Sentinel on Scan!

I had just completed the 2/10 DED site in Heild and picked up a Gistii module worth 14 million isk, so I figured that would pay for a couple frigate losses.  I went looking for targets.

There was an incursus flying around with a relatively new pilot.  I almost caught up with him at the sun a couple times and also at the DED site.  But zigged when I should have zagged and we never were on grid at the same time.

Then I saw a sentinel piloted by Erick Odin (an experienced pilot) at the DED site.  I've never fought a sentinel, so I looked to see what it was as I warped in with everything turned up to 11 on my slasher.  It's an electronic attack ship with bonuses for energy vampires and energy neutralizers.  Hmmm...  We'll see how this goes.

I landed a ways away and started burning towards my prey.  We both targeted each other and I set my orbit and activated all my modules.  Immediately I heard that calm voice say, "The capacitor is empty."  That didn't take long!  My autocannons continued to fire, but I was doomed since none of my other modules were working...  I blew up.

GFs were exchanged in local and Erick Odin offered me the modules that had survived the slasher's destruction (he had no room in his sentinel since it was packed with cap boosters...).

Personal Death to Flying Things Campaign score: 16-41-1

It's a Trap!

So I had a jump clone and a rifter (just one) in Eugales.  I decided it would be a good idea to pick up both of them and move to somewhere that I could use them more.  And if the rifter blew up on the way, so much the better.

I stopped in Dodixie to do some business then headed out on a roam.  I jumped into low sec via the Jel/Egghelende gate.  That jump still gives me chills up and down my spine.  As a 2 week old character (not Jack Dancer - it was my explorer alt) I picked up a level 2 mission (or something) that required a delivery to Egghelende.  I put the package in my Iteron II and hoped for the best on my first trip to low sec land of pirates.  Instead of good luck I was destroyed, podded, and decided to change mission agents... Jel/Egghelende is a scary place!

But back to this story.

I passed through Egghelende without trouble and in Siseide saw a procurer (a mining barge) and a condor in an asteroid belt.  I assumed the condor was destroying the barge, but just to be sure I immediately turned everything up to 11 and headed that way.  I landed near the procurer and instead of fleeing he just sat there while I approached.  Excellent!  Though, at the time it seemed a bit odd...

I attacked and was amazed at how little damage I was doing.  I then remembered reading something about mining barges having their defenses buffed.  And this one might have been especially buff...

At about that time the condor arrived and there were hobgoblin drones flying around everywhere.  I tried to target the condor, but he was 20k away and using some sort of voodoo so that I couldn't target him.  I was in a tough spot.  I tried to burn away to get out of range so my warp drive would kick in - but no luck.

I held on longer than I thought I would against the drones, but eventually I blowed up.

I made a couple obvious mistakes.  One was not running from what was obviously a trap (though losing a rifter worth 6 million isk isn't really a big loss... so I'm not sure this is a "mistake").  Another was not targeting the hobgoblins.  They were doing all the damage and I should have tried to destroy them.

So it goes.

GFs were exchanged in local and my Death to Flying Things Campaign score is currently 16-40-1.

Wow, that was quick...

I was up on a Sunday morning and hadn't had my morning coffee - but I thought I'd see what was happening in Heild as the coffee was brewing.

I took out the new slasher to my safe scanning spot and looked around.  A daredevil at the Plex - no thanks.  An industrial at a POS - no luck.  A merlin at the sun.  Yes.  That's the one I'm looking for!

I turned everything up to 11 and headed to the sun at range (my strategy was to orbit at 6k and destroy the rascal with barrage ammo).  I arrived with a finger poised over the Ctrl key in anticipation of locking my unfortunate opponent.

False alarm.  The neighborhood of  the sun was empty.  So I started scanning around to see where the merlin might be.  As I'm doing this CraftyCroc arrived in that daredevil I'd spotted earlier.  Since I was trying out a new ship and since one of the goals of the Death to Flying Things Campaign is to shoot stuff for experience rather than glory - I attacked.  I knew I had little (none?) chance of surviving.

From the start my plan didn't go very well.  CraftyCroc had craftily landed right on top of me - he must  have selected the same range as I had.  And my attempts to orbit at 6k were not going well when I noticed that we were inside 1k.  I think a daredevil might be a bit quicker than my slasher...

Plus there was the damage he was dispensing from his light neutron blasters  Things appeared on my screen like:

• CraftyCroc (Light Neutron Blaster II) hits you for 370 damage

And...

