Blingu’s rise and fall

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

Last night, was a good night. I got to use my Proteus again! It has been with me since I started my wormhole adventure way back with Raka, and despite it surviving for that long, I haven’t used it as much as I would have liked.

But! Storytime!

Yesterday started with a little roam in null. I was supposed to get to a gate-camp the guys were doing but once I got there the null-bears had finally decided to fight and we had to move back home with our tail between our legs after losing a few of the fleet. Once back, the guys who didn’t drop fleet since it was getting late, decided to go out for a little roam again. As per usual these days we didn’t really find much.

We did have a frigate hole in our chain, in which there were a bunch of miners on scan, and even a few Brutix’ etc. We knew this thanks to the scouting skills of one of the guys. Supposedly they even put up a bubble on the incoming wormhole to their system. So they knew it was there, and they had eyes on it. We hoped to get a fight out of it going in, or at least piss off a few miners. Seeing as most of them really hate being disrupted.

We decided to go out there in interceptors.
The frigate hole was connected to us through a C2, we wanted to go through, grab point on a few miners and keep them pointed, our heretic pilot was a bit slower, so we waited on him in the C2. When you live in J-space, you tend to use d-scan more often than in k-space. Most of us do it every few seconds, and it works. We saw an Epithal on scan, it wasn’t at a POS, not at their Citadel, so we searched for it and found him at a POCO. Before you know it we had three points on it and started to shoot. A few seconds after first point, a Tengu pops up on d-scan, the Epithal has backup. Seeing that I tend to make bad calls, we killed the Epithal and engaged the Tengu. This is with four interceptors and a heretic. We didn’t even put a dent in the Tengu’s shield.

The heretic died and we disengaged, we didn’t want to lose more ships to this. Luckily the interceptors are quite fast and getting out of point/scram range was easy.
After that our heretic pilot wanted to keep eyes on him, hoping to get revenge. “I don’t care if it takes me all night I want my revenge.”
I put my Proteus pilot in the C2 too, keeping an eye on the entrance to our home.

Meanwhile the pilot out for revenge kept an eye on the citadel and we went into nullsec. Our primary goal wasn’t forgotten, we still wanted to do annoy the miners. But they weren’t around. All of them were just floating in their POS.

As we came back a Brutix landed on the home connection, it was 60k off the hole, 70k off my Proteus. I started slow boating towards him with my Proteus, one brave Raptor went ahead and put a point on him. Giving me the opportunity to decloak and make my way over there to point him too.

While all that was happening the Tengu undocked again and warped to zero on the hole.
We pointed him too tried to kill the Brutix, who jumped into our home hole once he figured out we’d kill him. Seeing as we still needed to have our revenge on the Tengu, we started to shoot him. We couldn’t scratch it, it couldn’t scratch us. This is where alts come in handy. We made sure that we had a few points on him while others shipped up. Seeing that we couldn’t kill him with the interceptors earlier, having one Proteus as help would probably not do much either. I shipped E’dyn into a Hurricane and in the end, due to Pilgrim neuts, Falcon jams and our DPS, we were finally able to exact vengeance on the Tengu that killed the Heretic. He was shiny and had an amazing tank, but no cap and a combined total of more than 4k dps means certain death. Even if it took more than 20 minutes that fight was pretty fun. Hooray for alts! If we didn’t have those on standby, we would not have been able to break him. Kudos to him.

The loot fairy was good on us too, we had 1b in loot drop on us, so we got out with 250mill each. I paid the guys with my liquid ISK and have the mods waiting for my next Jita run where I’ll be able to sell them.

After that whole fight we decided to go and play with the miners again. They were still POSsed up. In a small POS, with no defences…. Seeing that it was late and we wanted to have some laughs, we decided to go and poke it with a few bombers.

So juicy

So juicy

I have to say, it was the most exciting POS bash I’ve been in. Mostly due to the fact that they started to panic.
The skiffs were being packed up in the Rorqual. The Phoenix started moving and logged out. It almost seemed as if they knew their tower wasn’t stronted. Due to the moving around of ships, one of the online, AFK pilots was bumped out of their shield in his hulk. It died quickly, so did the pod.

Unfortunately, the POS was stronted, so I’m still not sure why they panicked. We might have to go back there tomorrow. Even if it’s just for a few laughs. Op success.

Bummer

Bummer

All in all it was a good night, just a shame I didn’t record it.

