Still at safe distance...

It's been three weeks since I advertised a 250m ISK bounty on Cloaky Bastard.

 

Still it remains unclaimed.

Reading his blog he's had a close encounter but no-one has come forward to claim the bounty or at least try to claim it.

 

I believe this is why Prolapse was unable to provide Viking Funerals for the two Archons last weekend and his ire is why I almost lost a Jump Freighter in high sec.

 

Bob is unhappy at the level of bounty.

 

So I'm increasing it to 500m ISK (same restrictions apply as in my original post for claiming), for a kill mail AND a corpse of Zosius or one of this Domi alts (read his blog for details of his "fleet").

 

Bob demands sacrifice. Corpses for the Bob God.

Travel Advisory : Bagodan

Are you taking a Freighter or Transport ship through Bagodan?

 

No, well move along nothing to read here... but if you are be very wary as it has, for a 0.7 system, become very hot for ganking in the past few days. I've seen a friend lose a freighter and I nearly lost a jump freighter last night myself.

 

What Happened/Happening?

 

This is just guessing by me but the recent hostilities (read: invasion) of Providence by Imperium could be partly to blame. I have followed the news about this but I had not seen the implications for traders and industrialists who pass close to providence on their travels.

 

 

 

Esescama is a nexus for people who plan to enter Providence via KBP7-G but we also have Dihra and Choonka (that I know people use) but it is Esescama that is the primary staging system for visitors.

 

Bagodan being under siege could be part of the operation to catch logistics for the defenders but also, as it may be for I no longer trade in Providence, over loaded or plain profitable freighters that have to travel this system to get to Amarr and/or Jita.

 

How is it going

 

Profitably I would say and they aren't just attacking large targets like Freighters but even smaller ships are being preyed upon.

 

As they are profiting they are staying put. I was surprised to see this kill, Royaldo is a former CEO and to see him lose this was cringe worthy. How he got caught I do not know but I think it could be as simple as auto piloting through at the wrong time.

 

You nearly got caught

 

I did, I was passing through heading to Amarr and then my home system with two jump freighters full of materials that I use in my manufacturing.

 

I didn't pay attention tot he yellow dot on the heron that was following my characters until two jumps before Bagodan. I never saw any scanning take place, I certainly wasn't yellow-boxed so it was all done passively.

 

I jumped into Bagodan and it was when I saw three Machariel's on grid, all with yellow dots, that I realised it was not a good place to be. Fortunately my other character was just arriving on gate to jump in so I aborted that and turned him around for the nearest system with a station.

 

Alas the other was in a bad situation, so I logged out.

 

What did you do?

 

Yes, I logged out. Worst case was I'd get shot and lose the freighter, almost as bad was I'd be shot but have a 15 minute timer allowing them to scan me down and kill me.

 

But I had a plan.

 

In order to enact it I needed to do so quickly AND make them think I was a newbie who just logged out and they'd have 15 minutes to leisurely scan me down and kill me.

 

I need to check the distance (in light years) between my jump freighter pilot and two cyno pilots I have for just such eventualities. Actually, they are there in case I get caught in Uedama or Niarja not Bagodan but I digress.

 

Distance is too much for one but the other is just in range so I login the character in (local is conveniently empty), and undock and light my cyno.

 

I log back in to the jump freighter pilot and see he has a kill right, he was shot and had an active timer. I enter warp and appear back on grid where I logged out. I can see local has increased in numbers, many with orange or red standings to my corporation/alliance.

 

I see a couple of ships appear as I'm exiting warp but I didn't take notice of them, I was leaving and leaving quickly.

 

I enter jump and am safe. I dock and then quit the for the night.

Trying to die for Bob in glorious battle

Operation Midway was set to be underway around 0100 EVE Time and we were expecting a good fight that, we hoped, end with the destruction of two Archon's that were located in Bex's wormhole.

It is said (even this is paraphrased) that "No plan survives contact with the enemy." Well this was no different but not in the way you'd expect.

Operational Details

Bex wanted to have a viking funeral (he likes big explosions) for two Archons he had had in his posession since taking over his current C3 wormhole. Feelers were put out (I believe) and Maythorn agreed to come and provide the firepower. 

T1 battleships, battlecruiers and faction T1/T2 cruiers were the agreed upon ships to take part (in addition to the two carriers). The carriers dictated this would be armour fits and our Dear Leader made sure to add the following :

No guardians, please, we don't want this to be gay. Clean clones, gents, in case mistakes. 

Simple enough, even for me to understand, and comms was quite fun although somewhat restrained, no doubt due to people wearing "game faces". That's not to say we didn't have worthwhile discussions on Citadels, the new Sov mechanics and, of course, boobies.  

