Ship and Pod go boom!

I lost another ship (Sigil) and my first ever Pod today. The Sigil is no big deal, as it was crap fitted and is itself very cheap. The Pod however is another matter, as the Pilot, our little market mogul, had two +4 implants and three +3. That loss hurts. Luckily his hardwires were a bunch of super cheap crap. So how did it all happen?

0.0

In a brave (read: stupid) move, I decided to check out the closest 0.0 area, Providence, to see what kind of prices they had going. I figured it being 0.0, I could list a bunch of common stuff like ammo and make a good bit of ISK.  Sounded like a good plan anyway. Why I flew out in a slow ass hauler, instead of something with a chance to escape, well I’m not quite sure.

So I hit the final gate out of Empire, load up the grid in 0.0 slowly (uTorrent of the WAR beta was still running…) and see just one ship near the gate, a Drake. My first thought was cool, no gate camp. Stealth broke earlier than I had expected thanks to the lag, and right away the Drake targets me. At this point I of course panic, and instead of warping to the closest align point, I instead try in vein to reach the gate I’m at. Epic fail later, and my pod is floating in space. The Drake ate the Sigil for breakfast, and it was a wreck after just fire volleys. Still in a panic, dumbass me tries to get my pod over to the gate. Drake locks me, two volleys later, I’m in a station back in Empire.

As with most things in EVE, it sends you a cute email when you die. Actually, you send yourself the email, and it reads:

So you died? Well you have a Clone Grade Nu at Emrayur III - Moon 1 - Royal Amarr Institute School station. Enjoy your afterlife.

Afterlife indeed… While I’m not 100% sure I would have been able to align and warp away from the Drake, it would have been a better effort than trying to reach a gate that was some 15km away. As far as I could tell, the Drake did not warp scramble me. I did not catch his name or alliance, and nothing in any email told me who killed me (fairly sure I should have gotten something though…)

It was not the most costly lesson I could have learned, but it certainly stings, and reminds me to stay away from 0.0 for now. Perhaps with a cheap jump clone and a better getaway ship, I’ll once again venture out to that area and try once more to make some ISK. What’s life without risks, right?

When playing the market in EVE really pays.

I took a quick two day vacation to Maine, just to get away and clear my head a bit after the recent job fiasco. Crap weather aside, it was a very nice trip, especially since it was only an hour away.

I log into EVE to check my market pilot, and what do I find? A extra 20 million ISK in his wallet. Again not an earthshattering amount, but not a bad haul for two days of not logging in. Just like skill training, sometimes the best gameplay happens when you are offline in EVE.

The current goal is to increase volume and sales to the point where they actually matter, which for me will be around 50 million ISk per day. Hopefully once my orders limit is a bit higher, that will be possible. So far however, I’m having a blast just seeing stuff move, seeing what prices work, and how it all flows. Great stuff indeed.

EVE Market update, 100 million ISK.

Market Update time.

After a week or so of really focusing on the market, I’ve learned quite a bit, and made plenty of mistakes (which is kind of like the EVE mantra really). The good news is that I now believe my base of operations will do just fine for my little market mogul. Traffic seems high, it’s a minor mission hub, and it even has decent asteroid fields to attract miners.

Now my mistakes. If you produce 500 cargo expanders, don’t list all 500 in one order, even if you put them up for a good price. People buy them 1-4 at a time, and while you might get a few buyers a day, it will take next to forever to move all 500. What I should have done is split the 500 into groups of 50, and list each group at a different station, maximizing on those impulse buys that are too common in EVE. Why fly to the next station just to save 1000 ISK, right?

I also made some mistakes with my buy orders. Being the top buyer is often not enough, you also have to offer an aggressive price to encourage others to just take the offered price rather than list the item themselves. As long as you can make a decent profit, it’s worth getting more aggressive.

It total, I believe I’ve made somewhere around 100 million ISK in profit so far. A low amount compared to other traders, but decent enough for someone still learning and making mistakes. My current buy/sell limit is 53 right now, which is somewhat restrictive. In a week or so it should be much higher, and at that point I can really start to expand and think big.

Market, mining, and the loss of a Battleship.

First a market update: The weekend is indeed a busy time, and business picked up significantly. The most noticeable increase in sales was for high meta items, which tend to have a high price tag, resulting in a large influx of ISK. I also made a killing selling Gallente badges which I gained while completing the Enemies Abound (lvl 4) mission chain. This has me rethinking that entire chain, which I originally swore I would never run again. The faction hit is still a killer though.

