Greetings my fellow corp men, women, & blog readers!!!
If given a choice to either run plexes for isk or go lose some isk pvping?  I would gladly choose the later of the two.  NPC AI just bores the snot out of me.  I equate it to my early arcade game experience with Pac Man (yes I am dating myself).  Once you discover the correct route (or tactic) against the computer, you cannot fail.  It is just a matter of repeating the same course of action again and again that dictates success.

However meeting another player will never reproduce the same fight or outcome.  It is just human nature.  We adapt to overcome.  So in each engagement, though we may have particular tactic that works most of the time, we must be prepared that it may not work.  This is what makes pvp exciting.  You always have the anxiety of the unexpected, and the thrill of success or the disappointment of failure.  No matter which you experience you learn from it and then desire to go at it again.  Probably more so in defeat, if only to prove to yourself… that won’t happen again!

Such has been my experience in 0.0 PVP.  As a person who got his start in pvping by wormhole hunting, 0.0 fleet fights have proven to be a whole new animal.  In wormholes I am usually the one picking the time and location of a fight.  It is almost always a quick hit at run fight.  I try never to be caught in the position where I do not have the advantage.  I like to think that I have been pretty successful at wormhole hunting.  Here is an example where my corpmate Purity called me in for some assistance while we were exploring in a wormhole.  He had just been forced out of a worm by some stealth bombers and a Vexor.  He was able to kill one of the stealth bombers, but was taking too much damage, and had to jump back out.  He informed me, as I jumped to his location, that they had a bubble anchored on the wormhole, and that he had a session timer on the wormhole.

Tactically I understood it would be my T3 Strategic Cruiser vs a T1 Cruiser and 1 or more T2 Stealth Bombers on a wormhole.  Emperor’s Wraith II has good resists, cap stable with an active tank, and ignores the effects of warp disruption bubbles.  I’d be on a wormhole so if things got too bad I could bug out.  Things would have to go really bad for me to lose her.  Evaluating risk vs reward I crossed my fingers and jumped through.  On the other side I took note of a Nemesis Stealth Bomber, and the Vexor.   They sat outside of the edge of the warp bubble just past 24km.  Just outside the range of my T2 Pulse Lasers.

I broke cloak, activated my resists and armor repairer, and began locking both targets.  Expecting bombs I did not activate my MWD so as not to increase my signature radius, and thus increase the incoming damage from the bomb or torpedoes.  As I acquired my targets in came the first bomb.  I took relatively little damage, the Nemesis now warp disrupted exploded rather quickly.  Another Nemesis decloaked, was locked and promptly destroyed.  Keeping an eye on my armor showed that the Wraith’s tank was holding, and was ahead of the damage.  A Manticore appeared and was dispatched.  I then turned my attention to the Vexor.  She was at the edge of my disruption range so I pulsed my MWD (turned on, then immediately off) and headed in its direction.  Already target locked, it was just a matter energizing the disruptor and guns.  As the shields disappeared on the Vexor and I started into its armor, another Nemesis appeared near the Vexor on the edge of the bubble.  In came another bomb.  I quickly locked the Nemesis, and made the decision to transfer guns and warp disruption onto the Stealth Bomber.  I knew I’d break its tank before the Vexor’s.  I wanted the guaranteed kill.  Additionally it was closer to my escape route and I had already ordered the Wraith to approach the wormhole.  It was obvious I had kicked a bees nest, and they were ready to defend their home.  The Nemesis was quickly reduced to a floating wreck and the pilot podded.  Unfortunately the Vexor, which must of have been aligned to jump out, was long gone.

Now I clearly got lucky in this fight.  My corpmate Purity stated after the fight, “They must have been the worst stealth bomber pilots ever.”  He only observed the fight via ventrillo and killmails.  I would like to think of them as inexperienced or unlucky.  The mistakes they appeared to have made are ones I might have made myself back when I first started flying Stealth Bombers. (cause I’m such an expert… I might have one killmail with one!)  First the stealth bombers were equipped with Remote Sensor Dampeners with Targeting Range Dampener Scripts, and not Target Painters.  Emperor’s Wraith targets out to 68km.  If you halve that target range they were still well within targeting range.  Target Painters would have increased bomb and torpedo damage.  Second when they made their bomb approaches they were not aligned to immediately warp out, or were in their own warp bubble.  This allowed me to lock, point, and explode them.  I believe this may have been a result of jumping to the wormhole or attempting to jump to range off their Vexor friend, and thus they got pulled into their own bubble. (***Tip*** If you are going to use bubbles and Stealth Bombers set a “bounce” or “tactical” bookmark so you can warp to the wormhole without getting dragged into the bubble.  Then have a bomb run bookmark set off the wormhole but in a position that you can align past your target during your bomb run.  You can warp through a bubble on grid, but not out of it.) Third, the Stealth Bombers decided to conduct their bomb runs and/or start their attacks at different times.  This allowed for my repairer to catch up on any damage taken.  Had they used the same type of bombs at the same time they could have dropped all 3-4 bombs at the same time (bombs have high damage resists of the same damage type for just such purposes).  Heck coordinating their attack might have made those Remote Target Disruptors effective?  Sometimes you are the fist… other times you’re the face…  I got to do the punching this time.  Again I think I got really lucky in that fight…  A few things go the other way, and I’m running out of that wormhole. (Total SI Radio Damage)

SO on that high, I decided to join an impromptu pvp roam with our Noir. friends with my corp mate Purity.  Again, I am a wormhole pilot so 0.0 pvp is a whole new experience.  Not wanting to risk a T3 ship to learn a new game, I asked them what I should fly? (I know what Manasi would say T1 frigate until you master it!  Sorry I’m not that smart.)  I offered up the Pilgrim Force Recon Ship or the Sentinel Electronic Attack Frigate.  As speed was the thing of the day, it was the Sentinel.  I figured I could help with a point, turret disruption, and maybe add a bit of energy neutralization.  I had brought three Sentinels down to Providence to practice and learn.  E-War is a part of the game I am trying to wrap my head around.  I have to admit I have far too many skill points in it, and nowhere near enough experience to effectively use it.

Have I mentioned that is why I love EVE?  Unlike other games where your character’s strength is based mainly on your character’s level, EVE skill points are not the deciding factor in an engagement.  Low level players that know how to fly their ships will crush a high skill point character in pvp.  IMHO that is the reason players that enjoy the “carebear” aspect of EVE have such heart burn when they get ganked in pvp.  They can’t understand how a frigate can kill their battleship setup that crushes level 4 missions?

Back to the roam…  So we head out of our pocket, and begin moving down the pipe looking for some targets.  Now I have to give the Noir. guys and gals some credit.  They allow us SI Radio guys to join them on roams when they are not on contract and hunting outside of their pocket.  They are very proficient and knowledgeable when it comes to small gang pvp, have great communication discipline during a fight, and do not tolerate stupid ship loses (especially from their members).  After each roam, they debrief and do an after action report (AAR).  They expect us, SI Radio guys, to explain our loses too.  Their FCs take it personal when anyone in their fleets loses a ship, and feel in part it is their fault (but we SI Radio guys will admit it is usually our own damn fault).  I applaud them for their tolerance of our ignorance of pvp.  They inform you of the correct way to do things, and then they treat you like an adult and expect you to get it right.

