One Hundred and Fifteen

The post title is the number of jumps I did yesterday through High Sec in my jump freighter.

There and Back Again and Again

I started the day in Jita picking up new items for the local store and collecting Alliance/Corporation courier contracts back to our null sec base. A handful of jumps were through 0.5 space so I made sure to take control at these times but otherwise I ran on autopilot for most of the journey and either did some RL chores  or helped my wife plant strawberries in a new area of the garden.

Of course as I moved through space people asked me if I'd left Jita and because I'm a nice guy I said I had but could go back. Going back at the time was 30-odd jumps but still, I had the space and I was asked nicely.

So I dropped my cargo off at a temporary station, so as to provide a less tempting target for any would-be ganker, and headed back to Jita, then Amarr and finally back to pick up that that I originally started with. Then it was 7 jumps further to the first system that was within jump range of home.

A little over seven hours and one hundred and fifteen jumps after I originally left Jita I was home. I delivered my contracts and logged off.

It was exhausting auto-piloting through New Eden.

Maximum Warp Speed, Mr Navigator

The cargo size I was carrying influenced my decision to refit with nanofiber structure's in the low slots, this provides a noticeable increase in agility that helps you get into warp faster. A higher top speed would be a nice addition so I checked the prices for the recently added warp speed modules, which increase ship acceleration and warp speed:

• Limited Hyperspatial Accelerator
• Experimental Hyperspatial Accelerator
• Prototype Hyperspatial Accelerator

The Prototype Hyperspatial Accelerator is the top variant that modifies by 0.3 where as the other two do so by 0.25 and 0.2. Prices are considerably different with the Prototype being ten times the price of the Limited and five times the price of a Experimental (133m vs. 13m/25m).

I was going to buy three Prototype but have decided to hold off and see if any of my friends come across the BPC's for these modules on their travels. I'm in no rush for them, I've managed to work without them thus far but I would like to get them by the end of this year as a nice upgrade for my high sec travel.

Know Your Scams: Hanger Clearance

Setup

A message is posted in local stating the character is headed to null/clearing their hanger/disposing of loot from a corp theft. There will be a contract linked:

A contract will be setup that will contain various modules/implants that may be Faction/Deadspace or Officer class and there will be a cost to the contract, under You Will Pay, but the listed items will fool the mark into believing this is a cheap contract that will be very profitable to resell the contents.

What Happens Now

The mark will accept the contract but find out when they try to sell the individual items that they are either not as valuable as they expected and there is a very low sale volume.

How Can You Protect Yourself

Firstly, remember Rule #1, anything posted in local in a trade hub is going to be a scam and you should not accept any contract without seriously checking on the contents and issuer.

You can immediately check this contract by performing a price check of any items contained with the it using item prices from Jita (either via in-game market, EVEpraisal or EVE Central).

Planning Ahead

Over the past week I've spent time considering the future of my characters and what direction I want them to follow with regards to their training.

I have four accounts with my four main characters and a mix of cyno and PI alts, of varying skill levels, occupying the character slots on these accounts. it's the main characters I'll be talking about, providing a little background but also setting out what I want them to do in the future.

Shared Background

All of my characters started off with a mining focus, training to fly mining barges and then Exhumers with two being cross trained to fly the Orca and, later, the Rorqual. This is how I got my start in EVE Online, either running or participating in Mining Fleets in high sec and null sec. It wasn't moo goo money but it was a regular source of income and I really enjoy mining.

Since finishing their initial mining training they have all gone off in different directions in EVE but now I'm taking a longer term look at their uses and will plan training queues for them to maximize my return from them.

Planning

EVE Mon has been extremely useful, no vital, in helping me see my available options even if the results have been slightly depressing when I saw how long each skill plan will take to complete. But the advantage of planning my skill training for the next three, six or twelve months means I have objectives and am not wasting my game time on things that I will not benefit from in the long term.

I've now got four plans that I will be following as closely as possible until they are complete. I cannot predict everything and requirements may change so there will be some variation but I have a plan to follow that will open up more ships, modules and professions for my characters.

Main Character (Capital / Logistics Pilot)

93 million skillpoints

This was the first character I created in EVE but I don't use him everyday as I once did. He now spends most of his time in High Sec space supporting the activities (via logistics/manufacturing/invention) of my other characters.

Primarily an Amarrian ship flyer this character recently and he can fly every sub-capital ship bar T2 frigates and he has recently injected the Amarr Titan skill book (I had spare ISK and it completed a long term objective). He can use all guns but T2 rail guns and he has poor missile skills but he is not a combat pilot he has always worked logistics for me. As a result he can fly all racial Freighters/Jump Freighters and has most science and production skills at Level IV.

One aspect of his skills that I am disappointed with are his Drone skills, considering he flys drone ships and carriers his Drone skills are woefully inadequate. This is what I want to change and as a result I've used EVE Mon to work out a skill plan that will get all Drone skills to Level V.

Not ISK will be needed as all the skills are injected but the total time to get the entire branch to V will be 203 days at 2700 sp/h (Memory/Perception).

Once Drones are complete I will move back to Perception/Willpower attribute mapping and continue to work through the remaining Gunnery and Spaceship Command skills that I have either at Level IV or haven't started to train. This training will add another 360 days training, once a remap to Perception/Willpower is performed.