My current dilemma is not with my sell orders, but rather buy orders. While not completely devoid of action, they are filling awfully slow, to the order of 100-200 rounds of ammo a day, when the buy order is for 10k. My price on the buy order is top in the system, and very competitive region-wide, while still allowing a decent margin. The range is system-wide. The system itself has proven to be a decent hotspot for trade and mission runners, so traffic itself is not the cause. My question now is, are buy orders just naturally slow to fill, or am I missing something?

Market activity aside, my miner/trader FINALLY got his Hulk, which is a huge upgrade over his Retriever. I’m still using tech I strip miners, but even with those, the Hulk is a beast. Our next mining Op is this coming Sunday, and I’m interested to see just how many asteroids I can chew through when I don’t have to worry about hauling or ore type. I’ll also have to finish the training fore tech II mining drones by then, as the random belt rat will also not be an issue. One final goal is to get my miners standing up with the local Corp, so I don’t get hit quite as hard by taxes when refining. As my base of operation is a good 10 jumps away from Corp HQ, hauling ore is impossible without a freighter, while hauling minerals will be very doable, so refining at a good rate is a must. This should be easy enough, as I can just have him join up with my combat pilot, and leech reputation that way, correct?

Speaking of my combat pilot, Saturday night proved rather eventful. I logged on and asked if anyone was interested in running some lvl 4 missions, and two Corp mates joined up and flew over, both in battleships (Typhoon and Hyperion, to go along with my Rohk). With three battleships we had a good amount of firepower, and I was hoping to get some of the tougher level 4 missions, like Angels Extravaganza or Blockade. As luck would have it, the first few missions we drew were pathetically easy, and having two others proved to be massive overkill. Still, it meant we finished the missions quickly, meaning more storyline mission progress.

Eventually we drew the Recon mission chain, and this is when things start to get interesting. Now normally Recon is best done by a blitz, meaning you get in a fast frigate and haul ass to the gate before you get shot down, as the mission is complete as soon as you use the gate. However, having three battleships, we wanted some action, and the bounties on the ships looked so tasty. (1.2 million ISK for many of the Battleships) The mission started off decent enough, although we quickly noticed that the 1.2m BS had a heavy armor tank which required quite a bit of time to chew through. As more waves constantly spawn, killing everything quickly is very important, and we were starting to fall behind on the pace. I was worried they would eventually start cracking our tanks and we would need to warp out. Thankfully, right around the time things were getting really dicey, the final wave spawned, meaning an end to the escalating troubles. While it was close, we managed to hold, and eventually clear the entire first area, ISK wallets a bit fatter from all the bounties.

Feeling good, we used the gate and flew into the second area, which I thought would actually be easier. My mistake… Our tank, the Typhoon, was taking some serious damage, and soon enough we realized a warp was needed. The Hyperion pilot was rather new to EVE (4-5 million skill points I believe), and was slow to align. We warped out, only to find out that the Hyperion pilot was stuck, being scrambled by one of the elite frigates in the mission. A feeling of dread set in, as I figured if the more advanced pilot had trouble tanking, our younger Corp mate would soon be dust.

We quickly warped back in with the hope of saving him, but the mission layout provided a large hurdle. The first room, which we had cleared, leaves you 20km away from the warp gate to the second room (the location of the scrammed pilot). 20km might not seem like a huge distance, but when you are flying a slow ass battleship, it seems like forever. While we raced to the gate at a brisk 130m/s, our Hyperion pilot was giving us updates on his tank and cap status, saying he would not last much longer. After what seemed like ages, we arrived at the gate, warped, and assessed the situation. The Hyperion, along with most of the NPC ships, was about 60-100km away, perfect range for my Large Rails. I started blasting Cruisers and Battle Cruisers as fast as I could, trying to decrease the enemy DPS as much as I could. I knew the Battleships were putting out most of the DPS, but with their heavy tank, I knew I could not take them down quickly, so opted for the smaller stuff instead. Sadly even at that range, my guns could not hit the elite frigates, so breaking the scram was not an option. The Typhoon pilot meanwhile sped towards the ships, hoping to get his drones in range, while also shooting down as many of the small ships as he could. Just as we thought the situation was improving, we saw the Hyperion go down in a ball of fire, leaving our unfortunate Corp mate floating in his pod. He had run out of cap, meaning he could no longer run his armor rep, and quickly succumbed to the massive DPS.