Well needless to say… their tolerance was not sufficient to make up for my ignorance.  As we made our way to I7S-1S we came across another group of ships.  The Noir. folks decided that they were most likely fit for short range damage.  The FC laid plans to bait them at a gate, and engage them at range having E-War superiority with a Falcon on our side.  My performance can only be described as, “I am the worst Electronic Attack Frigate pilot ever!” First, my fitting included a warp disruptor instead of a Senor Booster.  This meant I had to be within 49km of an enemy to use my turret disruptors, instead of being as far as 67km.  Second when I warped “at range” to our bait ship on the gate I did not jump close enough, and began to burn toward the melee to get within targeting range (be aware of what your optimals are btw).  Only to have our enemy, who were speeding toward my position, quickly over take me, and proceeded to disassemble my ship.  The first barrage from the Rupture sent me well into armor…  I panicked tried to align out and did not warp out till I was in my pod. (Boy do pods align out quick or what?!?!)  Did I mention I am very proficient at catching fists with my face?

As I sped back to the pocket in my pod, I enjoyed listening to the conflict unfold via ventrillo.  In the end both sides disengaged, with isk loss ratio going in favor of the other gang.  This battle report is missing the Noir. Falcon that went pop.

Fly Safe… Stay Profitable…

Ag

Next Report: Really it is all CCP’s & the CSM’s fault…  Really…

Greetings my fellow corp men, women, & blog readers!!!

***Disclaimer*** This guide represents the way I go about scouting out Wormholes.  The loss of any ship while attempting what is discussed below will be your own damn fault.  It also assumes you know the basic mechanics of exploration scanning. (Exploration Guide & Exploration Tutorial)  Any reference to a noob is merely tongue in cheek reference to the author’s own repeated mistakes.

So now that you have some of the basics of wormhole scouting… how do you put it all together?

Step One – Find a Wormhole

Warp to it cloaked, and bookmark it using the wormhole (right-click in overview, Bookmark Location) and not a spot in space, this insures a warp to 0m bookmark that lands inside the jump range of the wormhole.  When you warp to the wormhole, land far enough away that you will not become uncloaked.  It is not uncommon to land on a wormhole and find a ship sitting idle beside it.  Just like a gate in Null or Low Sec you have to consider what is on the other side?  You also must take into account what kind of space are you currently in?  High sec allows the benefits of chasing someone in and offering an easy escape route if things go south.  This easy escape route can also be used by a potential target.  Pilots new to exploration often like to hug the wormhole like a safety blanket.  Upon entry into a wormhole a ship will be generally within distance to immediately jump back out of the wormhole. (***Warning*** Jumping through a wormhole begins a 4 minute timer.  During that timer you will only be able to jump through that wormhole once more, and will be unable to jump again until it expires.) There will sometimes be a small window of opportunity that may allow you to bump (MWD or AB) into a target to shove them off the wormhole.  This usually occurs when they uncloak immediately having driven off the wormhole or they are too busy looking at the system map while scanning.

I used this exact tactic by following an Orca pilot into wormhole space.  The bump did two things.  It kept him from aligning out, and got him out of jump range.  This allowed me time to get a target lock and point him.  By making continues runs to the wormhole then back into him I kept him out of jump range of the wormhole, and I pounded away at his shields and armor (I told you my T3 “Anathema” has teeth).  Lucky for the pilot I was in a generous mood and stopped at structure, and let him go (think of it as a form of catch and release).  As he departed, I mentioned that I wouldn’t mind if he could tip me for being kind?  The happy pilot, now safely back in High Sec, tipped me 100 million ISK.  He was very relieved not to have to explain to his corp how he lost their Orca loaded with POS fuel.  If you get the same chance, you could be looking at a 500 million ISK ransom or more.  If the pirate ransom thing interests you, I’d suggest you check out some of the pirate blogs on Crazy Kinukz blog pack.

If there are no targets sitting on the entrance to the wormhole, check the wormhole’s status and signature (you may want to do this prior to chasing a target into a wormhole).  Things to consider; what kind of space does it enter into, are there any signs of traffic (i.e. has its mass has been effected), what are the mass limitations of the wormhole?  You don’t want to have your battleship gang show up, if the wormhole will only allows BCs and smaller.  You can determine all of this information by reading the information from the wormhole (right-click Show Info).  Using a wormhole web application you can check enter in the wormholes signature number.  This will tell you the mass limitations that can enter at one time (size of ship) and the maximum allowable mass that may pass through the wormhole. (***Warning & Advisory*** You will never know the exact amount of mass that has passed through a wormhole, unless you are certain you are the first person to pass through it, and keep eyes on it.  A wormhole will collapse when the total mass that has passed through it has reached or has surpassed its limit.  Having armored plates increases your ships mass.  Taking such modules offline prior to passing through them will reduce the impact of your ships mass on the wormhole.  A MWD increases your ships signature radius, and may prevent your ship from going through a smaller wormhole when it is active.) If you are hunting mass isn’t as much of a concern, but if you are scouting it is vital information.  The key word in all the descriptions is “critical.” If you see this word it either means that the wormhole’s life span or total mass has fallen below 25% of its starting limits.  The wormhole is relatively fresh if you see in the wormhole’s description, “This wormhole is beginning to decay, and probably won’t last another day.  This wormhole has not yet had its stability significantly disrupted by ships passing through it.”

If you are in a ship that is a scout, you need to insure your gang has the bookmark to the wormhole.  One of the most frustrating things that can happen… You finally find some targets, but because you didn’t pass on your bookmarks to your gang you have to de-cloak and jump out to get them.  Only to return to find that your targets spotted you on their Directional Scanner while you made one of those jumps, and now they are safely sitting in a POS force field.  I recommend that your gang always have the bookmarks up to the wormhole you are working in.  For you fleet types… operate as a +1 scout in wormhole space.  This +1 recommendation only applies if you are actively scanning wormholes.  If the routes have already been scanned down, bookmarks should already be available to the fleet, and you can scout farther ahead.  Having a corporation storage can for wormhole bookmarks is a MUST for wormhole operations. (***Reminder*** Be sure your corp mates know how to take & make copies of bookmarks from a can.  BTW you can only copy or move 5 at a time!)

Step Two – Jump In

There are a few things you need to do immediately after jumping in.  They need not be done in a specific order, but all should be done before your initial jump in cloak is gone.  Bookmark your entry wormhole (your People/Places tab should have already been open noob!) Don’t worry about the name you can change that later, when you’re safe.  Look to see what is on or around your wormhole?   Scan the system using the Directional Scanner (it should have been open too… gawd you noob!)  Insure you don’t have “Use Current Overview Settings” checked.  Yes this will show everything in system such as moons and planets.  You want to know if all the planets in the system are within range of your location.  If they are, you will know immediately if there are any player owned structures or uncloaked ships in space (Assume there may be some cloaked).  If there are planets missing from the scan then you know you must make additional warps to get them scanned.  This is what I like to call, “passive eyes on” the entire system.  I do this prior to launching probes.  Finally, begin to burn away (MWD/AB) from the wormhole, and activate your cloak.

Step Three – Get Passive Eyes on the Wormhole

Check to see if any custom offices are present.  If, on your initial directional scan, you have not observed all the planets in system, then warp around the system cloaked until you have.  Be sure your directional scanner is set to maximum distance of 2,147,483,647km (or simply fill the Directional Scanner Range box with all 9s and it will default to the farthest range).  All signatures spawn within 4 AU of a planet.  Any potential targets should be within Directional Scanner distance of a planet.  The Directional Scanner should be used on the entire system, before you attempt to determine the location of any targets currently in system.  Why?  Because situational awareness is critical!  In known space (k-space), a pilot has local to determine how many other pilots are in system.  In wormhole space (w-space) you do not.  The last thing you want to do is engage a target only to have 5 of his buddies land on top of you.  It is not unusual for a group of ships doing multiple sites at once, particularly in class 1&2 wormholes.

