15/05/11 08:39 AM
| Arkonor | 285 |
| Bistot | 217 |
| Mercoxit | 192 |
| Crokite | 187 |
| Hedbergite | 171 |
| Hemorphite | 168 |
| Jaspet | 152 |
| Dark Ochre | 147 |
| Pyroxeres | 118 |
| Kernite | 106 |
| Veldspar | 99 |
| Scordite | 93 |
| Gneiss | 90 |
| Plagioclase | 88 |
| Spodumain | 82 |
| Omber | 81 |
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On [Re]-Evaluating the Whole Wormhole Works
Non-Industrialists Must Stop Reading Now and Go Shoot Miners!
For the rest of you – there has always been a small [ok LARGE] part of me that enjoys the industrial side of EVE. I like shooting people in ships, flying around looking for targets, debating how best to fit a ship for a job and if it is even a valid application; however I also like making things. For several reasons I have variously gotten involved in mining ore, making munitions and modules, building ships, inventing Tech 2 items and ships, harvesting gasses, reacting polymers, reverse engineering artifacts, building Tech 3 pieces and putting together planetary colonies for producing various tower fuels, T2 components and raw materials. It is the POS fuels and their production that this post deals with.
There are a multitude of ways to go about this and I will probably forget some along the way, so feel free to point those out to me. In the mean time, the following is a walk-through of how I got to where I am. Remembering how I had started with trying to set everything up in one go I knew that I was going to give it plenty of thought and try and do my homework.
When Penny and I returned to a C4 to live and hunt with a smaller pack, I opted to look at the whole PI process again and evaluate how best to approach it. I opted to see if I could produce enough robotics to keep the tower supplied without having to import them. They are an expensive part of the fuel calculation and would significantly affect what we had to provide on our own. This plan was to use the planets in the system to produce fuel for use and not for sale. The first fuel setup was Robotics as it accounts for about 15% of the total fuel costs and 30% of the non-ice fuel costs. A balanced fuel load [using as much of the fuel cargo space in the tower with all fuels for the same number of days] for our large faction tower means we need 816 units of robotics every 34 days.
In order to do this, we need to be able to produce 24 robotics per day. One Advanced Industry Facility produced 3 [u]nits of robotics per hour given 40u of Mechanical Parts and 40u of Consumer Electronics. This works out to 72u robotics per day if there is sufficient supply of Mechanical Parts and Consumer Electronics. The goal is then to determine how best to go about getting the Mech. Parts and Cons. Elect. supplies necessary to keep the Robotics rolling off the line continuously. The first attempt saw extraction and production spring up on our plasma world for Cons. Elect. and on a Barren planet for Mech. Parts. The second barren planet was then setup to combine the P2 materials into robotics.
One of the things that quickly became apparent when setting up a large scale Planetary Interaction colony was the extreme PG need for a large number of extractor heads. Thus there was always going to be a compromise over the amount of P0 material extracted and the number of basic industrial factories that could convert it to P1. Thus I was able to get about 1,400u each of Mech. Parts and Cons. Elect. This made for about 35u Robotics per day. While this was sufficient for producing the fuel we need for our tower, it was a very depressing return for what seemed like so much work put into clicking, hauling and then clicking again. This also only resulted in 500,000 isk/day in excess revenue which hardly seemed worth the time sink. It is for things like this that I pay people to change the fluids in my planetary vehicle.
On Making More Mining
There is a certain need felt by many profession miners to be able to get more ore from their rock collections than the next guy. The thought of not having the very best possible set-up for ore extraction is nearly unbearable and they will risk gang and gank for a maximum yield mining boat. I have known more than a few pilots who have fit their ships to mine more ore in a cycle than they can hold at one time in their cargohold. And yet, there is still more ore to be had, more cubic meters of matter to collect. To scramble some popular culture, let’s see how deep the rabbit can mine.
