned o7

 

ISK makes New Eden go round

by In Games, MMO Tagged , , , , , , 1 Comment

Making ISK is something everyone has to do. The way how you do it though, that’s different for every single one of the players out there. But it has to be done, how else are you going to afford the ships you lose? Or get into that Nyx you’ve been craving ever since you saw the ship model.

I used to make my ISK in three ways. Trading, industry and running missions. Half of the trading I did was to complement my industry and the other half was just me messing around on the market trying to find the stuff that could make me money.

Those that have read my blog in the previous years know that my industrial side existed of making T2 things. I used invention on BPC’s I had copied and turned those things into T2 products. All the goods needed to make those T2’s were bought off the market because I didn’t want to make everything in the whole process.

I made a LOT of ISK that way and I flooded the market countless times dropping the price of the things I made. Sometimes on accident, sometimes on purpose. But unfortunately my industry character hasn’t been used at all in the past year. This due to the fact that the products I used to make are worth less than their materials combined. Supposedly this is due to the null-sec groups having their hand in it now. I wouldn’t know though, I have yet to start caring enough about null-sec to start looking into things.

As for trading, I haven’t done it either in the months since the citadel change. Partly because I’m lazy and don’t want to go do that one jump to put orders in a citadel, and partly because I no longer have a clue about what’s good on the market. Ok, mostly that second part ;).

Missioning, well I haven’t done that in years, I used to love running L4’s in my Machariel but ever since joining corporations and no longer being solo I just haven’t felt the need to do so anymore.

So how do I make my ISK now? PI and C5 sleeper loot. I absolutely love doing C5 sites with a small group of people. Doing it solo is boring, but I love having 7 rattlesnakes on the field, warping from one site to the next and just melting the targets.

Beautiful snakes, flying out to their next target

Beautiful snakes, flying out to their next target

A few weeks ago we had a little group of 4 snakes, two were mine, two were my corp-mate’s. In the three hours of farming we made a total of 2.4billion ISK. Which isn’t too bad. That’s about 200m/hour per character. And half of the time we weren’t even paying attention.

Due to my love of the Snakes, I made a third character, just to fly in one.
So last Saturday I had 3 on the field, along with two other corp-members we had a total of 7 rattlesnakes on the field.
We melted the sites and in one hour we made about 320m per person. Which could have been better but the sites weren’t the best out there.

Circling the MTU like there is no tomorrow.. For the rats

Circling the MTU like there is no tomorrow.. For the rats

That’s one way to make ISK in a wormhole though, my other one is PI and all of you probably know or have an inkling of a thought what it’s about.
If I pay attention to it I make about 1bn/month across two characters. Which isn’t bad but I tend to forget about it. Woops.

Got to get it out of the hole somehow

Got to get it out of the hole somehow

There’s a third one in the Yacht club that we introduced a while ago. Well it was already there but now more people know about it. Namely “Scout gets the loot”. Basically, when you’re in the chain and find targets, if we kill them, you get the loot. If you find an Astrahus to kill you get 50% of whatever drops out of it. Which is pretty damn good.

I have yet to find myself an offline POS with an SMA hanging around it (happened already) but it’s a nice incentive for people to find more targets. And more targets for us means more content. So it’s a win win.

Scanning can be a pain though. Spent a few hours doing it yesterday and I decided to keep it to a maximum of half an hour of non-stop scanning in the future.

Stay tuned o7

Meeting corporation IRL

by In Games, MMO Tagged , , , , , ,

My past couple of days were not spent on EvE for a change. Or not ingame at least. I was in Prague with members of my corporation. Which was super fun. And the week before that I went to Gamescom, which is something I’ve been doing in the past few years just because it’s a fun experience.

I don’t go to the con to play games though, because I don’t like standing in line for over three hours just to play a game in advance of its release date for about 30 minutes. It’s all about the atmosphere in the arena.

As for Prague, I never really did a real life meetup with people that I play games with, this was the first time that I decided “fuck it might as well” and went.
Prague is about a ten hour drive from my place so instead of taking a plane which would have taken one and a half, I decided that I’d do it by car. Make a little road trip out of it.

On the road I picked up two other guys from the corporation. The fun thing about doing that was not having a clue what those guys looked like. I showed them my car, told ‘em that’s what they need to look for at the designated pickup places and that’s it. That was step one of the adventure, step two was getting through Germany and the Czech Republic, into Prague.

I left on Thursday morning around 6.15 and we arrived in Prague at the hotel at around 17.45, this included a few needed stops on the way, and a detour in the city because instead of listening to my navigation system, I listened to one of the guys. As per usual on coms, that wasn’t one of the best ideas 😉

Prague riverside view

We spent a few days there, getting to know each other, putting a face behind the name and talking about EvE. It’s a nice change of pace from going out with my real life friends, since they know nothing about EvE and aren’t interested in it. I loved talking to others about it, making ingame plans, coming up with stuff to do etc etc.