A check of the entire system, with the Directional Scanner, will also help you determine if there are any POS’s in system, and if it is online (the Directional Scanner will show a force field present if it is).  By locating all POS’s you can do several things.  First, by clicking on the POS you can see which corporation is present, and by checking their information tab you can see its member strength.  Second you can determine the most likely location your targets will run to when you engage them, or in that rare case that they are able to determine you are in their wormhole.  If they don’t run back to the POS, odds are that they ran back to the wormhole that they entered from.  With miners, the POS will be the location where their hauler, Orca, or Rorqal will most likely be.  Solo miners will have to jump back to swap into a hauling ship, otherwise the hauler pilot will be sitting idle inside the force field.  The POS is also the likely location for any AFK pilots as well.  By putting eyes on the POS and bookmarking it, you will be able determine this type of information.  In the case of miners, I will often watch to see how they are collecting their ore.  If you are working in a gang with access to your own hauling ship, you can time this pick up run, then walk away with a killmail and a full can of Arkonor or Bistot as well.

If no ships are observed on the passive scan of the wormhole, then it is time to probe out all the Cosmic Signatures for another wormhole to hunt in.  You should also be using the Directional Scanner.  You can get one to two directional scans while you wait for your probes’ results.  Be vigilant of your surroundings at all times! (Unable to scan down wormholes with combat scanner probes?  Skill up noob!)

Combat ships with wrecks or mining ships with cans are what you are hoping to see on the Directional Scanner.  It is now time to go find your prey.  To this end the directional scanner is still your friend.  By reducing the angle of the scan and the scan range we can determine which planet our target is closest to.  (***Tip*** You can use the F-11 Key to Open the Map Browser.  Four displays will appear.  The solar system display will show your location in the system and the angle your Directional Scanner will be scanning.) Be sure to use a pvp tab in your overview and check the “Use Current Overview Settings” box in the Directional Scanner window. (***Reminder*** All signatures will be within 4 AU of a celestial object.)

The following is general guide for AU distances:

1 AU = 149,597,870km (150,000,000)

2 AU = 299,195,740km (300,000,000)

3 AU = 448,793,610km (450,000,000)

4 AU = 598,391,481km (600,000,000)

5 AU = 747,989,351km (750,000,000)

6 AU = 897,587,221km (900,000,000)

7 AU = 1,047,185,092km (1,050,000,000)

8 AU = 1,346,380,832km (1,350,000,000)

14 AU = 2,147,483,647km (2,150,000,000) *Max Directional Scanner Range

If the target is a combat ship with wrecks we can still passively attempt to locate the ship using the System Scanner by conducting a sensor scan without probes (this will take 30 seconds per attempt).  All Cosmic Anomalies within 4 AU of your ship will appear.  We can then warp to each anomaly to see if our target is present.  If the target is not in an Anomaly or if it is a mining ship then we can be relatively certain our target is in a Cosmic Signature and we will need to use combat scanner probes to locate our target. (***Advisory*** Do not attempt to use core probes for this function.  Using Scanner Core Probes may result in multiple Cosmic Signature hits, and does not look for ships.  We want to find the ship not the signatures!)

Step Four – Probe Out Your Target

Before you drop probes attempt to use your Directional Scanner to determine what direction and range from the planet the target is.  Having a direction will tell you where to move your group of probes to scan.  When it is time to uncloak and drop your probes, the best location would be off of a planet outside of Directional Scan range from your target.  This will help you remain hidden. For smaller systems a location closets your target will make for short warp times to the target.  From there you can move your probes to the general location of your target.  Because you have a general idea of your target’s location you can start your scan at .5 to 4 AU range.  With luck you can have a 100% signal strength hit on your target with one maybe two scans.  Once you have 100% signal, bookmark the location and warp to the target at range.  Remember there could be a lot of debris you will have to negotiate to get to the target.  Additionally, once you have a 100% hit either recall your probes or move them to conduct a scan outside of your target’s Directional Scanner range.  If you are lucky, the target might have been lazy on his Directional Scans, and has not seen your probes during your probing attempts.  Once you have eyes on your target, I have three things that should dictate your actions:

Be bold… Be Brief… Be Gone!!!

One last tip before I go.  It is not uncommon to land 150km or more from your target.  It may not be possible to slowly move across the site cloaked in time to engage your target. (The target may be finishing up salvaging the site’s wrecks, and only have one or two more remaining.)  You can right-click in the overview, and bookmark the wreck.  This will allow you to warp out, and then return to an optimal range of that last wreck your target is about to salvage. (***Disclaimer*** Not that I condone you wait until the last wreck is salvaged, to increase the possible loot drop from your target’s wreck.)

Fly Safe… Stay Profitable…

Next Report: To Be… or Not to Be… such is the way of pvp

Greetings my fellow corp men, women, & blog readers!!!

***Disclaimer*** This guide represents the way I go about scouting out Wormholes.  The loss of any ship while attempting what is discussed below will be your own damn fault.  It also assumes you know the basic mechanics of exploration scanning. (Exploration Guide & Exploration Tutorial)

Ok so you want to put your exploration skills to the test?  There will be few things that you will need before you decide to venture into wormhole (WH) space.  The first will be the skills, second is the hardware, third situational awareness, and finally how to use all three to your advantage.  Lacking in anyone of these can only lead to the loss of another ship, and end up with an immediate clone jump back to your chosen station.  Depending on whether you are simply scanning (exploring) the wormhole or hunting (pvp) greatly affects how you need to go about the task.  I will explain in each section as to the difference, but stressing more of the aspects of hunting.

First the skills:

Astrometrics – Allows one additional probe in space per level.  At level one you will have the ability to use four scanner probes, at level five you will have the ability to field eight.  There is a lot of debate on how many probes that are needed to efficiently probe a signature down.  I have found that there is very little need to have more than 5 probes on field in either role of hunting or scanning.  While scanning a lot of folks feel that a five probe setup (1 central probe with 4 probes forming a box around it) helps to quickly identify the type of signature.  I have found that a simple 4 probe box setup to be the quickest way to get probes out AND scanning.  After launching the first probe the Expanded Probe Launcher has a reload time of 2 seconds and the Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher is 1.5 seconds.  This means that it will take you just over 4.5 to 6 seconds to attempt your first scan.  During this time you are visible on grid, and possibly have your ship identified on the Directional Scanner.  If you are only scanning a wormhole this is not a factor, but if you are hunting you would like to limit the amount of information the target has and limit the amount of time he has to react.  In other words the more probes you put out, the more time you are visible on the Directional Scanner.

Astrometric Acquisition – 10% reduction in scan probe scan time per level.  The faster your probes can finish the scan the better!  The ultimate goal is to scan down a ship with one maybe two scans.

Astrometric Pinpointing – Reduces maximum scan deviation by 10% per level.  The reduction of the scan’s deviation reduces the error in the signal’s position.  This limits how far that small dot that represents your target’s position will move between scans, and allows for you to quickly shrink down your box of probes and their AU radius around the target.  This can reduce the amount of attempts it takes to scan a target down, as you won’t have to back out to a larger AU radius because your dot just turned back into a large red ball.

Astrometric Rangefinding – 10% increase to scan probe strength per level.

If you want to hunt with probes all of these skills are vital (level 4+).  Additionally when you get them high enough with the appropriate equipment you will find that you can scan down 99% all wormhole signatures without ever having to launch a single core probe, and if your target is hiding in one of those sites, you’ll probes will find the ship.  ***Clarification*** This does not take into account if the ship is setup to avoid probes.

