15/05/11 08:39 AM
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On Tier 3 Planetary Production – My Current Setup
As I have reviewed what has happened in getting a good sized Planetary Interaction setup organised, several things began to pop up. There was this constant nagging sensation that I was Doing It Wrong™. There also had to be a way to get a better yield and some how make use of the CPU that was not being used. The first idea was to see if would be better to separate extraction and production completely. To do this, I enlisted the help of The Puppet to set up his four planets to extract each of the four P0 needed in the production of Robotics.
First a quick survey of the system gave us a good rundown of what resources were available on each of the planets [or just glancing online somewhere] and in what quantities they are present at each one. This part was something that I felt was important as it allowed me to eliminate some planets in favor of others. From this survey I whipped up a quick and dirty sheet of numbers to help plan out my strategy:
| Planet |
Aq
Liq |
Base
Mtl |
Carbon
Cmpds |
Micro
Org |
Noble
Mtl |
Hvy
Mtl |
Non-CS
Crys |
Susp
Plas |
Ionic
Sol. |
Noble
Gas |
Reac
Gas |
Plank
Col. |
| I |
25 |
75 |
75 |
75 |
33 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| II |
25 |
75 |
75 |
75 |
25 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| III |
0 |
40 |
0 |
0 |
80 |
40 |
50 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| IV |
60 |
80 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
60 |
50 |
60 |
0 |
0 |
| V |
50 |
75 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
55 |
75 |
25 |
0 |
| VI |
50 |
75 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
60 |
75 |
33 |
0 |
| VII |
50 |
75 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
60 |
75 |
25 |
0 |
| VIII |
50 |
75 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
60 |
75 |
20 |
0 |
| IX |
100 |
0 |
0 |
50 |
0 |
100 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
33 |
0 |
50 |
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="161" caption="Kename's Ice Planet"]  [/caption]
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Puppet's Ice Planet"]  [/caption]
The Puppet planned to just extract the raw materials and export the refined P1 materials and store them in the Corporate Hangar Array for me to haul to the planet where I was building Robotics. He set up on the ice planet to extract Heavy Metals as it had the largest concentration of that resource. I added an extraction set up for the ice planet as well and soon we were pulling in a great volume of Heavy Metals and exporting quite a fair amount of Toxic Metals to put toward Cons. Elect. production later. One of the big benefits of the way the new extractor head system works is the ability to move them around freely to adjust to changing deposits of resources or fix and fiddle with any of them without having to destroy and rebuild a colony every time. Due to the way the CPU/power grid worked out, I was not able to get an additional basic industrial facility as I was short about 50 PG. Since there was copious amounts of CPU available, I opted to add a second Landing pad and put the intermediate P1 there for storage and export.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="151" caption="Kename's Storm Planet"]  [/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1126" align="alignright" width="150" caption="The Puppet's Storm Planet"]  [/caption]
For his second installation he set up on the storm world to extract Base Metals. This was a deliberate decision based on my previous survey of the system. All but one of the planets in our wormhole has deposits of Base Metals and at fairly high concentrations. The storm planet has the benefits of being the largest quantity by percentage coupled with a fairly low planetary radius to keep link costs down. It also does not have any other resources necessary for production of robotics. The lower CPU and PG needs for links allows for an additional processor instead of the second spaceport of the ice planet. The Base Metals are refined and converted into Reactive Metals for the later production of Mechanical Parts needed to make Robotics.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="244" caption="Kename's Plasma Planet"]  [/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1125" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="The Puppet's Plasma Planet"]  [/caption]
The third move was into toward the plasma planet’s set up. It was initially set up to be both an extraction and production plant. Some conversion was necessary in order for it to fit the new structure of pure extraction instead. The basic industry facilities were retained but in some cases repurposed with new schematics. Additionally the the spaceport for storage and export was kept intact. Production schema were updated and routes modified to match. The radius of the planet is similar to that of the storm and so has a similar number of processors. The Puppet here also set up shop to extract Non-CS Crystals and produce Chiral Structures for later incorporation into Cons. Elect.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="244" caption="Kename's Barren Extraction Planet"]  [/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1124" align="alignright" width="150" caption="The Puppet's Barren Planet"]  [/caption]
Finally the last extraction planet was one of the Barren Planets. There was not much difference between the two and their relative deposits so The Puppet put up an extractor colony on the first planet and I opted to build my extraction facility on the second one. The idea was to avoid interfering with each other’s setup and thereby maximising the returns. The barren planets both have somewhat mediocre deposits of Noble Metals, but the only other planet with the resource is the plasma planet which is already obligated for Non-CS Crystals.
