BB78 – The more things change, the more they stay the same

BB78 – Suspend disbelief for a moment and imagine that at downtime today CCP reset everything in EVE Online. Everything! All player structures, PI infrastructure, Corps, Alliances gone. The Markets empty but for NPC seeded items like BPO. All players log into a starter system with less than 1M SP, a mere 5,000 ISK and a noob ship. What happens now?

I started out thinking about the immediate effect of such a thing.

What impact would it have on CCP’s financials?  There would be very strong demands for compensation.  There would be players who quit.  PLEX would not be purchased to be sold on the market for a while as no one would have a reasonable amount of ISK to buy them with. How much time would they have to spend fixing any design issues – the chicken before the egg scenarios where items or structures cannot be built because they rely on something that relies on them being built. What sort of balancing changes might be needed to allow – at least temporarily, for completely different skill levels and ship fit metas?

What impact would it have on players? Their sense of loss, frustration, anger. What a large adjustment for previously wealthy players on old money – who hadn’t needed to earn ISK for years. How long would it take big traders to have enough volume to start making inroads into recovering their wealth? Would miners and industrialists have a golden period of demand, and how long would it last?

I thought about what would not change? Ganking would be immediately viable, and pirating soon after. New players wouldn’t really notice aside from the poorer markets and less larger ships flying around.

I thought about how important existing knowledge would be – the advantage people would have for knowing what skills to train first, the best ways to gather resources and bounties and so on. Would those with multiple accounts use some for SP farming, not to sell, but to advance their mains more quickly against their opponents?

What about for me? I’d probably be able to continue to get the same sorts of rewards out of playing the game as I do now, and I would have the knowledge and doggedness to slowly recover from such an event.

As I did this, two key points kept coming up in my thought process.

First, there would be an arms race and land grab that would be dominated by groups who already had the out of game infrastructure to coordinate and mobilise their players. They would work together to mine and collect bounties, purchase group hull, weapon and infrastructure BPO quicker than anyone else. Yes, there would be changes to the political landscape, but generally the same sort of people and groups that control null sec now would control null sec then, and the smaller groups would in time be left with the same limited options as they have now.  In many ways it would nerf or impact the solo and casual player more harshly.

Second – I kept using the term recovery. Some people might change the way they play the game, but for the most part it would be about restoring where they were at previously. In the long run, I strongly suspect something like this would cause no real fundamental change to the game.

If these two thoughts are correct, why would you bother resetting the game?  For real change, CCP needs to adjust the rules or update or add sandbox tools.

Other Blog Banter posts on this topic can be found here

 

And then there was one

I am now down to one pilot in my Corp / Alliance. That is kind of fitting.

I finished decommissioning my last Alt. I stripped some SP from the character from skills I will never use. That effectively covered the cost of loading the Fleet Specialist skills onto my Main. The pilot was left with 172M PVP focused SP, so is still useful if I wanted to reactivate it.

I have managed, despite going from half a dozen to just one pilot over the last few months, not to lose access to any skills.

I’m currently in the process of stripping away much of the bling on my traditional Exploration ships that I have or will use around The Citadel region. They were just a little bit too juicy of a target.  The modules fitted to my Astero for example dropped in value from 170M to 58M ISK.

Speaking of The Citadel – the exploration pilots seem to be far, far less courteous here. The majority seem to contest sites if you are already running them. If I am to do a lot of exploration in the area I will have to refit my ships for maximum DPS and speed – or change to bigger hulls and fit for PVP.

I watched the latest o7 show earlier. It is available on twitch here:

https://www.twitch.tv/ccp/v/103783319

It started off with 10 odd minutes (at least it felt that long) of player ads. Most were reasonably well done. The show itself seemed more polished than usual. There was nothing detailed about what is next happening in the game  – in fact, I didn’t write a single note down while watching it.  It was enjoyable enough anyway.

250 Pages Back

The document where I keep all my Blog notes was more than 250 pages long again. I cleaned out some of the oldest pages this morning. Most were from around 2012. Some of my thoughts at the time which I may or may not have posted about:

. I was pleased with the addition of a button to allow you to warp and jump with just one click. I think warp and dock was also added. I remember having to carefully time clicking on the “jump” button as you came out of warp – in case you bounced off the gate and shot off into space at high speed. Always annoying in a Freighter. When I first started playing EVE the closest you could warp to an object was 15km. If you wanted to warp to a gate at 0km, you needed to have a bookmark 15km the other side of it. Those were the days. When that was changed the PVPers of EVE were up in arms, saying it would make the game too easy and ruin it.