Cloaking III – Allows the use of the Improved Cloaking Device II.

Second the Hardware:

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II – For hunting this is the only cloak to have.  If you can’t warp while cloaked, you will find it hard to get to your target before they are gone.  For scanning any cloak will do.  Want to scan with no cloak?  Safe spots and aligning is all I got for you.

Expanded Probe Launcher I (Sisters Expanded Probe Launcher) – Required to use Combat Scanner Probes Rate of Fire 2.0secs (Sister Variant Rate of Fire 1.5secs & 5% Scan Strength Bonus)

Combat Scanner Probe I (Sisters Combat Scanner Probe) – Required to scan down ships Base Sensor Strength 20pts (Sisters Variant Base Sensor Strength 22pts)

Ships – The classifications of ships that can fit a Covert Ops Cloaking Device are:  Covert Ops, Recon, and Strategic Cruisers fit with the Covert Reconfiguration Subsystem.  IMHO the only choices for this role are the Covert Ops Frigate or the T3 Strategic Cruiser fit with the Covert Reconfiguration & Emergent Locus Analyzer Subsystems. (My links are Amarrian examples, as that is what I fly)  The frigate is the best choice if you are scouting for a gang.  If, you want to hunt solo, then the Strategic Cruiser is the only way to go.  I like to think of my current setup as an Anathema with teeth…  really large teeth!

Implants

Of all the equipment needed for scanning these are the least critical, however if you are one of those people that want to have the absolute best… then start saving now.  You will be looking at well over a billion to plug these things into your head.  Additionally there may be other implants that may serve your play style a lot better and a lot cheaper.  This is what I am working towards for my wormhole scanning/scouting clone.  It won’t be used to go on the random Providence pvp roams.  This implant setup represents the “officer faction fit” for scanners!  Dare to be bold pilot!

Slot 1 Low-Grade Virtue Alpha

Slot 2 Low Grade Virtue Beta

Slot 3 Low-Grade Virtue Gamma

Slot 4 Low-Grade Virtue Delta

Slot 5 Low-Grade Virtue Epsilon

Slot 6 Low-Grade Virtue Omega or Poteque Pharmaceuticals ‘Prospector’ PPF-2 (to be honest there is no choice the Omega improves the entire Virtue set)

Slot 7 Poteque Pharmaceuticals ‘Prospector’ PPG-2

Slot 8 Poteque Pharmaceuticals ‘Prospector’ PPH-2

Situational Awareness

Let’s face it… you just didn’t enter wormhole space to look around at the pretty stars.  You are out looking for a fight.  Either you are looking to reap the lucrative loot of Sleeper sites or you are out hunting for other pod pilots.  So it is safe to say if you encounter Sleepers or other pod pilots you are going to get shot.  The Sleepers won’t give up their spoils without a fight, and the other pilots are there for the same reason you are.  So you are either the hunter or you are the prey.  Which of the two you are, will be determined upon your skills to choose the time and location of the fight.  Sun Tzu said it best, “Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”  This is the essence of wormhole hunting.  When you operate in wormhole space the more you know of your surroundings the more secure you will be.  To this end you have many ways to get that information; the directional scanner, the overview, combat scanner probes, visual identification, and webpage applications.

Visual – Getting on grid with target is just the first step.  Once there you’ll need to gauge the best approach and best time to launch your assault.  Most attacks will be launched in wormhole sites.  When you land on grid you’ll be able to see the terrain.  Often you will land way outside of targeting and warp disruption/scrambling range.  You will need to navigate in, avoiding Sleepers, wrecks, asteroids, and debris.  (***Advisory*** How well you are able to see these things will be directly related to how you have your overview and overview brackets are setup.) It also is the way you’ll identify what classification of wormhole you are about to enter, and how much time you’ll have until the wormhole collapses.  A wormhole at the end of life or critical on mass is less likely to be the entrance point for other pod pilots.  A worm affected by mass, but not critical yet is a sign of traffic and possible targets.

Directional Scanner – The directional scanner is one of the primary ways to identify ships in wormhole space.  The “absence” of local keeps characters from appearing in the chat box unless they type in local.  To catch a ship may require the spamming of the scan button (every three seconds).  This can often produce the appearance of a ship with a cloak as it launches probes, enters or exits wormhole space, or accidently gets too close to object in space.  More importantly the directional scanner is a quick way to see what is in system.  Everything within 14AU will appear on scan.  This will be one of the primary ways of seeing probes in space.  The greatest reason to use the directional scanner is that it is passive in nature.  A cloaked ship can jump from celestial object to celestial object scanning, and be able to get a good idea of whether or not there are any available targets, player owned structures, etc.  In essence you can know what is in system without ever making your own presence know.  The appearance of sleepers wrecks usually means targets are in system.

Overview – The overview and its tabs are one of the most complex and frustrating things to learn to setup.  Just as missions running and pvp require their specific setups so too does wormhole exploration.  The most useful use of the overview is to assist you in your approach to a target.  You will need to see ALL the objects in space.  Getting to within 2,500km of any object will only result in you de-cloaking.  This can make for a cluttered overview, so I suggest that you setup one overview tab as an approach tab, and another for the actual fighting.  You should know that each tab has overview and a bracket profile setting associated with it.  The overview profile sets what icons you will see in the overview window.  The bracket profile determines what you see in space.  I prefer to have those things which I can collide with in the brackets profile, and players’ ships and drones in both profiles.  With the addition of Planetary Interaction you will now find custom offices on planets that are being harvested.  Be sure to add them to an overview.  Nothing better says… “Wormhole occupied!”

Combat Scanner Probes and the System Scanner Tab – Having discovered a possible target in space, that cannot be found using the Directional Scanner, it is now time to move on to the System Scanner tab and possibly drop some combat probes.  But before you go launching probes which can be seen by the target’s Directional Scanner, you may be able to find them in a Cosmic Anomaly.  By clicking the same button that causes probes to conduct their scan, so too can you use the ship’s sensors to do the same.  The scan will take 30 seconds, and will only find the Cosmic Anomalies within 4 AU of a planet (so you will not find any Cosmic Signatures or ships).  So it is possible to identify all Cosmic Anomalies in a system without launching a single probe, by jumping from planet to planet.  Used in conjunction with the Directional Scanner tab is nice way to totally surprise an unaware target.  If the ship is not in an Anomaly then you will have to drop combat scanner probes to find the target.  An additional advantage of combat scanner probes is that they can be used to scan down most signatures, and not just ships.  With my current skill levels I have no need to use any other set of probes to hunt in a wormhole.

Webpage Applications – There are few different websites out there that can be used to collect intelligence regarding the activity in a wormhole.  One in particular Wormhole Explorer works pretty well.  By using such sites you can see how many jumps have occurred into the system, and approximately how long ago ships, sleepers, etc have been killed.  So in one quick step you can tell how much activity has occurred in the current wormhole and what hours the inhabitants like to operate.

Now that you know what you’ll need…  in Part Two, I’ll go into how to go about using all these things to catch some targets.

Fly Safe… Stay Profitable…

Next Report: Agatir’s Guide to Wormhole Hunting… err I mean Scouting (Part 2)

The third Blog Banter of 2010 comes to us from ChainTrap of the Into the unknown with gun and camera EVE Blog. He asks us: "Eve University turns six years old on March 15th; six years spent helping the new pilots of New Eden gain experience and understanding in a supportive environment. Eve is clearly a complicated game, with a ton to learn, so much that you never stop learning. So, the question is; What do you wish that someone had taken the time to tell you when you were first starting out? Or what have you learned in the interim that you’d like to share with the wider Eve community?"