After all of that, it seemed like the bulk of the work was finished. Eight planets had been set up to extract the four necessary P0 materials and refine it into the four Tier 1 Products used to produce Consumer Electronics and Mechanical Parts for final inclusion of the Robotics.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="194" caption="Making Robots"]  [/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1123" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Backup Production Facility"]  [/caption]
The last step was supposed to be the most straight forward as it could be set up on any planet and did not require survey. Again, I opted to have this set up on the second barren planet in our home wormhole system that I was not using for Noble Metals [but The Puppet was] as it had the smallest diameter and thus was the most economical in terms of CPU and PG needed for links. This was a fairly complex setup and in hindsight would do a couple of placements differently [for aesthetic reasons mostly]. The lessons learned in previous iterations and attempts at PI were useful in making sure that things went smoothly.
The first installation [after the Command Center] was the Spaceport. Additional Advanced Industrial Facilities [AIFwere placed around the Spaceport in a hexagonal layout while attempting to minimise the distance between them. The result was a tightly packed set of 25 AIF. The next step was to link everything together with the minimum number of links and avoiding any long links. This involved a bit of trial and error and sketching to get it set up with the least number of links without overloading any of them or requiring upgrades if necessary. The final result was 5 branches of 4 AIF connected in a general ‘Y’ or ‘T’ shape and one branch with 5 AIF.
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 Strip Mining Planets
Moving into a Class 5 wormhole after the Class 4 saw a shift away from producing anything and toward raw extraction. This was the part of the plan where I put down extractor heads and landing pad to rip as much stuff out of each ball of dirt/lava/gas in our system that I could get my greedy little command centres on.
The initial plan here was to stockpile the extracted Planetary resources [P0] materials until a suitable wormhole opened up and then flood the market with it all. The basic tenets involved were: Low Stress; Low Time; Low Margin; Medium Returns. This plan was enacted and working for only a couple days before two things happened to change it all up.
The first was the change from extractors to extractor “control units” and “heads” for getting the P0 out of the planet. This required going back to each planet and restructuring how everything was laid out on the colony. While this was time consuming, it was in all actuality a blessing because of the following reason required some colony restructuring/thinking.
The second issue was probably the more important factor – raw P0 are rather bulky in large quantities. Another pilot and I quickly realised that using the XL ship assembly array as well as the freighter was not going to be sufficient to hold all the stuffing we were pulling out of our plush planets. A quick refit saw the new extractor heads added and a couple dozen basic processors to change our P0 into Tier 1 products [P1]. This resulted in our good only needing 25% of their former volume [3000 units of P0 = 20 units of P1: 30m3 P0 = 7.6m3 P1]. This made storing the produce much easier, moving it out take less time/effort and allow us to wait for a suitable exit that we were comfortable using.
In a typical day I could collect about 18,000 units of Oxidizing Compounds [there was a lot of gas] over three planets. A fourth planet was setup on our temperate world for exporting mass quantities of Industrial Fibers which could theoretically generate about 12,000 units. If you noticed from the previous paragraph, this is a still a lot of cubic meters of stuff. So much so that in order to keep enough space free in the spaceport I was forced to export my planetary goods 2-3 times per day. This was also an unworkable solution not to mention unsustainable from a resource point of view.
In the end I scaled back the extraction and production on the gas planets to about 3,100 units of P1 each day [ending with a full spaceport] and then could export and restart the whole process over again. This was all worth about 500,000 isk per planet per day logged on. This meant with my 5 planets, I would be able to generate 2.5 million isk per day for about 20 mins of clicking. Yeah – it took a while for that to sink in. This was not going to be a long term cash cow but it was certainly something to fill in the space between scanning, running anomalies, hauling crap and running reactions.