All in all, this character has his skill plan set for the eighteen months.

Miner / Booster / Logistics (Capital / Sub Capital)

90 million skillpoints

This was the first alt I created and was done so to meet the requirement of a pilot who could fly an Orca and boost whilst my main mined. When I was deciding to move to Providence I realized that I need to train all the remaining Leadership skills and thus, my Booster alt was fully born.

He can fly ever single racial ship below Battleship class and he is also a max skilled Rorqual and Jump Freighter pilot. This is nice as he continues to live in Null Sec where these skills are very useful for managing my towers and helping to move input/outputs about.

One peculiar thing about this character is that he maintains to this day the same gunnery and missile skills he was born with, they have never been improved and there has never been any need for him to have done so.

I have considered the role and at some point I will be adding Science and Production skills to his abilities but for the time being I will continue working on Support Skills to Level V and when this is done he will change to finally getting all racial Battleships and T2 Spaceship Command specializations to Level V.

According to EVE Mon will I have another 127 days on the Support Skills with Science (excluding T3 construction skills) at 491 days and Production at 259 days. He's going to be chock-a-bloc full of skills and will make a superb Industry addition to my roster.

Fun Fact: It was my wife who designed the portrait for the character and I haven't changed it since she did as she periodically checks his image and when I did once change his appearance I copped all kinds of hell over it.

Combat Character (Sub Capital pilot)

80 million skillpoints

I created a second alt a couple of months after the first because, well, I could mine more with two miners and a booster. It was only when I was living in a wormhole in 2011, and after he was able to fly Exhumers, that I changed his direction to being a sub-capital combat pilot.

After I moved to Providence this character become my defacto main and I recived a lot of encouragement/learning from the FC's that were active at the time. His skills adapted to the needs of the fleets I was in, moving from T1 vessels into T2 based Recons, HAC's and HIC's. He is well trained to use all T2 guns and HAM/HM/Torpedo's with just Level V specialization needing completing for all these.

It was this character that prompted a lot of my planning when I discovered he was only just over a total of 7 days training (and an injection of ISK) from being able to fly all racial dreadnoughts and able to use all capital sized guns.

He's now training for dreadnoughts/capital guns and will move on to finishing all sub-capital ships and gunnery skills to V. Something that EVE Mon tells me will take just 797 days with 204 days of to get each racial dreadnought to V.

I'll need more jump clones for him at some point but I am lucky to have at least four spare clones.

Miner (Scanning / Sub-Capital pilot / Manufacturing Alt)

58 million skillpoints

The youngest and most cross trained of my characters, he was born with a singular purpose: to be a perfect mining character which he achieved in about six months of training.

Has since become my scanning character after spending about 3 months training every scanning skill to V, which he completed two days before the release of Odyssey and the revamp of the scanning system.

He moved on to training to fly all racial sub capital ships under Battleship size and also able to fly the Amarrian Jump Freighter. As a result he acts as a back up jump freighter pilot for me in null sec. For the past year he's been working on Support Skills.

In planning for the future I've decided that I need another character to be able to manufacture modules and ships and so this character will be starting on Science and Production skills and will do until they are all Level IV and he can make all ships but T3's and Capital's.

EVE Mon tells me that this will take 77 days for all to Level IV and then another 125 days for the Production skills I'll need to actually do the building of modules/ships that I need to. Once this is done I'll have a remap available and I think getting Drone skill maximized (much like my main is now) will be a good choice for another 230 odd days training.

No Plan Ever Survives Execution

I have plans for each of my characters and I will be following them as closely as possible but there will be times I will have to make a detour and train skills I wasn't planning on. This has happened before and will happen again but my aim is to remain on the path I have chosen as much as I can.

The skill plans I have created will improve existing skills but more important open up new ships, modules and adventures to be had.

I'm looking forward to the training even if it will consume most of the next two years.

DED sites in High Sec

There are Deadspace areas of space, connected by acceleration gates, that are inhabited by pirates and these are referred to as DED Sites. They contain challenges of varying difficulty (1 to 10) and located in all but wormhole space these sites are a challenge for pilots but can have very profitable rewards.

Last week I received a mail from my friend Bex who had recently started roaming around New Eden looking for High Sec DED sites to run. Previously he had run a few sites but never made a dedicated effort to find them but once he did he wasn't disappointed in the rewards he was given, so much so that he said the following:

I am surprised how easy it is to make a living in HiSec.
        - Apex Bex

Aiming Low

As far as what sites to run, in high sec you'll find DED sites from 1/10 to 4/10 and it is the 3/10 and 4/10 DED's that should be your primary targets as they drop the best rewards. That's not to say that unrated or even Drone sites aren't worth doing, they are, and if they escalate you'll be showered with Faction Drops and Tech II hardwirings that can be sold for a very large profit.

EVEopedia's comprehensive list of DED Complexes

Bex has followed one simple rule: if its a combat site that has to be scanned out, he scans it then runs it.

The only exception being those ones that only allows Frigates. He can't arsed reshipping to do those as he's often a very long way from home as his current ship, a Gila, is a mobile so he doesn't have to get stay in one location and can roam the byways and back roads of New Eden.

