The Jack-of-all-Trades Hi-Sec Exploration Tengu

I’ve spent a lot of time doing Hi-Sec Exploration over the last two weeks. I am still very enthused by the changes introduced in the Odyssey Expansion, and rate them highly.

One or two people remarked that I should fit a cargo scanner to make the Data and Relic sites worthwhile. I wasn’t entirely convinced, but it turns out they were right. There are only 1 or 2 items of value in each main container. Knowing what is there allows you to target a specific Can type when they are spewed out into space.

It was time to yet again revisit my choice of Hi-Sec Exploration Ship.

The nature of my Exploration:

. I do a round circuit of 18 Empire systems, all within 4 jumps of home
. I do all Anomalies * and Cosmic sites (that I can enter)
. I might poke my nose through wormholes to Empire or Null
. I am primarily looking for Faction Drops, T2 Salvage, Decryptors or Blueprints

My ship requirements:

. I do not want to dock for fitting changes
. I want enough cargo space to minimise the need to drop off loot
. It shouldn’t rely on drone DPS
. It should use Light Missiles or Small Beam Turrets
. Preferably it should be a cruiser sized hull or smaller
. It must fit a Probe Launcher
. It must tank up to a DED 2 of 10 & related escalations
. It must fit a Relic Analyzer
. It must fit a Data Analyzer
. It must fit a Cargo Scanner
. It must fit a Salvager
. It must fit an Afterburner
. I would prefer it fit a tractor beam

Basically with that list you need to go with a T3 cruiser. To have than many mid slots and to use launchers, you are further focused on the Legion and Tengu. I couldn’t quite get the Legion to work with the extra mid-slot needed for the Cargo Scanner, so I have become one of those annoying Tengu pilots in your exploration sites.

Interestingly this approach / fit was helped by CCP stopping T3 Cruisers from entering DED 3 and 4 sites. Without those, your tanking requirements are greatly reduced.

[Tengu, Hi-Sec Exploration 02]
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II
Ballistic Control System II

Federation Navy 10MN Afterburner
Relic Analyzer II
Data Analyzer II
Cargo Scanner II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Pith B-Type X-Large Shield Booster

Dread Guristas Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile
Dread Guristas Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile
Dread Guristas Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile
Dread Guristas Rapid Light Missile Launcher, Mjolnir Light Missile
Small Tractor Beam II
Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe
Salvager II

Medium Gravity Capacitor Upgrade II
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I
Medium Anti-EM Screen Reinforcer I

Tengu Offensive – Accelerated Ejection Bay
Tengu Propulsion – Fuel Catalyst
Tengu Engineering – Augmented Capacitor Reservoir
Tengu Electronics – Emergent Locus Analyzer
Tengu Defensive – Adaptive Shielding

It probably looks a bit odd, but it fits the bill and works in practice. It is also not too expensive.  The DPS is fine for anything you encounter in the sites I can access. The Shield booster is not on auto repeat, and I only need to pulse it once or twice on rare occasion. The cargo capacity is generally good enough for my complete circuit. My only negatives is the scan resolution makes locking a bit of a chore, and in contested sites you don’t tend to out DPS more combat oriented opponents. Where you lose out there, you gain from not having to swap hulls all the time.

Not a fitting to fly into unknown space with…

* If you wonder why I do all Anomalies – it is because of their occasional tendency to have Faction Drops at the end.

New Window to EVE

Something else I finished off today – updating my client window setup.  (All links are to large full size pictures.)

It now runs in Window mode at 2300 x 1300 with the camera offset to the left.  I updated all of my overviews and cut the number right back (just to make it easier to manage).  I’ve also incorporated the scanner window so that it can now be left open all the time.

Here’s the view while fleeted and against NPCs.  The things I do for this blog – I went and ran a Level 2 mission to get enough targets locked to do the screen shot I wanted.

And last of all, the view while mining.  Thankfully this was for a Storyline Mission (which needed some Scordite), that completing the L2 Mission above triggered.

The setup allows me to enjoy the visuals of the game while still having most of the information I need visible.

(I know the above isn’t of interest to everyone, but I’ve always liked looking at how others setup their clients, so I can finesse my own.)

Where art thou Loot Gods?

Today I sat down and basically ignored Real Life and played EVE.

Well – what I meant to say is that I got constantly interrupted by my wife and kids but resolutely returned to EVE after every single time. Time, time, and time again. Needless to say, I suspect I also burnt a whole heap of brownie points with my wife, who hasn’t had to play second fiddle to EVE for quite a while now.