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.
Probably one of the safer groups of people to use hardwiring implants are professional mission runners. Since the majority of mission runners use missile based set-ups [Caracal, Drake, Raven, CNR, Golem, Tengu], most of these people will benefit from implants that maximise their application of missile damage to their intended targets as quickly as possible. They also have the added benefit of being able to earn the LP necessary to buy the implants in the first place as well as face a relatively low risk of losing them. They can most likely justify spending a large amount of isk and resources on a nicer set of implants than someone who is doing regular fleet-ops in 0.0 or pirating in low-sec.
It can be overwhelming to decipher the implants that you are looking for in the sea of choices. All of the missile hardwirings begin with either ‘Snapshot’ for improving missile damage or ‘Deadeye’ for improving missile related skills. Since there are 5 slots that the missile implants can slot into, here is a break down by slot and then what a couple of sets might look like.
First up is slot 6. The options available here include boosts for Torpedo [ZMT-500/1000/2000] or Cruise [ZMU-500/1000/2000] damage. This will likely come down to whether you are flying the Caldari Marauder Golem or any other ship. The Golem‘s insane boosts to torpedoes makes the addition of the implant marginally useful, but flying a billion isk ship that likely has more than a billion in fitting modules on it makes the implant a fairly small drop in the isk bucket. For everyone else, slot six is likely to just be a utility for more capacitor, CPU or power grid.
For slot 7 there is a choice between the two cruiser sized missile platform [Heavy Assault {ZME-500/1000/2000} vs. Heavy {ZMH-500/1000/2000}] damage or increasing missile ranges [ZMC-10/100/1000 or ZML-10/100/1000]. For those in torpedo or rocket fit boats the added range is nice, but for cruise/heavy/standard missiles it is less useful due to their already long range. It could be argued that you could maximise a sniper cruise boat, but the real question would be why. If you are in a PVE ship- you probably want to get the heavy missile damage implant, for a PVP ship like the Sacrilege consider the HAM damage implant.
Slot 8 really does not have a choice. The two available missile hardwirings are for defender missile [ZMD-500/1000/2000] or explosion velocity. I honestly cannot conceive of a situation where using a hardwiring to boost defender missiles is beneficial. There really are only a few situations where having defender missiles are even remotely useful and having an implant for that is not going to make the difference. On the other hand, if you are using cruise or heavy missiles, the bonus to explosion velocity is icing on an already very tasty cake. While it will not make your cruise missiles hit for more damage, it will increase the amount of their damage that actually gets applied to smaller targets. If you are using the unguided missiles [Rockets, Heavy Assaults or Torpedoes], consider filling slot 8 with something like the Rogue DY [for afterburner cap savings], the Squire CC [for more capacitor] or the Alchemist WA [longer drug booster effects - a whole other set of topics].
Slot 9 for missiles is either for small missiles [ZMR-500/1000/2000 and ZMN-500/1000/2000] or for explosion velocity [ZMS-10/100/1000 - all missiles]. If you are a dedicated Hawk, Hookbill, Flycatcher, Heretic or maybe even Kestrel pilot, the two small missile hardwirings could do you good. Until they make a change to rockets, the explosion velocity is likely going to do you more good than the damage boost. It also has the added advantage of working with any other missiles that you might fire.
Finally, slot 10 is a lot like slot 8. The need for Friend-or-Foe [F.o.F.] is highly situational and not likely to be one that you face often. Thus the need for an implant that helps the explosion radius of F.o.F. missiles [ZMF-500/1000/2000] is not going to be a great choice. The other missile hardwire for slot 10 is one that has a direct effect on DPS by boosting their rate of fire [ZMM-10/100/1000]. This is a great choice for PVE and PVP both.