Visiting the Store

Bex suggested that I bring a neut fit Armageddon to the fight as he would do likewise and we'd be able double team to help bring down capacitor hungry vessels. Sounded like a good idea but, of course, there was one minor hiccup...

My Prolapse character has Amarr Cruiser III only, no battle-cruiser or battleship skills for any Amarrian vessels. Bugger. Checking skills and injecting them I'd only have Amarr Battleship I in time for the battle so I had to call upon another out of alliance alt, who has Amarr Battleship V. I was also asked if I could bring a booster with Information Warfare Link skills, as there was the possibility we might be facing a large ECM force and any extra help we could get might just even the playing field.

So off to Jita I went and purchased a Nighthawk (it's really a Drake with different colours) and the following Armageddon (which as Bex says on his blog was an "experimental" but he never said that to me!) fit:

[Armageddon, New Setup 1]

Damage Control II

1600mm Steel Plates II

1600mm Steel Plates II

Corelum C-Type Energized Explosive Membrane

Corelum C-Type Energized Kinetic Membrane

Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

Corpii A-Type Thermic Plating

Large Micro Jump Drive

100MN Afterburner II

ECCM - Radar II

ECCM - Radar II

Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II

Large Remote Capacitor Transmitter II

Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Heavy Unstable Power Fluctuator I

Large Trimark Armor Pump I

Large Trimark Armor Pump I

Large Trimark Armor Pump I

I made sure I had nanite paste, an MTU and a couple of depots in the cargo hold. I had four NOS ready, in case we needed them and I could refit "on-the-fly".

I moved my ships into the wormhole the night before, turned out to be quite simple as we had an entrance a few jumps from Jita and then I logged off until Sunday morning (AU Time) and battle commenced.

For Bob!

Bex has covered the fight nicely on his blog (have a read of his other articles too, he actually is a good writer (but I never said that)).

 

We were fielding the two remote repair/cap regeneration Archons with a reasonable sized sub-cap force of a Scorpion, two neuting Armageddon's and a good mix of DPS battleships and BC/CL. A nice mobile force that we hoped would be a match for what Maythorn would bring.

 

Unfortunately, through no fault of the Maythorn leadership nor their FC they bought a much smaller force that would not have been able to break the tank of one of the carriers even if we weren't defending it. You can provide content it and tell people where to go and when to participate but alas, you can't make them login.

 

Props to Maythorn regardless, they turned up. Saw they were outnumbered but fought anyway. It wasn't pretty and there were a couple of accidently poddings (we were there for fun, not to execute) due to smart bombs. But on the whole I think it was fun, I had fun and those in Prolapse I spoke to voiced the same thoughts.

 

But the carriers, they live

 

For now they do. But that just gives Bex (and Prolaspe) more reason to do this again in the near future and that is the plan.

 

After all, what better way for a capsuleer to honour Bob but with a sacrifice in pod goo AND ships. I can't think of one.

Entertainment

I'm currently sitting in a wormhole, with three characters, getting ready for Operation Midway.

Operation Midway is an operation this weekend to see the glorious death of Bex's Archons that reside in his wormhole. We have quite a nice fleet assembled and it should be fun, of course being pre-arranged it could all fail badly and Maythorn could bring a very strong T3 fleet or faction battleship/mauraders.

It's gonna be gud. So they say.

Laughter, the best Fleet Advert

We've had two funny things happen this morning so far with Operation Midway, first a comment was made as we were assembling that "wouldn't it be funny if a random came into the wormhole as we're assembling to run sites/mine gas".

Would you believe, a character did arrive and try to setup to mine gas. We watched him, scanned him down but could not get tackle in place in time and he left system. Obviously spooked by our efforts.

And now we've found out that as Maythorn are passing through high sec to join us they had a member lose their ship in Jita to a duel. 

I don't know the full details but it was relayed that the pilot was travelling through Jita when they received a duel request that they accepted.

Oh dear. Not an auspicious start for Maythorn but it has provided some amusement for us.

Idling

My usual partner in "industrial crime" in EVE is off on holiday somewhere warm for a three weeks so I'm taking a little break myself. I'm still logging in and managing what I have to in my towers and interacting with a few people but until he returns I've decided to see if there is something else to play or do.

 

Profit and Loss

 

Things have gone well recently, profits are up somewhat although metamaterial prices are down enough that I'm considering hording until the market is bounced up again (as it appears to be every 5 to 7 months). Carbide armour plates are selling well as are the left over materials I have for producing them.

 

I've also been producing capital components from my mineral stores for no other reason than I have minerals and I need to use what I have rather than keep buying them. I have a nice low sec system a couple of jumps away where I can make carriers and dreadnoughts should I wish but for now I'm making Orca's and Bowheads for sale.