All in all, a very good time. Although I did miss logging in. Since the place we stayed at did not have Wifi and my roaming charges are through the roof.

I came back yesterday, dead tired but with some great new memories. All in all, that was a good way to spend a few days off work.

The first thing I did logging in last night was turn on my PI again. Since my planets have been doing nothing since Thursday. After that, I put Jump Drive calibration V in my skill queue, because supposedly I should have that if I want to play around with a Blops. I still need to buy a Panther but I’m going to be doing that as soon as I come in Amarr or Jita.

I’m also thinking about maybe resubbing a third account. I still need to decide on it but I might want to do that again. I just need to decide on what I want to be doing. Since after training E’dyn into blops some more, I will probably start training for Dreads.

Trading wise I haven’t done much in the past few weeks. I’m buying and selling plexes every few days, same with skill injectors. It’s a small profit because I keep forgetting about the higher taxes on normal stations. But it’s something.

Stay tuned o7

So much to do, so little time

by In Games, RPG Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

The wheels of my inner mind have been working overtime in the past few days on what I will be doing in EvE the coming weeks. Not because I’m bored and have nothing to do, no, it’s the exact opposite. I have no idea where to start this time.

Since joining the corporation I currently fly with I finally have things to do. I’m finally going out on roams, plan on new things etc etc.

I lost a ship the other day. The third one in a few weeks. And I don’t mind as much as I used to when losing something. Why? Because I’m having fun that’s why!

And that’s the whole point isn’t it, you’re supposed to have fun flying the ships you fly, instead of worrying about losing them. I’m starting to finally learn this lesson, it took me a while, and dozens of different corporations but I’m getting there.

Other than roams I’m having one of my alts train for jump freighters. The one thing I don’t like about the place I currently live in is the lack of a market. So I decided to finally put all of my liquid ISK to use and set up a market over there. Or at least try to.

I just need to figure out which items to stock. I think I’ll start with the corporation doctrines and work my way up from there. I already have a bunch of buy orders in place in Jita. Now I just need to figure out the logistics of the place.

I’ve also set up my PI in one of the systems and was lucky enough to recruit a few people into shooting down the Interbus POCO’s still left in the system. I honestly don’t get why these guys are not doing any PI over there, I found three Plasma planets within our little pipe. So I was confused when I saw the Interbus POCO’s still there. Oh well, I helped them set up new POCO’s, paid for them out of my own pocket and everything. In the long run it’ll be more interesting for me anyhow with a lower tax rate.

And last but not least, I took over a bunch of Moon mining POS’. I have no idea how it works and how much they’re going to make me, or cost me. But it’ll be an interesting little experiment. Although I’m 90% sure that I’ll be making a profit off them once the month is done. Unless someone decides to shoot them down that is.

All of this, happening because I finally decided to make friends instead of staying in my own little corporation. I’m glad I got out of my little bubble.

And I’m curious to what will come next.

Stay tuned o7

Did not see that coming.

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
The other day, after browsing the market a bit, I decided to check up on my wormhole PI ventures. I had noticed that my launch pads were filling up slowly and it was time to go and empty them.

Good thing that the entrance to our WH was marked about 7 jumps from where I was. That meant I didn’t have to do too many jumps in my trusty little Nemesis. 

After getting in the wormhole and checking if nobody else was around I stored my Nemesis in the corps’ ship bay and took out one of our Epithals. When I cleared the second POCO I suddenly noticed an Abaddon on D-scan, I figured he’d be looking for me in the POCO’s so I jumped around a bit and cleared the last one.
Once that was done I quickly went back to the POS and took out my trusty Nemesis, warped to a safe, cloaked up and told my other corps members that there was an Abaddon in our hole. One of them was gas mining in a venture a few holes from ours and told me to search for him while he slowly made his way back.

As most of you know by now, I’m not that good at pinpointing, anyone, and I figured that the Abaddon knew I switched into a bomber so he must be jumping around himself, I didn’t want to take combat probes out so decided that it was time for me to try out the D-scan way of pinpointing someone.

Let’s just say that I failed miserably, in the half our of jumping around, readjusting the angle etc etc I did not find anything, yet he was still there. Once my fellow corporation member came in the hole in his Manticore, it didn’t take too long to find him. Turns out he was taking sleepers on in one of the sites. One of the places that I forgot about. Oh well, time for a strategy.

We were both pretty much newbies when it comes to bombing, but we figured we could try and kill him with bombs + torpedoes. Seeing that our hole doesn’t like armor tanks.