. I was complaining about the cost of upgrading my Clone. We no longer have to worry about that

. CCP remarked in CSM meeting notes that a notable number of people PLEX their accounts

. CCP was thinking about ways to merge the Market, LP Store, Contract System and the New Eden Store (called NEX back then) into one. I wonder if they are still thinking about that

. EVE is not a game, it is a hobby

. I remarked that I was much more comfortable playing EVE solo, but that it excluded me from whole areas of the game, and meant I would not likely have the opportunity to play a part in the events that become game history (still true)

. I couldn’t work out why Market manipulation was so easy – that people would cut 50% from the sale price of their 1,000 units to get in front of my single unit selling at fire sale prices. It still works that way.

. I said that every so often I get the urge to liquidate most of my assets and simplify things. Still have it. Been doing aspects of it since.

. I discussed my T2 manufacturing, and having to move various items into different regions to have suitable turnover and profits

. I remarked on how the path I followed to pick up and drop off my trading stock zigzagged over major trade routes to ensure I didn’t come through the more dangerous gates for suicide ganking. (I still think about such things)

. I complained about the new Inventory Interface – but felt happier as they added the ability to open up separate windows again. It was however still buggy when you undocked or jumped through gates and had your windows move and change type.

. There were 4,405 Characters whose active ships were supercarriers. Most were Nyx, the least were Hels. There were also 2 active Revenants.

. I ran my EVE client in a 1920×1080 window. Now it is 3000×1800.

Little wonder people re-joining EVE after many years are finding things very different.

Fresh Air

It has been a month since I decided to drop back to one account. In that time, I’ve decommissioned several alts and their assets, sold off ships and gear set up for multi-account play, abandoned my NPC Null Sec base (I didn’t want to stay without access to a scout), and moved almost my entire collection of EVE gear 15 jumps to be closer to Jita.

There has been a surprising and unexpected feeling of liberation with this transition. I hadn’t realised how much of a weight I felt in trying to maintain multiple characters. The game has been constantly changing in recent years, and ships, fittings, implants, training and assets all had to be regularly adjusted across half a dozen characters. It was tiresome and I had fallen well behind.

As I have mentioned before, one of the steps in this process was to look closely at what skills my Alts had that my Main did not. In moving back to a single Character, I did not want to lose access to a skill or module or ship that I had already trained for. I had already done this with my Industry Alt, and the only thing missing was being able to create an Alliance. I used Skill Injectors from that Alt to pick up the required skill.

I’ve now gone through that process with my Main Alt. For the most part they just had a dozen odd PVP related skills to rank V that my Main only had to rank IV. I could still use the same gear, just not quite as well. I did not feel I had to make up that gap. The area of difference was the Alt had all the Leadership Specialization skills to rank V, and my main had none. I purchased 6B ISK of Skill Injectors off the market and trained the Warfare skills from Rank IV to V, and the Warfare Specialist Skills from Rank 0 to IV. That covers off fitting T2 Command Burst modules like my Alt was able to.

I think the only thing I am missing is the ability to use T2 Mindlink Implants on my Main – something that at the moment I don’t feel like I can justify in injecting or training the required SP for.

I still have about a month left on the subscription of my second account – but now that I’ve completed my Command Burst testing, I’m not likely to have a use for it. Its last function will be to get me a second copy of the Ascension gifts CCP is meant to be giving out today.

This whole project has been interesting. It has got me to log in and be more active in game. It has fed into my EVE To-Do List and made it healthier again. It has left me feeling a little more rejuvenated, and more ready for another year in EVE.

Out and About

There has been an unexpected number of things to do with the Ascension release. Hunting down new BPO, new skill books, new charges, testing new game mechanics, looking into new ships, updating old ship fittings and what not. I don’t recall an expansion generating this much “stuff” to do in a long while. Even my training queue had an overhaul. A long-time bastion of “whatever” and “just because” skill selections, it now has more than 100 days of purpose.

