A Scientist's Life in Eve

Posts have been a little difficult this week, as has my in-game time, due to lots of issues surrounding RL.  RL > Eve, although Eve provides a good escape at times during difficult situations.

During this time, I’ve got my second Capital Production toon fully on-line, with 10 manufacturing slots and Capital Construction IV in the queue at the moment.  Desipte the oddities of building Jump Freighters, I’m still toying with the idea of skilling them up to be able to make them should I choose to in the future.  I’m not convinced as I could spend the training time doing different things, but it’s still a possibility.

Other than that, I still have significant quantities of minerals to collect and convert to 425mm Railgun I’s, so I guess that will be something to do over the weekend just so I can move forward with other things.

I also have the minerals ready to build two Revelations, so I’ll move the 425′s, reprocess them and get started.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get more game time next week.

So I was looking at station upgrades with my CEO last night.

Previously, we’ve build an Amarr Outpost, which we sold in Jita on contracts.  I’m disappointed that the upgrade platforms and upgrades themselves are not able to be manufactured by players – but then the same goes for the iHub upgrades.

Currently, I can’t really see any reason why these shouldn’t be player constructed items.

What really surprised me was the rather extensive list of materials you need to put into both the upgrade platform and upgrade itself.  Basically, it’s a bit of a flat pack job.  You buy what you think is a desk, and a flat box arrives, and from that point afterwards you’re fighting with bits of plastic covered wood, screws and fixings labelled A to J, and a large sheet full of diagrams that don’t really make a lot of sense.

For Eve, and for the refining upgrade I was looking at as an example, all this appeared to fall upon the shoulders of one poor janitor!  Perhaps an Amarr upgrade would be better, as no doubt it would require several slaves, but I bet it wouldn’t have a shorter anchoring time.  Mind you, if the Gallente upgrades have exotic dancers in, I would imagine the anchoring time could be several days at least

Seriously though, the tritanium required to install a Monument level upgrade platform with a single level 3 upgrade is well over 700 million Tritanium, and the Monument upgrade also allows a level 1 and level 2 upgrade to be installed at the same time.

I’d love to see this looked at again, particularly if it resulted in blueprints becoming available for these installations.  After all, if CCP were sensible, they would use the existing outpost construction components to create the platforms, and possibly a mixture of those with the (yet to be added) iHub upgrade blueprints for creating the upgrades themselves.

This would mean that the component blueprints would get more use, and give the industrialist a bit more variety still.

Freighters are slow.  I mean really slow.

Granted, if you have an oil tanker or a cargo ship, it is a pretty slow moving object, but the amount of things it carries is incredible and more than makes up for the lack of speed.

It’s still slow though.

Maybe because many things in Eve take little time to actually happen, that my current activity seems to be very annoying and… well… slow.

Still, I do only have myself to blame.  20 freighter loads spread across around 60 stations from buy orders I personally placed.  Because of the fact I’m usually visiting every station in a given system, there’s little point having a dual-box webber there, as I’m exiting station at full speed.

To make things worse, as we’re currently in a war I can’t even use more than one freighter, as I only have one out of Corp freighter pilot.

Wow – this post is bordering dangerously close to carebear tears

It is an interesting thing to consider however.  I’m moving over 15 million m3 of materials dozens of light years, and the total amount of time isn’t really that significant – a few hours work.

Eve, sometimes, seems truly vast, and then activities like this actually make it feel pretty small when the true scale is considered.

To speed things up eve further I have a number of options:

1. Change from a Charon to a Fenrir – more agile so it will enter warp quicker after undocking, however nerfs my total freight capacity per trip a little.  Probably worth considering except for my freighter alt it would mean training the entire Minmatar ship tree required for the freighter, as she can’t even sit in a Rifter hull.
2. Implants – lo-grade Nomad perhaps? Navigation implants.  How much ISK would I be willing to invest, and what sort of performance increase could I expect?  SiSi seems to be calling me for this one.
3. Out of Corp dual-boxing – I could roll another alt in a spare slot, get them into the same NPC Corp (I’m guessing that should be pretty easy) and then get them to web the freighter between gates.  Small increase in total travel time – but worth stopping doing something else with another account?  Probably not - it’s easier to mine in a grav site while the freighter pootles along from station to station and gate to gate.
4. Get a second out of Corp freighter pilot – I wasn’t that far from getting into a Providence with my main trader alt, maybe 12 days if memory serves.  I could possibly stop training the other person on that account and get into the Provi, however current costs (even if I build it myself, which I would do), especially if you include the freighter skill book, make it a pretty expensive option.
5. Just deal with it – rediscover the delights of the Eve Jukebox perhaps?  Mine harder?  Hit up one of my Corp mates to try some of the funny booster things he’s making?