 

Five Orcas and three bowheads to be precise went into the oven on Sunday afternoon. All are due in just over 10 days and then I'll move them to wherever I can get the best price for them. I'm considering Hek/Rens based on data my trading alt gathered over the past few days but Amarr is selling very well and quite a bit above Jita price for the Bowhead.

 

But 10 days is a long time in EVE so we'll have to wait til they're nearly done.

 

I haven't had any losses, I've spent ISK on new blueprints and researched them as well as buying materials but outgoings are just the regular tower inputs, fuel and taxes.

 

Hello Sailor

 

I've been looking around for something else to play and I got into World of Warships, I've only played the US ship line so far but I'm far enough up it that I'm enjoying myself a lot. Even blog-friend Bex is playing and we occasionally Division up and have a romp or fail spectacularly.

 

He's recently become a convert of the US Destroyer line after playing the IJN ones. I've only played the US ones and the game play I use is one of stealth and cover whereas the torpedo range of the IJN destroyers means you can easily kill stuff unseen. Not so US destroyers where you are lucky to have a torpedo range that doesn't get you spotted.

 

I'm currently doing reasonably well with the rest of the ships. I've got a Tier VI carrier (Independence), VII destroyer (Mahan), VI battleship (New Mexico, although I unlocked the VII Colorado last night) and the Tier VIII cruiser (New Orleans).

 

Team play is the only frustrating thing I find with the game. It's extremely rare to find anyone who plays as a team, as a carrier or battleship pilot it really pisses me off to see AA Cruisers rushing off to cap flags or lead attacks as enemy bombers bypass them and come straight for the undefended ships.

 

Communication in chat is pointless as most players in my area, Asia, either have little knowledge of other languages (I speak English or bad English, but most chat is full of South East Asian languages like Chinese, Korean or Thai) or just don't use chat.

 

I wish there was more benefits or rewards for team play to encourage supporting your fellow players but alas there isn't at this time.

 

What's that bright thing in the sky?

 

Turns out it's the sun and I've also been doing stuff outside. Tidying up the house, garden and generally trying to spend more time with my son (who turned 3 last week). It's been fun and watching him learn to ride a bike, chase chickens and have fun in the garden is great.

Light blue touch paper and retire to safe distance...

Safe in this case may actually be a different Galaxy or Universe...

 

I read many EVE Online blogs, not as many as I used to but I've pruned those that I do to a list that has people I like to read. Some are friends, others are more arms length or I'm just too scared to say hello to.

 

Cloaky Bastard is one of those that I enjoy reading and his stories of kills and how he goes about them show a mind that is very dangerous. I was reading today and he commented on how "life between ganks":

 

                   Well, it's been pretty slow.

                                              - Cloaky Bastard

 

Slow eh, let's see if we can liven things up.  Seeing as Zosius is a kindred wormhole dweller I'm sure Bob will smile upon what I'm about to offer...

 

Challenge

 

The new (wormhole) home I'll be moving into this weekend is in need of consecration to Bob. My fellow Alliance members will no doubt be doing their own consecration but I feel I need to get into the spirit of things and a special corpse needs to be placed upon the Altar of Bob.

 

 

Between the 4th August 2015 and midnight GMT on the 31st August 2015 whomever can deliver me the frozen corpse, along with the associated kill mail of both ship and pod, between those dates will receive a bounty of 250m ISK from me.

 

I may even add extra ISK should the kill mail be particularly shiny or awesome :)

 

Small Print

 

This is all for fun, to bring some content to such a fine pilot and I'll get a wonderful donation to Bob. Sure he may have a Dominix fleet supporting him but that just provides more targets...

 

Zosius is of course unable to claim his own bounty in any way, shape or form. I'd really like him to be hunted as he hunts others but a kill is a kill.

 

What are you waiting for, hunt the man down...

 

 

Moving In

The WH Alliance has a new home, the tower and POCOs from the Russians have been removed (or are in the process of being finished off as I type this).

 

Our Dear Leader has been having much fun setting up the POSes we'll be using, fiddling with roles and creating new art in space using star base modules. He's very good at pictures, he's no Picasso but that's fine with me as Picasso's pictures give me headaches to look at.

 

I haven't been able to help much this weekend, aside from RL things I've had to take care of I've had three characters moving assets around high sec as it was the end of my financial year and I needed to move what I could sell to Jita and Amarr.

 

I, Slightly, Dislike Freighters

 

I hate their lack of manoeuvrability and speed but I love their ability to move large amounts of material. I've moved nearly twelve million cubic metres of stuff since Friday night, fortunately most of it was no more than six jumps in length but there were a lot of trips not to mention the 100 jump one I had to do on one character.