There is lots to like.  I was playing around with the new Command Bursts just this morning, and on initial view I like them a lot.  The fact you can boost yourself when not in fleet makes for interesting fitting variations for the ships that can use Command Burst modules.  There are also some annoyances.  The “warp drive active” announcement grates.  I want to hear “Docking permission requested”, and “Docking request accepted” messages, but cull plenty of the others.

And what about the high online user count this weekend?  It was well over 40,000 when I logged in earlier.  I hope this isn’t just a short term blip.

Anyway, it was nice to have reason to be out and about.  (Well, in game.  I was in and not moving in real life.)

WoWS – Forgetting to Play

The time I have spent playing World of Warships has fallen off a cliff. I’m forgetting to play, which shows how enamored I’ve been with it of late.

I like the concept, pace and tactical aspects of the game, I don’t mind how the progression has been worked out, and I have battles that I really enjoy. A little more often though I come away annoyed or frustrated.

There are obvious balancing issues between ship types and ships that are placed in matches together.

There can be an element of rock-paper-scissors – where against one ship you dominate, but against the next you are easy prey.

A little too often you come up against opponents with fully skilled captains and all the best flags and consumables loaded.

The match maker probably needs to be less random – for the reasons above, and because there are too many matches where the battle is painfully one sided.

Early aggressive play tends to be punished, almost forcing you to hang back at the start.

All these can be irritating, but for most you can just focus on certain ship types or tactics.

I think the biggest problem however is that as a middling player, the results are generally out of my control.

Hold on – doesn’t that make sense? Isn’t that how’s it is mean to be? Yes – except the majority are just middling players. When you look at the stats at the end of the battles, there are commonly only 1 or 2 out of 24 who make that key difference and carry the win. It feels that really – if I die within the first two minutes under focus fire or in the last minute after a valiantly and well played match, I wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.

There are exceptions – as I said, some battles are really enjoyable. There are just not as many of those battles as there should be.

Are exploding ships overvalued?

I’ve often wondered why it is commonly espoused that exploding ships is some sort of panacea in EVE.

The notion or fear is that if ships don’t explode, the games industry and economy will ground to a halt.

Isn’t that rather simplistic, and not matched by the economic reports released each month?  There is almost always more ISK coming into the game than leaving it.  Why hasn’t industry stopped yet?  Yes, destruction and replacement is very important, but it is only part of the equation.

What drives the manufacture and buying of new ships – aside from destruction? New players, old players with new skills, changed rules, new doctrines, speculative trading and so on.

What effectively removes ships from the game – aside from destruction? Some reprocessing, but more left unused and forgotten in hangers, and even more disappear when people stop playing.

I’m not sure exploding ships is the be all and end all holy grail people hold it up to be.

Unexpected start

I was logged into EVE late last night looking at some of the changes with Ascension. I got to talking with a pilot who had just logged in as an Alpha clone. They had played EVE previously but were not in a financial position to subscribe. They had logged in as soon as the game went free to play. They lamented the price of PLEX and remarked on some of the political changes in game. They then wondered if they could earn enough to PLEX their account using their restricted skill set. I suggested they focus on finding fun instead of worrying about grinding a PLEX straight away. They paused and remarked that it wasn’t as if they had a time limit anymore on getting a PLEX.

I truly have no idea how the Alpha Clone state will impact the game, but it was nice that the very first interaction I had after the expansion was a player returning to look around who otherwise would not have. Here’s hoping they stick around.

When in-game ISK is out-of-game

Just a quick thought.

If I consider how much of my in-game wealth is in play – being actively used on the markets or flown in and around space, the total would not reach 10B ISK.

I would have a further 10B ISK of assets which I call memorabilia. Aside a handful of times when moving home station, these never interact with the game. They are collectibles and hanger ornaments that please me in different ways.

As a self-proclaimed risk-averse Carebear, I have slowly but surely accumulated wealth in excess of what I use in game. This primarily sits in a couple divisions in my Corporation wallet.

For all intents and purposes, the large majority of my wealth is effectively unused and out-of-game. I wonder how common that is – and just how big that ISK sink is amongst carebears.

Clubbing Kittens and Baby Seals and Puppies

Code have announced an event that runs from after Ascension is deployed until downtime on the 31st of December.  Details here:

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=499769

So far there are seven prizes, all focused on Hi-Sec kills.  Four are for people using Alpha Clones.  I guess you could see that as a way of encouraging new players into the world of CODE.  That’s fair enough – no problem with that.  Not sure many new players will find themselves in the EVE Events and Gatherings forum, but you never know.  Mostly I expect it will be Alts for the already CODE inspired.  Four prizes are directed at POD destruction, and one on ship destroyed value.  Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing worth even noting aside being slightly more cautious.