298 days ago, we set foot inside wormhole space for the first time. Back then it was a group of 8 friends, most of us with less than 10M SPs at that time, that had absolutely no idea about wormholes, no idea about PVP (some say we still don’t have a clue), and had turned all the ISK in our wallets into a Medium POS, some supplies and fuel to last about two weeks.

We dared to venture into the unknown, dared to be bold and embraced the sandbox of the EVE Universe. In EVE – YOU – control your own destiny.

During that time, we managed:

…to make and burn more than 50 billion ISK
…to act as a fleet supporting each other instead of being a band of solo players
…to build capital ships
…to ride capital ships
…to self-destruct capital ships (damn you R&K!)
…to master the art of t3 production and make a fortune out of it
…to easily farm C6 plexes
…to have a show, podcast and blog related to w-space that acts as one of the definitive sources of information for EVE players
…to have played a major role into the CSM elections by hosting a series of interviews with Candidates
…to relay Alliance Tournament 7 for two weekends and commentate on the fights afterwards
…to fight alongside seasoned pilots
…to be considered celebrities and widely identified & to fight against (and win) against famous celebrities in planned deathmatches
…to organize our very own PVP tournament
…to lose ships due to friendly fire
…to strip belts out for vast amounts of minerals
…to mine mercoxit
…to keep losing ships and still have the "oh well.. no real harm done" mindset
…to manipulating wormholes and w-space as if we were the ones who designed it
…to see ships in directional and instead of cowering, head over to take them down
…to have a single monthly corporate meeting
…to kill a Rorqual 5 days into the w-space colonization effort
…to successfully ransom a ship for 1 billion ISK
…to take down and destroy a defenseless POS
…to take down and destroy a defended POS that someone else erected into our own back yard
…to participate into large capital fleet warfare
…to help destroy the ego of a large alliance such as the R&K
…to spend Valentine’s day fighting our most epic fight defending our home
…to spend Steak & BJ day self-destructing our assets and evacuating our Class 6 wormhole
…to grow our corp with valuable and trustworthy members
…to have the creator of EVE-HQ in our corp fighting and having fun alongside us
…to get QP’s brother to join EVE
…to make so many friends in the game
…to exploit what w-space has to offer us to the point that we’d grow tired of it
…to lose multiple billions in assets, ships, pride and not /emoragequit
…to make a lengthy post on how much we have achieved during the previous year

None of this would have happened if we haven’t dared to be bold!

This is our message to all new capsuleers:

Dare to be bold pilot!

Luminus Aardokay & Quivering Palm

List of Participants:

1. CrazyKinux: The Three Pillars of Wisdom
2. The Elitist: Helping the new guy/gal
3. Hands Off, My Loots: Nothing Needed
4. Rantuket: Blog Banter 16
5. EVE Opportunist: Nooby Cluey
6. Into the Unknown With Gun and Camera: EVE University
7. Zero Kelvin: We’re the young ones!
8. I am Keith Neilson: Set Your Destination
9. Prano’s Journey: Just Like the Very First Time
10. A Merry Life and a Short One: No Seriously
11. Yarrbear Tales: Nublet 101
12. A Mule In EVE: If I only knew
13. Diary of a Space Jockey: WTH did I get myself into?!
14. EVOGANDA: Why?
15. A Memoir From Space: 16th Blog Banter
16. Death’s Sweetest Kiss: Who What When Where Why How??
17. Freebooted: Beyond the Shortcuts
18. Learning to Fly: Noobing
19. Caldari Outcast: My First Blog Banter Post!
20. Roc’s Ramblings: Financial Survival
21. Diary of a Pod Pilot: Free Knowledge Inside
22. Nullsec Carebear: I could’ve been less of an idiot
23. Facepalm’s Ramblings: Something Smells Fishy
24. Kirith Darkblade: Do you wish to know more?
25. Autopilot Disabled: I’m still starting…
26. Finders & Keepers: Relax
27. Confounded Capsuleer: What have you got to loose?
28. Clan Oriana: Sixteen
29. Flashfresh: EVE Blog Banter #16
30. Rettic’s The Chronofile: You Make EVE
31. Diary of a Bored Spaceman: Past Imperfect
32. Chocolate Heaven: Known Unknowns
33. Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance Trust No One!
34. More to come soon…

So…As i said, you might have heard it already from the podcast but back then it was a rumor. So now that it has been confirmed it is my honor and duty to inform miners in wormhole space that if you are depleting Gravimetric sites in W-space within the first day you trigger them then you FAIL!!!It seems that most of the gravimetric sites that are inside W-space have the unique ability to spawn an extra asteroid on their second day of existence. Yes New Eden you heard me right!

To explain it in details. For those of you who don’t know that already, W-space Gravimetric sites have almost all kinds of minerals, unlike what happens in normal space. That means lots of money since there is always Arkonor, Bistot, Crokite etc in those sites. Now the thing is that the signature will stay up for 3-4 days. But if you got a couple of exhumers or barges you are awesome and you can clear it within a day. But you shouldn’t…

It has been confirmed that leaving a couple of asteroids untouched will force the server to spawn a new asteroid of high quality Ore after the next downtime. I don’t think that any miner out there would mind having an extra fat Spodumain asteroid that holds 75.000 units (that showed up in one of our Unexceptional Frontier Deposit sites). Though you should remember that you should clear the whole site but you must leave an asteroid there. Not the whole rock, just a couple of units are enough. What we do is we leave 30.000 units of Veldspar or something of similar quality so we can spend the minimum time possible on it the day that our “present” form CCP arrives.

Other examples of extra asteroid spawns we have encountered are an extra Mercoxit with 45.000 units on it which spawned in a site called Exceptional Frontier Deposit. I cried that day…It was awesome… An Omber with 200.000 units in it, that was inside a Common Perimeter Deposit . We have also confirmed that the extra asteroid that spawn are random. So if you get an Exceptional Frontier Gravimetric don’t necessarily expect that you will get an extra huge Mercoxit.

Anyways, I hope that info was helpful and you guys put it in good use. GO GO MINERS!!!

After the long hiatus, we are back and eager to clear some sites and make some extra ISK

So after the holidays when everyone was away and not clearing sites we had quite a few spawned inside our new home. In total we had 6 PVE Sites (2 Citadels, 2 Bastions, 1 Strange Energy Readings and 1 Mirror), 9 LADAR sites (Yes 9!!) and 8 Grav Sites (Yes 8!!!) and also a RADAR Site.

So far we’ve cleared most of the PVE and LADARs – but damn! scanning all those signatures every day after server restart just to refresh their sigs so you can scan for any new wormholes is a royal pain! The mining crew has almost cleared a Rarified Core Deposit and we are planning to have a massive mining op soon to clear all the smaller sites in one go.

On the PVE front, we are now using carriers to augment our sleeper encounters and net extra ISK from each site. The first carrier you bring into the mix spawns an additional 6 Sleepless Guardians (the best Sleeper BS kind) while the second carrier you bring spawns an additional 8! Nothing to worry about though… the encounters are easy enough when you have 2x Carriers on grid and the DPS is quite good to clear the sites fast enough. The extra ISK from the Guardians is also most welcome!

Here are some nice looking pics from our recent encounters. Look ma! Lights!

