The Power of Three

I've previously covered a titan kill in Mai and mentioned several times how this system in Domain is home to some extremely capable and dangerous pilots.

It's been a while since I've seen anything worthy of a post and today I was pointed this.

Great, Smashing, Super

Gatchythepirate was caught in Mai by a team of three. Two Heavy Interdictor Cruisers and a Bhaalgorn managed to get the killmail.

The story is, like most, quite simple:

All is quiet,
Cyno goes up 
Boy finds Girl but she runs away,
Boy finds Girls again and captures her (heart),
But Girl kills self due to crippling intimacy issues leaving Boy alone, again.

It's almost like Shakespeare wrote it, brings a tear to my eyes every time. 

Gather Round Children, It's Story Time

Gatchythepirate planned his entry into Mai very well and was executed flawlessly , the cyno went up and was down before anyone could enter warp. Normally this is where stories end but in this case the Wyvern remained on scan and a prober quickly entered system and was able to get a fix on the Wyvern's location and tackle was entered warp.

Tackle entered grid to see no Supercarrier, obviously the ship had cloaked but was he still on grid?

Well the answer was yes because as tackle was exiting warp they passed close enough to the target to decloak him.

The Wyvern pilot used his Projected ECM and used this to escape by entering warp. unfortunately he warped to zero at the Planet 1 POCO where he was pursued and captured again. The pilot then made a choice to self-destruct his ship as the possibility of salvation or surviving was close to nil.

Shortly after there was a rather large explosion and no more Wyvern.

That'll Hurt

Gatchythepirate, believed to be an alt of well know super scammer PatchyThePirate, was very chilled about the loss:

[17:29:38] Gatchythepirate > Yo
[17:29:43] Gatchythepirate > how long you guys were following me?
[17:30:07] Gatchythepirate > damn NSA playing Eve now

Gatchythepirate was extremely unlucky and was trying to move through a very dangerous system. He almost made it, certainly more competently than others who have tried, but almost isn't good enough.

There is some talk on a Reddit post that questions why, with only three attackers, that the Wyvern didn't want until the Projected ECM reloaded (one wag thought it funny to say he did not have this skill trained because it was in his cargo, he did and did use it) before trying again and jumping out. 

Loot was pretty light, this appears to have been either a pre or after sale move and as such it explains the T2 nature of the fit that is designed, not for combat but travel.

I wasn't able to contact Gatchythepirate to get his input in this but it makes sense that he didn't know reinforcements weren't on the way so he self-destructed in order to avoid being solo killed by a lone Bhaalgorn.

A Few Small Things

A few updates on how things are going and what I'm doing in EVE Online. These don't warrant a full post themselves but the information may be interesting to those two or three of you that do read this.

The Reddit Effect

I don't get a lot of traffic and I'm fine with that.

I (primarily) write for myself and for a small number of people who seem to like what I do write (I haven't had complaints that I'm aware of). However I posted a link, as a reply to someone, to the Confessor post I recently did on Reddit and I saw first hand what the Reddit Effect is.

I had nearly 6 times more traffic in a 24 hour period than I normally do and, from that, hopefully I gained one or two new readers. 

So if you did come in thanks to that post, Welcome :)

Moving Time

Apparently I was not following some rules. I disagree to the exact details but I'm not going to get into an argument on the internet about it.

I've been told I can no longer use an alternate system (when my primary is too busy) for my jump freighter. As a result I decided to move all my assets from the system in question, including combat ships that were there in case I was able to get in on a capital kill.

It took me two days but I've finally moved all the ships out and I finally got to fly a Bowhead in order to move them the few jumps to their new home. That was fun.

Milestone Passes

I passed a new milestone last week my total worth according to jEVEAssets passed 200 billion ISK. I didn't notice for a couple of days I think because when I did it was 203 billion. 

It's a milestone, now I need to turn the assets that form the bulk of that into ISK so I can invest in new projects.

Super Characters

Today, in bit over 3 hours, marks the time my last character will finish training for the Aeon super capital ship. Due to the increased number of pilots for sale, the price changes and (most of all) the upcoming changes to Sovereignty in Summer 2015, I don't think there is any point in training super-flyable characters for sale.

It's been fun but time to move on and do something else. If the Super Capital market changes in the future (anything is possible) then I may return, I have my guides and notes to remind me what to do but for now this income stream is being shut down.

