Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Day 11 - next goal achived + some ISK made

I decided to stop search only for radars from now and experimenting a bit with possible fit for all-in one hi sec exploration ship.

Here is my Vexor:



As you may see it has probes launcher, codebraker, mwd, med armor repairer and set of med/light drones.


After finding and clearing 2 radaras; I eventually found GSO in dead end system with nobody in local. Normally, such a fit is not something I am happy to run GSO fit, but I decided to proced, since I certain I can complete it even it takes ages. I kept my fingers crossed that nobody comes in Tengu and overrun me.

It took 1,5 hours and caused me 2 rewarps, since I wasn't able to run MWD and rep for long enough to run away to save distance.

Managing aggro is a pain with such setup, even I have 1 rail guns strictly to shoot targets and invoke aggro. It is easy to get aggro by getting close to rats, but is difficult to get out of theirs range afterwards intact.

In any event I completed this Guristas Scout Outpost and got my hands on loot: Pithum C-Type Magnetic Scattering Amplifier. It canbe sold for about 40 million ISK, but what is more important, I got it dome with cheap ship with T1 fit and very low support skills.

As you may see, it is very much doable. With a bit of further training and swapping modules at station ,Vexor can be one of possible (not the best one tho) candidate for exploration vessel, especially on trial account.

There are 3 screenshots bellow show my Vexor working on 1st and second pockets of GSO and picking up loot.

Once again, I was lucky nobody was in system to compete. Very unusual, so I need to increase my DPS or get another, more effective ship.








And here comes loot for the day:






It is about 52 Million ISK.

Tip of the day: multi chars on one account

Every EvE account has 3 slots to accommodate 3 chars or alts as it commonly called.

Once you train your first char to the point when you can scan signatures fast and hack radars without any problems killing rats with drones, it may be good idea to train second char with the same skills and get the same ship.

If you get used to this technique already, you may log off after scanning the route couple of time and instead watching movie, log in with another char and scan another back water area.

Switching between profiles while signatures respawn here and there can make your revenue accros a board significantly improved.

Creating multi chars single account has it's cons too. You can't train 2 chars in the same time. So you have to give up on development of main char for a few days.

But if you do so, it can pay off very nicely.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Day 10. Testing double boxing with Jack Pot at the end.

Today was interesting day. I had some stuff from radars as usual (not sold it yet):



Gallente Cruiser trainingup to lvl 2 completed , so I was about just assemble and fit Vexor to show you all-in-one hi sec exploration ship which uses drones as primary weapon and tanking with distance.

But it is not what my activity today ended up with.

Crossing bottle neck low sec system I decided to drop probes and scan in case I find something interesting. And I did: Guristas Scout Outpost. System had +11 in local, 2 or 3 were camping gate.

I made bookmark and went to pick up assembled and fully fitted as speed tank Federation Navy Comet.

I have trained another pilot on separate account to be used as damage dealer for demonstration purposes of double boxing approach for running DED plexes in hi sec and in low sec as well. The char was docked nearby in station and has fitted Daredevil. It was waiting just convenient moment to get out to space and use it.

Actually, I already tested both chars once on GSO already, got some nice loot (not counted toward CN Crusaider wallet tho), but it was just test and I didn't want to bring it before I reach the first goal of making 300 Mils to be able to buy PLEX.

So, I brought both chars to system, cloaked Daredevil near one of the planet and Entered first pocket with Comet.
Whole thing took about 20 minutes. I was straggling with fraps for a bit in the middle of clearing first pocket: EvE client just frozen. I aborted fraps, made some screen shots in the first pocket, restarted fraps again, and recorded few more clips clips and cleared first pocket.

The second pocket wasn't a big deal as well to get full aggro with comet, start orbiting around can and brought Daredevil. Destroying structure which drops a loot - so-called Telescope took probably around 3 minutes ( I will make more accurate report form another GSO).

Telescope popped up and I opened container. And this moment is most exiting part of exploration. What is inside? Hit or miss? Jack pot ot junk?

I had Jack pot this time:



Market value:

Pithum C-Type Medium Shield Booster - 370 Million ISK.

Pithum C-Type Magnetic Scattering Amplifier - 40 Millions ISK.

A bit of luck, proper skills, bookmark and it is yours.
Chances that it will be yours in low sec 10 times, if not 100, higher compare to hi sec, over populated with Tengu pilots, who don't even cant use t2 missile launchers yet.


I made kind of video with clips I managed to "frap". It took for me like 4 hours to put everything together and to upload to YouTube. Quality is not any good, I still sucks with video making, but I am getting better.


I hope you still can figure out what is going on.

Video


At this point, making and uploading videos, cutting screen shots, writing texts for this very blog, dragged me from playing EvE actually. Hmmm....





Fast ships as part of psychological warfare.

Once you are in plex behind the gate in low sec just a bit of caution and experience how to use directional scanner, you are almost invulnerable. Of course, low sec is full of trigger happy guys, and you may be scanned down and ganged. Sometimes it is pathetic. I had few situations when I run 4/10 with Ishtar and 3 minutes since I started battle ship and Falcon/Rapier popped up if front of the plex gate. BS even can't enter the gate tho.

But lets see at the situation when you run plex with Comet as tank and Daredevil as DD (damage dealer). from possible pirates in local. If they experienced enough, they can take chances, but also they understand 2 facts: 2 fast ships very difficult to catch up and both pilots are in NPC corp with just a couple of weeks trainings. They fly expensive ships, and may be (probably) alts of very experienced pvp/caribears running mission/plex. It can be set up and they can be fitted as heavy tacklers, fitted with tracking disruptors/sensor dampeners, who knows.