So to recap [and provide application to the above rhetoric] – here are a few specific suggestions:
| PVE Torp Golem |
|
|
|
| Slot 6 |
Torpedo Damage |
‘Snapshot’ ZMT-2000 |
~170m |
 |
| Slot 7 |
Flight Time |
‘Deadeye’ ZMC-1000 |
~177m |
| Slot 8 |
Booster Duration |
‘Alchemist’ WA-2 |
~100m |
| Slot 9 |
Explosion Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZMS-1000 |
~165m |
| Slot 10 |
Rate of Fire |
‘Deadeye’ ZMM-1000 |
~177m |
|
|
|
|
|
| PVE Tengu/Drake |
|
|
|
| Slot 6 |
Capacitor Recharge |
‘Gypsy’ KMB-50 |
~23m |
 |
| Slot 7 |
HML Damage |
‘Snapshot’ ZMH-2000 |
~160m |
| Slot 8 |
Explosion Radius |
‘Deadeye’ ZMA-1000 |
~170m |
| Slot 9 |
Explosion Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZMS-1000 |
~165m |
| Slot 10 |
Rate of Fire |
‘Deadeye’ ZMM-1000 |
~177m |
|
|
|
|
|
| PVE Raven Cheap |
|
|
|
| Slot 6 |
Cruise Damage |
‘Snapshot’ ZMU-1000 |
~22m |
 |
| Slot 7 |
Flight Time |
‘Deadeye’ ZMC-100 |
~15m |
| Slot 8 |
Explosion Radius |
‘Deadeye’ ZMA-100 |
~21m |
| Slot 9 |
Explosion Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZMS-100 |
~22m |
| Slot 10 |
Rate of Fire |
‘Deadeye’ ZMM-100 |
~24m |
|
|
|
|
|
| PVP Generic |
|
|
|
| Slot 6 |
Ship Velocity |
‘Rogue’ CY-1 |
~5m |
As an alternative for slot six, the pirate ‘Omega’ implants can be used to compete those sets. |
| Slot 7 |
Missile Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZML-10 |
~1.5m |
| Slot 8 |
Explosion Radius |
‘Deadeye’ ZMA-10 |
~2.1m |
| Slot 9 |
Explosion Velocity |
‘Deadeye’ ZMS-10 |
~2.2m |
| Slot 10 |
Rate of Fire |
‘Deadeye’ ZMM-10 |
~1m |
On Being Plugged In
[caption id="attachment_971" align="alignright" width="149" caption="Plug It In, Plug It In"]  [/caption]
There are within EVE a plethora of ways to get better and be better than the next pilot. Fitting your ship, pilot ability, skill training and finally implants. Like the Glade® Plug-ins of Terran myth, these cool little doodads work their magic by being inserted into sockets in your brain and having some larger effect on the world around you. Unlike the Glade®’s they can be more than just a fresh scent. They can increase your ability to squeeze things on your ship, improve your cap-life, add time to your tank, and even speed up the rate at which you acquire new skills. They are the magic beans being sold by the side of road. They are quite simply, rigs for your brain. In much the same way you might spend extra money to rig your ship for a performance increase, you can ‘rig’ your melon with implants for an increase in something [often just ego, ask Krull].
They can generally be divided into two broad divisions and several sub-categories. First there are the attribute implants that increase your Intelligence [Einstein never had it so good], Memory [Where did I park my Onyx?], Perception [I see dead people], Willpower [OBEY!] and Charisma [Leadership skill training?]. The second division is the broad range of enhancement implants that improve how skills work, how modules function, how damage is calculated and applied even how effective the drugs you might be taking are on you performance. Each of these two broad divisions can be further subdivided into categories:
- Attribute Implants:
- Specific Attribute [Int/Mem/Per/Wil/Cha]
- Limited
- Limited Beta
- Basic
- Standard
- Improved
- Pirate
- Hardwirings
- Armor
- Drones
- Electronics
- Engineering
- Gunnery
- Industry
- Leadership
- Missile
- Navigation
- Science
- Shields
There are a myriad different ways to fit these into your head, just as there are millions of possible ship configurations. Hopefully over the next couple of posts I will examine some different combinations that can serve particular needs. If you a particular set you like to use or rely on, post a comment and I will see about getting it put into the mix.
