Break Even & Profit!

So as of yesterday's Jita run we are in the black! Corp wallet breached 4 bil, albiet briefly before I bought a month's POS fuel, but we're free and clear of what we put into this venture.

Did I mention this is an operation run by two guys? :)

I decided to consolidate PI a little bit by getting rid of Silicate Glass, Nanites and Biocells, and converting those planets over to the production of Mech Parts and Consumer Electronics, which will keep our Robotics production going full swing. I just trained up yet another PI alt, so we'll have a total of 11 characters running PI.

Before our Jita run yesterday, our B274 had opened up 38 jumps from Jita on a high sec pocket. I was able to roll the hole with the Orca and our new high sec was......ONE JUMP FROM JITA! I got everything loaded into the Orca and transported and sold as quick as I could, and quickly closed the hole again before it was noticed.

We also had two combat sites and two ore sites spawn, so I was in a hurry to get our statics secured so we could finally do a real mining op in relative peace. I got my mining ships ready to go.....when a new sig popped up.

CURSES!

So over I headed and found a K162 frigate only from a C3 with a null sec static. Sleeper wrecks were on scan, but no ships, or active POSes, cause let's face it, no one lives in null sec static wormholes. I hung out for a bit, but no one ever came to claim the wrecks on scan, so I'll never know what went down. So I came back through and put a bubble on it. Back to mining!

We hit a Common Perimeter Deposit, and it was the first time Thulium had seen asteroids of this size. I was calculating the value of each roid as we bit into it and he was really surprised. We happily chewed away with two Hulks and a Covetor while Jelloshot hauled in the Miasmos.

Until yet another sig showed up. Off we warped.

Finding the K162, it turned out to be a low sec entrance with only a 750k mass allowance. Piece of cake. Only two guys in local, one of which was probably the scanner. So I passed the Orca through twice with it's AB on, and the hole went crit. As the Orca passed back through, a HAC showed up on the outside. I was present in my Purifier stealth bomber, certainly no match for it. The Cerebrus sat around, so I warped in my Devoter fit for wormhole closing. Heading out I turned on both interdictor spheres, rendering the ship down to the mass of a small frigate. As Nyslia appeared outside, an interceptor joined the Cerebrus. But it appeared they couldn't decide what to do. I waited out the 4 minute polarization timer, jumped my bomber back inside,  I turned on the battleship afterburner and jumped the Devoter..

But the critical wormhole did not close.

Crud. I'm pretty sure my math skills were adequate. Oh well, we'll see if they come in. I cloaked all my ships and waited, watching the wavering event horizon in critical mode flicker. After the Devoter's timer went off, both spheres on and jumped back, right into the waiting arms of both ships, still sitting there.

I'm not sure what these guys were really planning on doing, but I decided to jump back quick, so turned on my AB and.....30 second timer? Somehow in all my jumping, my timer calcs were off, and now my Devoter was uncloaked and under fire from a Cerebrus and an interceptor. I turned on all my armor fittings and my EHP rocketed over 100k. 25 seconds to go.

The ceptor webbed me, but the DPS they had just wasn't going to break the tank, and they barely scratched the paint. Back inside and the hole closed, so we got on with our mining.

Couple hours later and we had all the ore worth mining, and it tallied up to 250 mil in ore. I onlined a compression array, and can't wait to haul it out next Jita run!

Tagged & Bagged

I logged in the other day to run my PI when I saw an Epithal on scan. I mostly ignored it, keeping an eye out for anyone that may have been with him. I found the incoming hole from nullsec he was using, and then he'd jump out my B274 high sec static. Jumped out myself and found only a few jumps from Jita. Saw him and found yet another Russian corp. They love Eve don't they?

Well this is a nice transit point for him, isn't it? I reshipped into my Purifier.

I caught him on the nullsec side of my wormhole and reduced him to a isk quantifiable piece of rapidly cooling metal. His pod warped off, I figured that was the end of that.

