Preparing for Incursions

As I got home from work, I did the usual PI (now planning on manufacturing a medium minmatar control tower) run and then proceeded to grab an incursion fit for the Scimitar.  Noticed that what looks like a canonical fit is acr based instead of ccc based like my current 0.0 fit scimi.  So I decided to simply buy a new one and fit it out as indicated.

So off to jita and 150mil isk later I'm tooling back to my high sec base in my brand new scimi - 4 large repers and an ab and it's all cap stable - woot.  Noticed I can't use T2 logi drones and immediately slapped some skills in to begin addressing that.  Carrier 3 should finish as I sleep.

The idea is to see if I can get in on some Incursion action over the weekend.  Time will tell.

Off to bed for now.

Oh right, the two alts also had PI going...

PI is low-ish maintenance once it's up and running.  But getting it up and running?  Yeesh.  Have the alts on a 4 day cycle.  I'll see how that works out when I have both toons contract their PI goods to my main and simply use the main to either do the further processing or selling on market.

Also did a run to Jita to get rid of more trash.

Not much else to say, everyone seems to be in the "get ready for the patch on Tuesday" mode.

More carebearing... And some rust... Lost of rust...

And I just reactivated one of my alt accounts.  In celebration I went and found a grav site.  Well more like I found it and then decided to celebrate my alt's re-activation with some light mining.  For those who are just stumbling onto my site for the first time and might be newbies (or PvP pilots - same thing as far as mining goes).  Gravimetric sites are exploration sites that contain mine-able asteroids.  The particular site I found was supposed to contain Kernite as well as the Omber, but obviously someone else wiped the Kernite before I found it.  Well waste not want not.  I killed the Omber to de-spawn the site.

I will note that once again DA RUST is showing.  Talk about embarrassing.  So I get to the site.  Start mining.  Damn!, a Myrmidon is on grid.  Ok, switch to my combat ship.  Face palm.  Oh right.  Need to offline the lasers and empty the cargo hold before the switch will happen cleanly.  so there's my hulk, sitting empty in space floating serenely when the rats come on in and wouldn't you know it target my hulk!

-.-;;;

Well THIS is most embarrassing.  So I get my alt to launch drones and take care of the rats while I shove the Loki back in the Orca my alt is flying and scramble madly to get back in my Hulk.  Good thing Low SP Myrm pilots are not likely to have hulk skills or someone would have been justified in sneaking off with my Hulk.

It's the little things.

The earlier part of the evening was spent finishing the setup of PI on some nearby planets and getting a T1 hauler of the appropriate cargo space/maneuverability setup so that I could finish off the work started yesterday.

Datacore run and some PI

So, last night I worked on my datacore situation.  It hadn't been as long as last time so the isk was less.  But it did allow me to setup another level 4 R&D agent which is the max there is with core complexion in high sec.  The 5th slot was occupied by a level 3 agent.  This brings my total of agents up to 5.  This should help out on the passive income stream, while I get to work on more active methods.

I also finished "bunkering up" for some T1 manufacturing runs.  This means having a mix ratio on hand that is good for most manufacturing tasks.  I like to run an inventory of 4000 Megacite at "bunker full" state with each mineral below that x4 the one above (so 16k Zydrine, 64k Nocxium, and so on down to 16mil~ish Tritanium).  Although the ratios are off for any specific faction manufacturing run, in the aggregate it works out quite well as a good "bunker" ratio.  What runs out first depends entirely on what I've been building and it allows me to pump out at least 2 BS without having to calculate "do I have enough materials on hand".  The idea is to build what you want then put up buy orders to re-fill the bunker, taking advantage of the buy/sell difference instead of simply deciding to build something and buying the minerals at the `sell` price.

Last but not least I got 2 planets of PI going to get some PI materials going as well (might as well, I`ll be in high sec for a bit after all.  I just setup a cheap high cycle (20h) one extractor setup.  Going to work on some math to figure out "at what point is it worth destroying the extraction head and buying a new one else where".  We'll see. 

I'm also starting to organize things among some pilots I know to get a core Logistical group together to go run some incursions after the patch.  The idea being that so long as 3-4 of us have Logi 5 and we have some DPS we trust, it is relatively easy to get DPS to run vanguard sites.

We'll see how those plans go.

Inter bus shuttles are going for HOW MUCH?!?

As I was cleaning up my inventory of "stuffs" I decided to look at the value of some of the one off stuff I've collected over the years.  Most of it are not worth moving for the moment.  But then I saw the Interbus Shuttle - only difference is a 20m³ cargo bay vs a 10m³ cargo bay.  It's going for over 200mil on contracts!.  Load up the Prowler with a bunch of meta 4's and that shuttle and haul ass to Jita.  Do the usual "cloak thru Uedama" on the way and there we go, iskies to replace the iskies spent getting the Minmatar Carrier skill.

A bit of light exploration and some Noctis work later and I hit the sack.  Going to have to do a datacore run soon as well.

Nothing knocks the rust off like...

Well no, I didn't get a kill mail or loose a ship.  I did manage to brown streak a Pilgrim.  Here's the story of how a neutral Mammoth pilot got a really good laugh:

So, I decide to do a bit of exploration in the area I'm hanging in high sec.  Hummm, 2 wormholes in the same system.  Must be a Saturday.  So I switch to my cloaky Loki.  Warp to and take a look at the first one.  Nope running out of time.  Probably not a good idea.  So I warp to the next one.  Humm, time left but the hole is abused.  As I sit there cloaked about 3500m off the wormhole, a Mammoth warps up and jumps!