Ganking with a Supercarrier post Kronos

I logged in last night and saw a friend that I haven't seen for a while and before we could share any pleasantries he put this kill mail under my nose:

https://zkillboard.com/kill/39849856/

A couple of months ago he stopped playing because he moved back to his home country and alas he was missed but it's good to see him back and up to his old tricks.

A beautiful, but deadly, example of Gallente Engineering

The kill isn't great but what I was more most interested in was the comment he made that the damage he did on the Rhea from his Nyx was ONE salvo from his deployed fighters.

Kronos Changes

As part of the recent Kronos release, there were major changes to drones and these, in part, affected Fighters and Fighter Bombers:

• Drone skills now affect F/FB attributes
• Drone modules now affect F/FB attributes
• Drone Interfacing now gives a 10% not 20% damage increase per level
• Base F/FB damage reduced
• Reduce deployed F/FBs per racial carrier level from 3 to 1
• F/FB volume doubled (5000m3 to 10,000m3)
• F/FB hit points doubled (they're more hardy now)
• Super carriers receive a 100% bonus to F/FB damage

This means that carriers/super carriers will not be able to store and deploy as many F/FB's compared to before Kronos, but the base damage and hardiness increases and you'll be able to increase the damage and other attributes via Drone Modules and/or Skills.

Adding drone specific modules to a fit should certainly benefit the ship, the increase in attributes such as mwd speed, optimal range etc.. but more importantly, the amount of damage done. Drone skills should also provide a smaller benefit, certainly racial specialisation skills will add between 2% and 10% more damage per F/FB but better still the Navigation and Durability skills will make F/FB faster and harder to kill.

The Kill

The Rhea pilot had previously cyno'd into the system twice before, being caught once but escaping the other time, he was getting caught because he lit a badly located cyno on one of the system stations. 

Pack up your troubles in one ship just don't lose it when you jump

This mistake (a very common one with cyno's) allowed the Deimos to bump him away from station and prevent him docking, once off station the Nyx was called in and the story bought to a swift end.

As I said previously, the comment from my friend that the majority of the damage from the Nyx came in just one "cycle" of the deployed fighter bombers , thus minimising the time he was "in the open". Ten highly buffed FB's must have put out a tremendous amount of damage, I've seen ganks before and that required several cycles from the FB's to kill even a jump freighter.

What was different now for this, was it the fit or the increase in skills?

The Fit

My friend linked his fit so I was able to see how he was fit to increase the damage he was doing, and it was quite a fit to do over the damage he said in one volley.

• Three Drone Control Units modules in his high slows, each of these allows 1 extra fighter/fighter bomber to be used.
• In the mid slots he had two drone navigation computer II's and two Federation Navy Omni-Directional Tracking modules without scripts to increase f/fb base statistics
• The low slots he had the a mix of tank modules with four Federation Navy Drone Damage Amplifiers.

The type of F/FBs used do make little difference to the damage that is done but regardless 13 of them is some serious firepower. 

Fitting Theory

I'm not an expert with the numbers or how the game actually works. What I present are details as I've found them (and/or researched) and reactions by myself and anyone else involved. If you find an error, please write a comment and correct me.

I've previously played with Nyx fittings and one I had with no drone modules was reported by Pyfa (with a maximum skilled pilot) would be able to put out 9000 dps with a full set of 20 FB's. 

Keying in the details above, into a Kronos released Pyfa, and modifying the skills the pilot had to match those I know the Nyx pilot had I saw that this increased by 62% to a little over 14,000 using 13 FB's. Changing the type of FB used and even using a mix of F/FB's did alter the dps but it ranged from 11,000 to 14,500 depending on the F/FB's used. 

Conclusion

Wow.

The changes in Kronos seem to indicate, with this type of fit, that a 62% increase in damage from F/FB's may be seen. That is quite astounding. Of course different skill levels, FB's used and the defenses of the ship you're attacking will change this but still, that is a huge amount of firepower for a single ship.

To me this shows that the Super carrier changes in Kronos haven't hurt the ship to the effect many were speculating and they still are a very potent and dangerous entity in New Eden.

People who have them now have a very potent and dangerous vessel, so they should they cost enough. But with the changes to industry coming on the 22nd July 2014 with the next release it could very well see the price of these ships rise by 10% of more.