The best places to scan are off the beaten track. High sec systems that are hidden behind Low sec pockets are ideal as they get very little traffic. Bex often makes use of wormholes to move around and as a result sometimes their exits have led to a backwater system 40 jumps from anywhere but they have 4 DED sites in them, just waiting for someone to harvest them.

Selecting the Ship

Doing DED sites in High sec you really want a one ship solution, it can scan and find sites but also run them without the need for swapping ships or using a second character. As a result you see a lot of Stratios, Vexor/Navy Vexor, and Gila's being used for this.

Bex has taken the Gila fit I use for ratting in Curse and has tweaked it to have more gank than tank as primarily the DED sites (1/10 to 4/10) in High Sec contain frigates and more tracking and movement speed for the medium drones is a good idea. There is one thing he does consider essential and that is the Drone Navigation Computer, Medium drones are very slow and the 30% speed buff is very, very useful to getting to and from targets.

Looks, Mobility and Damage - the complete package

Of course it doesn't have bonuses, like some of the others, to scanning but with decent scanning skills (Level 4 at least) there's nothing you can't get 100% on.


[High Sec DED]
Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile
Light Missile Launcher II, Caldari Navy Scourge Light Missile

Large Shield Extender
10MN Afterburner II
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Thermic Deflection Field II
Drone Navigation Computer II
Sentient Omnidirection Tracking Link

Drone Amage Amplifer II
Drone Amage Amplifer II
Drone Amage Amplifer II
Omnidirectional Tracking Enhancer II

Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II
Medium Core Defense Field Purger II

2 x Valkyrie II
2 x Hammerhead II
4 x Salvage Drone I
1 x Vespa II
2 x Infiltrator II


He also carries a mobile depot and spare modules to be able to change and adapt his tank to the damage that he is expecting for each site. There is even fitting room for a 100MN Afterburner instead of the 10MN but this does lead to some issues around cap stability and really is overkill for the DED sites that will be found in High Sec.

Contesting Sites

You won't be the only person running DED sites and from time to time you will encounter people who will try to steal your site or will attempt to get you to attack them so as to start PvP. You won't be able to avoid it so its best to be prepared.

Try not to take your time, quickly and efficiently kill all targets and when you do see the Overseer or final loot dropping rat move as close as you can, as quickly as you can whilst killing them. Now, if you get the kill shot on any rat, it's your wreck, no one else can take it without going suspect, that way you can loot the wreck as soon as its dead and prevent anyone from stealing it.

Just in case though Bex suggests if you can spare the mid slot, fit a long point. It's the last thing any would be thief would expect. But use discretion and consider what you could potentially lose for the sake of a crappy faction hardener.

Bex, being the pirate inclined pilot he is, has actually stolen at least one site as they were being run, he warped in and obliterated everything in sight including the final Dread Gurista rat. As he killed it the wreck was white to him but yellow to the other guy in the site and he didn't take to kindly to this and he opened fire:

Kill: VVS Solt (Navy Vexor)

As a result Bex got a shiny afterburner as well as the Mid Range Crystal Gamma that dropped from Dread Gurista rat. Lesson here should be to complete sites faster and to secure the loot BEFORE anyone else.

Rewards - 24 hours of Sites

In one twenty four hour period last week Bex was able to run sites that yielded not only bounties, salvage and Overseer Personal Effects but the following Deadspace items:

• Sentient Omnidirectional Tracking Link
• Pithi A-Type Small Shield Booster
• Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field 
• Corpii A-Type Small Armor Repairer
• Dark Blood Small Focused Pulse Laser
• Dread Guristas Drone Damage Amplifier
• Pithum C-Type Explosive Deflection Amplifier
• Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier
• Pithum C-Type Medium Remote Shield Booster
• Corpii A-Type Small Remote Capacitor Transmitter

The rewards are random, of course, but you often get nice surprises. Like the unrated Drone site that dropped a Sentient Omnidirectional Tracking Link and the Guristas 4/10 that dropped a C-Type Invulnerability  Field worth over 400 million ISK.

Conclusion

I'll certainly be having a look at DED Sites in High Se, I've avoided them in the past because I haven't thought I could do them. But from what I've written I'm certain two of my characters would have no issues scanning down and doing these sites.

I'm going to give it a try and should I get anything good you can be sure I'll write about it here.

Thank to Bex for the information and the round up of his experiences.

Site News

I was thinking the other day I should post a Site Update to let people know of posts to come and other minutiae that don't really warrant their own post. Finally got around to it this morning, in between my morning work duties.

Welcome New Readers

Welcome Redditors and zKillboard/EVE-Kill people. My post earlier this week on the Titan kill in Mai has generated a lot of traffic thanks to people posting the link to the article on Reddit and the kill on zKillboard/EVE-Kill.

The traffic has been welcome and satisfying to see but I do hope those that have visited stay and check out some of my other posts. Leave a comment (or two) if you have feedback.

The Smiling Assassin

There is one more post to come in the TSA Series, I'm just waiting on some final information from TSA before I post the final part. Unfortunately TSA hasn't been in-game very much recently and until he returns there isn't much I can do. 

And I won't post half complete what I have.