Until I saw the same pod transiting my wormhole again. This is odd. Again, the pod flew across my wormhole.It almost seemed like the guy was being botted to shuttle PI from nullsec. So I logged in Nyslia in her Devoter.

The next time the pod jumped to nullsec, I took his corpse home. A buddy of his in a Probe appeared, and he reshipped to a Hawk Assault Frigate.......but would not stick around to fight.

So I'm plugging away at PI, trying to find the sweet spot between P2 and P3 manufacturing.

Forgotten Heathen out.

Interesting Developments: Law of Percentages

Well, I and the POCO owners worked out an amicable settlement that didn't involve me hiring a merc corp and their people staring at the endless void of our wormhole. I got a 3% tax rate out of the deal, and I'm happily pulling in tons of PI resources.

But before that occured, I and their corp were playing cat and mouse games all over the system. I was mostly the mouse, but I tried to be the cat a couple times. No ships were lost, but my Pilgrim and Onerios got a little singed, but so did their Sleipnir.

I logged in the other morning and hit DSCAN. "Small Caldari POS??" Aw cmon! I thought the POCO owners had decided I needed to leave, so I got out my cloakies and investigated. There were also sleeper wrecks on DSCAN, so they must be running my sites to piss me off. I found the wrecks and a Mobile Tractor Unit at one of the Data sites.

Hopping over to the POS in my Anathema scanning ship, I found a lone Iteron V, or whatever the new name for it is. I'm going to keep calling it that, dammit! Anyhow. The gent was in a different corp than the POCO owners guard dogs, but I figured it was just an alt, especially since the corp name was like "Russian Corp of Alts" or some other nonsense.

While I was busy scoping out the POS and the open wormholes, I found numerous members of the enemy corp around, especially my Sleipnir buddy. If you'll remember, one of my rules is DO NOT FIGHT Sleipners. Of course I broke the rule, but I did it sitting on top of the B274 wormhole, so I was safe. But the enemy corp was flying all over the system, and a Caldari Cruiser wreck appeared on DSCAN. Hmmm.

At this time, the POS had no defenses, and I considered dropping some damage on it, but then the Russian Alt unanchored the ship maintenance array!. He then scooped it up and offlined the shield.

I quickly reshipped in my Purifier and headed back over. He started the unanchoring process and logged out. The 15 minute timer counted down.........

Well this is weird, I thought to myself. I expected more competency from these guys. There was no one on guard duty, and I never did see any of the enemy pilots at the POS......

So fifteen minutes later, I had Nyslia in the Prorator waiting cloaked for the POS to finish unanchoring. Right on time, the Itty 5 pilot logged back in and headed towards the unanchored tower. I uncloaked, and one volley of torpedoes blew him in half. Again, I was a little startled, thinking there'd be at least a shield mod of some sort. Off shot the pod and I scooped up the small POS, money in the bank.

I figured the enemy fleet would arrive.....but nothing happened. I decided to chance it with the Prorator again, and lo and behold, the Ship Maint Array survived, along with fuel and stront and Sisters probes.

Scooping that up I quickly got out of dodge. Then the enemy fleet dropped off scan for awhile, so I grabbed my two Zealots I pulled out of high sec to replace my Legion for the time being, and went and cut the Mobile Tractor Unit in half. I gather he hadn't been able to do much of the site, as there wasn't much in there and another wave spawned when I killed a couple of the sleepers.

So later, during discussions with the POCO owner, I found out that the small POS was not theirs, and they had destroyed the ship that had been running the data site. I guess it's all risk versus reward, and the risk caught this gentleman this time. Law of percentages.

Forgotten Heathen out.

Forgotten Reloaded : Return to Wormhole Space!

I finally did it, I'm back home! I moved into a C2 with C1 and high sec static last night!

Everything, of course, was not so smooth. The seller and third party were fine, I just had Eve luck.