And on a little side note, to show that I’m still a noob. During the Tengu fight my point kept getting turned off, and I had no idea why. Turns out that instead of turning off overload, I had accidentally turned off auto-repeat. Yes, you can laugh, that could have cost us a Tengu kill, I’m glad it didn’t.

Stay tuned o7

Boom goes the ship

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

I lost one of my favorite ships in the whole game last Sunday, a Machariel. It’s one of my favorite ships because it’s the first one I fully mastered (by doing level 4’s in it shhh) and it’s just super pretty.

Luckily, I also killed a few ships so it kind of evens out.

One of the places I live in with one of my alts, well… my main actually, is NPC null. Stain even (I don’t know names that well but do remember this one, and I’m sure you guys will know better than me).

NPC null is one of the stepping stones into the other null secs, you have stations, there’s a bunch of corporations and alliances, and you don’t need standings to dock, which means you can just put yourself somewhere and be on your merry way, coming back if you need repairs etc. It’s handy and you don’t have those silly Null alliance politics going on. Or people telling you to dock when there’s a neut in local because there’s a bunch of neuts in local almost all the time.

Back to how I lost the ship though. Due to the benefits of null, from time to time other groups decide to come and take up some territory. This is now the case with a few Russian corporations, taking down towers of our allies etc. Sunday was one of those days in which two of our towers was going to be coming out of reinforcement. We made a defense fleet and went out to meet the attacking fleet.

It was fun, despite the fact that the other guys played a game with us, warping off to another ping when we landed, going back and forth etc. We always were able to catch a few stragglers.

Them doing this only meant one thing, they were stalling. Getting a few more people on field. We knew this, and despite knowing this, we didn’t run. Because this was content, and we were getting kills.

So when all of a sudden bubbles started popping up around us, we weren’t that surprised. Our FC kept himself cool, calling out targets etc etc. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to escape the bubbles on time. Despite our logi trying hard to save most of us, they couldn’t quite keep up.

I don’t mind, I had a good time and some good fights. The fact that we now have a few new neighbours only means one thing.

More good fights in the future 😉

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

Taking it down

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , 2 Comments
I finally did it. After talking about it for weeks and thinking it all through, I finally took down my PoS.
When I first bought the POS from a friend it was mainly because of the way industry worked back then. In high sec there were almost no lines that were useable as an inventor/manufacturer other than those in backwater places too far from the market hubs.
At the time I had no idea what a POS was except for a way to do the things I wanted to learn how to do. 
Jump forward to the update that changed that. Suddenly you could use stations again, the whole industry bit changed, I no longer had to click hundreds of times in order to update my factory lines, and stations were a viable way to work once more. Having a POS still gave you slightly more options in the manufacturing/invention speed. But still, was upholding said POS and fueling it worth the slight speed upgrade? 
In my case, it wasn’t, or at least not anymore. Due to RL taking a lot of my time and EvE slightly being on the background I couldn’t continue the way I was. Spending 500m a month on fuel while I only used my lines once per day or less. I didn’t make as much as I used to due to my lack of time and I was basically barely making break even, all of this due to the cost of fuel. 
So I did the logical step, I took the POS offline and brought in all the modules, figuring that I wouldn’t be needing them anymore. If in the future I decide to set up a POS again it won’t be where I’m currently at anyhow. I would just move.
Taking down the POS took a lot longer than setting it up. Which was annoying, not only do you have to unanchor every single structure one at a time, you have to go scoop them to your cargo hold. And as you all know, you need to be rather close in order to start scooping.
This was done with a lot of warping out and in at the bookmarks I made for the modules. Seeing that when you’re flying an industrial to tear down your POS, speed is not part of your vocabulary. 
After I was done (or so I thought) I took the tower offline, which was one of my many mistakes, seeing that I still had two batteries hanging around the tower, and in order to unanchor them the tower needed to be online. It took me over an hour to have it come back online, unanchor the batteries and then take down the whole tower again. Shooting it all down would have been faster, a lot faster. But that’s hindsight for you.
So now I’m towerless and using the station to do my thing. I have no idea what the future will bring for my industrialist, but I know it won’t entail fueling that tower each month. Yay! 