Future Posts

I'm working on posts covering a variety of topics, including:

• Amarr based COSMOS missions 
• Making Storyline BPCs using Takmahl components
• New scams found added to the Know Your Scams series
• Guide to Booster manufacturing
• Update to running Level 4 missions in Null Sec

Of course there will also be posts on other topics that pop up on the forums, other blogs I read or things that pop into my head.

Comments Appreciated

If you have a comment, constructive if possible, or wish to provide feedback, please do so. Its nice to hear from readers about how I can improve the blog

O Titan, My Titan

I've previously covered the killing of a Titan in Mai, located in low sec Domain, and how there is a group of pilots here who ply their trade in this system with the sole purpose of killing any and all capital ships that attempt to use it.

George Takei approves again (possibly)

Acting Suspicious

With eyes watching the system and anyone who entered, it was the arrival of a character called Zynen approximately 90 minutes beforehand that piqued their interest. The pilot, instead of flying directly to station, docking up and remaining there started warping around the system, obviously checking for pilots in each station and then warped back to the only gate in system and left.

This behaviour raised a red flag in the minds of the pilots watching, something was going to happen.

Target Finder

Zynen returned to Mai shortly after leaving but a 5 degree d-scan of the Zaimeth gate did not show the pilot there, a 15 degree did but not the smaller angle, an angle that would show they were on the gate. A couple of further d-scans at different locations (to triangulate) showed Zynen at a point between station 4 and the Zaimeth gate.

Research was performed on the pilot to see previous losses and who they might be associated with but this wasn't overly useful as kills were found back two years but not much recently. As a result they believed they may be seeing a super capital cyno rather than the titan which arrived.

Smash and Grab

At 0721 EVE time a cyno went up in Mai, a cloaky bump ship immediately warped in at range and as soon as the Avatar class titan of Suki Antollare appeared on grid the microwarp drive was lit and the Avatar was bumped, so as to prevent any immediate warp away that the titan pilot was expected to be doing.

Avatar Class Titan

The bump ship was not alone, whilst he was in warp the firepower that appears on the killmail was bought online and immediately entered warp to the cyno. Bumps continued on the titan as the dps and tackle arrived on grid and then the titan was caught.

Open Fire, All Weapons

The dreadnoughts sieged as soon as they exited warp and, with eyes still on the Zynen who had moved into neighbouring Zaimeth, a cyno inhibitor was deployed in order to try to make it harder for rescue to come. It must have worked as after the titans mobile depot was destroyed Zynen exited Zaimeth and was not seen again and no rescue force was seen to assemble or come towards Mai.

Update: Jean Learner started this thread on Reddit regarding this kill and mentioned that when the titan was at 51% armour they had a rescue ready but the deployment of the cyno inhibitor and the lack of cyno fitted to the titan meant nothing happened.

Big Badda Boom

11 minutes, or just under two dreadnaught seige cycles, was all it took from first shot to the gigantic explosion that swallowed the Avatar of Suki Antollare. The grid was now clear and salvagers could be bought in.

Good fights were posted in local but the titan pilot remained silent and very quickly logged out after losing the titan.

Back Slapping

Loot was taken, the wreck salvaged (eventually, a titan has a lot of salvage) and what was taken was split between the pilots involved.

The banter on teamspeak was laid back but I did detect some smugness and rightly so. Mai has seen another titan die to the same killers as last time.

Thanks to Bil Tuesday, FreeSoul5150 and Emmgel for their assistance in writing this report. I haven't attempted to contact Suki Antollare because I'm almost certain they will not speak to me.

Bonus Comment: The killmail shows that the Nyx used fighters and not fighter bombers, those of us that know Bix Bro are not at all surprised at this and so was Bix Bro who didn't know they had fighters on grid and honestly probably also had no idea what ship they were flying. It's a New Zealand thing.

Making Rigs

My primary production is still on hold, I have another 6ish weeks of stock to last me, but I needed to get a new Noctis and decided to manufacture the rigs for this as I had 90% of the components and I'd only need a small outlay of ISK to buy what I didn't have.

Sometimes its not worth doing this, unless you have the blueprint (original or copy) and materials yourself its often cheaper to buy from the market. In this case I nearly did, but at 30m each the rigs I decided to have a look for a blueprint and see if I had the salvage materials.

The rigs are for a specific use and aren't for resale so I'm not overly concerned with price, so long as they're cheaper than Jita I'll be happy.

Blueprint

I found the following blueprint in Jita:

3 runs for 27m ISK means 9m per run that I need to add to each rig price to correctly identify the overall cost. I don't need to purchase any skill books as my character has the necessary skills injected and trained.

Assembling the Components

As I have to travel to Jita to get the blueprint I also bought the other items I needed:

• Nanite Compound - 1,504,106.73 ISK
• R.A.M. - Armor/Hull Tech - 1,440 ISK

I also found, thanks to jEVEAssets, that I had the Interface Circuits and Intact Armor Plates already in my planned high sec production system. This surprised me as I didn't think I had so much salvage but it certainly saves me money as I don't have to buy these (and Intact Armor Plates are nearly 4m ISK each in Jita).

I collected the pieces from Jita and then put them in my Item Hanger ready for use.