After finding out the system, I was only 11 jumps away, but the seller said the hole was EoL. Crap!

I jumped into my Anathema as fast as I could, followed by my Prorator with the new tower in it. As I jumped into the system, the seller said the wormhole collapsed.

Doh!

He probed down the next one and it was 28 jumps away.....on a high sec pocket behind 2 jumps of low sec.

Double doh!

Oh well, I know how to scout, shouldn't be a problem, and it wasn't. Got my tower anchored and onlining. Seller noted a Helios from Outer Ring, a wormhole corp, coming out into the high sec. Alrighty, ought not to be an issue.

I probed down my area, and had three wormholes, one leading to dangerous wormhole space, so a C4 or more. Checking the C1, it had a low sec static, so no real help there. Looks like I'd have to wait to get the majority of my gear in. Figured I'd online the tower and get some fuel in it and be done for the night.

Tower online, force field up. Done.

Fast forward three hours and I was done gaming for the night so I decided I'd check on the tower before I headed to bed. And found three people shooting it......

Oh FFS. An Ishtar with Garde 2s, a Nemesis, and a Hyperion. Well either they have more coming, plan on packing a lunch, or are trying to just bait me out. I voted it was for bait.

Well, I wasn't going to combat them with what I had in the hole, and I had no guns or ECM with me, so I tried the age old bluff. It didn't work, references to my corp killboard were made. Oh well. I know our killboard sucks. Hey, at least it has SOME kills.

So I snuck the Prorator out and over to Amarr for some heat shield hardeners and at least a bit of stront.

Got back, anchored and onlined the heat shield hardeners. This effectively killed the Garde's DPS. The Nemesis swapped out for a Phobos and bubbled the high sec entrance. Well, I guess I'm done with trying to run in stuff. The Hyperion joined the Phobos on the hole as I watched them with my Anathema.

Hmm, so an hour into this and there's these three visibles and a Buzzard from the same corp. After the onlined hardeners, they weren't going to be hurting the shield anymore with the Gardes, so they'd have to come up with more firepower to crack the shield, so I was no longer worried.

Decided to log everyone off except Forgotten in the Anathema and loaded up Netflix to watch some Fringe while I waited for them to give up, move the Phobos off the hole so I could get in with more shield hardeners for the EM hole, or for them to muster up an actual POS bash fleet, which this wasn't one.

About an episode in they all disappeared off DSCAN, I'm assuming back into the dangerous wormhole. All their bluster for nought.

I got the Prorator back in and managed to scout in a load of guns, fuel and stront in an Itty 5, got the guns, neuts, webs and scrams set up so I was no longer just a wormhole pinata and called it a night.

Logged in today to find no sign of intrusion, but three more inbound and one outbound wormhole! Sheesh, I hope this isn't a normal occurance in this wormhole constellation.

I can't wait to get my equipment in and start in on PI! This wormhole has perfect full PI, so I'll be exploiting that to the best of my ability, which should generate a steady income of isk.

The POCOs are all set at 7.5% tax, and are owned by an extremely small corp, so I'll either try to buy them, which I'm not sure how that works, or I'll fit up some bash battleships and get rid of them one at a time.

Looking forward to wormhole exploits again!

Forgotten Heathen out.

Wormhole Planetary Interaction is BEST Planetary Interaction!

So I've been screwing around with some low sec PI in a pocket close to our base of operations. This is the first time I've seriously done any PI other than wormhole PI in YEARS.

AND IT SUCKS!!

It doesn't just suck, it blows. Horrendous chunks. Like after you've drank WAY too much. If there's anything that is going to make me run screaming into the next wormhole I see and collapse it after me, it's this.

The extraction rates are garbage. Compared to low sec, high sec is a barren wasteland. Compared to wormholes.....there is no comparison. The only analogy that comes to mind is trying to go fishing in the Sahara.