Production efficiency and cost

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , ,
As an industrialist you have to check every part of the equation; is the material not too expensive, am I losing ISK on the time spent manufacturing, would it be more cost effective to just buy the invented BPC’s from someone and so on. 
I.. Don’t really do that. This is partly due to laziness and partly because I just enjoy doing what I do, not really caring if I make a profit out of it.
Which is one of the many things in my EvE time that I should work on, but as my readers (yes you two there) might already know, planning isn’t really my strong suit. 
A good example of this is the fact that the past week I haven’t done any manufacturing at all. I was missing one tiny part for my production but I didn’t feel like going out to Jita to get it, despite the fact that I have an alt parked there and I could have easily put up a courier contract to bring it to me. 
My time vs efficiency isn’t quite as it should be. At least I was still doing my invention, right? 
I have a few thousand BPC’s still waiting on their time to come, their moment to shine, to become an X or a V.. After that, or maybe even before that, I will be retiring my POS, something I decided on a few weeks ago but am finally coming to terms with. I’m not using it to its full power and therefor there’s no reason for me to keep using it.
Retiring my POS might even mean that my industrialist goes on his way to Null sec. The WH corp I joined on my combat alt has an industrialist branch who have a null sec HQ that I was offered to join. I might just take them up for that.
But that’s something for in a few months from now, because as we know. Planning and I, it doesn’t really work.

Another new playground

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , 1 Comment

It’s been close to two weeks since my last post. This is partly to blame due to the fact that I’ve been busy and partly because I wasn’t doing much in game.

As per usual I forgot to stock up and been flying back and forth between Jita and my home base to stock up my POS once more.

It’s amazing how fast you go through your resources when you have two inventors/manufacturers running everything. When I think that I’ll last two weeks, I will actually last less than one. This is partly to blame because my math is pretty off and I tend to forget a lot of things.

As for my adventure in wormhole space, well I haven’t actually done too much yet, I’ve ran a few sites which was cool but other than moving ships inside the hole, there’s nothing else to say.

I’m not sure how this will change in the near future because I am currently juggling between EvE and another game.

Last weekend ArcheAge launched its Headstart. And despite all of the server issues and glaring queues, I had tons of fun playing the game. I never did any betas or even alpha despite buying the founder pack but this is because I tend to get sick of most fantasy MMO’s quite fast and I wanted my first experience to be in the live version of the game.

Yesterday was the official launch which meant that F2P players were able to join the servers too. Which in turn meant that I have not been able to play at all yesterday because there was a 2000 man queue on my server and after 2.5 hours of being in said queue there was still 1600 people waiting in front of me.

So I updated my market orders and went to bed. Only to find out this morning, when I wanted to start another few invention runs, that I was out of datacores.. AGAIN!

Cue another Jita run.

I keep telling myself that I should be writing these things down and just put 2-3b ISK in materials. But I don’t like seeing my wallet going lower than it already is.

I should stop thinking like that, you need to spend money to earn money, I just need to learn to spend it on time instead of last minute.

Stay tuned o7

Plans are made to go down the drain

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
You win some, you lose some. And the past week I lost a bit.
I had hoped to cash in on Prospects, to make a bunch and have a nice amount of profit. Unfortunately, this hope was linked to the fact that people would keep the price high for at least a few days. 
Back when the venture was released, I made a lot of money in that first week, creating these new mining ships for noobs. I thought I could do this again. But this time, I was ready.
I spent a few hours on the test realm writing down what would be needed for a Prospect. After the file was created I went on my way to Jita and started setting up buy order for the raw material. I already had all the BPO’s that were needed to create a few of these ships so I could save a bit more money on these.
When all was ready I waited for the patch to drop, over 200 venture BPC’s, ready to be invented. The invention of one such BPC takes 12 hours. The fact that I, like many other people, have a job, meant that I could only start an invention run at around 7, when I got home from work. Meaning that some people already had a head start. 
12 hours pass and it’s 7 o’clock, I should have already gone to work but I decided that I’ll just work from home (allowed to do this once a week). 
This was a good decision. Because as it turned out. I made a mistake. No surprise there.
Instead of having an Advanced Ship Assembly Array, I had a normal one. Which meant that once more, despite me thinking I was prepared and wouldn’t have to go to Jita. I had to do just that. 
I bought a few and brought them to my POS. Forward about half a day and I have my first Prospect ready and 10 more in the tubes. These would take a few days to complete, but I went to Jita with high hopes. 
The first 3 I ever made, were sold for a nice profit of around 100m before they went down, and down, and down. 
I was looking at the market and saw them going to around 25-30m and sticking there. With a heavy heart I have to admit once more, that planning is not my strong suite and that I definitely am not made for long term options. 
I’ll still make a profit on what I have, but it won’t be near the profit I had hoped.
Such is the life of an industrialist. You can plan all you want, but your competition will be doing the exact same thing and they’ll make sure that your profit won’t be as high as it should have been.
“At least you’re pretty”

Stay tuned o7

Four step plan

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , ,

When people ask me questions, I tend to answer them to my best knowledge. 