For every upside – there’s a downside.  The buy orders I placed were much more effective than I had hoped for.  The downside is, of course, I need to go and collect it all at the end before I can then prepare it for market in whatever form I choose and then recover the ISK and make profit.

Before anybody comments to ask – the ISK I’ve saved from using buy orders more than covers my time to run around the universe collecting the deliveries.

Following this semi-official blog banter (it was started by Rixx after all!), here’s what my main character has to play with:

• Enyo – pure DPS blaster fit, hopefully you die before I do
• Ishkur – kiting and drones with an active tank
• Retribution – a PvE fit for low level missions and sites
• Vengeance – PvP rockets FTW?
• Keres – looooooong point, very speedy ship
• Maller – Tanky (but slow – it is Amarr after all) PvP fit
• Blackbird – T1 ECM ship
• Zealot – fitted for a FIST gang for back when I was in the NC
• Curse – shield PvP fit
• Pilgrim – Armor cloaky PvP fit
• Legion – Active tanked PvE fit
• Legion – Buffer tank PvP / Cov-ops null sec travel
• Oracle – not yet fitted
• Mammoth – for moving stuff when I don’t need to use an alt with Orca / freighter
• Absolution – I love the DPS on this PvP fit
• Damnation – extreme fit, 560k EHP with its bonuses and a full slave set
• Helios – fit for as quick as align time as possible
• Helios – standard fit for scanning
• Nemesis – left over from the NC days.  Nano fit with bombs and torps
• Harbinger – buffer shield PvP fit
• Harbinger – active armor PvE fit
• Drake – HAM passive recharge PvP fit
• Hurricane – work in progress
• Abaddon – Hellcat
• Scorpion – Armor ECM fit

Too many PvP ships considering I don’t actually PvP with this character

Wow – market lag or what!?!

So to build an Ark buying raw materials… costs several hundred million more than actually just buying the ship in Jita.

Epic fail, and a real shame.

My only plausable explanation for this is simply lag in the market.  5 or 6 weeks ago when the ship materials were purchased and the ship put into production, then it would have probably been profitable at that price.  Jump freighters always seemed to have a very low margin when I looked at them for some reason.

So, increase price of everything fairly significantly, and then you have the problem – the market price for the ship sale is lagging behind the market price for purchasing the raw materials.  However, the risk is now… if you started building one now would you be able to sell it at a profitable price in maybe 5 or 6 weeks time?  That is much less clear of course, and for me at this stage too much of a gamble when I have so many other things I could be getting on with.

Over the past few months I’ve expanded my activities into building Capital ships.  This is something, to be honest, I’ve really enjoyed.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I try to balance my production with fast moving jobs which keep a steady flow of ISK, and also help to fill in gaps, as well as bigger projects – for example recently when I build well over 100 T2 cruisers and transport ships.

I’m getting ready to start an invention cycle for T2 ships again, although market conditions suggest that this might not be the greatest time to undertake such an endeavour.  I view it that the biggest users of T2 ships tend to be those who reside in 0.0 space, and by that I include wormholes (as they are 0.0 space).

Players who live in wormholes and in 0.0 k-space tend to have more disposable income for ships, and although they will no doubt be complaining about the prices of ships, their income still allows them to fly, and lose, T2 ships. 

I am sure that most players will end up being more risk adverse during the current economic situation, resulting in a reduction in demand and therefore prices being depressed due to oversupply.  However, I also think that this will eventually even out as people adjust to prices.  After all, I spent a couple of hours mining the other night and made over 70 million ISK.  For those who are more organised, and for those who rat and run complexes (or for those in wormholes who harvest sleeper goo), the ISK is still there, you just get less for your ISK.

Anyway, all of that aside, I’ve had a request to build a slightly bigger T2 ship – a Jump Freighter.  Now being a relative new-comer to the Capital Ship Construction party, I have not, to date, built a Jump Freighter.  Now would appear to be an excellent time to start while we have the blueprints, resources and – most importantly – an order to fulfil.

I’m just double-checking with my CEO, but hopefully the Capital Components will start being made within 24 hours.

Once this has been built, it will leave T3 Cruisers, Super Carriers and Titans as the only classes of ship (that can be constructed in the game) I haven’t either actually built or been involved in building.

Thinking about it, the list of things I haven’t built is dwindling fast, which is quite a nice feeling.  I’m not deliberately trying to build everything in Eve, although I would like to have a go at Super Capitals at some point in the future.  I’m certainly not going to create a long list and start ticking them off module by module and ship by ship.  Instead, it’s more like milestones, being able to, and having experience at, manufacturing different things.  This, I believe, allows me to better react to situations where we, as a Corp or Alliance, might need to suddenly supply a particular need within a given timeframe.