PVP action has been quite low these days – following last month’s massacre where I got podded – I’d say this is not bad. A few days ago we had some folks hauling stuff through our wormhole but we lacked the manpower to setup an effective camp using bubbles etc so we didn’t net any kills. Too bad

On another note, we are still debating whether to build a Rorqual right away or build some Dreadnoughts first. We will talk about that on our next show, as well as give you detailed info on how to use carriers in wspace encounters from our experiences these days.

Last, but not least, on a personal note, my main (Quivering Palm) just got over 20M SPs (huzzah!) roughly about the same time as I celebrated my first year in the game. One year ago I was looking to find level 1 agents with Quality 15+ and now I am debating whether to build a Moros or a Rorqual.. I’d say it has been a good first year and hope much more to come!

See you out there!

1. We are in fact selling our home system in w-space which we affectionately call Planet Risk.

2. We are also selling our Planet Risk related wormhole-fu and settling services. i.e. we will provide all the information we have gathered the hard way regarding all relevant aspects we have encountered, plus we will help the newcomers to settle down, setup their POSes etc and after they are comfortable with the arrangement we shall be gone from the system with no claims to come back to.

3. We used to be carebears, doing missions and mining in empire space before we got here. We like to think we evolved into newbs and had a great time and fun while doing so! We are now extending this opportunity to come and establish your own base in our very own system, with all the good stuff and our lessons learned, to the highest bidder!

OK… so who is this sale for?

1. Small to medium sized corps. Planet Risk’s optimal usage will come from corporations with no less than 5 and no more than 15 active players. On a theoretical level Planet Risk can be inhabited and operated by less than 5 people but farming the neighboring C5 plexes with less than 5 pilots is a death wish. More than 15 pilots will need to go on farming sprees more often to ensure a big paycheck at the end of the month.

2. Carebears who have always been dreaming of exploring the fun side of EVE but who do not have the experience to venture into null sec and who do not wish to band under the protective wings of an Alliance. If you’re bored silly of grinding missions in empire and you feel like you’d go all Stockholm Syndrome if you crunch another Veldspar rock, then Planet Risk is for you. Keep in mind that Planet Risk, though a much safer place to be than your cookie cutter null sec, is still 0.0 space and PVP encounters will happen relatively frequently.

3. People willing to invest ISK into a w-space colonization operation in terms of equipment, know-how, real estate and colonization services. A couple of billion ISK in your corp.’s wallet should be your starting point. You’ll make those back in the first month in Planet Risk with quite a profit margin. By the second month you’ll be able to make your corp 15bil/month.

4. Any other type of player who wishes to colonize w-space for specific types of operations. We suggest that you go over our podcasts and blog posts as we have extensively covered life on the wormhole and looked at it from various profession perspectives, such as those of Pirates, Resource Harvesters, Industrialists, Carebears, PVPers, Researchers, Mercenaries etc…

Hmm… so if we have a small (5-15 man) corp… Why don’t we wait for Dominion and try to claim our own 0.0 system?

1. Wormhole life is in many ways different than null sec. If you know the ropes you can make boatloads of ISK in relative safety at the same time. In fact you can up to a point control the level of exposure to danger. All of our corpmates have their +4/+5 implants on them. How many 0.0 citizens can tell you that?

2. You won’t find yourself against big blobs. Planet Risk is a Class 2 system, and all wormholes that spawn from and to it will not allow anything bigger than a Battleship to go through. You can rest assured that unless another corp is VERY determined to rip you out of Planet Risk and settle there your POS is going to be perfectly safe.

3. Wormhole life is suited for both Teamwork and Solo activities. You can have fun (and ISK) alone or with your corpmates doing Plexes and sites or ambushing other pilots in neighboring systems, or organizing mining expeditions. Planet Risk plexes are soloable, albeit time consuming.

4. You can start your own T3 production. We started a couple of months ago and now we can build practically every T3 ship and subsystem. The cost of building T3 ships for our own use is only a fraction of the retail market price, so you can either equip your own team or sell them for profit.

5. You can run your own T1 production inside Planet risk, research your BPOs and construct everything less than a super capital ship with no war-declarations to scare you or threaten your POS. In fact if a corp declares war against your corp, it gives you the added bonus of a good laugh.

6. After Dominion you will most probably have to fight to claim your space rather than just come here and start farming Class 5’s the next day.

Plus, you won’t be missing the ratting aspect of 0.0 since you get your daily wormhole linking to it

Sounds great! Can you tell me more about Planet Risk?

Planet Risk is the name we gave to our Class 2 wormhole system. It’s official designation is J163923. It has no native wormhole anomalies that affect your ships. It has two static connections that daily connect to a different Class 5 system (N062 wormholes) and 0.0 (E545). It also sports infrequent access to/from HighSec (about once every 2 weeks) and other Class systems, as well as Low sec.

We have established our presence here since 20th of May 2009, and you can read about the first 10 weeks on the Captain’s log section of our website.

You cannot bring in capital ships in Planet Risk. The ships that fit through any wormhole connection to it are all combat ships up to Battleships, all industrial ships except freighters and the Orca. You can build capitals inside Planet Risk to facilitate your life, BUT you will not be able to take them out of Planet Risk.

You can check out some of the screenshots section to take a look of our system. FYI, it has the same colors as the Apocrypha login screen of your EvE client

Won’t I make more ISK per day if I stay in Empire Space and run missions/mine and follow the life of a carebear?

Until you get a solid operation up and running you’ll probably make less ISK than you would if you spent your days grinding L4 missions. Once you get the hang of it though you’ll be able to make the same money in 1/10th of the time and by investing 1/10th of the effort while at the same time having 10 times more fun.

For mining w-space is hands down a lot more profitable. Arkonor, Bistot and Crokite are going to be your daily asteroids.

Now if you are scared shitless of PVP and the very notion of shooting and being shot at by other players makes you sick then Wormhole Space is not for you. If however you dare to be bold,  our “casual” player can expect a monthly paycheck ranging from 500M to a Billion ISK to hit his wallet. A week  month of dedicated farming can net your corp 15 or even 20 billions. Not bad eh? EDIT: corrected: it’s month not week tnx Disndale!

Not to mention the fun you will have and the sense of exploration!

So why the hell are you selling it if it is such a money maker?

While Planet Risk, being a C2 system, is an excellent place to start your career as a wormhole colonist up, it can accommodate you up to a certain degree. Once you grow in numbers you will eventually seek out more resources to satisfy your ever increasing demands, as well as new challenges. For quite a few months Planet Risk will be able to give you a new thrill every day, but as you grow accustomed to the wormhole way of life, these thrills and challenges become more and more trivial.

We have reached the point where we want to expand and invest in bigger premises and greener pastures. Larger and tougher battles, capital ships, more ISK, new experiences. We won’t be leaving w-space. Just relocating into a higher class system. But even with those demands in place, we calculate that Planet Risk could accommodate us for at least another 6 months. We do however get antsy =P

OK sounds interesting… So what do you offer?

Here is our offer:

1. The way we have our daily operations running in every aspect of living within wormhole space. In particular:

a. POS Setups & Fittings & Defensive tips & tricks as well as assorted Bookmarks to help you defend your base(s).

b. POS Refueling operations & best practices

c. Hybrid Polymer Reaction operations and method of optimizing your production for maximum profits and/or T3 production

d. Tech 3 production operations and profit optimization

e. How to work with Planet Risk native wormholes (daily openings to Null sec and Class 5 systems) including scanning tips and defending against heavily populated systems.

f. Class 5 encounters. Including PVE anomalies and Magnetometric and Radar sites that require fleet operations. Detailed wave-after-wave explanation of triggers, Sleeper rats, expected profit per site, and more…

g. PVP guide for wormholeers – what you need to know to be safe in the lawless 0.0 wormhole space, how to defend yourself and how to fight back

h. Mining operations & best practices, including detailed analysis of all the Gravimetric and Ladar sites found in Planet Risk, as well as mining tips & tricks for wormhole space.

