What I do in nullsec (trading)

Currently, in game, I am either looking after a (for profit) nullsec market in Oasa, or I am playing with C5 escalation sites.

This post is about my nullsec life, other posts comming soon (tm).

In Oasa, my plan is to be the seller that fills the gaps.  There are some other pilots that are efficient manufacturers of a few things.  However, Oasa is so far from markets, with unreliable jump freighter routes, that there are huge gaps in the market.  I have just trained up my 4th tycoon pilot.  1 pilot does a mix of buying ore and pi items, as is about to start doing invention (probably for ammunition and modules).  The other pilots do

I currently manufacture Tech 1 ammo, modules and hulls.  While many players with access to real markets prefer Tech 2, faction or meta modules, there are sufficient times that any module is better than no module.

Skillbooks are good selling items.  Build a market library and they will come.  There are some skillbooks that all players are automatically gifted with, and they don't sell too well.  Skip these:

• Mechanics,
• CPU management,
• Power Grid Management
• Gunnery
• Navigation
• Mining
• Astrometrics
• Science
• Spaceship Command
• Astronautic Engineering (no use skill)

While a racial frigate and weapon turret skill are handed out to all newbie pilots, there are still other races that will buy these skillbooks.  

In my corner of null, Tech 1 hulls are mostly covered by other players. Gnosis however are still imported and are popular.  Faction and Tech 2/3 hulls are still in limited supply.  While the Ishtar and Gila are popular ratting ships, others are also aware of this, so I generally sell other stuff.

I currently also import rigs, meta 4, tech 2 modules (though I do hope to start manufacture of these).  I also import 'difficult' things like cloaks. Whenever I feel that my cargo is over value, and I need something cheap and bulky to fill out a load, I will haul command centers for PI.

I resupply via wormholes, with the scanning, hauling and purchasing that requires, primarily using a largely unscratched Occator.  I am occasionally 'invited' to get a brand new Occator and pod, but ... I try really hard to avoid that.

Without understanding why, wardecs are a fact of life.  My solution is to fly an out of alliance highsec pilot to nearby the wormhole, and then swap ships with my nullsec pilot.  (The reason I don't understand is that surely it would be cheaper to put alts into ships and just blow them up to pad killboards ... we don't lose much).

My resupply method is inefficient and time consuming.  I am not afraid to charge for it, with some margins being significant.

I will form in defense fleets and strategic ops.  These do include the occasional gate camp removal gang or hauler escort, or even an entosis event.  I can't make as many of these events as I would like to, but contribute to ship replacement programs to cover others.

Our alliance does a lot of ratting and mining, and does roam.  I rarely do these things.

Nullsec corps are generally recruiting.  My nullsec pilots belong to Sons of Alexander, and if you would like to join either as a corporation or individual, feel free to shoot DoToo Foo an evemail.

Corporations wanting to join Al3xand3r. (our alliance) can contact Head Teach.

What I do in wormhole space (PI and escalations)

My most recent activity in wormhole space is that we have started C5 escalations.  I think we look more like a bunch of 6 year olds at our first martial arts bout, and a lot less like a bunch of hardened warriors.  So much dancing around and being stressed about losing stuff.  

We are using the c5-6 like a baws guide with a couple of variations.  Firstly our loki nos's the carrier for extra cap, which relieves the capacitor pressure from the initial archon.  Secondly we are slow, sooo slow.  If you find us when running a site and are looking to gank us, no need to rush. We will still be there when you get back.  Still escalation sites are profitable.  I just hope that we pay for our ships before the gankers arive.

I run a C1 -> Highsec PI wormhole, with an open invite policy (please see the recruitment link at the top of the page).  I buy PI and haul to market.  I still do some PI but not as much myself as I used to with the nullsec market and C5 escalations taking more of my time.