Obviously, they know what they are doing. It would be waist of time to go after them, probably.

Of course, some people may try, if they are bored of gate camping. But chances are slim.

But just imagine if you run the same plex in drake/caracal or even in Pilgrim?
They will be up to it 100%, to kill this "damn noob.

Been there on both sides, have t-shirt.

Doble Boxing: Part II - Damage Dealer.


It is right time to talk again about double boxing for exploration.

The Damage Dealer ship should be entirely focused on damage, since full aggro be aggregate by speed tanker discussed here already.

EvE has many ships with different purposes, including focus on damage.

But if we are talking about maximum damage for minimum skill points there is no choice but Daredevil. Even with mediocre skills it can deliver insane 200 DPS . Honestly, I do not know any other ship in EvE you can get such DPS with only less than 24 hours of training skills.

Daredevil has nice bonuses:

Special Ability: 200% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret damage Gallente Frigate Skill Bonus: 10% bonus to Small Hybrid Turret falloff per level Minmatar Frigate Skill Bonus: 10% bonus to the velocity factor of stasis webifiers per level

Fitting with blasters and webifier it can deliver incredible damage but only at very short range.
Moving from target to target to be in optimal range requires some micromanagement but it is easy to get used to it. It is not Dominix sitting afk with drones launched. And you can't fly Dominix within 24 hours anyway.

It is fast and lethal close range combat ship. The only problem with it: it is very, very expensive. It's price tag is about 95 mils ISK in Jita. Therefore, with steady revenue from radars you can afford it and it opens whole new area for exploration DED complex: Guristas Scout Outpost.

Here are fitting from EFT and skills training queue from EVE monitor:






You can go with this fit in hi sec straight away and clean for example Local Guristas Shattered Life-Support Unit Radar, while tanking it with Comet or Rifter. It will take a bit of practice to get used to piloting such fast ship, but I am sure you will get used to it very quickly.

I was training damage dealer on another profile. Well, it is not the way most people just started the game fill follow, but since my aim is to show how things can be done, I created and have trained char focused entirely on damage and low sec operation perspective.

Hi sec operations fit:



This fit is not cap stable when both MWN and webifier on.
But you don't need MWD all the time, so you should be just fine with cap.


Low sec for beginners with a bit of redundancy vs gate campers and ceptors :




once u get to the destination system, go to spot or planet, turn off warp core stabilisers, cloak and wait while your cap regenerated, uncloak, put Vortex Stabiliren on, cloak, regenerate cap, uncloak, put on second Vortex. Put Core stabilizers the same way back once the site is done.



If you have fat wallet ( I have), don't afraid to loose expensive ship or know how to scout in low sec this fit above is for you, It is tight, but do not require any modules switch on/off, cap stable fast and agile.

It is a BLAST! (especially for 6 days old char)



It is weak, due the fact we depend on second ship for tanking, so I do not recommend you engage any pvp combat with it. Run away or cloak at the first sign of danger.









Sunday, July 4, 2010

Tip of the day: Pencil is your main tool

And if it has notepad nearby it isthe best tool .

Make a route (preferably circle) of 10-15 systems. And scan all signatures in each system at least up to 25% to see what this signature is.

Each signature has own unique ID. Write it down along with "Group" of signature. If it is not radar, skip it, unless you want to scan "Unknown" further to 75% and find out is it combat plex or WH.

It will takes may be an hour, or two or may be three, but when you get to the starting post, you will have complete list of all signatures in systems along your route.

To figure out if there is new sig ( spawned in system ) drop 1 or 2 probes with 32 AU covering whole system and scan. If there is new signatures in system, "ignore all other" and scan only new ones.

The second round of scanning your rout will be ten times faster and effective.

Once you get use to this, you can increase number of systems in your route. If there no, or only few new sigs respawned, take a break, grab some coffee, watch TV for a while or serf Internet, reread this blog or fly to Jita and give away your hard made ISKs to scammers :-)

And scan all over again.

If this method doesn't work, it is a time to think about another area of your ops.


Signatures respawning mechanics.

You may notice that sometimes you find more radars in the same area when a lot of people online, on weekends for example. It may look strange at first glance, since more explorers flying around.

Explanation to this is quiet simple.

If radar (or any other cosmic signature) was cleared in system A it respawns in System B (or even again in A). So, more radars cleaned around, more spawns in new systems, and possibly in area, where are you flying.

The main question people still debating where and when is the system B.
I have read and heard many speculations, rumors, theories , explanations and wild guesses how it works.

Just few examples of what you can find on forums:

Signature cleared in system A will respawn:

- in the same Constellation;
- in the range of X jumps from current system;
- the nearest system with the same Security Level;
- randomly in region;

and dozen other scenarios

I never saw a single comment on subject from CCP. And this is understandable. Want to farm plexes and radars? Find it yourself, if you are clever enough.

We run some tests in regions with limited number of systems in hi sec, as well as in low sec.
Well, respawning mechanics is not simple.
I have my own view on sites respawnings, but it is more guess rather than proved facts.

In any event, space is not static, and new cosmic signature can pop up in the system you just scanned 5 minutes ago.

On the last note: Down Time clears some signatures (72 hours old or so) and brings new ones.
In other words, plex in back water system will not be there forever.

Lets put aside complexity and presume common theory that radar (plex) cleared in system "A" respawns in system "B" imminently is good enough to be used as guidenence for our exploration venture.








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