On Finding and Using a Common Reference Point
While working in space has its perks and for the most part is a wonderful experience, we are in part hampered by the interface built into our ships. I firmly place any and all blame on the Jovians as part of their desire to maintain a position of aloof superiority over us by seeding small technological wonders attached to inane and sometimes incomplete user interfaces. I could probably wax eloquent over multiple examples, but would only be “preaching to the choir” as it were. None of the pilots I fly with or talk to would recommend the user interface we use on a regular basis for any purpose other than masochism.
Having written all of that, we are flying around in a multi-dimensional space with the only real point of reference being a false horizon given to us by the tactical overlay. Flying around planets, suns, moons, et cetra are all inconsistent measures of location and often difficult to describe in a place where concepts like UP, DOWN, STARBOARD, PORT, AFT, BOW are rendered meaningless in light of both the interface and third-dimensional travel. [As an aside for those who might have flown a spaceship in a "twitch" type of environment, a barrel-roll really loses it's meaning without a horizon, but that doesn't negate it's usefulness.] So how can you organise yourself and others [especially fleet commanders] to use a common point of reference without everything going down the drain in confusion over directions and terms.
REALITY – You can’t. There will always be someone to misunderstand any given command. “Warp to 30km and hold,” will invariably be understood as, “Get to the gate and jump. Jump! JUMP!” by aforementioned schmuck. In another life, we had a fleet-mate who always turned up oriented 180˚ degrees vertical to the rest of the group. Ultimately it didn’t matter as she would at least be facing the right direction. The best we can do is develop a consistent point of reference and be insistent that people reference it for direction. Anything else will largely just be lucky, random happenstance.
Something reminded me the other day of how we were taught to find reference points in fleet operations while giving a new corp-mate the grand tour. Dazed and confused by the overwhelming flood of information coming at him upon joining our little patch of home, he queried, “How do you all know where you are going?” Admittedly he was referring to finding and keeping track of the ever shifting network of wormholes, but it was a good reminder about getting oriented and one that I had completely forgotten in moving into a wormhole. The point of this is to get everyone a common frame of reference that they can use to describe position and interpret directions.
[caption id="attachment_754" align="alignright" width="230" caption="Finding North"]  [/caption]
The method is fairly easy and refers to an arbitrary direction that we will call, Norbert. To find Norbert and get oriented to Norbert, you simply full up the otherwise useless system map [via the F11 key unless you've remapped it somehow]. In the lower right hand corner will be a map of your current system complete with relative planetary orbits and the star in the centre. Somewhere on this little map will be a red circle that represents your current position. extending outward from this circle is what can best be described as two overlapping, semi-transparent triangles. These indicate the current horizontal “field-of-view” of your camera drones. The direction your ship is facing is irrelevant as is your vertical declination above or below the plane of the tactical overlay horizon. Remember Norton? It is this field-of-view that we use to define Norbert. Norbert is arbitrarily defined as the top of the little system map. Everything else can now be defined relative to Norbert. You warp to a wormhole at 10 o’clock knowing that your cloaked stealth bomber buddy is 30km 6 o’clock. Stealth Edit. 
On Going Backwards For A Bit
First, a Public Service Announcement from WHEN. Pro-Tip: Cloak, THEN scan. Recently while scanning, two of my corp-mates cornered a day-tripping scanner in a nearby class 1 wormhole and sent him home, express postage paid. Even in a Tech 1 frigate, fit a cloak if you are going to be scanning. Additionally keep your eyes peeled and on the d-scan. Your first sign of danger shouldn’t be the sound of ammunition pummelling into your hull!
The Wormhole Engineers have done a fabulous job of clearing out the anomalies and signatures in our home system. The standard mode of operations is:
- Scan out the static exit.
- See how deep the rabbit hole goes.
- Prioritise the resources located.
- Secure the area.
- Collect as much as feasible given personnel, skills and equipment.
Numbers one and two happen almost automatically now. It’s become an engrained response to the place we choose to live. Number 3 is somewhat amorphous and can change dynamically [It's the nature of priorities.]. Number 4 can be difficult as there are times when we can easily tell we are out-matched and our best course of action is closing the w’hole as quickly as possible. Sometimes number 4 involves shooting other ships, as was seen in the recent expedition into the nearby class 1. In addition to the uncloaked, and possibly AFK scanner, a salvage-Stabber was chased down and shown the door.