Decloak.  Jump!

And this is where the predictible script departs into keystone cops land.  I spot only one ship on the overview and I: aproach->target->point->f1.  Then I notice it's targeting me back?  That's when the ship type registers: Pilgrim.  Then my initial volley slams into it.  Bang no more shields!  While my artillery are cycling, he jumps out.  I do believe I managed to panic him quite effectively.  Unfortunately he took the wormhole with him.

Doh!

So now I'm sitting dumb and vulnerable without a quick exit.  My wormhole reactions kick in.  Cloak and move off the spot in case he has friends on the way.  While my brain is still in "evasive action" mode, the Mammoth uncloaks and warps to his tower.  This is where my time away from EVE shows.  I did not react fast enough to lock and tackle the Mammoth.

Stupid rust!

So then the conversation in local starts up.  The Mammoth pilot thought I was with the Pilgrim.  And I thought the Pilgrim was with the Mammoth pilot.  Lord knows what the Pilgrim pilot thought.  So we had a good chuckle at the keystone cops routine and I inquired whether that wormhole that just went poof was the static.

"Um... please tell me that was your high sec static..."

"yea it was"

"Oh good"

Of course now my course of action is clear:  Scan my way back out to high sec.  Shouldn't be too much of a challenge.  While I was scanning the center of the system, my friendly Mammoth pilot mentions some combat probes and a Buzzard on scan.  I comment that he probably had a good laugh at what happened, then settle in to find my way out while the Mammoth pilot logs out at his POS.

The scanning down of the exit (of course, it's the last one I check), got my scanning skills knocked back in shape rather quickly.  Getting the old D-scan habits back in shape and what not.

So eventually I get myself back to k-space and start chugging back to base, with little to show except for that all important experience and no ship losses to show for my mistakes (bonus!). 

Later on in the weekend I managed to get out all the way to Vale of the Silent in order to un-snafu a manufacturing slot that was stuck in F-D49D.  Kind of quiet there.  Only ran into 1 bubble camp with no campers and another gate that had a sling bubble that didn't interfere with my travel plans as I approached the gate from a different celestial than was intended.  Manufacturing slot un-stuck. 
BPC and stuff trashed (just 35 x 10mn Afterburner I's so don't freak out - just not worth the hassle of selling to the Russians or Raiden.) so it doesn't clutter up my assets.

I also had a quick convo with my CEO about future plans and the fact I would not be coming back down to 0.0 until I built up the isk and got myself a suitcase carrier.  Not to mention I need to get at least one alt account re-subbed for the cyno alt.

Slowly waking up after a summer's break.

Pardon the dusting

Hey all (or hey the 3 who still have links to this blog)!  As those paying attention to my comings and goings know, I've been logging in quite a bit for very short stays lately.  And although there's not much in the way of industrial changes in EVE, there are quite a few new fixes and what not coming in the next patch.  This leaves me with an important decision coming up.  Do I get active in EVE again or not?

As you all (or the 3 of you as the case may be) know I un-subbed my alts and moved all my assets back to high sec in order to skill flip wait out the fall and see what the winter brought.  As my post about destroyers indicates, I am still paying attention to what goes on development wise.  I still say CCP is in full blown panic, knee jerk reaction mode, but it looks like some long standing issues are getting some love.  I feel sorry for the CCP employes who got the axe over the summer but "Pride goeth before the fall".  And the little guys pay the price.

I will point out that the dev production since REALLY pointed out how much EVE development has suffered with CCP's concentration split between the two other games.  I hope for their sakes they can get DUST out the door without an entire year's delay (Me has PS3, me want BETA).  While I'm on the subject.  Allow me to point out something to the absolute IDIOTS in charge of the Nex store.  It is not that Incarna will eventually be useful to EVE.  It can be.  The way you introduced it and marketed it, however...  What drugs were you on?  I also fail to see why you guys were so attached to introducing a horribly flawed secondary micro transaction system when you already had possibly one of the best micro transaction systems in gaming (talking about PLEX here - would someone please explain to Hilmar that PLEX IS Micro transactions even without the NeX).  Your players are far from stupid and they WILL call your bluff.  8% reduction in subscriptions (the number I've heard somewhere) since the high point should point out the true cost of these miss steps to your game and hence your company.

Meanwhile let's get back to the decision point. Here's my current situation:  RHI basically imploded and left Cascade Imminent [FAIL].  Yaxi is rebuilding it and has joined Cascade Probable while he does this.  I'm still in RHI, but my previous experience with 0.0 life has left me with the issues that unless a corp/alliance is prepared to support non-cap pilots properly, living in 0.0 is not only rather difficult but actually costs more than it brings in.  Definitely compared to life in wormhole space.  So, I'm currently rather leery of that since I still don't have even a suitcase carrier.

So the question is: has CCP done enough with it's winter patch to address things and justify coming back.  And if I do, my choices are:  Stay with RHI and give another crack to 0.0 where my options are severely restricted or go and do something else that will build up my isk total as opposed to drain it.