The hardwirings for a miner are much more limited and are likely to see the pilot either leaving slots empty or putting semi-unrelated things in her head. The main hardwiring is the slot 10 ‘Highwall’ HX-series of mining yield improvements. Given that mining is done over time [for some pilots, any time mining is mind-numbing, stupor inducing, interminable hours/days/weeks/month/years], even the 1% boost can be significant. If you are an ice miner, then you will fill slot 10 with a ‘Yeti’ BX-series hardwire which reduces ice miner cycle time. There is an additional implant for slot 10, the ‘Highwall’ HY-series which reduce the CPU need for mining upgrades, but this is more easily accomplished with the CPU implant ‘Gypsy’ KMB-series which keeps slot 10 open for either mining or ice implant upgrades. Using the KMB-series of implants will also be beneficial while flying other ships.
As mentioned in other posts, the capacitor implants, namely the ‘Squire’ CC2/4/8 and the ‘Squire’ CR2/4/8, for increased capacitor and faster capacitor recharge will benefit the miner just as much as the PVP and PVE pilots as well as being just as useful for jumping in other ships and maintaining capacitor while flying.
The last hardwiring implant for a miner to consider is the slot 10, Mining Foreman Mindlink. This is an advanced hardwiring [requiring Cybernetics V] that improves the effect of the pilot as a mining booster on his or her fleet. This is almost essential for a corporate mining leader and the cost quickly recovered by an Orca pilot who is boosting a fleet of Hulks. For a Rorqual pilot, it should be a minimum requirement as it creates a set of insane yield boosts for the rest of the miners.
On Using The Noctis [or not]
In a recent discussion with Penny [thank you for helping to keep Our Eve stocked and readable], the subject of the Noctis was brought up. Penny and I [and the boys too] have popped a couple Noctises [Nocti? Noctae? Noctices?] in wormholes since ORE began shipping the blueprints for manufacture and have seen a few different fits. This has raised several questions about the usage of and consequently the fitting for a Noctis. In view of my own usage, the Noctis – I would have to say that the answer to the first question is a resounding, “Maybe” and the second question has an even more amorphous answer.
On the one hand, a pilot could try and fit his salvage ship to survive. Plates and resists for protection and rigs to round out its ability to tank. This seems like a fairly tenuous position as the ship is quite fragile and will not be able to mount a very effective escape with such a high armor burden. The other option might be to generate as much speed as possible though it will be impossible to outrun all but the most inexperienced pilots.
Still a third option might be to use a cloak in a high slot to help “hide” for a moment to possibly confuse and confound a potential attacker. This can work for some ships, but the Noctis is still a big target that will be hard to miss when it does uncloak. Another problem with the cloak is the amount of time it adds to the job that the ship is supposed to be performing. Every decloak will engender a delay in targeting and the fitting of the cloak will increase the amount of time necessary to target the wrecks themselves. This can be mitigated to some extent by the application of Sensor Boosters and Signal Amplifiers. This is akin to ships fitting Ancillary Current Router rigs on Caldari ships so that anything “proper” will fit.
Penny is of the opinion that the best way to protect a Noctis is to let it do its job as quickly as possible. The less time that it spends in open space, the less time its pilot will spend updating his clone. This is true to a large extent and I believe that the fitting is only a small part of it. I would suggest that with the added bonuses to salvagers [and especially if you fit Salvage Tackle] that the onus for efficiency will fall on the tractors. Thus in general, a five-three split of tractors and salvagers will likely serve you better. This should hold true for high-sec as well as wormhole clean-up. I would suggest against a cloak as it is going to decrease the speed at which you get the wrecks locked and consequently the speed at which to process the trash floating around in space.
For the mids slots I would lean toward a microwarp drive for its ability to burn toward a gate or wormhole. It is going to make little or no difference in salvation of the ship should sneaky seeds of Satan show up to snatch your scow from you. It will however potentially get you to your destination in a more timely manner. A Sensor Booster [SeBo] is going to help get the wrecks locked more quickly and generally enable you to spend more time frantically mashing F1-F8 to clean the mess that was left floating behind. The other alternative is a Capacitor Recharger but will largely be a matter of choice.