I would have got a good hour done of trading, and what must have been 5 odd hours of high sec exploration, spread out over the day.

So my main and his Legion visited and revisited some 30 individual systems spread across 3 regions. I completed dozens and dozens of Anomalies and combat sites, ignored lots of Wormholes, ran 3 low level DED sites and followed 2 escalations, 1 data site, half a dozen relic sites, a 4 of 10 DED site (in a Gila), and picked up 6 True Sansha and 1 Overseer.

All for.. about 35M ISK worth of bounties and drops.

*sigh*

Somewhere TEST or the CFC, or both, are messing up my Empire Carebearing

I don’t contest sites – if someone is already in them, I warp out. I had three people drop into sites I was running today and stay. I flagged and tagged each – and was able to return the favour by dropping in on one of their sites later to contest it back. I’ll ensure I do that for anyone I have previously flagged.

I love the improvements to the mechanics of the Exploration system. Knowing something is there before dropping probes is great. Launching and managing probes is a whole lot easier and quicker – particularly in High Sec when you never need to play around with the two basic pre-set patterns. It just feels more engaging.

The Relic drops in High Sec have been so bad I am considering ignoring them in future. Anyone ever found anything of actual value? The Data sites are better, but so far harder to find. The Mini game and Can spew impress me less the longer I use them. Anyone else notice the System Core is almost always on the edge of the map, about the furthest away from the starting point? It seems to follow that pattern 75% of the time.

The 4 of 10 Site, which up till now I had ignored as the T3 couldn’t use the gate, was this one:

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Mul-Zatah_Monastery

I pulled out a passive tanked Gila for the first time, and used it with T2 Sentry drones. It was a bit of a rush to get it done before downtime, but it worked out to be very effective. Will have to do that for more 3-4 DED sites (when I find them somewhat close to where I am basing out of). Glad the Gila didn’t required Cap..

The Gila nonchalantly making its way home after its first 4 of 10 DED site

Tomorrow I will have to try and re-earn some of those brownie points lost over today, so back to focusing on Real Life.

*sigh*

 

It’s ugly but effective

Just a quick post.  After earning some 400M ISK from farming Anomalies in my Retribution (be it from 3 lucky drops), I sat down and tried to find an exploration T3 set up (baring the DED 3 and 4 stuff obviously) that didn’t rely on drones.  After toying with a Tengu again I still fell back to my Legion.  On paper it looks a bit crap – running 5 Dread Guristas Rapid Light Missile Launchers and 3 T2 Ballistic Control Modules, doing all of 169dps.  (Less than half the old one.)  In practise however in High Sec it is more than enough as it one shots all the small stuff.  I’ll show the fit when I have some more time, but it still has both Data and Relic modules, and a salvager and tractor beam, so I basically never have to swap ships or refit.  I used the new scanner interface – which makes it much quicker and easier to both get ready to scan, and in adjusting after each scan result.  A step up, and should make it easier for newer players to get into exploration.  I found several Data and Relic sites which I ran.  The mini game is.. meh.  Not difficult with high skills, just, well, sort of annoying.  There is no real skill in it.  The spray of mini cans is also annoying.  It doesn’t really add anything to the game aside a feeling of random chance.  Anyone suggest what you can expect in each type of can?  The drops are pretty crap in High Sec, although I probably amassed 25M from 4 site, which wouldn’t have taken more than 10 minutes to scan and clear each.

Mild surprise

The trade battles continue – both with the old players and some new. I am spending too much time updating orders, so have turned to salting the earth and ruining margins. That should hopefully cut down on the number of updates I need to do.

I ran some L4 mining missions the other day – after reading Goblin referring to them a while ago. It requires a retriever set up for Ice mining, another for Ore, and a Venture for Gas mining. I then have to double that as my Alt needs the same set of ships – I decide on dual boxing so that I can complete each quest without having to dock. They seem to take around 20 minutes from accepting to handing in. They are more relaxing than belt mining, but otherwise not particularly enjoyable or especially rewarding. You can semi AFK some of them. I will see if I can get to the first storyline.

I ran some sites (pre-expansion) with my Exploration Legion. It’s a drone boat. My god the NPC agro on drones requires far too much micro managing. It would have easily added 30% or more to the time it takes to run each site, and forces me to remember to repair them constantly. I will have to go back to lasers or missiles – so will shelve or adjust the Legion. A pity, I really enjoyed flying the current fit.