2. In addition to the above list, we can provide the following tools:

a. A detailed spreadsheet that anyone can use (comes with a how-to-use-guide) that will be able to help you plan what to bring inside wormhole space, how to haul it using industrial ships, how to optimize your cargohold to minimize jumps through wormholes and how to fit your POS properly.

b. A detailed spreadsheet that will be uber-helpful to POS refueling operations.

c. A detailed spreadsheet for T3 production needs and Hybrid Polymer reactions

d. The method we use for giving away paychecks to our corpmates every 15 days, including (you guessed it) the detailed spreadsheet to help out with the calculations.

3. Finally we shall be providing any support needed for the buyer to move their possessions from K-space into Planet Risk, including (but not limited) to:

a. Scanning of appropriate K-Space systems to be used as entry points

b. Hauling support by our industrial fleet, including (if needed) Freighter(s) and/or Orca(s)

c. Combat Fleet to protect the Hauling operation(s).

d. Safespot under our POS Shields during the setup of your new base.

Hmm so besides the money you ask, I need to acquire lots of stuff as well! Any idea how much the whole thing is going to cost me?

Well.. Good News!

We will be more than happy to sell you any/all of our belongings at face value (zero profit) to go along with the sale. This way we won’t have to carry lots of stuff outside and into our Class-6 and you will have all the stuff you need inside Planet Risk waiting for you to use.

The list of available assets will be made available upon request, but just to give you an idea we are talking about 2 Large POSes, shitloads of structures for all T1 ships/modules/rigs production, T3 production end-to-end and lots of ships that we’d rather sell than have to carry around with us.

Wow!… So anything else I need to know?

1. We keep the rights to the name Planet Risk. Period. Other than that you can name your system whatever you like. At most we might accept a name in the lines of “The system formerly known as Planet Risk”. =)

2. You must be speaking on behalf of your corp, so need to be either a CEO or Director to vouch for your genuine interest.

3. This is not an open bid, and it will run for as long as it takes till we have a satisfying offer. I’d say that we definitely won’t bother for less than 2 Billion ISK for the real estate, so your offer needs to be considered as a long-term investment from your end.

4. We shall keep all bids/discussions confidential and the buyer will decide if they want their name to be public after the transaction is complete and the system is under their control.

5. We shall provide all the needed support before-during-and-after the transaction to the buying corp to make sure they enjoy wormhole space as much as we did!

So what are you going to do with the money you make out of this sale?

We are going to invest it in our Class-6 project more on that soon ™!

For any questions/comments/bids or offers please contact Quivering Palm or Luminus Aardokay in-game.

The tournament had a 1vs1 format, and each participant was allowed to board a T1 frigate, with meta 0 modules. Rigs and smartbombs were not allowed and the fight would be to the death. No warping out.

All frigates and modules were constructed inside Planet Risk. All frigates were built to be blown up.

When the tournament moment came we were faced with the problem of not having a “power-of-two” number of participants. We put 10 pilots against each other, and 5 of them emerged as winners on the 2nd round. We agreed that one of the five would get randomly the boot so 4 pilots would proceed to the semi-finals and then the finals.

The frigates of choice were the Punisher, and the Tristan as 4 of each were fielded, a Kestrel and a Rifter.

Quarter Finals

- Nictutu (Tristan) vs Verona Black (Punisher)

Nictutu’s tristan managed to outperform Verona’s punisher as through utilizing dual webbers he kept Verona out of his optimal range. 1 Hobgoblin drone added a bit to the damage, as well as the Tristan’s rails and rocket launchers.

- Merinid Dormer (Kestrel) vs Viscious Hunter (Punisher)

Once again the Punisher took quite the punishment as Merinid Dormer’s Kestrel kept range and bombared Viscious with missiles. At some point Viscious caught back but he wasn’t able to dish out enough DPS to take the win.

- Estar Tarns (Tristan) vs Vessper (Punisher)

We would expect Vessper’s 100 million skill points to make the punisher a death dealing machine, but Estar’s Tristan was equipped with ecm, which helped him turn the tide of the battle in his favor, leading on a third consecutive loss for the Punishers.

- Quivering Palm (Rifter) vs Sengiria (Punisher)

The Rifter is a formidable pvp ship and everyone was thinking that we’d witness the fourth and final defeat for the Punishers. And at some point it really seemed that Quivering had the match under control. Heavy NOSing on Sengiria’s behalf though led Quivering to try and get some distance by overloading his afterburner and stay at range for some cap regeneration. The fight was getting really close but at that precise moment, Quivering’s guns burned out through excessive overloading and unable to fire back at Sengiria, he surrendered his ship for total obliteration.

- Alec Pendrag (Tristan) vs Luminus Aardokay (Tristan)

The double tristan match seemed to go pretty on par while both the frigs had some distance. In the beginning, Luminus’ shields started taking some beating and he was the first one to reach armor, but once he got in range, the extra skillpoints in gunnery showed up as he chewed on Alec’s tristan shields, armor and hull as if they were made of paper, and proceeding to the next round.

At that point we were at round two with 5 winners. Luminus had proposed that on the semi finals one person would be thrown out at random and everyone agreed with that. And that will probably teach me a lesson as I was the one that got randomly booted for having such great ideas. And thus we proceeded to the …

Semi Finals

- Sengiria (Punisher) vs Nictutu (Tristan)

Dual webbers worked wonders again. It would be a close match but Sengiria’s lack of skillpoints in thermodynamics were key to the Punisher’s defeat.

- Merinid Dormer (Kestrel) vs Estar Tarns (Tristan)

We were expecting an exciting match, but that was not the case here. Estar managed to Alpha ECM the Kestrel. Merinid unable to target back watched his Kestrel get obliterated in mere seconds, scoring Estar a flawless victory.

Finals

- Nictutu (Tristan) vs Estar Tarns (Tristan)

Nictutu was really afraid of Estar’s ungodly ECM performance. Unfortunately for Estar, his ECM was not really that effective as Nictutu managed to chew through Estar’s defenses and finally winning this tournament.

Congratulations go out to Nictutu and his dual webber idea which gave him the victory.. but wait.. that’s not all

Extra Match

Luminus challeneged Nictutu to an extra match to see how well his dual webbers would work against his Weapon disruption tristan. The fight would also be to the death, and it seemed that both pilots put their heart to it. A very exciting match followed with tons of overloading and it was a very close match. Nictutu was about to take the victory but then, Luminus who had sported one small ECM drone got the necessary time to rep up as the drone silenced nictutu for 30 seconds. Almost out of cap, the match ended with Luminus being the winner with less than 50% structure left on his Tristan.

Of course, the end found a batallion of ships shooting at Lumi’s tristan because.. hey… all ships were built to be blown…

Life was good this Saturday.. we’re off for beers!

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1181258&page=1

Hopefully a feature like that will be introduced in Dominion and all the wormholeers out there will rejoice!

Quoting from Luminus’ post:

With the release of Apocrypha we’ve seen corporations who took upon colonizing w-space, and found out how important Bookmark usage to navigation is. For most of those corps the daily routine is a scan of their home system, bookmarking sites and wormhole exits and then share the bookmarks with the rest of the corporation through the usage of a hangar in a POS.