Finally in the low slots do we come to the bones of contention. Cargo, Speed, Armor – which direction should you head? From the beginning I would suggest against a plate. It will do more harm that good to try and slap on a plate that eats up your powergrid, offers only limited improvement in tank and slows down your ability to turn, accelerate and go fast. Resists are a great option and will generally help bolster your tank so that your fleet-mates can arrive on grid in time to see you explode save you. I would avoid the expanded cargoholds unless you are working in High Security Space and you need the 3-4k m3 to store the level 4 mission loot you are collecting. Speed then is a great option to help you get close to the wrecks that are just outside your 68-80km tractor range or align when local/dscan spikes.
Your rigs are likely to just be Salvage Tackle and possibly a Low Friction Nozzlejoint or CCC if you have poor cap skills.
As I write this I am hearing and seeing a lot of negative commentary to the discussion of ship fitting in general and industrial ships in particular. Not everyone understands why they are told to fit a ship certain ways, and many more will believe whatever it is they want about ship fitting in denial of and with disregard for any suggested fittings. For those of you looking to shoot the Noctis, the best advice is just get in and apply alpha as it will go down very quickly. For those of you trying to survive, your best bet is to keep your eyes open and stay out of harms way.
On Measuring the Value of Ships
As a confessed and confirmed JOAT, I manage to get into a lot of things, but rarely do them well. As my corporation mates would probably affirm, I’m not the one to call for overwhelming DPS, scanning, stalking, mining, PI, hauling, racing, 1 vs. 1, or drone support. IF however you happen to need all of those things in moderation at the same time, then I am the one to call. This is symptomatic of having 55 million skill points in 279 skills. I like to do a lot and be able to fly a lot of ships no matter where I go. It’s a matter of taste that I don’t really have any battleship skills to speak of other than the very limited ability to fly a Tech 2 fit EWAR Scorpion. But for ships of smaller classes, I can at least make a showing, but am far from good.
With that background in mind, I think I am fairly qualified to speak on most ships and the whole gamut of possible roles those ships need to perform. To begin with, I recently had the opportunity to pilot a good friend’s strategic cruiser. Through a series of PVE and PVP encounters it worked well and performed above my expectations, even given the obvious stats and potential. It demonstrated the ability to adequately tank a larger amount of damage than expected, manoeuvre and fly with more agility and apply more of its damage potential to the targets than anticipated. Understand that I have been fairly reluctant to fly the Tech 3 ships as they are referred to, because I tend to overestimate hype and flavour. While I knew that they were good ships and competent in their ability and application, I did not fully realise how good until the other day.
After a particularly good stretch in the ship, I made the passing comment to the owner that, “This is what a 1/2 billion dollar ship should feel like.”
I look forward to picking out a couple of my own someday to fly around and abuse.
On the Prevalence of Drakes in Alliance Tournaments
I have noticed that on more than one occasion, the commentators for the Alliance Tournament VIII and in previous year lament the presence of Drakes on combat teams. Reasoning varies from low DPS to just extending the inevitable. Over the years, one thing that has held fairly consistent is the appearance and usage of Drakes by teams in the Alliance Tournaments. There are always multiple teams that field multiple Drakes. They are in fact, one of the most often fielded ships and account for a whopping 44% of all battlecruisers and more isk was spent on Drakes than battleships. Whatever else they might be, they are certainly present on a large number of teams. In the Alliance Tournament VII they were the third most popular ship behind the Rook and Ishkur.
[caption id="attachment_828" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Dead Duck"]  [/caption]
As the general consensus is that Drakes are poorly suited for PVP combat, why then do they show up so much? The certainly aren’t a requirement for victory as multiple teams have finished well and strongly without any Drakes on the field. Losing teams that fielded Drakes lost every one of them. Winning teams that fielded them lost 2 with a 87.5% survival rate and those were lost in the first match of the tournament. There is a lot of Drake-hate across the board.