Assembly

• I right clicked on the blueprint and selected Use Blueprint

• Change the Job Runs to 3
• I check the Cost and Duration (making sure I have enough ISK in my wallet)
• All yellow Start button means we're good to go, so I click Start

The total job cost comes up as 1,346,843 ISK and will take just under 15 hours to complete, which when you look at my cost per run:

• Blueprint: 9m ISK
• Materials: 501368.91 ISK
• Job Cost: 448947.66 ISK

Indicates my production will come in nealy 66% cheaper than the 30m per Rig price that is found in Jita for the rig. 

Awesome, now I just need to wait for them to finish building:

But Your Materials Aren't Free

True, there is my time and effort to find them but I cannot calculate this as I don't know how long I've had these. I have a feeling some of the salvage I've used I've had since 2011/2012 when I was actively salvaging every wreck after battles when I was in Providence.

If I was to assume I was buying the salvage off of the market it would only add around 14m to each rig being built, so the price will go up and still be just cheaper than Jita. 

Conclusion

The whole effort to build was simple and took less than six mouse clicks and 20 seconds, it was actually more effort travelling to Jita and buying what I didn't have off the market.

The new UI for industry takes some getting used to compared to the old method but it is far superior and very cleanly sets out the process and associated costs.

The rigs will be completed and installed on my new Noctis and then, hopefully, I can start farming new materials from sites I complete.

Wares to Market

I've had a good collection of wares to take to market this week, I've been usually frugal in my stockpiling of Metamaterials so I had a nice stack of around 170,000 units each of Photonic and Terrahertz along with the loot from my missioning/officer spawn.

All up my cargo bay said it was worth around 7 billion worth of materials I'd be shipping and this is good timing as I'm only a week or so from needing more input materials for my towers.

Jumping Out

Shipping the materials out of Curse was simple enough, I have two cyno chains I can use and I fired up one and had the materials in high sec within 5 minutes of filling the Jump Freighter. 

I have two cyno chains because sometimes a mid/end-point system may have too many pilots in it for me to want to jump. This is especially so when I'm carrying such an ISK amount.

Moving to Jita

Next I unloaded everything in my local high sec station and setup courier contracts to another alt to take the stuff to Jita for sale. I do this as a precaution against ganking, by splitting up the wares and using courier contracts I'm hoping that the casual ganker will ignore me and I'll be able to pass unhindered. 

Of course this means multiple trips but a alt with a full mid-grade Nomad set and extra warp speed implants doesn't add much time to the journey.

For Sale

Once in Jita its time to sell and this is where patience really counts. I want to make the most from what I'm selling but I also don't want to sell, at first, to buy orders so I look at the price of what I'm selling and then lower the price by a small amount so as to give myself some "daylight" between my items and the next cheapest.

For Metamaterials this means lowing the price further so I will only change by, no more, than 3 ISK but in fact I only dropped the price by 0.75 ISK. Other items were put on at just under current lowest with the hope they'll sell fast.

I setup my sell orders just before downtime and when I logged in this morning I'd sold roughly half of what I had available, which was good, and I spent a little time redoing orders and changing prices as needed.

That's my days market work done, now its time to earn some more ISK via missions and ratting.

Nomads - Level 4 Storyline Wrap Up

Last night I wasn't able to finish the final mission of the Nomads story line mission I got from my Mining Agent,  downtime just came too quickly and there was no way I was going to be able to complete four rooms in nine minutes.

More so as the incoming dps was enough to make me warp my Gila out after landing in the first room, reading up on the mission was of little use as the reference to the mission was from 2008 and didn't go into much detail.

I petitioned to get the final mission reset before I logged off last night and spent a little bit before I went to sleep trying to work out how to do this mission.

When I logged in this evening I asked my CEO to assist and he offered an off grid booster and possible a suicide logistics ship but as luck would have it a PvP target rich environment happened tonight so he was distracted by that but he did run his booster for me with Siege (shield resistance) and Skirmish (signature radius) links.

If At First

I undocked the mission owner in his pod and warped to the deadspace area, this is a useful trick as NPC's will NOT attack a pod and I was able to move slowly 50km above initial spawn point. Whilst he was moving I warped my combat pilot in at 50km and arrived 30km underneath the spawn point and away from the serious dps that bothered me last night.

I then targeted the webbing ships and used my missiles and drones to kill them whilst staying around 50km from the battleships.

A few minutes later and the room was clear and I looted the Alpha Gate card from the last battleship I killed.

Alpha Room

I warped in and had a fright as my overview was NOT setup to show faction warfare NPC's so I didn't see the dozen webbing frigates that surrounded me when I landed. A quick change to the overview and I engage the afterburner and align to my repair station (just in case).

I primary the webbing frigates and receive a tip from alliance that I should run the Federation Navy Omnidirectional Tracking Link without any scripts to get both a bonus to tracking speed/optimal range. As soon as I did this my Valkyries started to kill frigates in one shot rather than the two or three when I had the tracking speed script installed.

#Winning

The room was cleared and I checked the last NPC killed for the Beta Room key, which I prompted used to use the Beta gate.

Beta Room

With my overview now correctly showing all NPC's I warped into the Beta room and was able to see that I had three groups of targets. 