I’m also trying to adopt the “eat what you kill” approach, where we use the resources we’ve harvested to either directly construct, or fund construction, of what we build.  This may sound pretty obvious and too inclusive, but what I actually mean is that I’d use the ISK generated from mining Morphite to purchase Tritanium, Pyerite and Mexallon.  The gross profit from the final sales is held back to cover operating expenses (system and office rental, POS fuel etc.) and investment in future operations (new blueprints for example).

To date, this method has worked well, although as I said in a previous post, sometimes the buffer of working capital we have could do with being a bit bigger, but I’m addressing that right now.

Last night I roped a very helpful Corp mate into moving a Phoenix from one of our lo-sec construction facilities to an agreed point of sale.  I’m particularly happy to say that it was made for and sold to one of the readers of this blog!

I got one of my cyno alts into the delivery system and selected a station, docking up with only 6 others in local.  After checking that the Pheonix was fueled and ready to move with fleet correctly set up and so on, I undocked, turned on my tactical overlay and zooned out.  The station was a “Jita 4-4″ type, so I ensured that nothing of the station model was within the 5k area, did a final check on d-scan and then lit the cyno, reporting “cyon green” on comms.

The Phoenix pilot who had already undocked and finished his (now very short) session change timer jumped and… bounced.

I was really quite annoyed about that, although he docked well before he was bounced out of the undock ring.

What then followed was very funny.  A Merlin appeared about 80km from me and slow-boated towards me.  A Rifter appeared at a tactical about 170km from the station and then disappeared.  The Merlin docked.

The Merlin then undocked and promptly locked me up.  Note – I was in an untanked Impairor, the only thing I had was a cyno generator module, as all the Liquid Ozone had been used on the cyno glowing beside me.

After a few seconds, the yellow turned to red as the Merlin engaged me.  At this point I was a bit confused and reported on comms that I thought I’d be heading home in my pod.  Another Corp mate just asked for me to confirm, shocked while laughing, had I really just been engaged by a Merlin at a station in lo-sec.  I replied yes as I saw the Merlin get popped by the station guns, with my shields holding at 90%.

After I’d finished laughing, I simply posted “lol oops” in local.  I was then prompted by a corp-mate to check the wreck.  The wreck was blue (which apparently happens if the ship has been popped by gate/station guns), and so I opened it, to be greeted by about 15 or so assorted items.  However, one thing caught my eye, an Arblest Heavy Missile Launcher.  After quickly checking the local market, this appeared to be worth around 14 million ISK.

I quickly scooped the loot and the corp mate who had delivered the Phoenix undocked and redocked to get a noob ship.  He then undocked and I jettisoned the loot for him while I waited for the cyno to end.

I asked the Merlin pilot in local if he knew the launcher was worth that much ISK, and after he laughed in local he admitted he had had no idea.

I docked safely, took the loot back and flew back to base, with the Phoenix safely contracted to the buyer, and my hold about half full of assorted modules totalling around 16 million ISK.

That is definitely what I would classify as a successful cyno operation!

One of the things I’ve talked about numerous times on this blog is my ineptitude at PvP, and my lack of actually doing anything (like undocking and trying to PvP) to make things different.

On comms the other night we were talking about what being in 0.0 space meant to people, and what corp members, both current and (hopefully) future might expect from living in 0.0 space.

From this, my comment was that most people would probably expect, and want, to be involved in some PvP activities, whether it was big fleet blobs shooting structures with millions of hit points, or smaller gangs running home defense or simply roaming for the lulz.

It was at this point that I commented that we had funds in our ship replacement wallet, and yet hadn’t really done any PvP as such for quite a while.

Organising our industry and mining operations is undertaken with (generally) precision and planning.  Although we operate different production streams across 0.0 (my CEO and some others) and hi/lo-sec (mainly me), it is mostly co-ordinated and mostly planned quite precisely.

PvP, I argued, shouldn’t be that way, unless you’re shooting structures.  I volunteered that we should probably be a bit more spontaneous and just decide to undock with a few people and go out until we DIAF (die in a fire) or get bored.

At this point, I was taken quite seriously and a few minutes later we had a few of us in ships heading to the out-gate in a fleet to roam – I was to be scout in my shiney new Crow.

We jumped a couple of systems across and then promptly went to safes as a bigger BC heavy fleet with a Broadsword interdictor and Taranis appeared.  They left a few minutes later and we headed to the lo-sec/0.0 choke point.

Before we got there, I jumped through into the penultimate 0.0 system and burned off gate, a Sabre uncloaked and dropped a bubble, which I was already outside of.

I warped to the TCU and then burned off it a little, with the remainder of my gang holding on the in-gate ready to jump in.

The Sabre appeared about 120km off me, so I checked with the FC and then confirmed I was burning towards him (although at an oblique angle to hopefully have a bit of transversal).

And this is where I got everything completely wrong and quickly died before the fleet could get on grid.