I slow boated my way to one side, the other one to the other and we waited at 30km for him to take somewhat of a beating. While waiting another one of our corp came online and we told him to come over, he wanted to try out something new so made a ship and was coming our way.
That tiny speck right there, is my target!
As he was two jumps from our hole, I suddenly see a Sabre on D-scan.. Warping exactly on the Abaddon, at first I thought it was a friendly of him, up until the point that he put up a bubble. A second after the bubble was up, three Proteus’ de-cloaked in it.
Well, that guy’s thinking: “Oh shit”

I was just staring there instead of acting, while my corps member had already de-cloaked and fired his bomb, a second after I did the same, we figured we might as well try and get in on the kill mail.
My bomb came in too late, and I have absolutely no idea how much damage I did to them but it was a pretty fun experience. 
“Where did they come from?!”

It was quite a thrill too, to suddenly see T3’s uncloak on our target. 

I went back there as they were slowly going out of the bubble and my corps mate did so too, we had decided to see if we could bomb the Sabre as they were still in the bubble, so about half a second after stating that, my corps member decloaks, fires a bomb and… Explodes.
I couldn’t help but laugh, turns out one of the sleeper turrets got him, his bomb didn’t even come close to hitting anything.
The guys that took the kill talked in local, asking us if those bombs were meant for them. Because if they were, they didn’t actually do much.. But all we really wanted was to get in on the kill mail, and maybe blow up that Sabre.

I didn’t get any kills yet this weekend, but at least I didn’t lose any wrecks either, and it was pretty fun.. I might go roam later this evening, I still want to explode things.

Stay tuned o7

Sleepers don’t actually sleep.. Who knew

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Last Thursday was the first time in my entire EvE career that I did two new things. The first one was flying a Dominix with sentry drones, and the second one was using said Dominix in order to do sleeper sites in a C4 along with a few corporation mates.

I had fun doing it, although it did require some of that patience you need as a wormhole dweller. Not only did I have to make 24jumps out of high to our wormhole entry point, all of this in a Dominix. When I got there I had to wait a bit longer because we needed to collapse the high sec entrance, and then find a good, unoccupied C4 to play in.

After three or four collapses we found one with 3 offline towers and decided this would be a good time to go do a few sites. It was about 00:00 here so I was starting to get a bit tired, but I really wanted to see how they worked.
Ok, let’s do this

My job was pretty easy, seeing as I was in a sentry drone boat, and the rookie of the bunch, all I had to do was launch my drones, put on my hardeners, and have my drones assist one of the others. Which gave me plenty of time to look around. Or at least it would have given me plenty of time if we didn’t go through them so fast. I was amazed at the speed we were doing them. 

What do you mean my friends are gone

The veteran among us was too, this was the first time he had taken anything different than ravens along and our 8 sentries + 1 raven were shooting down the resident sleepers quite fast. I think we clocked down on about 10 minutes per site. So that was pretty good.

I stayed for about an hour longer, providing over watch for the Noctis as he went about salvaging our loot and after that I jumped back to our own little wormhole, jumped into the POS and logged out, because I was dead tired and I had to go to work in the morning.

When I logged back in yesterday, I decided to set up a few extraction planets. Seeing that I have the skills trained up to level 3, but never actually used them on this character. I checked the planets and decided to just put up 3 lava extraction ones, making it easier to just extract and make 1 kind of material instead of multiple, seeing that I tend to be bad at logistics.

I had forgotten how easy it is to put up extraction jobs and let them run. This is a nice way to make some passive ISK, and it will make sure that I have to visit the wormhole from time to time.

Let’s just hope that I don’t get blown up when visiting a custom office in an Epithal

Stay tuned o7

What button do I press to go boom?

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Seeing that I have a bunch of extra ISK, without any effort or time spent on getting it, I decided to use it on ships and training myself in the use of bombing. Today will be a day for experimentation with that.

I currently have 10 fit Nemesis’ ready for action. Why the Nemesis? Well because I think it’s pretty, that’s the only reason behind my train of thought in picking a bomber.
Pretty, pretty Nemesis; Did I mention I like image search?

If I’m going to blow stuff up, or die trying, I might as well be doing it while looking at a pretty ship.
Besides figuring out how to bomb I also have to do the somewhat “boring” job of restocking my planets. It’s one of those things I tend to put off for quite a bit, most of the time my planets aren’t even working at full capacity because I don’t like stocking them again.

Which is one of the reasons why I might just go back to low sec with them soon. That would mean I could just log in, put the timers on, which would take about 5 minutes, and not bother for a while again.

Now, back to bombing. One of the reasons why I want to do this, is so that I will learn to not be afraid of low and null sec, specifically null, seeing that you can’t bomb in low. I’ve been going out of my way to not get into the lower security space, because I’m afraid of losing ships. And this has got to end.

In the larger picture I’m even considering of joining a WH corps, just because I need to learn new things and not get stuck in my ways.

Time to see if I can actually do what I tell myself to.

Stay tuned o7