Second, a Public Service Announcement from WHEN. Pro-Tip: Don’t leave a salvager behind to clean up. Especially don’t leave a salvager behind to clean up when:
- A Corp-mate just got podded,
- the wormhole you came in through is end-of-life,
- The poor salvager doesn’t have a probe launcher fit,
- The straggler doesn’t have bookmarks for the other w’holes in the system.
Having done all this, we eschew the neighbouring class 4 system with its relative dearth of anomalies and sites to pursue the cheap candy covered thrills of the class 1 conveniently left behind by the previous, unfortunate visitors. A few minutes are spent debating the relative merits/demerits/benefits/challenges of flying various fleets to best capitalise on the class one in the most efficient manner. In the end, efficiency really becomes less of a concern when dealing with things that can be handled solo. We each hop into our preferred ships and head off to clean up the Sleeper detritus infecting said system.
With the static highsec exit left unscanned/warped, we are able to work in relative safety. Our motley crew ends up being a heavy missile Drake sporting siege warfare links, a heavy assault missile Drake equipped to both hack and analyse [2 magnetometric sites and 1 radar site present] and an Ishtar we half-jokingly refer to as the Salva-Tar for it’s ability to clean up the wrecks as we go along. After a few quick moments we realise that we are not only overkill for a class 1, we are way over tanked as a fleet and begin to split up. Salva-Tar goes back and grabs a specialised salvage boat,the HML drake goes on to the next site and hack Drake finished up on the cans. Joining the HML, the hack-Drake helps make short work of site two and the scenario is repeated for site three. All-in-all, the Drake really proved itself as a wonderful jack of all trades for cleaning up a class 1 wormhole.
In the end, the spoils were average for a class 1, and seemingly low in comparison to doing the same sites in our home class 4, but the evening was in reality a resounding success. We tracked down and killed two defenceless carebears, avoided reprisal, ran several combat sites that were quite beneath our level and left with all of the candy. It was good to feel confident, in control and powerful – if only for a moment. I know that soon we’ll be podded by bigger boys in badder boats and ganked by girls with guns.
On Flying Frigates In Wormholes
There is very little I want to say about the backgrounds of any particular race flying around in New Eden. They all have issues and a primary reason for being out here in a wormhole is putting all of that background in the background. We have all agreed to check our baggage at the last station we undocked from and acknowledge that out here, we can’t afford to be bickering about belief, conflicting over capitalism, seethe over servitude or advertise autonomy. Out in the wormhole, every pilot from every race is closer to their clone and a long way from any government or authority.
I preface the post with all of that to say that no single race’s ships are inherently better, just different. Out here in the wormhole it comes down to answering the question, “Does it get the job done?” With regard to frigate-sized ships, I am going to take a quick run through some of them and point out some of their strengths as they pertain to living out in a wormhole.
Amarr:
Magnate: As the basic astrometrics frig, this is a great backup for scanning, or running around helping to clean up after a radar or magnetometric sight. With the addition of sized rigs, it can easily be rigged with gravity capacitors to boost scan strength allowing even fairly low level pilots the ability to scan down wormholes and most signatures.
Crucifier: Makes a good disposable tackler for PVP. Emphasis on disposable as they will melt quickly.
Executioner: Well, it’s faster than a shuttle, slightly sturdier. Very good for running away.
Inquisitor: Just don’t fly this in a wormhole. Please.
Tormentor: Cheap. Leave it at home. Better, refine it an build something else.
Punisher: Good PVP frigate to throw on the bulwark of invading gankers. Not good for much else.
Anathema: Great Tech 2 scanning ship.
Caldari
Heron: Good backup scanning machine. Rigged, it can make short work of finding sites if and when you can’t be in a Buzzard.
Condor: At least it can fly away from trouble quickly.
Bantam: Good intro miner, lousy wormhole ship. Reprocess or blow up and salvage it.
Merlin: Can be an evil, nasty tackler for PVP.
Griffin: Why are you undocking in this?
Kestrel: Makes a good hacking/analysing/salvage frigate.
Buzzard: Caldari covops scanning for the win. [Ninja Edit]
Gallente
Atron: See Condor above. Run away.