• Group 1 were 3 battleships at 35km 
• Group 2 were a mix of frigates, cruisers and a couple of Battleships at 75km
• Group 3 were a mix of frigates, cruisers, three Battleships and a named cruiser at 90km

I noticed no aggro on landing and it was only when I attacked that any aggro came from the group I was engaging. As a result I maintained range with my afterburner on, so my drones could engage. Targeting the webbing frigates first, then cruisers and finally the battleships I was able to kill them all taking minimal damage.

The named cruiser was putting out significantly more damage than the battleships, when they did hit, so once the cruisers were finished I killed the named cruiser and finished off the battleships. I had a nice surprise when I looted the named cruiser and found two +3% and one 5% implants.

The final battleship I killed held the Gamma Room key and nothing else, so I grabbed the key and off I warped.

Gamma Room

The final room, again warp in was clear and this time I had two large groups of NPC's to deal with.

• Group 1 were a mix of frigates, cruisers and battleships at 70km 
• Group 2 were a mix of frigates, cruisers, 4 battleships and a named battleship at 90km 

I approached this room the same as the Beta Room. Maintaining distance with my afterburner whilst using my drones to kill the NPC's in order from smallest to largest, with a particular emphasis on the webbing frigates.

Group 1 didn't last more than 10 minutes and I moved on to Group 2, again webbing frigates were killed quickly and then cruisers. The battleships were around 40km from me now and, with the exception of the named battleship, not hitting me.

I was still very much tanking these, my shields hadn't dropped below 90% as of yet, so I moved in and engaged the named rat with HAMs and drones whilst orbiting at 15km. He took three minutes to explode at which point I checked his wreck and was very happy to see a pair of Republic Fleet modules which I grabbed and then finished off the rest of the ships.

Loot

I warped a Noctis in after I'd finished the mission and looted/salvaged every wreck in each room and as a result I managed to get quite a selection of T1 salvage and modules that I can reprocess as well as the implants/faction modules that I grabbed.

Excluding the T1 modules this is what I got out of the entire 5 mission arc that I received.

All up a little over 550m ISK worth of loot that I can use or sell on the market. A very profitable mission  arc even if it took a lot of effort and never ending clicking of d-scan.

Unexpected Surprise

I have previously blogged, a fair while ago, about getting a Dread Guristas Cloaking Device in a Level 4 mission in high sec but I've beaten that in a drop I got from a Level 4 storyline mission in null sec.

In the fourth part of the Nomads Level 4 storyline mission, there was a named battleship and he was quite a pain to take out as he was doing four or five times more damage than the normal battleships he had escorting him. I had to warp the Gila out three times before I reduced enough of the dps from the spawn to be able to tank it.

Once the named rat was dead I mosied over to his wreck and found this along with some basic modules:

Not an implant I've ever seen before and the description said this:

This is an implant worth keeping or should I sell it fetch a nice price. 

But as luck would have it this is a nice implant but Jita has quite a few for sale and they're only worth ~280m ISK. Still I have no intention of selling as this will make a very good Slot 7 implant for my Dreadnaught jump clone. 

Ratting with Angels

After I moved to Curse I followed the lead of my CEO and started ratting in a shield Tornado fitted with 800mm Repeating Cannon II's using Fusion L. It worked well and handled everything that the rats in Curse could throw at it.

I can remember only two occasions I had to warp out due to getting precariously low into shield, both times were because I was webbed and my speed was insufficent to deflect any of the incoming dps. T5, as it was named, was a solid ratting ship for my local rats and I'd still be using it today if I hadn't seen an alliance mate using a Gila and witnessed the utter devastation the two medium drones that ship can field did.

Sleek and sexy, the reborn Gila.

Ship Fit

The Gila is a great Caldari/Gallente crossed cruiser with a specific role bonus to medium combat drones (500% bonus to damage and hitpoints) so whilst you'll have some form of missile weapon these will be your secondary attack method with medium drones being primary.

[Angel Gila]

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile

Heavy Assault Missile Launcher, Caldari Navy Scourge Heavy Assault Missile

Salvager II [OFFLINE]

10mn Afterburner II

Large Shield Extender II

Large Shield Extender II

Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Federation Navy Omnidirectional Tracking Link

Pithum C-Type EM Ward Amplifier

Drone Damage Amplifier II

Drone Damage Amplifier II

Drone Damage Amplifier II

Drone Damage Amplifier II

Medium Core Defense Field Extender II

Medium Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer II

Medium Anti-Thermal Screen Reinforcer II

6 x Valkyrie II

2 x Hammerhead II

2 x Infiltrator II

When I bought this it would have cost me a little over 500m ISK for the ship and all the modules/rigs in Jita but as I horde most of the modules I had already and I only had to buy the rigs and Deadspace/Faction modules and a new supply of missiles.

Defensive

Damage is reasonable and the tank is designed to be around the same level with resists (rounded up) of 74/69/77/72 and total EHP of 54,300. This is good and subsequent flight tests have shown this to be more than enough to deal with the Angel rats of Curse and the one rat who nearly killed my ship is not something you see everyday and would face with assistance anyway.

Offensive

The HAM's provide only 215 dps out to a range of 20.2km with Caldari Navy Scourge, this goes up to 253 dps at 16.8km if I use T2 Scourge Rage but the majority of my damage comes from the two medium drones I can deploy.