This animosity towards the Drake extends far beyond the tournament. If you show up in a Drake for non-Drake fleet roams, you likely face ridicule. If you post a fitting on Battleclinic for a Drake you will get flamed and the fitting locked [more of an endemic problem with using Battleclinic in the first place] and posting to Scrapheap Challenge often results in cries of “Ban 09′s” and now “Ban 10′s” [referring to the registration date of the poster]. People associate the Drake with low-skill, new players who want to run missions and without worrying about anything other than F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7 [though now with grouping it has become even easier] and with Caldari Carebears who can’t be arsed to train for a real ship.
Maybe some of the FC’s with tournament experience can shed some light on this. I fully acknowledge the tournament doesn’t accurately reflect normal EVE PVP play. There are rules, there are boundaries, there are no Caps, there are relatively even numbers, there are no poddings…. Thus the expectations for what to bring may very well differ significantly than for a PVP conflict outside the tourney. In spite of all this, I think there are some valid reasons for their inclusion of the much maligned duck:
- Tank
- It will likely take more than one opponent shooting at it to be taken down.
- It can often stay on the field for a long, long time.
- It is not as cap unfriendly as the other tank options.
-
[caption id="attachment_829" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Incoming!"]
 [/caption]
Damage
- It can still produce a fair amount of damage:
- Heavy Missiles can generate between 330 [EM/Exp/Therm]-400 [kinetic] DPS
- Heavy Assault Missiles can generate between 450 [EM/Exp/Therm]- 570 [kinetic] DPS
- It can apply it’s damage over +70 km range for the Heavy Missiles
- Alpha strikes exceed 2,500.
- Drones can add another 80-100 dps with good skills.
Combined, this tank/damage combination causes two things to happen.
- Opponent FC’s hesitate to primary Drakes for the relative difficulty in removing them.
- Drakes are able to apply their damage over a longer period of time than similar ships.
Unless something changes significantly to affect the Drake’s tank or its bonuses, we will continue to see a lot of them fielded in the Alliance Tournaments.
On Being Angry With CCP and/or GMs
I’ve read a lot of rants in my life. Everything from cats eating neighbours’ birds, gimped drone bay on Rokh, dogs leaving their calling cards on the lawn, cans flipped, presidents sleeping with interns, GCC timers, GUI problems [or complete and utter failure at Human Interface Design 101] and letting people talk to Mr. G. Brown. But all in all, I’ve always assumed the majority of them are emotional responses to complex issue that don’t particularly affect me directly. So I smile, nod my head and move on.
Until Now.
[caption id="attachment_806" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Banned Wagon"]  [/caption]
I’m on the bandwagon. No, wait, I’m on the Banned Wagon. Persona non grata in EVE. I go to log in and I’m greeted with – “Login Data Incorrect” and no explanation. Huh, fair enough, I must have mistyped my passw… nope. 0/2 on login attempts. Quickly check SpaceBook, er, EVE Gate. It’s more informative, “This account has been banned.” To quote a corp-mate, “Bweh?” What is going on here. I quickly double check my email in case I missed something. Nothing I can find. I check the spam folder, nothing there. Check the servers spam que – AHA! A very generic message from a supposed Mr. GM Something or other indicating that my account had been hacked and as a security measure the account had been banned. Ok, fair enough, I’m all for them trying to run a tight ship and protect us from the evil account hackers and keyloggers.
As indicated in the email, I replied and asked for the account to be reset so that I could reset the password and survey the damage. As a corporate director, I was a bit fearful of the damage that could be wreaked on both our corporation’s wallet, our assets and those of our alliance mates. I quickly checked with them as well as the CEO. Interestingly enough, my character had not logged in since my own last activity. Additionally, the millions of isk in the corporate wallet were untouched. This is one very incompetent hacker…
24 hours pass… no reply to petition, no reply to email, no status indication at all. Additional petitions are made from other accounts to try and get some semblance of a response, acknowledgement, update. My last skill training ran out 20 hours ago [which was why I was trying to log in to begin with]. 36 hours. 48 hours, a reply to one of the players petitions, “Your account has been reset as per the email sent in response to your original petition on ….” First things first, reset the password and get to training again while surveying the damage to my personal wallet. Ok, skill set, wallets – Full. In point of fact, there was more isk in my wallet than when I logged off 2 days ago [several large contracts had cleared as well as personal donation from a very dear friend upon the loss of a close personal ship. What? Where's my 0 isk balance? Why are there still assets in my name? Why didn't the evil hackers strip my assets, post offensive pictures on the eve-o forum, offline all our towers and kick everyone out of the corp?
