The little guy includes the small corporation, the newbie player. The players that will shape Eve in a couple of years time.
Conventional wisdom says that new players should either remain in highsec or be absorbed into large null structures (and be bound by them); with lowsec being a place for those with some experience to eat newbies for breakfast.
There is a 4th space : wormhole systems. Sure; I would not recommend that a beginner one month old pilot try to form a wormhole corp. Mind you, after a month I was still toying with starter missions and discovering a whole new universe.
For the wannabe new corporation: you do need some skills; Anchoring to set up a POS; Scanning to find your way home; an industrial ship or 3 to bring 'stuff' in. (There is no market in WH space with the exception of what you make with your fellow residents.).
Wormholes are for moderately active groups; You would probably want 3 or 4 accounts even in a "Class 2" wormhole (whether 4 players or 1 very organised one). You need someone capable of remembering to keep the lights turned on (otherwise known as hauling fuel blocks or at least the ice products for those).
In wormholes there is always something to do: Planetary Interaction; combat sites; mining sites; running away from PVP roams; maybe even doing PVP roams; raiding your neighbour's sites.
Wormholes do have a home advantage. You have a large defensive structure to run away to (your POS). If you are organised: it has replacement/alternative ships; spare ammo; salvaging equipment.
There is a limit to the amount and size of ships that can be brought into a wormhole. Are you a young group and the idea of a battleship scares the goo out of your pod? Set up in a class 1 wormhole.
Other groups might be content to see a battleship but not want to take on a Dreadnought or Carrier. In that case a Class 2-4 Wormhole system might be for you.
It is also difficult to take a huge number of high dps ships on a roam; especially in the lower class wormhole systems. You can take a few; but to bring in enough DPS to roflstomp a POS in a lower class wormhole system will simply collapse the entry wormholes instead. Defenders have plenty of time to bring in what ships they like; and can even build ships that are too big to take in our out.
Now; like everything else in Eve; nothing is 100% safe. WH roams can still ruin your day. Even a 'dickstar' POS can be broken despite the lack of capital ships if the attackers are determined enough.
That said, a class 2 wormhole is a great place to practice sovereignty by occupation.
Some recent WH blog posts include :
- http://themittani.com/features/selling-rabbit-hole
- http://emergentpatroller.blogspot.com/2013/02/ooc-entry-71-what-makes-wormhole-pilot.html
- http://mabricksmumblings.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/the-start-of-new-chapter.html
"In wormholes there is always something to do"
ReplyDeleteI would take issue with this point.
Wormholes spawn anoms and sigs. Anoms are combat sites, sigs are ladar (gas mining), grav (ore mining), wormholes or rarely mag or radar (combat sites with loot cans). It's pretty quick to clear out the combat sites. Ore mining is pointless because high sec ores are worth just about as much as ABC and other rare ores. Most gas in low end wormholes is not worth collecting. It's very quick to farm out your own hole even solo and then your options depend on where your wormhole connections are.
If you've a high sec static and no other holes your option is go to high sec and do whatever any other high sec dweller would do.
If you've a low or null sec static your option is try to nick a few mag sites in hostile space or pvp the locals. Running the mag sites from a hole is inferior to simply being in a null sec coalition and running mag sites in your safe space.
Going to other wormholes to farm or fight is either highly risky if you're going as carebears or pvp with farming.
So your "lots of options" come down to farm the low hanging fruit then pvp pvp pvp.
A c3 wormhole at full utilization nets 4-6 billion isk per month. That's harvesting and selling ore/ladar/combat sites but not doing any manufacturing. This will take 4-10 people, if you ignore the gravs/crap ladar you'll be looking at 3-4.
ReplyDeleteC2s have two statics, one is always to another wormhole. Don't like it? Roll it.
ReplyDelete@Stabs : Part of the point is that some (myself included) want to 'build an empire', rather than just joining someone else's empire.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is little you can do in a Wormhole that you can't do elsewhere.
Similarly, there is little you can do elsewhere that you can't do in a wormhole.
With the exception of set up a place to call your own home.
Is it the 'best' profit to be made being here? Probably not.
But we answer to ourselves; and whether we prosper or fail is largely influenced by our choices.