And I get some incursions run

With most of my research tower worries handled, it was now time to work on that "getting iskies" thing.  One of the problems with when I went to 0.0 the most recent time was that I was hull rich but iskies poor.  So time to resolve that.

Was nice to get in a decent fleet.  Painful running against Ladytomohawk in the same system though.

Well, I was still in the area see...

So I log on last night.  I figure a quick scout of the ice system (since I hadn't gone back to base yet) and I'd probably head back and do something else.  The scout however was promising.  One other Mak/Orca combo mining.  Not a lot of trafic in the system.  So either the gankers have moved on or I was just being overly cautious the night before.  Either way, I decide "Well, since I'm already here and I do want a bit of a buffer...".

So I log in the alt, have him warp the Orca over to where I've positioned myself, swap to the Mak and get mining.  The mining is just the way I like it.  Uneventful.  By the end of the evening I've got a load full of Glacial Mass (178 blocks with my current setup) and I head towards a refinery.

This time I pick the correct refinery (0% loss + 0% tax) and my ice is converted into Hydrogen Topes and assorted other ice products for the trip home.  Switch the Orca to travel mode (translate this into: swap the Extended Cargoholds for some Inertia Stabilizers).  Then it's autopilot both the Claw and the Orca (with it's integral Mak) back to base.

Note to self - since the Orca itself is running with a tractor beam and a salvager (not to mention the drones necessary to take care of the rats involved) I really don't need to haul around a specific salvage vessel.  So next time I log the main and the alt in - swap the Thrasher for a Cheetah.

Humm, Might want to refit that Thrasher as an AC Thrasher since I'm rather beyond the needs of a salvaging destroyer.

I also did the old runaround with the main and the alts picking up the PI from my planets (I've been mostly remembering to re-start the extractors on a regular basis).  Got the stuff dropped down to the manufacturing planet (21 advanced 1 high tech and a launch pad).  Picked up the previous batch of T2/3 product and started a batch of fuel blocks.

This should bring my reserves for my research tower up to 2 months reserves.  (I still have 2 weeks burning away in the tower) and I should only need about oh 20-25 more days before I finish all current research and can take the tower down.  So the remaining Hydrotopes should be reserved for carrier operations and I can start building up reserves of that.  The rest of the Oxytopes (and I have a lot) I can start converting into fuel as my PI volumes allow.  This will eventually build up my reserves for my Gallente towers.

But all of that is PI and not ice mining for the most part.  So this should free me up to run after high sec incursions.

My spyder sense is tingling

I noticed a rather suspicious ice system yesterday night.  With the oft delayed start to Hulkageddon and general ass-hattery pilots like the goons prefer to engage in I decided rather than simply get down to ice mining in my chosen system (that is totally devoid of ice miners - that's usually a clue right there) I decide to do a bit of scouting first.

Note to self - yes a Claw is a rather convenient ship to bounce around high sec in - goes like stink and all - but for real scouting I might want to put a Cheetah in the Orca for those times where I simply want to scout out the area and lie dogo observing traffic patterns.

Humm, bunch of characters flying destroyers that are less than 20 days old and they are yellow sec status.  Along with other characters in random ships that could be used to acquire warp ins...  Humm their employment history is getting to be a bit repetitive (npc corp -> FW for a few hours ->player corp seems to be the usual pattern with variations).

*sigh*

This is EVE.  It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

I smells gankers.  Time to do something different for a bit.

Nice thing about being a Jack of all trades.  If I don't feel like dealing with ass hats when they have the advantage of mechanics on their sides - I simply go off and do something else.  Besides ass hats are usually part of the ADHD set.  Blueball them and they go away rather quickly.

CCP Devs - best devs

As usual the patch notes do not disappoint:

• The icon animations in the overview have been restored to their former constant-blinking goodness
• The Jukebox’s UI has been de-hosed.
• The input caret was sometimes missing from the chat window. We found it and put it back.
• Keeping your mouse still over the overview will now release the sort-locking. People interested in having the sorting remained locked are advised to either hold down a combat action key (lock or look at, for example) or strap a vibrating device to your mouse.

Mind you it was never really with the devs we had the issues last summer.  Head up ass executives - yes.  Devs - no.  Of course you realize that having mentioned the last option in point 4, I wonder how many of EVE's players will actually go out and try that...  I'm willing to bet large quantities of isk that there's at least more than one.

Apparently I'm in need of a break

I seem to be happy to just do some PI and skill flip and then do some other games for right now.  I'm not going to push it, I don't feel like shutting down, just taking it easy for a bit.  I'm going to go with my feelings on this one.  I've pushed in the past and had burn out issues, so older and wiser than before, I'll just take it easy.

Hunh.

I hook up with an old corp-mate

So Mord Fiddle (of Fiddler's Edge fame) and I get chatting in the pub R.H.I channel.  We're both up in high sec atm and he says he needs some ice for his tower.  Lookie there I'm all setup to mine ice lately.  So I figure we might as well hook up and mine some ice since I've got a full blown Orca booster.  Not to mention chatting in fleet makes the ice mining go faster.

So yesterday we agree on a system to work together in and after we log in, we meet up at the agreed upon system.  We then spend the time it takes me to fill up my Orca mining ice in system.  I do belive I scared the crap out of some locals mind you with my habit of using interceptors to find a likely spot in the ice belt then warp the Orca there and switch to a Mak using the ship maintenance array. 

Some advice for newer Ice miners:  If you're going to be going back and forth from the belt (i.e. you're not jet-canning and you're not transfer mining), then it's better to fit cargo rigs and expanded cargo-holds.  The reason is that the loss of cycle speed up by not using ice harvester upgrades is compensated by only flying to the station every 3 cycles instead of every 2 cycles.  Maks naturally take forever to get to warp.

Meanwhile my alts are all chugging away at the high sec PI.  We'll need to see if it drives me mad before I can get a decent amount of robotics out of it.

The plan for the weekend?  Get back in incursions.  I want to get back up above a billion in liquid isk before I go shopping for a new 0.0 corp/alliance.

Back to base

After two nights of ice mining - not much I know but I can always get back and carve off some more.  I headed back to base.  Most of the evening was spent kick starting my PI stuff again.  At least this time my main and my primary alt didn't have to re-seed the planets.  I hadn't bothered killing my high sec PI in order to do some 0.0 PI.  The situation was not optimal in 0.0 to get involved in that (nothing to do with 0.0 per see.  Everything to do with the alliance organization and operational patterns and requirements).

Most of the evening was spent chatting with various people.