However, this approach is highly inefficient as copying of bookmarks becomes tedious (Move the bookmark to your ship’s cargo hold, transfer it to People and Places, then make a copy from your bookmarks back to the corp hangar) and the information presented on the bookmarks themselves while in a container or hangar is practically non-existent, even if you check the info of a bookmark leading corps to devise naming schemes for their bookmarks that relay the information lacking by the game to the corpmates.

Finally, corp bookmark management will become even more tedious as the preliminary patch notes for Dominion state that bookmarks will no longer be allowed to be stored in corp hangars in POSes.

A suggestion there would be a new Bookmark handling mechanism for shared corporation use, similar to the saved corp ship fittings one.

- A corp role for "Corp Bookmarks" access is created with View/Modify permissions

- The "Shared Corp Bookmarks" (SCB) tool would work pretty much like the People and Places (P&P) one.

- SCB should support folders and subfolders for organization purposes

- SCB entries should indicate time of the bookmark’s creation as well as the system they’ve been created in (much like the P&P tool does) and finally the first creator of the Bookmark.

- When adding a bookmark, a user should have the option to add a description for the bookmark (much like what happens with every other user transaction), which would be visible if a person hovers the mouse over the bookmark in SCB or P&P.

- Right clicking on a bookmark in SCB should have an additional "COPY TO" function which would open a tree of the user’s P&P bookmark folders to copy to, much like the tree of available chat channels when a person right click on a player and invites them to one. A destination should also be "SHIP HANGAR" if the user is not in a pod.

- The same functionality should be implemented on bookmarks found in a user’s P&P, such as COPY TO -> CORP BOOKMARKS -> ALL BOOKMARKS or COPY TO -> CORP BOOKMARKS -> USER DEFINED FOLDER

- Dragging a bookmark into a chat channel should create a link to the bookmark. Pilots who click on it get an information window with the bookmark’s details (name, coordinates, date added, system, description, first creator). Right clicking on the link, should pop the usual functions along with the COPY TO one.

This bookmark management idea ties in perfectly with the game lore as well, since bookmarks are nothing more than an encapsulated set of information including vector coordinates and textual descriptions are entities that can be transmitted through communication channels and there is no real need for them to be exchanged as physical items. In fact, (and this being an educated guess here) if bookmark management and sharing got totally disengaged from bookmarks being treated as inventory items it could help with the stress the database undergoes when bookmark instances are created as items (Need for speed initiative anyone?).

Your thoughts?

It all came down to getting the information you need, and EvEHQ was there to automate the process. I decided to post a quick guide since many of you might need to use it for a similar situation. This is the first guide – of what we hope to be more in the future – send us your feedback on what you’d like to see!

Things you will need : EVEHQ – http://www.evehq.net – the only tool you’ll need

You also need to have an account with Director level access and use their Full API key to gain access to corporation assets. Of course if you have all the assets in question in your personal hangar then you don’t need corp key.

For this example, I am using SI Radio’s Planet Risk Wormhole System and the assets there-in to grab the T3 Proteus Hull BPC and see what’s my profits there. Some information have been classified as need to know and thus omitted from the screenshots. We take security seriously… ahahahahaha… ahem… right… back to EvEHQ

Disclaimer:

It’s critical to note, that this process will take into account the prices of the raw materials and finished goods that exist given the current prices from the region you configure! It will not – and should not imho – include any costs you might have attached to that if you have been buying stuff from the market at different prices than current etc… Also, it does no include the costs for your investment (like POS, Fuel, Labs, Assembly Arrays etc) but it can add the costs of skillbooks needed.

Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Fire Up EVEHQ and configure the market prices tool. You need to go to Menu option Tools –>   Market Prices. The above configuration is what we use to get our quotes from but your mileage might vary. Note that the prices you setup here will drastically alter the profit margins. Since we want to compare prices vs selling the item in the market, I’ve setup the tool to download all prices from The Forge Region (Jita) on the Min Sell Price – that is the price you would pick if you where to directly go and buy this item.

2. You will need to update the prices given the settings you’ve put in step 1. To do that go to the  “Price Snapshot” tab and click the buttons.

3. You will then need to download the API key details. Please note that unless you use a Full Access key that won’t work. You will also need Director level access to see the Corporation owned assets (like POS Towers, anchored structures, Corp Hangars etc). You need to fire up the tool called EVEHQ Prism and from there click the Download API button. It will take a while, but you will be able to get the Assets for your corp needed for the next steps.

Note you can only refresh the Assets List once per  day as per CCP API key limitations.

4. Once you have downloaded the current assets you can click on the “BP Manager” button within EVEHQ Prism. From here you can select the Owner: <your corporation> or yourself depending on when your BPO/BPCs are stationed. Make sure you click on the “Only Show Owned BPs” if you want, and also the “Update BPs from Assets” and “Get BP Info from jobs”

I need to note here that these two buttons require that you populate your assets using step 3. If you skip that step, you will need to manually enter your BPO/BPC details – which can be time consuming if you have lots of BPs. Now the coolest feature is to grab all the BPs from your Assets along with Get BP Info from Jobs. Always use these two together, because CCP does not include info on the Assets API key – whether it’s BPO or BPC. However, since you can see that info from the Jobs API when the BP is installed somewhere, EVEHQ can work around that limitation from CCP and as long as you put your BPs in good use,  you will soon have all the BPs correctly updated in your asset list. Please head here and bump Vessper’s request to get a fully functional BP API key

5. You can browse to find the BP of the item you need using the dropdown boxes above, or just type in some letters of the item in the search box. Let’s see the Proteus Hull. Once I find the item in the results pane, I double-click that and the BP Calculator window appears. Some really cool features here. Firstly, you can select whether you do your Research / Production for that BP at your own POS or not, so that it can add the associated costs in the Bill of Materials. Secondly, you can select the character that will do the Research / Production so that his skills affect the results. Now let’s see the other information boxes in more detail.

6. You can already see (here in green font since we have a profit) the amount in ISK that you make if you produce this BP given the conditions you specified. What it does is that it calculates the prices of the raw materials (what you would get if you set them up as the lowest sell order in Jita based on our configuration in step 1), then adds the correct amount based on the total quantity needed, (including waste products where applicable) compares the total with the price of the finished product (again, the lowest selling price) and gives you the profit from that deduction.

In many cases this can be way off your actual profit. Why? First of all, you might have to buy some of the intermediate materials instead of building them on your own. Also, the prices for some raw materials constantly change in certain markets – like T3 for example, so what today shows a profit of 100Mill tomorrow could show 65Mil and 2 weeks ago could be 35Mill. It’s pretty hectic market so far in T3 so at some point you could see that stabilize.

Let’s look at an alternative way to calculate your profits.

7. Click on the “Use Standard Costing” button. You will see prices change, and you no longer see the raw materials, but only the intermediate ones. That setting does not take into account the prices of the raw materials, but instead the prices of the intermediate components used. In our case, half of the overall profit comes as you can see from the profit of making the intermediate materials.

8. Also note the “Ideal ML” column. That is the ideal Material Level you should research your blueprints of intermediate steps to reduce your waste factor and thus increase your profits. I need to point out that for the T3 BPOs out there CCP does not affect the waste factor on any lvl of ME you reach – so unless they fix this you will always get the same waste no matter how much ME you put  in there :-/

9. One of the coolest features in EVEHQ Prism and the Blueprint Calculator is the ability to quickly see how many runs you can produce, given your current assets. You just go to the “Resources Owned” tab and select in the Asset Selection where your raw materials are and it will tell you how many units of what material you will need to complete the runs.

10. Pay a visit to the EVEHQ Forums and thank Vessper for this great tool and also give him feedback on features you would like to be included in future versions!