Regards Odyssey – I think CCP is on the right money with some of the graphic changes, but they just need additional polish. The flashing strobes when you undock need to be more obvious, maybe even lower the light levels in the hanger at the same time. The jump gate effect is nice – but even on my nicely spec’d desktop there is always a point or two in the transition where the animation stutters, which really ruins the whole effect. Then when you drop out of warp, the occasional rubber-banding just destroys all sense of immersion. Not quite a success yet in my eyes.

I think the Exploration changes will see more people on average using that content. It is a simple case of leaving the scanner window open and you can run anomalies any time you have a few spare minutes. The hidden belts in particular seem to get hammered quickly. I haven’t actually dropped probes – there is just too much competition at the moment, but I will get around to it.

I had a couple nice surprises today. I was crashing through some local systems farming anomalies when I picked up a True Sansha Statis Webifier. Pleased with my luck I was returning to my home system to drop it off when my jaw dropped at a name in local I recognised. It was the first person in my RL circle of friends to play EVE, and the bloke who suggested I play. He hadn’t been in game for years. Apparently one of his friends had no one to fly with, so threw a PLEX his way and asked him to come on some frigate roams. I expect there won’t be much interaction while he is in game as his play style is different (blood thirsty verse my Carebear tendencies), but it will be nice to see someone else online on occasion.

So what about the magic?

EVE was down for an extended period of time as they dealt with a DDoS and an successful hack.  I watched #tweetfleet occasionally – both for updates, and for people’s reactions.

I remember a time – frankly the first few years I played EVE, where extended downtimes saw me feeling agitated.  An unannounced outage like this would have seen me decidedly antsy.  EVE was in effect was my primary source of relaxation and entertainment, and I was overly attached to it and what it provided.

This time around I just shrugged my shoulders.  No need to worry about trade updates as no one was online buying, and there wasn’t anything pressing I cared to be doing in game.

Splatus made a great blog post over here – http://splatus.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/the-day-the-universe-died/, remarking on what you would do on the last day the EVE servers were operational.

I thought about it for quite a while.  I would not have the sense of real loss that I might have in years past.  Instead I would raise a glass to the game in thanks of the years of distraction and entertainment, and for the real communities it spawned.  I would put everything in game neatly away in place (as ludicrous as that may sound), park my characters safely, and take some screen captures.  Last of all I would probably take my favourite ship and go watch some of the last day antics while cloaked, and write my last EVE blog post.  I’d be more thankful than sad, and my real life would be just a little richer for having a few more hours of my time a week.

It’s lost its magic – but that’s ok.

May Done

Game Hours & Play

I would have stayed online 100+ hours in May – but actually played around 12 hours. Most of that time was spent on trading.

 

Fluid ISK at the end of May

I only keep an amateurish measurement of my Trade and Industry profits – based around fluid ISK.

Cash & Stock

7.2B Wallet
0.3B Escrow
0.2B Stock on Market *
===
7.7B ISK

Input Assets

1.4B Manufacturing Supplies
0.4B POS Fuel
0.0B Long Term Speculative Stock (Not valued)
===
1.8B

Fluid ISK this Month
9.5B

Fluid ISK last Month
7.9B

Position Change
+1.6B

Known Expenses for the month

16M Office Rentals
4M Alliance Fees
===
<0.1B

Probably my most profitable month for my trading corp.

(* Stock Value calculated at 80%, roughly at fire sale to Jita buy orders)

 

Industry / Trade Details

I made reasonable ISK on flipping Gnosis when they were first handed out. I only stayed in the market for a day or two.

I started to buy Mining related modules – where there was less competition than usual. I also picked up a few mining hulls at very good prices, although that opportunity soon passed.

I had heavy competition in basically all low volume / high profit areas were I had previously had the market to myself. This resulted in a fortnight long trade war and the deliberate ruining of a number of these markets. My exposure (when my buy orders are at the top) are down to around 20-30% for the remaining items.

Otherwise general trading volumes and competition was around normal.

There were no PI runs in the month.

 

Training

Account 1 (Main) – Explosive, Kinetic and Thermic Armor Compensation V (rounding out the set), Citadel Cruise Missiles IV, Social V and now working on getting some of the Connections skills to IV.

Account 2 (Main Alt) – Most of the month spent getting Exhumers V, along with a couple of social skills to rank IV

Account 3 (Industry Alt) – General ship skills this month – working through getting the shield, energy, electronic and armor related skills to rank IV.

 

Plans

None basically – although setting up to try some mining missions, just because I haven’t done so previously.  I also plan to carefully read the expansion notes to a make a list of things to do or try when it is released.