 

It has been worth it, I've listed nearly fifteen billion ISK worth of items for sale with another six or so being ready for listing in a week. Of course this tied in nicely with my need to buy more raw materials and pay my alliance taxes for the towers I run.

So what was a great profit will only yield a billion or two after I've paid my dues.

 

It comes in slowly but leaves too quickly... the race for ISK.

 

Adding Value

 

A few weeks ago my null-sec CEO made me aware of the possibility of improving income on the carbides/sylramic fibres I was producing by combining them into Armour plates. I had previously not thought of doing this because it would add extra costs to production and, at the time, the difference between raw/processed was less than 7% increase in profit

 

He made a good case to have another look at the setup and see if it was more profitable. So I did and it appears that it is indeed more profitable, averaging 20% over the four armour plate types. I produce the sylramics myself and purchase (from an alliance friend) Fernite Carbides and thanks to my CEO moving into reactions I also now have a good source of Titanium Carbides.

 

So I've now started using sylramics and the two carbide types to produce Armour plates and it's been very good. It is a pain to have to wait nearly a week extra to get my armour plates but with two sets of BPO's I've got a nice production line going. Researching the BPO's (I've had for years it seems) has increased efficiency in materials and time to produce a product that sells well in Jita and Amarr.

 

What raw materials I don't use I either stockpile, for later use, or sell directly on the market so I'm not really losing any ISK, especially with volatility the market currently sees.

 

Profits are up, generally, which is excellent and if I had shareholders they'd be very happy I'd imagine and thanks to my CEO I'm already looking for the next processed material to get my teeth into to increase my profits but to make use of the BPO's I've got.

Fun Times Ahead

After the delights of POS Bashing today I've had to return to the somewhat more mundane task of collecting ships that have been spread about New Eden.

I have put this off for too long and now that my WH character has moved all his assets to high sec I need to move them to their new home but before I can do that I need to collect them from their various locations.

Two characters have just left my home system and have this to look forward to:

I'm going to need caffeine, lots and lots of caffeine and something to do whilst I fly these ships.

Thank Bob for multiple monitors...

Unkindness, Assemble!

A democratic alliance decision was made, to move out of our C4 (with C4/C2 statics) and find a new home in order to improve our ISK making and PvP opportunities. 

The operation time provide and we knew that we had a target system with faction towers to grind through but this all changed at the last possible moment when a new system, that matched our requirements, was found.

Sometimes Bob is kind to his followers....

Acquiring Target

A new target system, with C2/C3 statics, was found and was not as fortified and to make the change even better the entrance to that system was just three jumps away from the one we were going to use for the original target.

The operational detailed remained the same, a POS was setup for us to use and defenses anchored. The fleet came in through a linked WH from high sec in the alliance TrashCat doctrine (basically Raven's equipped with Cruise Missiles to allow us to hit targets at range, get enough together and they really can apply good dps to a target) with a supporting fleet of logistics and "point defense" ships.

by the time I returned from work the operation had already begun so I made the short trip to the new entry system and joined my brethren in good order. Warped to the assigned anchor and then opened fire on the tower.

Here are a few screenshots (the better ones) I took of the operation (I should say I run the game in a window and on a reasonably low resolution but its playable if not exactly super looking).

An Unkindness

Black Hole (Matthew McConaughey not included)

Pretty Contrails

It took a while, as you might expect, but the time passed with laughter, conversation and general tomfoolery. 

Bex was again reminded NOT to put POS passwords in local and to verify that he bought the right ammo size for his ship (he was not happy to, again, be reminded of the past but it made everyone laugh).

Stront was in the tower and we have to wait 36 hours before we can finish the tower off.

What about the Occupants

During the operation we saw no sign of the tower owners (Russians apparently), no ships appeared in the POS and we were not attacked at all during the POS siege. Not even a mention from anybody on comms that someone had logged in that was on a watch list.

Bex has made mention of his dealings with Russians previously and it was a little sad to hear that they logged in after downtime and started to self-destruct ships. Obviously to deny us any profit but we're not in this for profit, it's going to be our new home, and we've watched a Rorqual, Archon and numerous small ships explode since the tower was reinforced.

No Carrier for you!

When I logged in this afternoon I heard that they had made an evac of some kind and a few smaller ships had made it out via a high sec WH.

Moving In

Over the next few days we'll be moving in fully, more towers will be erected, our Lord Marshall Doctor will get pissed off at POS roles not working as he wanted (but maybe not, he's a lot smarter Lord Marshall Doctor than I). 

We still have to kill the enemy tower on Sunday but that should not take as long as taking the shields down and no doubt more fun will be had.

That's not to say he's not a bit of fun already with the staging POS...

Art in New Eden is so advanced

Juvenile and cheeky but brilliant. Perhaps a whole new career in EVE Online Art for him to consider... :)