Imicus: Like the Caldari Heron and the Amarr Magnate and the Minmatar Probe, this is your backup for scanning when things go south. Or when you don’t have covops skills on an alt you left parked in the system before you all got run out by Evil Overkill Corp.
Tristan: Not bad for some PVP damage, but likely need bigger ships.
Incursus: Itty-bitty blaster boat beats boys! Thanks for the heads up Owen.
Maulus: Insure, blow-up, salvage.
Navitas: See Above.
Helios: When you absolutely must scan. Scan in this. It is a sweet covops ride.
Minmatar
Probe: Scan. Scan. Scan. Scan. Somewhere is some action.
Breacher: Seriously?
Burst: At least the killmails will be funny.
Rifter: PVP the living daylights out of things with this. Rinse and repeat. Rather like scanning only you use more ammo.
Slasher: Fly. And Fly. And Fly. Right on back to the station for something else to fly.
Vigil: At least you can fly quickly to get something else to fly.
Cheetah: Our serious scanning swag swears by this animal. His scanning prowess definitely doesn’t hurt either. Seriously, Minnie Pilots Rejoice – This ship scans very well.
Summary
Frigates are fairly limited in their usage. They will pretty much insta-pop to everything that they run into in a wormhole with the exception of other players in PVP encounters. Assault frigates can last longer, but I ran out of space to cover all of those. Perhaps we’ll get back to that another day.
On Scanning For Wormhole Space
So you are reading all of the wonderful posts about living the adventurous life out on the edges of uncharted space. You might have heard some enticing tales about the bountiful harvests to be had from slaying Sleepers and easy access to high end ores. The main thing is, you’ve heard about all the inherently cool things about living in a wormhole, now you’re ready to make it a reality. In order to help you, here is some information from the Wormhole Engineers [né Dark Star Galactic Engineers - Wormhole Division] as we learn from our wormhole operations.
The decision to explore in wormholes has a very low barrier to entry. Skill-wise, all you’ll need [theoretically] is Astrometrics trained to level 3, an astrometrics frigate [Heron, Magnate, Imicus, Probe], an Expanded Probe Launcher and some Core Scanner Probes. While these are the minimums really for finding a wormhole, you’ll likely benefit from training [should go without saying]
- Your racial frigate skill higher or a Covert Ops Frigate [Tech 2 astrometrics frigate]
- Astrometrics to level 5 and picking up a couple of additional scanning support skills
- Astrometric Rangefinding will increase your probes scan strength which is essential to finding the harder sites
- Astrometric Pinpointing reduces your scan deviation which makes your scans more accurate
- Finally, Astrometric Acquisition lowers the amount of time each scan takes which adds up when locating a specific site will take 4-7 scans
You are looking for ‘Cosmic Signatures’ in general and specifically the ones of type, “Unknown”. These represent the wormholes that you are going to kill you later. I’ll skip explaining exploration because it’s been done several times over by better scanners than I. For a start, check out CCP’s own video on the process. You’ll learn how to better position your probes with time and experience, but it will get you started. Google is your friend for finding some other videos and tutorials on scanning, so I’m not going to bother trying to explain it.
Before I go any farther, let me recommend that you go read miningzen’s post about how to survive in a wormhole. It doesn’t do you any good to find the wormhole only to turn around and have it beat you senseless multiple times. Never mind, strike that. If you spend any time at all in wormhole space, you ARE going to die. Repeatedly. It is still a good idea to read the above post. Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything, you will come to understand it as you wake up in your clone the next couple of times. While you are at it, update your clone.
Take some time and get to know the scanning interface and it’s quirks and foibles. You are going to be spending a lot of time using it and won’t want to have to learn it while under fire in an emergency. Get in the habit of cloaking to scan. I’ve seen way too many people out scanning in wormholes in an uncloaked ship and most of them managed to get popped. If you survive, you will hopefully be left with a set of warp-able points that you can bookmark and explore. Sleepers love to uncloak ships and they will vaporise astro-frigates faster than you can click a target to warp out. I’ll try to put together a rough look at various ships and how they perform in wormholes in another post.
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