I also run a C2 -> Lowsec/C2 PI wormhole that is pretty quiet at the moment.  I recently stuffed up in here ... there were explosions and not of the good kind.  I am both incredibly relieved and wildly disappointed that only the ship maintenance arrays showed and dropped loot.  The storage and industry arrays array didn't show any loot.  That was not from a lack of loot in there.

Unlike in other parts of space, in wormholes I have hunted and ganked pilots and POS alike.  Not many, and not often.  In wormhole space however, you live and die by the F1 button.  If you want a defensive fleet, you will have to bring one.  You remain safe in wh space by being belligerent.

I am looking forward to citadels.  Assembly of Tech 3 cruisers, sharing space structures with out of corp pilots (friends and alts alike).  I have not read but I assume also contracts?  I have read that the entirety of the citadel will drop loot.  This should encourage more casual ganking of PI holes as there will be (lots more) profitable loot to be gathered.   I will have to decide whether to set up medium (3 hour vulnerability per week windows and 'cheap' ) or large (vulnerable twice as long with markets, and so much more expensive) citadels, but no need to decide just yet.

I made my first fortune, as an unskilled newbie, doing wormhole PI.  I still spend too much on various projects but ... oh well.  I am always recruiting for PI pilots in my wormholes. Whether you are a newbie pilot looking for more than highsec, or a PVP pilot looking to pay for ships, I am recruiting for more PI pilots.  If you are interested, please see the recruitment link at the top of the page.

I believe

There are some thing I believe in Eve

Players experiencing players 

Eve is a truly multiplayer game.  We interact with other players.  I sell ammunition.  I expect it to be returned 'slightly used'.   There are the hunters, and the hunted.  Occasionally there will even be some form of 'set fight', but we try to avoid that most of the time.  Sometimes we even hunt ore, or red crosses.

Circle of gank

I believe that there are 3 fitting philosophies of note.

Evasion fit or avoiding the fight. Stabs, Nano, Oversized prop mods, brick tanked, or even just oodles of capacitor.  This pilot just wants to GTFO  (get the far out .. or something like that).

Gank fit.  Faction scrams,  triple scram fit, high alpha, or a hundred catalysts.  This pilot wants to catch the evasion fit ship.  (I even stayed in faction warfare until I caught a stab fit farmer).

PVP fit.  This pilot wants to bring the best to a fight.  To win any engagement.

To me, Eve is a place where the good PVP pilot defeats the Gank fit; the good Gank pilot catches the Evasion fit, and the good Evasion pilot evades the PVP pilot.

Yes I believe in warp core stabilizers.  They encourage the ganker to choose between being hunter and prey.

Me?  I am usually prey.  I also know the very real limitations of warp core stabs.

Wormhole space is the best space for a small independent group

If you want a handful of pilots to have their own space, wormhole space every time.  Sure you can be a target (but that is true in all parts of eve).

Highsec was not for me.  As a newbie, I did not have the contacts or strength to hold a place in lowsec.  However wormhole space has been a good experience for me.

This includes making a small fortune with PI, building my sandcastle, and having others try to take it away (they nearly succeeded too).

Someone dedicated can take space.  But taking multiple spaces takes too much effort for the larger empire builders, so there is room for that small corp.

Ok I am biased, shoot me ... (and you probably will)

I like the effects of Fozzie Sov

I can't speak for all regions of nullsec, but in the deep northwest, what used to be monolithic ownership is now a nice ragtag collection of small alliances each 'owning' their own space.  Yes... the big boys could take it away ... and then we take it back.

I have read that groups are currently fighting over recently vacated north eastern space.

However no mechanic change will solve "bring them down".  Don't lend your strength to those that you wish to be free from.

Highsec needs iterating

Highsec is our new player experience, and we have a lot of players in highsec.  By all means, I want to encourage them to branch out into other spaces, but a few more rides in the park will never go astray.

Disclaimer: My use for highsec is Amarr, Jita and the occasional NPC trade hub.  Well sometimes I visit Dodixie, Hek and Rens ... but its still is buying or selling.