The truly sad part was that our newer pilot had mined almost all the minerals for the Hyperion before having a Corp mate construct it for him, and had only flown it for two days prior to it’s death. Certainly a tough lesson to learn after finally having reached a major goal, but he kept his spirits high, and even declined an offer from myself and the Typhoon pilot to help pay for a replacement. He instead bought a much cheaper Megathron, using the insurance ISK he got, and stated that now he had a new mining goal, along with a valuable lesson about running missions.

Recon now holds to record for most ships killed, having previously lost a cruiser and a battle cruiser to lower levels myself. Is it just me, or are the ships in that mission even tougher than their bounties suggest?

Stop bitching about skill points newbtards.

Read enough EVE-related posts and you will notice a certain complaint always being made: I can never catch up to older players.

First of all, the statement is mostly true. If you started a new character today, those pilots with 50 million skill points will always be around 50 million skill points ahead of you, give or take. Baring a complete reset, that will always be true.

The issue I have with the statement is: who cares? Yes in a 1 on 1 situation, they will smoke you, be it combat, mining, economy, production, whatever. Last I checked (this morning) EVE is an MMO, which stands for Massive Multiplayer Online. Well EVE is certainly massive, since everyone plays on one server. And it’s certainly online, as everyone has to log in to said server. And now the real kicker, it’s actually MULTIPLAYER, and not in that WoW way where you run by people on your solo-happy way to kill/collect 10 of something.

You join a Corp, work with others, compete against others, and generally try to survive. If you go about it solo, you will have a tough time, and will get really bored. The fools at CCP had this crazy notion that people would like to play together, and do things as a group, so they designed systems around that silly idea. Mining solo sucks, mining as a Corp is fun. Running missions solo day in day out gets boring, running missions with a buddy is fun. Dueling is boring, group battles are fun. See the trend here?

The other thing that EVE nails, and most other MMOs get terribly wrong, is that no matter your skill points, you can contribute. If you just created your pilot, you can join your Corp in a mining Op, and still contribute. Sure the guy flying the Hulk will mine a hell of a lot more ore, but you still did your part, and unlike other MMOs, you did not take anyone’s spot, or loot an ‘epic’ that someone else is going to be pissed about. EVE does not have a ‘raid cap’ of 40 or 25. The more the merrier, no matter the skill level. Is your Corp running missions just for fun? Bring your newbie self in a frigate and join in. Pew pew the frigates in the mission, loot some wrecks, get blown up, and have a blast.

So while you might never catch the skill point leader in EVE, you also don’t have to level to 70 and grind gear/rep/tokens to play with your friends. Day one you can jump right in, and not once will someone pick a ‘better geared’ pilot over you, while you sit around and listen to vent as everyone else is having fun.

That skill point thing, not that big an issue now, is it?

EVE market report 2. More questions…

Not much to report in terms of the EVE market experiment, other than that slow traffic might have been an understatement. The new buy/sell orders had a grand total of zero activity for the entire 24 hour period, which is a bit disappointing to say the least. In what will be perhaps a final test, I placed a bunch of new sell orders, mostly salvaged stuff and some tags on the market, with somewhat aggressive prices. If those fail to move, I think it will be time to rethink location.

Part of the possible problem is that my location is two jumps away from a major trading hub. My initial thought was I would provide a place to buy/sell for those too lazy to make the two jumps. People would run missions at the station, want to dump their stuff, and run another mission. At the same time, people in the trade hub would see my sell orders with slightly lower prices, and make the two jumps over to buy. It would seem neither is happening…

So, assuming the current location does not pick up, I think I basically have two choices. One is to move to the trade hub and try to compete there. At best, it would mean lower profits and more micromanagement, at worst I could end up losing both ISK and time. Option two would be to set up shop in a more remote location, to perhaps draw from a larger number of systems without having to compete with a trade hub just a few jumps away. The obvious concern here is traffic, as it might be even worse than my current location.

As someone who has very limited 0.0 and low-sec experience, would setting up shop one jump away from low-sec make sense? I mean would people who deal in low-sec and 0.0 use that location to resupply and sell? Would setting up shop in low-sec itself work, or would the risk of a gate camp nullify anything gained? What about the first system of 0.0?

Avoiding the WotLK beta.

The fact that people are actually AVOIDING playing the WotLK beta should tell you all you need to know about how much content they think the next expansion will provide.