However – the very first prize mentioned is for killing as many brand new registered pilots as possible over the next 7 weeks.  Often these will be the inexperienced, generally defenceless, and likely ignorant pilots CCP is trying to encourage to join EVE.

I have a very pragmatic approach to EVE.  I don’t mind that CODE exists.  I accept some of them have religious levels of self-justification.  I try to ignore them when they excitedly masturbate over killmails that look lame to me.  Overall I think they and their events add something to the game.  All fine.  I can’t however work out what spin you could use to say that the targeted and deliberate griefing of likely brand new players will somehow do more good than harm.

200

I do not consciously read the odometer in my car – but every so often I will suddenly be drawn to it just when it passes a milestone. A nice round thousand, all the same number, a repeated pattern or the like. I assume you subconsciously see it as you check your speedo, but your brain doesn’t bring it to your attention unless it is unusual.

It tends to be the same with my EVE skill points. Today while checking my Jump Clones I was unexpectedly drawn to my skill point total, which had just trundled past 200M.

Not that long ago I would have met this with a bit of fanfare and a touch of excitement. With the arrival of Skill Injectors however the feat seems to have much less meaning. In fact – after I had loaded some SP from one of my Alts (to “transfer” Empire Control V), I’d felt somewhat like I had cheated.  Maybe 200 is not really 200 yet.

My EVE activity at the moment is probably best described as pottering. I continue consolidating my assets, most recently clearing out duplicates in my Memorabilia container. I do like being so close to Jita though – being able to quickly sell off surplus stuff, and to pick up fittings I am missing. I also updated another ship fitting in response to my likely more dangerous new home – fitting a Hull tank to my Noctis salvager. I’ve also fitted up and been running some exploration content in a Jackdaw, which I have not used much in the past.

CCP have said they won’t be advising of how long the downtime will be for the Ascension Release (scheduled on Tuesday 15th). They want to do whatever testing they feel is required before opening the game world. I’m not sure they have ever done that before.

https://community.eveonline.com/news/news-channels/eve-online-news/eve-online-ascension-to-be-deployed-on-tuesday-november-15th/

There will also be a dramatic increase in research, copy and manufacturing times for big blueprints for Capitals, Structures, Supercarriers and Titans.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=6701678#post6701678

It reads that it is to offset the bonuses from the new engineering structures. That seems to nerf the Solo Industrialist who makes normal Capitals out of stations.

The Result

Noticed a Hemorphite and Jaspet ORE site in system soon after I had adjusted my Procurer’s fitting.  Fate.

 

Mining Gank Math – Part 2

So now I (think I) have a basic idea on how common mining suicide ganks are locally, how quickly CONCORD comes to help, and the DPS of the common ganking hull. The key timings I have to survive are 8 (fresh CONCORD response) and 14 seconds (prepared CONCORD response).

The last step is looking at my tank – starting with the Procurer. This is the standard fit I’ve been using for a while.

[Procurer, Basic]

Mining Laser Upgrade II
Mining Laser Upgrade II

Survey Scanner II
EM Ward Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II

Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal II

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

Assuming VOID ammo, I created a damage Pattern in Pyfa for the Suicide Catalyst of 50% Kinetic / 50% Thermal damage, and applied it against the Procurer.

This gave it an EHP against the Catalyst of 58,551 and a Shield regen of 52.

(I know Shield regen is not linear, I’m just using a simple and basic allowance for it.)

So, using the basic calculation of

EHP / ((DPS x Number of Catalysts) – Shield Recharge) = time in seconds

I found it would take a minimum of 7 Catalysts to gank me in an 0.8 system if CONCORD had been prepared, or 12 if not. Overheating my tank, that increases to 8 and 13.

I guess that quantifies the risk. What does that really mean?

Thinking back at all the Killboard examples I looked at, while most of the ganks were by a small number of Griefers, it was common enough to see examples of a dozen or more Catalysts being used. My fit is probably safe enough.