My mistake – simple.  I was in an interceptor with a Warp Disruptor II and single propulsion fit (MWD not AB) going against a Sabre.  I should have anticipated an autocannon fit and the possibility of a scram and set an orbit of around 20km, engaged point and held him in place while the fleet arrived and asploded him, allowing me to (hopefully) catch his pod with my SEBO boosted interceptor.

Instead, I got everything wrong and ended up about 2km from him webbed and scrammed and under fire from 200mm Autocannon II’s and then very quickly in my pod.  As he could see my fleet mates arriving in system, he didn’t bubble up to ensure he didn’t trap himself, and so my pod got out.  He simply warped off grid and posted “gf” in local.

Thing is, I knew I was dead because I was too eagre to get point, and didn’t pay attention to obvious things like range or my tactical overview (which I had running and had even zoomed out to help me!!!).

I guess the rush of the first PvP engagement overtook all rational thought and a flight in my pod was my reward.

What do I think I should have done (and again, this may still be wrong, so be gentle with the corrective comments)?

1. Agree with my FC to engage him (I did this), confirming range to in-gate (I didn’t do that)
2. Approach him with manual flying at an oblique angle (I did do this)
3. When I get to about 30km select to enter an orbit of 20km
4. Overheat point and get him, then when in normal point range kill the heat (overheating was probably optional, given the speed I was moving and that he had decided to engage me)
5. Announce “point” on comms and watch for him trying to get me to slingshot
6. Get another fleet member to take over point, set my overview to pods only and then get ready to catch the pod

Rationally, this is how I think I should have played it.

Comments?

I do plan to talk through with the FC to see what his thoughts are, but meantime I also think that we need to be more organised in conducting impromptu roams.  Sounds confusing?  Possibly.  What I mean is that I’m going to agree some general fits and try and get some fitted ships in the hanger ready, with the intention that an FC can then ask if people want to go and shoot stuff, and then grab some ships from the corp hanger and just “do it” without all the “I’ve only got this” or “can I have that module” and then 40 minutes later you’re sitting in the station still and somebody now needs to log-off etc.

I’m not saying I’m going to turn into a PvP freak, but I do think that as a 0.0 resident, and a Corp Director, it is something that needs to be encouraged and provided for to ensure the health and growth of the Corp and it’s current and (hopefully) future members.

My approach to manufacturing has always been to try and keep several streams of work on the go at once.  This ranges from long lead time activities such as Capital ships, where it takes days to produce, down to quick and easy things like weapons upgrades and drones.  I fill in many gaps inbetween also.

One of the main reasons I do this is to try and keep a constant flow of ISK.  Obviously I have spikes when I sell large ticket items such as Capital Ships, but those spikes are then used to fund buying more materials for the next project, or for capital investments such as new blueprints etc.

How has Burn Jita affected me?  To be honest it didn’t really have an effect at all.  It did, however, disrupt my ISK cycle meaning that the reserves I had were mostly used to fund material purchases.  However, this will be quickly corrected as I now sell the material and restore my buffer, and based on the current market prices add a bit to my profit margins also.

Have I taken a lesson from this exercise?  Certainly – I had an adequate buffer to cover the small bump that was the Burn Jita event.  As this is now likely to be an annual thing at least, then I can plan to cover over minor disruptions like this.  The lesson, though, is that maybe my buffer wasn’t quite of the size I’d have liked.

Although nothing has really been affected, and I’m continuing to keep my logistics operations “just in time” for efficiency, it has raised the question in my mind as to whether instead of investing in the next capital blueprint I want, I should perhaps invest in increasing the buffer instead.

Clearly, the attraction of the next new blueprint eagerly awaiting research in a POS lab is overwhelming, but perhaps I need to consider the scale of operation, and adjust the buffer upwards a bit to allow for more complex disruptions.

Planetary Interaction, what can I say?

Last night (actually, yesterday afternoon and last night) my time was taken up moving my PI installations to a new system.  I “only” decided to do 10 planets at this stage, but the time taken to set things up was frustrating.

OK, I suppose for pretty much passive income I have to expect to invest time (and ISK) to get things set up.  As usual I’ll moniter things for the next couple of weeks to tweak for balancing and depletion mechanics, but whichever way you look at it, it took a significant amount of time to do and wasn’t exactly interesting or enjoyable.

My CEO was doing the same, and I guess it pretty much turned into a mutual moaning session about how terrible the interface is.

Annoyingly for some reason, half way through my routing display it decided to stop showing me amounts and whether the route was incoming or outgoing.

In the end, I’ve managed to set it all up, and encouragingly after the first cycle it all seems to be behaving.

Now I just need to actually reap the rewards and hopefully I can get back to more interesting things!

Meantime at least capital production is moving forward, with another couple of carriers and two Revelations in the pipeline.  I did whistfully look at an Aeon blueprint copy.  I have to admit I’d love to build a Super capital now, but know that this is, at present, beyond my situation.  Who knows how things might change over time though.