I use Valkyries as these are perfect to hit the resistance hole (explosive) that Angel rats have and the two (thanks to the Gila Role Bonus) put out a magnificent 549 dps. Other drones do more or less the same damage but not being explosive these aren't as good against the rats.

Upgrades?

Improvements could always be made, I could use more Faction or Deadspace modules but I don't see the point. I have a half billion ISK ship that does a single job and does it very well, incoming dps is killed off quickly and the HAM's mean any frigates that do get close can be removed without shifting the fire of the drones from the larger targets.

Any improvements from 'bling' would be negligible and just add to the risk should the ship be lost.

Usage

Using this ship is simple, warp to belt/anom and deploy drones. Lock up largest targets and then let the drones loose on them. Any frigates or cruisers that come within missile range but haven't been engaged by the drones are attacked with HAMs.

Rise, repeat until all targets are dead, move to next belt.

Most of the time I move off the warp in point under normal speed but should I get a convoy or larger than normal battleship group (4+) I will orbit an asteroid or ship at range with my afterburner active. This helps lower the incoming dps so I can avoid having to warp out.

Conclusion

The Gila is a beast of a ratting ship, a little expensive but worth the extra ISK for the hull. The drones really eat Angel ships and each belt can be cleared in a a minute or two. A couple of anoms I've tried were much simpler than using my old Tornado and I'll seriously consider doing anything up to 7/10 in the Gila without support (obviously managing the spawns).

T5 has been retired but will not be ignored. I've already moved 1400mm Howitzers to replace the 800mm's so I can use it as a long range PvP ship.

Luck Be The Lady Tonight

When not updating my PI, Market Orders or running missions I've spent today ratting and collecting as much salvage as possible. Its been quite profitable in salvage and bounties but earlier today the alliance "Officer Expert" got himself quite a lucrative drop from our friend Tobias Kruzhor.

However I got a shock when I warped back to start another run through of the belts. Unfortunately I didn't grab a screenshot but I had six battleships appear in my overview. At first I thought it was a convoy that had spawned but closer inspection of the names of the battleships showed that I was quite wrong.

Gotan Kreiss

Sly and tricky, Kreiss is the head of Internal Security and is feared almost as much within the Dominations as without. Almost. Threat level: Deadly

This was my first solo officer spawn, I'd been part of group who had killed two previously (one even I wrote about not a couple of weeks ago) but this was my first where I found him. A quick message and a drag/drop of the asteroid belt where he was into our local channel summoned reinforcements but I was on my own for at least a minute or two.

I immediately deployed drones and started to approach Gotan, making sure it was at an angle and not directly, but suddenly his distance to me dropped and then kept dropping. He was coming straight at me.

My drones started to eat into his shields and as soon as he came within range I opened up with my Heavy Assault Launchers too. So far I'd taken a little damage, foruntaltey his "escort" were still over 40km away and weren't hitting me but Gotan got a couple of hits on me and I was at 76% shields.

To Worse

All of a sudden I noticed I was nearly stationary, was he webbing me? No he wasn't but my Afterburner was turned off and so was my Adaptive Invulnerability Field. This was quite an issue as maintaining a good speed AND the resist buff the Invulnerability Field provided were vital to my surviving. Why were they off?

I looked and saw my capacitor was empty and the neut icon was appearing above it. Gotan was sucking my capacitor dry and as such I was in a very precarious position. As if to punctuate the point I took a couple of hits at that time and went down to 45% shields.

I sent my alt off to station to reship to a scimitar, at least that may be able to keep me alive until help arrived.

Fighting Back

I was less than 10km from Gotan and he was well into armour now but I wasn't able to take him into structure. My shields had now dropped to less than 15% but help was at hand as I saw a couple of ships exiting warp besides me.

My shields dropped to 3% and I decided it was time to leave.

As I was aligning I noticed that Acki Juc had opened fire on Gotan and this was enough to tip him into very low armour and this was punctuated again when Raven Renelard opened fire too. I saw my shields restore to above 10%. and realised my CEO, Disposable Ensign, locked me up in a "four rep-afterburner scimi" and was sending repairs my way.

Yay! Logi was here.

I cancelled warp and overheated my HAM's. Gotan was going down.

Looting The Wreck

Gotan exploded and I moved into the wreck, this was what I saw upon opening it:

A nice collection of Green and Purple there with a yellow just to be different. All up that's about 1.8 billion ISK worth of loot. The Officer BCU is not as expensive as you might think at around 500m, the implant is actually the best of the lot with that selling for nearly 900m in Jita.

If I'd killed him solo the lot would have been mine but as it was a team effort (myself + 3 others) a cut of 300m per pilot was decided on with the remainder being mine. 

Purple Moros Down

[So they wanted to kill a purple carrier, but then they turned on you.]
I knew they would.
             - Apex Bex.

What follows is the After Action Report by Apex Bex, longtime friend and EVE compatriot, who has returned to living in a WH and also working with some people of "dubious honour". I post it here as its a great story about how people create content and how friends can turn on friends for fun.