Using all this new-found knowledge, I revisited my fit with view of adjusting the tank for Catalysts. What happened if I swapped the EM module out for Thermal, or Kinetic, or how about a Thermal, Kinetic and Adaptive Invulnerability? Turns out the last combination was the most effective.

That gave me an EHP of 80,418 and a shield regen of 81. Quite a jump. This small fitting change increased the minimum Catalysts to 9 and 16 respectively. Overheated, 12 and 21.

I tried different fits – with a Hull tank / rigs instead of shield. It gave the same sort of results but with a yield loss. The last big boost came from fitting a damage control but losing one of the Mining Laser Upgrades. That gave an EHP of 97,581, shield regen 93, for 11 and 19 Catalysts. Overheated, 14 and 25.

[Procurer, Basic 2]

Mining Laser Upgrade II
Damage Control II

Thermal Dissipation Field II
Kinetic Deflection Field II
Adaptive Invulnerability Field II
Survey Scanner II

Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal II
Modulated Strip Miner II, Veldspar Mining Crystal II

Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I
Medium Core Defense Field Extender I

A minimum of 14 to 25 Catalysts to take out a 41M ISK ship and fitting. That seems a reasonable trade – and quite an increase from the original 8 to 12. More than 75% more effective.

This is the sort of thing I like about EVE. The complexity, the lack of certainty, how just a little bit of extra knowledge and a small tweak can make such a big difference. I’ll probably have someone point out a fatal flaw in my thought process. Until then – I’ll enjoy the little eureka moment.

To be honest I’m a fairly lightweight EVE player. I don’t see all the nuances, tricks and optimal approaches that some players seem to do naturally.  What a lucky gift they have.

Now I’ve publicly said where I’ll be mining and how my ship will be fitted. It will be easy to fit a counter and gank me. Probably not the brightest of my ideas – but I’ve seen my blog stats of late, so I figure I’ll be safe enough.

I was going to also look at the Skiff – but it isn’t necessary. A similar approach to fitting and some T2 rigs, and it can take more than 18 to 31 perfectly skilled and flown Catalysts to take it down.

The next step is to look at Alpha ganks and different sorts of DPS ganking ships and damage patterns – but I’ll stop with this.  It’s only a Procurer after all.

 

Mining Gank Math – Part 1

I still want to be able to mine on occasion, but I expected with my new home location being so much closer to Jita that it would be a riskier proposition. I thought I would spend a little time and try to quantify how much so.

First I reviewed the kill stats for the main systems I will likely be mining in. While Killboards are not fully accurate, it is a starting point. There was only one mining ship reported as suicide ganked in my home system over the last month – a Retriever that fell victim to 6 Goonswarm Federation members in Catalysts. It was the same story next door – a different Retriever that died to the same 6 Goonswarm members.

Looking back further than a month shows similar low numbers of deaths. While I had already looked at these statistics before moving here, it still surprises me.

Arguably I could just ignore the threat and do what I want. I’d more than likely suffer no consequence.  That is not however the way I play the game. So, the next question is how easy is it for someone with nefarious intentions to gank me in a belt?

I started by looked more generally at Mining Barge and Exhumer deaths in Hi-Sec. There were plenty of Suicide Ganks, but not as many as I was expecting. Most were in 0.5 and 0.6 systems, most victims were in Retrievers, Mackinaws and Hulks, and it usually only took 2 or 3 Destroyers to kill them.  Only 2 or 3 doesn’t sound like good odds.

Playing solo, I have three defenses against Suicide Ganking. Blind luck, vigilance, and tanking the damage until CONCORD turns up.

I used both a Retriever and Mackinaw at times in my old home system – but it had a 10th of the traffic that my new system has. It was easy to keep track of who was coming and going. That is not possible in my new home, so I’m going to have rely on luck or tanking.

The reality – reinforced by the examples on the Killboard, is that I won’t be able to tank the Retriever or Mackinaw well enough. They make easy and juicy targets. Instead I will have to focus on my trusty Procurer and Skiff. They don’t appear as ganks on the Killboards anywhere near as often.

Next I need to work out roughly how long it takes for CONCORD to arrive to save me, how much damage the common Gankers do, and how many of them would be required to overwhelm my tank before CONCORD arrives.

Overall there are three response times for CONCORD.