A Friendly Reminder

Supercapitals are getting some changes in Kronos, have a read near the bottom of that DevBlog to understand them.

I've know about these since the devblog was released but there are no doubt going to be people who haven't because they don't login often or have stopped playing on their Supercapital account. The changes are enough that unless you're prepared it could stop you moving your Supercapital and thus be something of a major issue.

CCP know this and as a result I received the following mail on my Supercaptial  pilot (Yes, I have a Supercapital  pilot):

This is an excellent example of Customer Support, they are being proactive in telling a number of players that there are major changes coming and that they would do best to know about this and be ready to take any necessary actions.

Nice one CCP.

Creating a Super Capital Character - Part 3 - Polishing Skills

Previous Parts of the Guide can be found here: Part 1, Part 2

 

As previously stated the Basic Skill plan of Part allows you to create a character that can sit in a Super carrier for around 4b ISK but sitting in the Supercarrier is a far cry from being able to actually being a useful holder character.

 

Basics are just that

 

The basic skills needed for sitting in the hull are just that, basic, if you want to make your character more attractive for someone to purchase you need to inject additional skills and train a few of the basic ones to higher levels.

 

A side effect of the missing skills is any modules dependant on them will be offline when the holder is in the ship but when swapping in a character that does have those skills they will remain offline and have to be onlined manually. Without the aid of a mobile depot/Ship Maintenance Array this is problematic so having skills for all fitted modules on the holder toon is highly recommended.

What To Train

 

Thinking, Pondering, Working out what to do

Obviously the Core skills need to be trained along with any Shield/Armour specific ones but being a super carrier the benefit of agility cannot be understated and as such I'd train any skills that will provide a bonus to agility or agility modules.

Armor - everything except Armor Laying and Amor Resistance Phasing (to IV) to V with Capital skills to I
Drones - Fighter Bombers I
Electronic Systems - Electronic Warfare to V and Projected ECM to I
Engineering - Everything except Advanced/Weapon Upgrades, Nanite skills and Thermodynamics to V with Capital skills to I
Navigation - Evasive Manoeuvring V, High Speed Manoeuvring to III and all Jump Drive skills to V
Shields - Shield Management V, Tactical Shield Manipulation V
Spaceship Command - Capital Ships V

We don't need to have perfect skills, Level I is basic is enough (it will be the responsibility of the buyer to further train, if they want) for most skills but there are some pre-requites skills that we do need to get to IV or V to unlock the next skill book (Fighters is a good example, we need it to V to unlock Fighter Bombers).

In Summary

All up this is another ~190 days training that will need PLEX and skill books for but will make your character more appealing to those interested in a "pre-packaged super character". It is totally optional to do but if you're looking for maximum investment return (and remember this is a long-term investment) then doing this will be something you'll want to do.

Creating a Super Capital Character - Part 2 - Basic Skillplan

In Part 1 discussed the motivation and basic needs for creating a Super capital pilot this Part describes the initial plan design along with the use of implants and remaps to ensure maximum efficiency.

Below is the skill plan I use to get a basic "ship holder character" started, the example is for an Amarr Aeon, but substitute any racial skills for the one you want to train. 

Plan Design

I designed the plan on the basis to maximize skills learnt in the shortest span of time, because of this 94% (16 of the 17) of the skills in the basic skillset are to be able to sit in and move the ship only, this is not a combat capable pilot. As a result of this decision the first skill we train is Cybernetics and this is to Level V in order to get Improved implants to maximize skill points per hour.

A new character benefits from two remaps being available instantly so we'll leverage these when appropriate and I determined that these should be applied to when training Memory/Perception and Perception/Willpower (approximately the final two thirds of the skills). We could use the remap immediately but getting the Improved implants with the default attribute setup I thought was more productive.