Hmm. Sure their must have been a reason they Fort Knox'd my account? The sheer paucity information released leads to my rampant speculation wherein I have then two broad scenarios that I can imagine [help me if I'm missing something]:
- My account was hacked in such a fashion as to easily alert prescient CCP/GMs to it’s compromised status and they reacted so quickly that no damage had been done while incompetent third world sweatshop hackers failed to capitalise on their access and steal the millions, nay, billions in ill-gotten gains from myself and corporation.
OR
- CCP/GMs are clicking buttons at random over there in New Hawaii and wouldn’t know a hacked account from a large cloud of volcanic dust if it blew up in their back yard.
If scenario one is correct, I encourage everyone to take a moment and give CCP/GMs a little golf clap for their supernatural ability to ferret out RMTs, hacked accounts and macro miners/ratters with ease. I would be momentarily happy to be a part of their Unholy Rage. If you’re right, everyone is happy and the experience gets better.
If scenario two is correct [and I'm more inclined to believe this given that I can just about find macro miners in every system with ice and macro ratters everytime our wormhole exit pops up in null-sec coupled with my own recent experience], then I am just sad. OK, angry and sad. I lost 48 hours of training time for someone else’s mistake? I missed out on 200-500m in revenue and cost my corp-mates the opportunities to do so as well, due to contributing to group activities? If you are wrong, admit you made a mistake and set things right.
How do I balance my own progress with that of providing for my corporation and or alliance? As an industrial character who has spent a fair number of hours learning to build nice things, how do I remain profitable while supporting those around me?
If I produce for the corporation and/or alliance, the expectation is that there is some kind of break in prices. As a conscientious industrialist, I am going to tell them how much it costs me and where it’s more than the market, suggest that they obtain it there. Where it is cheaper to build, I want to offer them the opportunity to get it cheaper and be there for the people that help make it possible. I have found that I am quite horrible though at maintaining the balance necessary between things produced for sales [the market] and those manufactured for consumption [the corporation/alliance]. Often then the result is a complete halt to my industrial tendencies.
This is often further complicated by my relative incompetence and disconnect with the sales and marketing side of things. I am quite comfortable in navigating the market, getting the resources I need, etc, but just as equally uncomfortable putting my wares up for sale. Finding holes, navigating gaps, incremental adjustments, market trends all tend to elude my grasp, leaving me with a very real sense of dissatisfaction with the sheer number of things I could be doing to maximise my profits, but are generally left undone. I envy both the selfless industrialist who is able to provide everything her corporation needs as well as the ruthless profiteer who is able to judge the market, jump into the fray and make obscene profits.
As a corollary to the above, there is also a push to be involved in corporate and alliance activities that are somewhat beyond my level. I am fairly competent at combat in sub-battleship roles, but could always use more experience and training in weapon systems. I’m quite happy to spend the time training for better weapons, drones, fittings, but have to balance this with a desire to also be able to improve my abilities to support my corp-mates with industry. Has anyone else figured out to do it all and do it well yet?
It is certainly something to work and think through.
[caption id="attachment_418" align="alignleft" width="64" caption="I Am Your New Master"]  [/caption]
[caption id="attachment_421" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Bistot Is Primary!"]  [/caption]
Quick note: It looks like Bistot has edged Arkonor out as the mineral of highest refined value. Due in large part to the fact that Zydrine hasn’t fallen in price as much as Megacyte.