• CraftyCroc (Light Neutron Blaster II) hits you for 402 damage

YOW!

Not surprisingly (just 21 seconds after I first hit "approach" to initiate combat), I blowed up.

GFs were exchanged in local and I went back for another in a never ending line of ships.

Death to Flying Things score: 16-39-1

What's Up?

While you might not know it from reading this blog - I have been pretty active recently during the past month.  Mostly losing rifters (7) and a thrasher (1) while killing a punisher.  Not a very good ratio - but it was fun.

Lost twice to the famous Sard Caid.  The most recent loss is here at the 2 hour 34 minute mark on one of Sard's videos. It's fun to see a fight from the other side - and actually have time to see what happens during that minute of mayhem...  Thanks Sard!

Jack Dancer is down to just 3 more skills to complete the Infamous Rifter Plan.  Propulsion Jamming will be at 5 in a couple days, then Acceleration Control to 5 and Shield Management to 5 and I'm done.  A bit less than a month of training for those three skills.  Next up will be Assault Ships.

Jack Dancer's Death to Flying Things Campaign Score: 16-38-1

Start Practicing!!!

Yarrr!  Matey!  Tomorrow (that be today to you lubbers in the down under) be Talk Like a Pirate Day! (Wednesday, September 19th)

Jack Dancer - Rabid Killer

I had a few minutes before heading to bed, so I decided to check out the 2/10 DED site in Heild and see if I could find some trouble.  The site had recently been cleaned out, so I headed to my scanning spot and looked around.  There was a Slasher on scan.

The Slasher is a Minmatar frigate (like the Rifter) that has recently seen some improvements by CCP.  I've thought about flying one to see what they are like, but this seemed like a good chance to check it out from the other side.  I used d-scan and found the Slasher at the sun.  With everything turned up to 11, I headed there at top warp speed.

Rollstone was waiting for me.  We circled and started spewing hot projectiles at each other.  Things went well for my Rifter in this match and the Slasher blowed up!  \o/


     Jack Dancer > gf
     RollStone > gf
     RollStone > moar?
     Jack Dancer > Sure.

I patched up the rifter (it was a bit burned from overheating and the shields and armor needed repairs) and headed back to the sun.  Rollstone was waiting for me - this time in a Rifter.  We again circled and the result was the same.  His Rifter blowed up! \o/ \o/

GFs were again exchanged and we spent some time chatting about builds and implants until he had to head to lunch (it's always amazing how worldwide Eve can be - Rollstone lives in Japan).  I'm sure I'll see Rollstone around more since he said he's based in Heild now.  I look forward to it.

It was nice to be in the winning side of a fight for a change!  Personal Death to Flying Things Campaign Score: 15-31-1

Jack Dancer - Business Man

In some ways I’m very different from the typical Black Rebel.  I seem to be a better business man than rabid killer of innocent pilots… 

I often hear of people having trouble earning isk to pay for their PVP activities.  Let me help with some of my experiences earning isk - I currently have four “money makers”.  Listed from least profitable to most, they are:

• Datacore Farming
• Exploration
• Planetary Interaction
• Station Trading

Datacore Farming

This is an incredibly “hands off” method of isk generation.  I’ve set up one of my alts to be able to work with a level 3 research agent somewhere (I can’t remember where) and every few months when I think of them for some reason I go and collect the datacores that he’s produced.  Training the skills takes a bit of effort and time – but once it’s set up there’s zero daily maintenance.

This used to be more profitable than it is today (CCP made some changes that affected datacore prices).  So I probably won’t take the time to train my alt so that he can talk to level 4 agents.  But I might.  We’ll see.

I wouldn’t recommend this as a isk generator.

Exploration

In a huge contrast to Datacore Farming – Exploration is a very time intensive “hands on” method of isk generation.  I have succumbed to the siren call of exploration on occasion and have spent days and weeks devoting most of my Eve time to it.  So beware!

I worked up the appropriate skills on one of my alts so that I can fly a cov-op frigate (helios) and a heavy assault ship (Ishtar).  With them I can ramble around high/low/null space looking for hidden DED sites.  These require the use of probes to discover and then a ship appropriate for fighting the rats that protect the sites.  There are other sites too (radar, magnetometric, etc.) that can be profitable – but not to the extent of the DED sites.

My best haul from a DED site (in high sec!) was about 500 million isk.  I’ve had a couple of those.  On the other hand I’ve gone through a dozen DED sites in a row and collected a total of maybe 20 million isk from all of them.  This activity is very much like gambling – sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  You have to be prepared for extended dry spells.  And they can be brutal - you sometimes wonder if you'll ever find anything of value.