 The existing player POCOs (Player Owned Customs Offices) are set on ridiculous taxes. The lowest I've found is 13-15%. I move my items up from the planet, 15%. I transport them down to my High Tech planet, 15%. I bring the finished product up, 15%.

I seriously considered going and getting my battleships and blowing the ever loving snot out of the low sec POCOs, and SERIOUSLY considered war deccing the high sec ones. Really. I was that annoyed.

I'm seriously running numbers in my head every single time I do a transfer and compare it to how much extra I'd have in a wormhole with my own POCOs. I am just jettisoning isk into space at this point.

But can I maintain even a Class 1 wormhole mainly by myself and still maintain a casual Eve playstyle? The answer I continue to give myself is a resounding no.

At this point, I've been logging in an average of every other day for PI running and a mining op. Last night I and my corpmate Thulium mined out an entire belt so I could continue to produce cap ship parts for our eventual Providence production. In the amount of time I didn't log in for 24 hours, my POS could have been sieged and coming out of reinforced as I logged back in.

I guess this is why I quit Eve last time I tried to play it casually: you can't play Eve casually if you have a knack for only doing things the most efficient way possible. I feel like I'm playing Eve wrong if all I do is run high-low sec PI and mine high sec asteroid fields.

My other option is to join a wormhole corp. There are probably a lot out there that would have me. But, is there room in serious wormhole corps for casual players? I know I made allowances for them, but I'm not a normal Eve corp director. And honestly, I think I just want to make things run smoothly too much, I'd just annoy whoever was actually in charge.

Well, it's something to consider, anyhow. I'll keep on keeping on.

Forgotten Heathen out.

The Flame Wars Have Begun, They Have

So as we all know, Crucible came out yesterday. And I'm sitting here running numbers on these Interbus Customs Offices, and I'm pretty appalled. According to the screen, it's a 17% tax, and from what I'm reading on the forums, that's on market value of what you're moving. So as someone who normally has extraction and separate production planets, we're going to be taxed 34% of the item's market value before it even can become the final item....or, god help you, if you need to move it to yet another planet for P3-P4 production......yeah, that was me you heard screaming in anguish.

So PI is about to skyrocket in price. This is both a good and bad thing. Good for those of us who can replace these terrible Customs Offices with our own and get rid of this ridiculous tax, bad for those stuck in high sec who I hear are paying a 10% tax, which is still fairly heinous. So the prices raise to compensate. But wait? What's this? The tax is raising based on market prices? So you can never keep up. And high sec, and probably low sec, PI producers are going to be run out of business either by inflating prices on the tax end, or the competition who doesn't have to pay these taxes in null areas who can undercut them by leaps and bounds.

I thought CCP employed an economics expert?

So after only a single day of watching it cost me 4 mil just to move my robotics offplanet, I decided I needed to get moving on these damn offices. I bought 10 BPCs from a gentleman who was taking pre-orders, so they're already sitting in Jita waiting for me. And after doing a bit of math, it's going to cost near 100 mil per office I need to put up. So I have an extra PI character I haven't gotten around to putting anything down on, so I'm going to tool him up some planets to produce all the P3 and P4 products I can't either already produce or can't buy for decent prices. I also put some buy orders up for P4s, but the .001 isk pirates are having at them, and I don't have the patience to play that game anymore.

Short term plan: buy P2 products my wormhole does not produce. Set up chain for production of these P2-P3s, then all eight of the P4s. I want a production line ready in case someone does manage to kill one of our customs offices.

I also just contracted a freighter run worth near 1 bil to Jita, but I think I'm going to sit on it for now and see where prices go while we're not hurting for isk.


EDIT: While looking at Dotlan and seeing no jumps, but finding an extra wormhole, I assumed either jumps hadn't shown up yet, or the extra WH was an outbound. Then, while screwing around with PI on Eve-eye, I found this underneath where it counts jumps.

Jumps have been removed from API and are unavailable
for wormhole space after CRUCIBLE expansion

How did I miss that in the patch notes?