For me personally WotLK does less than nothing. Another few tiers of the same old raiding game I finished in Azeroth, more grinding of a broken PvP system, and just ten levels of what actually made WoW great, questing and exploring new zones. If WotLK existed in a void, I would be looking forward to it just to see the few new zones, but sadly it does not. EVE is currently keeping me more than busy, and that little game called Warhammer Online is just around the corner. Between those two, and what each offers, the changes that WotLK will bring look very weak, and I think we are starting to see that feeling creep around the MMO space.

Will it do well? Of course, it’s still WoW, and clearly enough people have shown a love for the grind to do it all over again. But do I believe a significant amount of the player base is tired of TBC+1 in WotLK? Yes. And it’s that player base that helped AoC get the launch numbers it got (before they all left after the first month), and it’s that base that will at least give WAR a shot. Whether they drift back to WoW or stay in WAR just comes down to Mythic delivering on their promises.

Market report, day 1.

Day 1 marketing report:

Bought: 10,000 Large Antimatter rounds at 120 ISK per.

Sold: Nothing

The market was quiet… a little too quiet. Actually the above is only half true, I did sell some random stuff, but it was not off the new buy/sell orders I created for the market experiment. In all fairness, only about 20 of the possible 46 (I think) market orders are devoted to the new market, with the rest being old order I had set up in my previous location. As time goes on, those will either sell or I’ll just cancel them as I see fit. The goal is to have all available orders working the new market.

With all that said, the lack of action does raise a concern I may have picked a location with anemic traffic. Not going to change plans just yet, but it will be something to watch.

As for the actual details, as the market is in Amarr space, I have a buy order for each type of large crystal, as well as buy orders for small, medium, and large AM ammo. As seen above, the large AM ammo order has been filled, and the ammo placed back on the market at a system low price of 150 ISK per. I also have a buy order out for Paradise missiles, which are reportedly popular with mission runners. (I fly a Rohk myself, so don’t know the missile situation personally)

More to come!

Edit: I started with about 25 million ISK devoted to the marketing experiment, which limited me somewhat in what I could place buy orders for. Hopefully once this whole thing gets going, those limits won’t be a factor.

Time to play the market, EVE-style.

In the ever-changing ‘what do I want to do now’ world of EVE, I have a new goal for my miner, to become the greatest trader ever.

Or at least make some half decent ISK while learning about trading in EVE.

The reasoning for this is two-fold. One, I need ISK for that Hulk I want to buy but never have ISK for. Two, I think trading can be something that I can keep up with during those times I only have 30min to 1hr to play, too short a time span to complete a level 4 mission. It will also be a good way to stay active in EVE without having to always run missions or mine. Missions are still fun, especially when done with a fellow pilot, but I can’t grind them day in day out.

So it’s off to the market and to set up my trading empire. I did a quick Google search for trading guides, and it came up with some rather basic ones. If anyone knows of a good one, be sure to comment. My plan is to start slow and just get a feel for the local system, setting up a few basic orders and seeing how it goes. I believe with my current skills, I can set up something like 50 orders, so that should be enough to cover the ammo market at least. I’ll also have to see what fittings are popular and offer a decent margin. I’m sure plenty of mistakes will be made regardless, and hints or tips are appreciated!

Tech II Large Hybrid Rails, coming soon to a Rohk near me.

As my time in EVE continues, I’ve finally determined my next training goal, tech II large hybrid rails. With the price for high meta tech I rails being as crazy as they are, and with the price of tech II rails dropping, it makes a lot of sense financially. It will also be a nice DPS boost for my Rohk, which should make more level 4 missions solo-able, and increase the speed in which I finish the ones I can currently run.

With the recent addition of 3 CCC rigs to my Rohk, I finally feel comfortable with its shield tank (running a X-L tech II booster), and the 5 Vespa II drones are more than enough to deal with any frigates during missions. That combo means only the most severe situations could result in my ship being scrambled long enough to get blown up.

With the tank and anti-frigate handled, its time to focus on taking down the big stuff before they crack my tank, and tech II rails seem to be the answer. Sadly I’m still quite a few days away from being able to use them. Currently I’m training large hybrid rails V, with I believe 8 days left on that training. Then I have to buy the tech II med rails book and train that up, followed by training tech II large rails. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me (no EVEMon at work), but when I last looked at it, I believe it was somewhere close to a month away. Not terrible, but not exactly right around the corner either. Hopefully all that training will be worth it however, and I’ll see a nice power increase for my Rohk.