Now, it’s important to identify what a ‘MATE’ roam is. Basically, its a group of Aussie corps/pilots who get together now and again for PvP roams and other shenanigans. There are affiliations within the group, but largely it’s a not purple, shoot it kind of arrangement and little love lost between many of the participants. 

The Story

It was getting late on Friday night and having made some ISK in my C2 Wormhole, I was jumping through high sec to Jita to unload some products. It’s at about this point that my CEO mentions one of the guys on his ‘MATE’ roam is busting out a Chimera, to what end I had no idea. 

Caldari carrier, makes a nice big explosion when killed

So Trinket gets it in his head that it’d be pretty funny to drop a Moros on the Chimera. There was apparently someone else of similar thinking bringing another Moros and he would be the secondary target. Since going back to W-Space I’ve barely even looked sideways at my cap fleet and the Blap Moros was definitely my favourite of the bunch. 

[Blap Moros]

3x Limited Mega Ion Siege Blaster I

1x Siege Module II

2x Heavy Capacitor Booster II

1x Sensor Booster II

2x Tracking Computer II

1x Damage Control II

1x Capital Inefficient Armor Repair Unit

3x Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

2x Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

2x Capital Trimark Armor Pump I

1x Capital Hybrid Collision Accelerator II

I almost never use it, so I volunteered to be 'the guy', I could insta jump to my clone in Aurohunen anyway and did.

I should’ve checked the clone before I jumped to it, as I found out later it had a full LG crystal set in it. Less than ideal for an armour Moros, but what the hell. This was in LowSec anyway, only galactic stupidity would see me lose my clone too. 

As the moment to jump drew nearer the destination system was linked in private chat from Trinkets. Tama. Fucking Tama. OK, this was almost certain death then. I thought ‘fuck it – it’s just pixels’, spent half a billion on insurance and undocked the Moros in Aurohunen, waiting for the cyno to go up.

Jump, Jump, Jump

Moments later the cyno is lit and I clasp my balls firmly in my left hand and jumped into Tama, appearing at the sun no less. Sure enough, there was a swarm of purple that comprised the ‘MATE’ fleet and the Chimera was among them. I immediately sieged and let fly with Guristas Anti-Matter from about 15km’s. 

The poor Chimmy never had a chance. TeamSpeak was alive with hoots & wtf's as purple opened up on purple and the carrier exploded less than a minute into my siege cycle.

Kill: Bam Stroker (Chimera)

Suddenly, Oh Bugger, Surprise!

It was at this point that I learned just how loyal the ‘MATE’ fleet was =]. I was kicked from fleet and the 30 odd sub caps opened up on me. It was about now I was really pleased with myself for taking the insurance. My 3 Billion ISK Dread was fully covered now and I was just going to try to take as many with me as I could. 

I started locking up everything big enough to hit and not moving enough. Primary was of course going to be the Armageddon that was neuting my capacitor hard. It went down rapidly and I moved onto the Megathron. It too succumbed at point blank range in just two volleys. 

Kill: Ceadeus (Armageddon)

Kill: Kech Eistiras (Megathron)

Even a Drake that was silly enough to sit still for a minute went down. 

Kill: Kato's Pete (Drake)

I’m still behind on the ISK war but was having too much fun to give too much of a fuck at this point, so now with only cruisers on the field and no tackle to hold them still enough I dropped a depot and quickly refit for cap regen as I was almost out of boosters. 

Need to refit in space? The mobile depot is the "must have" deployable

Amazingly they let my depot deploy and I dropped the tracking computers for cap rechargers but that was as far as I got when the depot started taking fire. I scooped it up but the opportunity wouldn't present itself again to drop it on the field.

I still had at least 6 siege cycles worth of stront left so no trouble tanking this sub cap fleet now, but I was also made aware that there was a Snuff Box fleet en route. They wouldn't be 'kitchen sinking it' and their arrival would be the end of me, unless I could get the cap to jump out.

The Final Countdown

Under the sustained DPS and cap warfare I could never quite get enough cap to jump, the closest I got I was still about 5% short and moments later the Snuff Box fleet landed, comprised mostly of Command Ships with a Heavy Interdictor and a Neut Armageddon. 

The Armageddon maintained just enough transversal to be unhittable to my guns, especially without my tracking computers fitted, and he would soon have me neuted out and unable to operate either defensive or offensive modules let alone jump out.

If I was going to die I would do so trying to take as many of them as possible with me and I did notice that one of their Command Ships was sitting dead still about 3,000m off my starboard side, so I took the shot Hilariously, he popped on the second volley and now the ISK war had a half a billion ISK Command Ship on my side.

Kill: Tau AD (Absolution)

Then, eight minutes later, I finally succumbed to the incoming fire and exploded:

Kill: Apex Bex (Moros)

and notice the lack of pod killmail, yup he was a jammy bastard and managed to save his LG Crystal Clone equipped pod in the melee that developed.

R.I.P. Wrong Again, Bob

Second View

Trinkets Friend has posted a shorter write up of the "MATE" roam on his blog. Go have a read of it (and favourite it as he's got one of the better written blogs in EVE) and then laugh at Apex Bex just as I have been as I've been writing this.

Does this look like a trustworthy character?

Oh and save your ISK, I know full well Apex Bex is a Space Rich bastard and does not need any ISK donations.