Player representation is good for the game

Eve has a great resource in it's player representation.  Usually, this takes the form of guides, blogs/websites, and third party tools.

Some of these players are opinionated, and wish to guide the future of Eve.  Sometimes CCP will listen, and even seek feedback.  Other times CCP will feel they are better off without some of this feedback.

I wish those play-styles compatible with mine to continue to influence both CCP and other Eve players.

The best defense against Echo Chambers is a diversity of opinion.  This means I want both us and them represented.  For many readers of this blog, I will often be 'us', but sometimes I will be 'them'.

Blogging/Reddit/Forums are other good ways to get player representation

CSM is one method of communication between player groups and CCP.  But we know that different player groups have other means of communication.

Grr

I fully understand that there are some players who's Eve life consists of ruining my Eve life.  In Eve, if they did not exist, it would be necessary to make them.   They just can't reasonably expect me to make it easier for them.

Some days ... I am the moron.

Well, it was bound to happen one day.

I have been playing in a few different locations in Eve, and I took my eye off the ball on one of them.

All my POS are set up so that all corp members can see POS fuel.  However, we all were not paying attention, and I let one run out.

So congratulations to EyEs.Fr for cleansing wh space of an unattended POS.

Just ow.

New scanning effects are pretty ... aweful

I have just scanned since the latest patch hit.

I liked the 'new' scanning interface, especially with the hotkeys and the ability to turn off items on the scanning screen.

The latest incarnation has given us pretty.

Play find the sig

This is a SciFi game and some expect a certain amount of eye-candy from the effects.

I am functionally minded.  On the screenshot above there is a single red dot.  Now ... I have pretty good eyesight but I had to hunt for it.  No not the red box in the center of the probes, keep looking.  You may wish to click on the picture to expand it.

My son is red-green colour blind, and has even more trouble seeing the pale brown spot.  1 in 10 of our male population are red/greed deficient (either partially or fully colour blind).  Eve has a lot of male gamers.

So, I want to buy a scanning map that lets me see stuff at a glance.


PS.  the scanning dot is just top right of the scanner probes on the planetary orbit line.

TLDR; The new scanning map looks pretty, but CCP, please throw it out, and give me the previous incarnation back.


Edit: turning of the dscan settings helps, but the new graphics are still busy.

There it is.  I wish it was more obvious.

Squad warp and large grids

One should never warp squad warp your hauler to a wormhole without eyes on it.  The fact you can squad warp generally means you have 2 ships.  Now either one can be eyes, or it can be a 'dead man switch', with no point in losing 2 ships rather than one.

So ... of course I squad warp my out of corp / highsec Occator with my in corp Astero.  Historically this means that both end up largely on top of each other.  Not today.

I didn't quite believe it the first warp, but I had a couple of wormholes to end up at my POS so tried again.  With both the first and second squad warp, I ended up roughly 3000k off the wormhole.  Finally once I arrived at my POS, I meant to warp my Astero to what used to be an off grid bookmark but actually squad warped, but this time both ships ended up roughly on top of each other, and very much still on grid.

I don't understand why one set of warps was 'along way from each other' and the other was 'on top of each other'; whether it was facing, or total distance or the type of item I warped to.

Finally, I can confirm that large grids have definitely arrived.  I warped my DST back to the POS, and flew my (MWD) Astero 'out'.  The DST is still 'on grid' from 6000k away.  I need a new off grid bookmark anyway as a perch. 

No better screenshot than that today, but the grid 'broke' when my two ships were just under 16,000k from each other.

Also, I have reports that you need to include new ships on your overview especially if you are running the new Operation Frostline Target sites.



TLDR; Squad warping is not what it used to be, and grids ... are big.

http://updates.eveonline.com/date/2015-12-08/
http://community.eveonline.com/news/patch-notes/patch-notes-for-december-release