The first is if CONCORD is already within 150km of you. Simplistically attackers will only get off one shot before CONCORD jams them. To one shot a tanked Procurer or Skiff would require a collection of high alpha damaging ships. If they have enough of them, there is nothing you can do about it.

The second response time is when CONCORD has yet to be summoned to the system since the last downtime. (When they are cleaned up.) This time is based on the security level of the system. I would have thought this information would been well known, but none of the 5 sources I was working off fully matched. I erred towards the worst-case, and used the following in my calculations.

1.0 – 6 seconds
0.9 – 7 seconds
0.8 – 8 seconds
0.7 – 10 seconds
0.6 – 14 seconds
0.5 – 19 seconds

The third response time is if CONCORD has already been summoned to the system, but is not within 150km. A common instruction for Suicide Gankers is to prep CONCORD by getting them to move away from the location you will be griefing. You see this regularly on the Killboards.

Griefer kills Suicide Target in a Belt
CONCORD kills Griefer in Belt
CONCORD soon after kills Griefer in a Rookie ship at a Station / Customs Office etc
Griefer kills another Suicide Target in the Belt

Here again I see different suggested impacts, but +6 seconds was the most common. So:

1.0 – 12 seconds
0.9 – 13 seconds
0.8 – 14 seconds
0.7 – 16 seconds
0.6 – 20 seconds
0.5 – 25 seconds

In my 0.8 systems, that means I might be under attack for up to 14 odd seconds.

When it comes to the damage Suicide Gankers do, how long is a piece of string?

I looked at the most common hull and fit used, which generally was this:

[Catalyst, Common Gank Fit]

Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II

Initiated Compact Warp Scrambler
Alumel-Wired Enduring Sensor Booster, Scan Resolution Script

Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Void S

Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
[Empty Rig slot]

I was a little surprised at the value of the hull. This is a common setup used by CODE. It sets them back around 10M ISK a pop, minus whatever they can salvage from the wrecks afterwards. However, in reading they apparently offer a reimbursement of the cost.

The Sensor booster and scram are swapped in and out at times, but the rest of the fit tends to be the same.

Assuming a perfectly skilled pilot applying full damage, this fit does 667 DPS overheated in Pyfa. That is what I based my calculations on.

Blasters do Kinetic and Thermal Damage. The different T1 ammo types impact range – the longer the range, the lower amount of damage they do. Eyeballing it, the damage seems split 60% Kinetic, 40% Thermal. The T2 Void Ammo does a little more damage than antimatter, and interestingly has a 50% Kinetic / 50% Thermal damage spread.

The Procurer and the Skiff both have slot layouts and base statistics that lean them towards Shield tanks. The stock resists in both ships are better against Kinetic than Thermal. That in turn seems to make Void the most effective blaster ammo against them. Makes sense why it is used.

The third variable is how much tank do I have against this ship, and how many perfect skilled and damaging Catalysts will be required to beat CONCORD in time and gank me. That will be my next post.

A Citadel Scam to be aware of

An interesting scam to be aware that might relate to a game bug.

https://imperium.news/no-return-sender/

I had an odd experience buying from one of the Perimeter Citadels in the last week.  After buying an item I set my destination to the Citadel via the Market Entry.  When I docked I found the item was not there.  Checking my personal asset list it showed it was in a Citadel with the same name, but a location as system instead of station.  I used the personal asset list to set a new destination, undocked, and flew to the correct Citadel to pick up my goods.

Home Sweet Home

This is the background I see when I undock from my new home system in EVE.

As part of the process of shifting back to one account, I’ve moved into a new Hi-Sec Home Base. I’ve discussed this notion of a Home Base before. This is where I keep my main training clone, all those collectibles you pick up over the years, various assets I keep for the memories, and a collection of spares.

My first Home was in Salashayama in Derelik. It was 9 jumps from Rens, 23 to Amarr, and a long 32 jumps from Jita. It was inconvenient in that regards, particularly as I started back in the days before jumping to zero was a thing. It might seem an odd term to use – but there is a hardship to being so far from the major trade hubs, particularly when you don’t have Corp or Alliance mates to share the hauling load with.

From memory my next main Hi-Sec home was Alkez, in the same region but a little closer to Jita.

I then moved to the similar named Akes in the Devoid region. This is where I spent some time playing around with PI and backwater Trading. Again it was a move closer to Jita.