For some reason I get a lot of questions about industry, I bet it’s because I own a POS and dabble in manufacturing a bit. 
I say dabble because as most of you know, I make way too many runs to Jita when starting my jobs for the coming few days. And a real industrialist wouldn’t be doing it as much as I do. 
I go to Jita to get my materials, go back to my home system, try and start the job only to notice that I forgot a few things back in Jita. That’s one of those things I should have grown out of ages ago.
A friend of mine decided that it was time to start a new alt and try out manufacturing himself, so he asked me and a few others for hints/tips. 
I told him the four step plan that I kind of use or should use;
1) Gather material
2) Bring material to place of manufacturing
3) Start manufacturing
4) Profit 
I admit that this makes it sound easy, but in general, manufacturing isn’t all that hard. You just need the correct skills, a few bpo’s, the materials and the place to manufacture.
Once you want to go to T2 manufacturing it gets a bit harder and the skills you need take a bit of training, but in the end it’s all pretty straight forward.
Just make sure that if you do go into manufacturing, try not to flood the market. I’ve done it a few times when I first started, and that kind of thing eats quite a bit of your profit. 
Stay tuned
o7

State of play

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
It’s been a few days since I last logged in. Work, real life and so on making it problematic to find time to do so.

Which of course, meant that in the past week and a half, my characters have been idling, not producing anything, not doing any trading, and not doing any missions.

Logging in today I planned on changing that, so I logged onto my combat alt. I check my mails, find out we’re in a war and curse, seeing as he’s hanging around in Jita and can’t actually do much other than spin. Oh well, on to the next account and character.

I decided a while ago, that I really suck at trading, and that I don’t really like spending too much time on doing it. So I logged onto the trader, checked his buy orders, noticed how much lower everyone else’s sell orders are suddenly at, and logged out. Sooner or later the prices will go up again, and I don’t feel like selling at such a low price, despite still making a slight profit. 

Seeing as I don’t feel like using the trader much, I’m not actually losing any money on not trading yet, it’s all part of my so called plan.

After the trader, comes the industry alt and my POS. I’m lucky enough to have a few people who I can count on. Because otherwise my POS would have ran out of fuel last week. I wasn’t able to log on due to constant disconnects so asked a friend on steam if he could refuel our POS. Which he did, and I paid him back the fuel, yay. As for the use of the POS. I noticed a few copy runs being completed, and am happily inventing again.
“Enjoying the sights while going out on a shopping trip”

I might just try something new and buy a few billion worth of materials to do a bit of experimenting on T1 production. Past 8 or 9 months have been spent on T2, might as well change things a bit. Which would mean  not using the research slots for invention but for research, so there’s multiple positive sides in that.
My day will probably exist of going to Jita, buy what I need, going back to HQ, figure out I forgot a bunch, and so on.

Despite writing everything down, and going to Jita thinking; “Ok, I know I haven’t forgotten anything” I always do forget things.

I bet I’m not the only one getting frustrated when you get back to HQ noticing you’re missing a few million units of Tritanium.

Stay tuned o7

More or less than bargained for

by In Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
We all know that I’m bad in logistics. So bad in fact, that when I decide to create a certain amount of T2 items, and I finally calculated everything I need. I still forget things. Despite the fact that I actually use said calculation, have it sitting right next to me when checking the market and making orders.

And yet every single time I forget something in my whole process. Last time I made about 1000 T1’s to build further into T2’s.. I thought I had everything, I had the materials, the product, everything except the one vital part that I didn’t think of at the time.

I had forgotten to turn on my invention process for the BPC’s… You can imagine the facepalm I made at that time.

Now we’re a while later and I’m happily chugging along in my manufacturing process, about 100 products get made every other day and I invent enough to keep the lines going.

It’s only one character, 10 research and 10 manufacturing jobs, but it keeps me very busy.
I can’t imagine what it would be like if I had multiple characters creating things. Can’t imagine what else I’d forget.
“Request for docking bay, I forgot a few things”

So tell me, what is the one thing you always forget? Are there times you go to a trade hub with something in mind, and then come back empty handed, or with more than you needed, but not actually the one thing you were there for?

Stay tuned o7