Hip, hip, horrific are the words we sing
Hip, hip, horrific is our thing -(TMBG)
As I look around and back at the posts I’ve written for the last year or so, I am reminded how well things have gone, but also how spectacularly I’ve managed to fail. If you are looking for pitfalls to avoid – you’ve found them. If you want to see how not to train for something; look no further. If you would rather have less isk at the end of the day, then this is your lucky blog!
Seriously, the posts that inhabit these pages are filled with the heartache and misery of a pilot bashing her head against the same asteroid day after day after day. At the end of the day there is a hangar full of veldspar and tritanium, some trash modules and a ship that desperately needs a tune up. Along the way the pilot has learned that you shouldn’t trust another pilot but you have to trust the other pilots until they fail you. You can’t put 4000 m3 in a GSC and there’s no way to get a station container out of a station. Overheating missiles is not so effective and skilling up adequately for boosters is going to be very expensive.
There are a few bright spots along the way. Namely, the ships and modules that have been opened up through a varied training programme that includes tech 2 mining equipment, logistics cruisers and some command ships. This is easily countered by the fail combat skills that barely allow for named heavy missiles on a Drake and some lame, unsupported rails on a Moa. It’s rather comical sometimes to be able to fit a full Tech 2 tank on every ship in the game, but then realize you still only have the equivalent of light weapons for armaments. Fear the fail firepower of 150mm rails on a Ferox! My heavy missile Drake of Dewm causes fits of laughter when people can safely orbit at 55 km and pick off my drones and then me.
![Low DPS [Divide by 7]](http://eve.finkeworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Low-DPS-tm.jpg)
Other suggest that I should be proud of the fact that I can invent nearly anything possible on the market, but even that seems to fall flat. I have consistently managed to lose money or break even on Tech 2 invention and production. My volume approach is low and slow, so as to be moving backwards in appearance. I can train people to use the towers, labs, production facilities, but seem to fail in doing so myself. What was I thinking! Science is for smart people. Production is for people who are actually motivated.
So what have we learned from all of this:
- Train all the skills you possibly can [let's start with 231]
- Train a wide variety of skills to level 5 [53 is a good number]
- Science skills help you store lot’s of SP [9.6 million and counting]
- Collect ships [So you can collect dust]
- Every 3-4 months spend everything you have on one ship setup and then poke a pirate.
And I think I’ve rambled on enough for all of us today. And that is how to fail.
Words fail
Buildings tumble
The ground opens wide
Light beams down from heaven
She stands before my eyes
– (TMGB)
Because I’m always a bit distracted and doing 20-30 different things at once, it often means that I hit things hard and hope I get enough to keep the project afloat until I get back around to it again. One of those projects is the ongoing Orca development project that manages to be purely theoretical in nature. All this means, I don’t actually produce Orcas, but I come back and look at their production costs in relation to the current ore/mineral prices. In update to a post of long ago [Orca Production Calculations], the following changes have been made:
An Orca can currently be broken down into its component pieces and then sub-costed into their mineral components. The overall picture doesn’t include any of the manufacturing costs and assumes NO Material Efficiency research. I am putting the picture of the calculations in this post, but I’ll try to summarise the numbers for brevity as well.
To produce an Orca requires 7 component blueprint and one ship blueprint that all average around 1.1 billion each to purchase from the market. Each of the seven components will cost approximately 4 million in minerals on average [3.2 million - 5.5 million]. Combined with the total number of each component, the cost to produce an Orca is currently approximately 310 million. Since I’m not selling Orcas, I feel comfortable in suggesting that market prices ought to be around 350m allowing for profit margins, research costs and capital paybacks.
If mineral costs continue to fall, Orca prices could stabilize as low as 325 million. Adding rigs to them will still push them up over 400 million. The cargohold optimization rigs are still running over 30 million each. The addition of the ore hold has drastically improved the Orca’s flexibility and original role performance.
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![Low DPS [Divide by 7]](http://eve.finkeworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Low-DPS.png)