In November 2014, two years ago, I moved to Fora in Domain. This was a great little quiet system just 3 jumps from Amarr and 11 jumps from Jita.

Yesterday after more than a week of spread out hauling, I finished moving around 25B ISK worth of assets into Tasabeshi, just 4 jumps out of Jita.

It has a lot more traffic than I am historically used to, but given its location not as much as I expected. Shopping will be a breeze, there are lots of agents available, and I get to live with the Guristas for the first time. It will require a little bit more care and attention, but I needed that to wake me up a little when I undock.

The move took well over 1,000 jumps – all done manually. I used a variety of hulls to shift my assets. Most of the heavy stuff went in an Orca with a couple runs in the Occator Deep Space Transport, and most of the light stuff was moved in a Viator Blockade Runner or a Victorieux Luxury Yacht. I tended to keep most of the load values within 500M ISK, although that sometimes stretched to around 700M. The single highest value load was around 1.4B ISK, and were mostly BPO.

I ran backwards and forwards through the Amarr – Jita pipe, over and over again. I saw plenty of Gankers and passed wrecks and large clusters of Concord ships, but was never troubled. I assume this was due to being in fast, manually flown ships, some thought to cargo values, some thought to fittings, and an indeterminable amount of luck.

Now to settle back down to sorting through my stuff, looking particularly at the ships I keep. What they are and how they are fit changes when you won’t have an Alt around.

Space Runner

I have a tendency to use Interceptors as very quick shuttles and scouting ships, without tackle or weaponry fitted. I’m sure they would raise an eyebrow or two if they hit a Killboard, but I’ve found them useful.

I’ve had this hull for quite a while now.

[Malediction, Runner]
IFFA Compact Damage Control
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
‘Halcyon’ Core Equalizer I
‘Halcyon’ Core Equalizer I

5MN Y-T8 Compact Microwarpdrive
1MN Afterburner II
[empty med slot]

Prototype Cloaking Device I
Core Probe Launcher II, Sisters Core Scanner Probe
[empty high slot]

Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II
Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer II

It scouted out my home in NPC Null Syndicate, ran up and down the pipes to Hi-Sec, located a couple homes I used to have in Low Sec, done lots of quick shopping trips to Jita, and has even travelled in and out of Wormholes at times. Most recently I was using it to find a new home in Hi-Sec, roaming between systems noted down as candidates in Dotlan, getting a feel for the landscapes and locals.

This is my version of being a rebel – using ships the way I want to, and flying them because I find them fun.

Not Fit

I’ve spent a lot of time in space over the last couple weeks – crisscrossing regions, moving things around.

I’m regularly passing through Madirmilire and have noticed Code Alliance member Lei YingLu has almost always been there.

Every so often the pilot will be flagged as a criminal. Unsurprisingly when you look at their Killboard, you can see a history of Hi-Sec Suicide Ganking over the last two months. The tool of choice seems to a Vexor hull and fittings worth around 21M ISK, targeting T1 Haulers carrying 200+M ISK.

While Killboard data is not entirely accurate, the picture painted is hard to dismiss.

2.2B ISK lost, 78.0B ISK damage inflicted.

Going through some of Lei’s kills, it is apparent that the Loot fairies don’t like them much. It wouldn’t surprise me that if after costs (including (I assume) security tags to allow them to stay in Hi-Sec), that they mightn’t even be getting a 20% return on the losses they are attributed to be causing. Still – at least 5 to 10B ISK earnt a month is nothing to sneeze at.

Glancing through his kills however I keep seeing examples like this, over and over:

https://zkillboard.com/kill/56791471/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/56764530/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/56379257/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/56363754/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/56305357/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/56420620/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/56480520/

Untanked and even unfitted haulers carrying 100’s of Million ISK in cargo. I find it a bit flabbergasting.

Lei obviously has friends or Alts scanning passing traffic. I also noticed a couple of times that when Lei had a criminal flag, pilot Anya Sutodla in the same system had a suspect flag. Looking at their Killboard it would appear that they are used to loot the wrecks left after suicide ganks. Going suspect obviously means they too are then being blown up – a factor I’ve included in the low-ball percentage rate of return.

I’m not sure a sudden influx of inexperienced Alpha clones is going to suddenly mean the Suicide Gankers and Griefers are going to be extra busy – the omega Clone pilots are already taking up all of their free time.

The things you see and think about while flying around.