Basic Skills for Aeon Pilot

Cybernetics I

Insert Basic implants for Intelligence/Memory/Perception

Cybernetics II

Cybernetics III

Cybernetics IV

Cybernetics V

Replace implants with Improved implants for Intelligence/Memory/Perception/Willpower

Science IV

Science V

Navigation IV

Navigation V

Warp Drive Operation I

Warp Drive Operation II

Warp Drive Operation III

Warp Drive Operation IV

Warp Drive Operation V

Jump Drive Operation I

Jump Drive Operation II

Jump Drive Operation III

Jump Drive Operation IV

Jump Drive Operation V

Jump Fuel Conservation I

Jump Fuel Conservation II

Jump Fuel Conservation III

Jump Fuel Conservation IV

Jump Drive Calibration I

Jump Drive Calibration II

Jump Drive Calibration III

Remap to maximum Memory(27)/remainder Perception(21)

Drones I

Drones II

Drones III

Drones IV

Drones V

Drone Interfacing I

Drone Interfacing II

Drone Interfacing III

Drone Interfacing IV

Drone Interfacing V

Remap to maximum Perception(27)/remainder Willpower(21)

Spaceship Command IV

Spaceship Command V

Advanced Spaceship Command I

Advanced Spaceship Command II

Advanced Spaceship Command III

Advanced Spaceship Command IV

Advanced Spaceship Command V

Capital Ships I

Capital Ships II

Capital Ships III

Capital Ships IV

Amarr Frigate III

Amarr Destroyer I

Amarr Destroyer II

Amarr Destroyer III

Amarr Cruiser I

Amarr Cruiser II

Amarr Cruiser III

Amarr Battlecruiser I

Amarr Battlecruiser II

Amarr Battlecruiser III

Amarr Battleship I

Amarr Battleship II

Amarr Battleship III

Amarr Carrier I

Notes

• The total training time for the above is 107 days with Basic and Improved implants and remaps or 119 days without.
• Use of Dual Character training adds an overhead cost of one PLEX per month. If you had a free account with no characters in training you could eliminate this.

Coming Up

 

Having a "basic sitter" is a start but many buyers want a more advanced character and so will you, especially if you want a character to sit in your own Supercarrier.

 

In Part 3 I'll discuss and show the additional skills that you can further train to increase the value of any character you sell.

Creating a Super Capital Character - Part 1 - Overview

Research

Quite a while ago I was looking on the official EVE Forums and I noticed a trend of people wanting to buy super capital capable characters. The demand was more than those selling and so I did a bit more research into what skillset these characters had and how long it took to make them.

What I found was interesting, a Super carrier Pilot could be made for an investment of ISK and time and, once completed, they would sell for between 9b and 18b depending on the skillset and what racial carrier skills the character is trained for.

What People Want

I've found most people looking for a Super carrier character want either a Gallente or Amarr trained character. This is because the two most used Super carrier ships are the Nyx and Aeon (not unrelated is the fact both are armour based ships).

Development

I've been creating characters like this for nearly 9 months now, focusing on the skillplan and maximizing my investment return by focusing on what people want. Some people want basic, "sit in ship" character that they can then train and expand on whilst others want the "whole package" which means maximizing a lot of core and racial skills.

The latter character obviously requires more ISK and time to train but is worth considerably more where as the "sitter character" is ready quicker and doesn't require as much ISK investment.

The choice you need to make is simple:

• What race ships do you want to fly
• Do you want a sitter or a fully developed character

Obviously the choices come down to how much ISK and time you want to devote to the endeavour.

What's to Come

Part 2 of this Guide will cover the Basic Skillplan needed for a "sitter" with Part 3 expanding on this to show the Core and additional skills that need to be taken to Level V for any pilot to be combat ready.

The Nyx that got away

I wasn't involved in this, I would have been had I logged in twenty minutes earlier but I've heard from friends who were there that they nearly caught a Darkness. Nyx in Mai last week.

 

 

The system of Mai is a single gate system, formerly a pirate haven it has been cleared out and now has several of my friends as residents or ready to jump clone in. One of the things they target are capital ships that arrive on bad cyno's or can be bumped off station when they undock.

 

It's not regular killmails but it's lucrative and they've done very well over the last few months.

 

Last week a Nyx appeared on a cyno at a location in space and whilst it warped off they were able to get a scan of the log off spot where a couple of HICs were positioned. The pilot logged back in and was then tackled and about ten dreadnaughts bought in to kill it.

 

Unfortunately there was no logistics ships in the attacking fleet and the HICs were killed off, very slowly, the shield HICs dying much faster due to their increased signature radius. Had one logistics ship been available my friends are adamant the Nyx would have died but the loss of the HICs meant it could jump out, which it did.

 

When it jumped out it was deep in structure (between 20% and 40%), so nearly a Nyx killmail in Mai.

 

No cigar, but lessons learnt.