Well that was pretty inconclusive

Last week's preparations having born fruit, I was now ready to move my tower into it's new home. The weekend started on Friday night with some heavy hauling. The usual run around and buy some fuel. I have a nice reserve now. This was followed by getting an alliance member to use his freighter to haul about 2/3 of the stuff while I hauled the rest in my Orca to the jump off point. With a fresh wormhole, and some escort, I was ready to add our 5th tower to the system.

I proceeded in with the riskiest part of the operation, the initial anchoring. That went on without incident. With the corp hangar array installed and online, it was time to move all the supplies, ships and remaining POS modules in. In the end I moved in 388k m3 worth of POS, ships and supplies.

And after 5 Orca transits, the use of a hauling alt and one trip to pick up a ship assembled in station all that was left was to anchor and online the initial defenses. In a side note, I apreciate the offer of one of my newbies to help out but a) he wasn't in my corp which imposes some logistical constraints and b) at 11k m3 hauling capacity he'd be more of a hindrance than a help.

Saturday was mostly spent onlining more stuff at the POS, sending the alt back to the high sec base and doing T3 project administration on my alt. Many people turned in shares in the project for shiny T3 ships and subsystems. There were many happy pilots in the alliance on Saturday. I also managed to get some production planned out and had my alt load up his hauler with the necesary resources to execute this plan once he reached BBW.

Sunday consisted mainly of continuing the anchoring of industrial modules in the POS and starting up some of the T3 production aluded to on Saturday. This included the manufacturing of a Loki subsystem for my own Loki.

As is usual with a new fit, I was using a suggested fit from someone else (subsystem wise) and didn't like it. So I switched out the defensive system a few weeks ago and liked the shield tankyness of the loki (PvE permatank style). But futher jiggering and noticing the massive leftover PG meant that I could do better. I got rid of the LSE and substituted a large cap battery II, that improved the cap situation to the point where I was about at the same cap situation as before but with 2 Gyros instead of no Gyros. Less buffer, and about the same tank with more gank. A much improved fit. But still with a massive PG leftover.

I then turned my attention to the engineering section. Some comparison pointed out that there was another engineering subsystem with the same effect on the high slots as the current one but with much better power distribution. Substituting that one in EFT allowed my modified fit to become cap stable. This is the subsystem I proceeded to manufacture Sunday evening. There's a story about my going out to fit that subsystem, but first some discussion about the propulsion subsystem.

I currently have the Loki Propulsion - Chassis Optimization. This is the top speed chassis. But I'm not liking the lack of maneuverability of this subsystem. Especialy on an afterburning PvE fit Loki. I suspect I'll be manufacturing myself a Loki Propulsion - Fuel Catalyst subsystem to try out and see if I like it better. The good news is that this will not change the rest of my fit at all. Once I find out if this is indeed the subsystem/module load out I'm looking for in this PvE version I'll probably rig it (most likely with shield resistance rigs possibly with 1 shield extension rig) once the patch hits.

Now for the most inconclusive PvP encounter (I can't realy call it a fight) I have ever had in EVE. So I finish manufacturing my subsystem. Jump in my Loki, shove the oven fresh subsystem in my cargo hold and check overview. No HIC on scan although there is an unknown Drake. I shrug as there are no bubbles on scan that aren't our own and head off to the wormhole. Sure enough there was a Drake at the hole. Now I'm at the hole, so it's not like I'm in any danger. But sure enough he locks me up and starts firing. Humm opportunity to test my tank and gank. So I reciprocate and light up the guns.

Within 2 minutes it's evident that we're not going to break each other's tank. One of my newbies tries to warp in and apply some extra DPS since I did get him down to 40% shields. But his Myrmidon just didn't last long enough before he had to warp off. Note that when I started orbiting the wormhole with my afterburner on, the DPS from the drake dropped so much that I was effectively at 98% tank for the fight. It would stabilize at 90% if I stood still. Not that in reality either of us was in any danger since we were fighting at the wormhole. Remember there is no jumping delay for agro at a wormhole. You simply jump out if you're withing 5km if it gets too hot.

/me shakes his head.

Talk about dipping your toe into the shallow end of the pool. Why even bother to go into a wormhole system just to sit at the wormhole...

Anyways, since it's a stalemate I decide to go on with my buisness and get my subsystem fitted. After a conversation in wich the Drake pilot tries to get me to come back for some 1v1, I point out that we've effectively established that we can't break each other's tank and that I wasn't going to waste any more bullets. I do like the tank on my Loki though. When I get my 2nd one and fit it properly for PvP it should rock and roll. More gank and a proper PvP fit (i.e. a point) should make things more interesting. But still the Loki is definitly an impressive ship. It's definitly arround the powerlevel of a T2 battlecruiser, with more maneuverability and a smaller native signature. Once the price comes down to reasonable levels it should prove to be very competitive with the likes of the Sleipnir and what not.

The last engagement of the evening happend against a much better Drake pilot backed up by a Myrmidon (or was it a Brutix?). Again a wormhole engagement with very low risk for all sides. But between a Loki, a Dominix and a Cerebus on our side, the other side was chased away. I must admit that we went into this engagement simply with the intention to chase them off rather than sucker them deeper in order to kill them. The jump out of this drake pilot colaped the wormhole so we'd see no further harassment that evening. We were getting tired by this point. Once again using my PvE Loki in a PvP situation, I came out nicely impressed by it's tank.