I find exploration to be a fun activity, and have always enjoyed the gambling aspect of life – so it’s a good match for me.  But beware – it can become so much fun that your PvP skills might get neglected…

Planetary Interaction

A new one for me is Planetary Interaction (PI).  I trained an alt so that he can fly a blockade runner (viator) and about a month ago set up 5 planets to produce whatever it is they produce.  I’ve focused on producing robotics which appears to be the highest priced, highest demand item.  My planets are all in low sec in a back corner of a quiet region.

PI is tricky.  I watched some youtube videos, read some webpages, and thought I could sort things out.  It wasn’t that easy.  I’ve made some big blunders.  You need to be sure that the customs office associated with the planet has a reasonable tax rate (not 100% like one of the planets I selected!).  You need to be sure that your set-up can reach the minerals that you need.  You need to be sure that you aren’t producing too much basic stuff so that your system gets clogged and stops.  You need to be sure you visit relatively often to keep your extractors extracting.  You need to…  (You get the idea…)

I don’t have a handle on how profitable this is.  But I do know that the viator’s cargo hold (3750 m3) full of robotics sells for about 30 million isk.  How often I can produce that and get it to market is still undetermined.  But I generally get the feeling that it’s going pretty well.  I’ve filled up a couple viators and have more robotics waiting to be gathered and hauled to market.

The time requirements are hard to categorize.  Every day I spend 10 minutes resetting my extractors to continue extracting materials (these extractors work on a timer, so I think it could be set to as long as 2 weeks if you don’t want to mess with them very often).  Plus every few days I mess with my production facilities to be sure they’re making what I want them to make and are getting the materials they need (often they aren’t).  Plus every week or so I gather the robotics that have been produced and haul them to market or to a central station for storage.

I’m still very much a beginner at this.  My facilities often go dry or I forget to set up a supply link for one of their needed materials, or I produce too much of one item and not enough of another.  It’s complicated.

But it also seems to be a “hands off” isk generator generally.  I can check every day for a few minutes or just let it run for a few days without checking.  Either way it’s churning out robotics components that can be sold for a profit.

Station Trading

I’ve spoken about my station trading multiple times.  I drifted away from it a few months ago, but now I’m back.  It’s paying for the two PLEX I need for my two accounts plus adding to my bottom line every month.  I’m up to about 3 billion in cash+buy orders+sell orders and have generated about 50 million isk per day over the last month according to my spreadsheet. It takes about 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening.

I’ve seen people say that they don’t have luck at station trading and can certainly understand that.  Finding profitable items can be tricky. 

Here’s what I would suggest: Start an alt and put them in Jita (you often hear that other markets are better for beginners, but the volume of Jita trades makes it a great place to get your feet wet – you’ll get fast action). Be sure you have enough trade slots available (I have about 40) – you want to diversify. 

I would recommend starting by trading implants.  Look through all of them (there's a lot!).  Find some that have a 30% difference between the buy and sell prices and also have a relatively large number of trades every day.  There are a lot of profitable implants (and a lot of unprofitable ones too).  Your goal is to find 25 or 30 profitable items to buy (the other 10 or 15 of your trade slots will be for your sell orders).  Put up buy orders to purchase at least 3 but probably fewer than 15 of each implant on your list - depending on their price, their profitability, their demand, and your bankroll.  I started buying and selling 200k items and now have a few buy orders for things costing 45 million isk.  You need to ramp up your activity depending on your bankroll.

I can do 10-key by touch, so there’s no hunting and pecking.  My usual routine is to go through my list in the morning updating the buy orders to be .01 isk higher than any other buy order and updating my sell orders to be .01 isk lower than any other sell orders.  I don’t worry about someone else coming along and beating my price by .01 isk because with the volume of activity in Jita my order will work its way back to the top pretty quickly (and even if it doesn't, I'll be updating it 12 hours later).  In the evening I do the same.  20 minutes each time.  I definitely recommend this isk maker if you can spare the time from your PvP addiction - though I also recognize that this sort of bean counting isn't for everyone...

-----------------------------------

That’s it for isk making ideas.  Of course, if you are totally devoted to PvP it might be worth buying PLEX instead of wasting your play time with any of these options.

For more information on all of them, I’d recommend the wiki of our wonderful good fight friends at Eve University - http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Main_Page