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Monday, June 17, 2013

A Different Approach

Tomorrow marks the two week point of Odyssey and the preliminary numbers show me one fact: my old low sec lifestyle in Eve is over.  Amazingly though, belt mining is still a viable option.  The problem is exploration.  The payoff is just not there anymore.  I like the mini-game, but I hear that CCP thinks the payout is too great, so exploration will provide even worse rewards than I'm getting now.  I need to come up with a different way to pay the bills.

The most likely way of making a living will involve mining.  Now, due to the changes made to gravimetric sites, munching rocks in the new ore sites in a Procurer is just too dangerous and not worth the risk.  But since Tags4Sec hasn't really impacted my belt mining activity so I still head out to the belts about as much as I did previously.  The only time I've entered a non-ice ore site is a quick trip to w-space to pick up some arkonor.  I can get the rest of the minerals I need in the quantities I need from the belts.  I've moved some Ventures into my home station just in case I feel brave.  With the increased frequency of the ore sites showing up in low sec lately I might start feeling brave enough to risk one of the cheap mining frigates.

Ice, on the other hand, is something I found I can mine fairly safely.  With the changes I can fill up the hold of a Procurer in about 10 minutes.  I just need to stay aligned, which isn't that hard if everything lines up right.  I just start at one end of the belt and slowly work my way down to the other.  In 10 minutes I travel about 54 km, so I just have to pay attention and switch targets when appropriate.  The trick is to not get close to the warp-in point to the site and keep your hand over the warp button in case a cloaky sneaks up.  For the more paranoid, fill the lows with warp core stabilizers and that should help reduce the risk further.  That extends the time in the belt and decreases the range of the ice harvester, but something to think about.

While I currently sell refined ice products on the market, I like to build things with my minerals.  So far ammunition has filled that niche.  But I will need to come up with something else.  I'm thinking about invention and tech 2 production of modules.  I've got one item in mind and have started setting up datacore mining operations to supply the invention process.  I'm also grinding some more standings to get access to some level 4 Boundless Creation research agents.  Right now I only have one pilot with the access and I really need two. 

The first blueprint copies come off the production line today.  I don't expect to make a lot of money but I think I'll learn something about the process.  Previously my invention/tech 2 production efforts were aimed at providing myself tech 2 ships.  Now I'll just try to find a small niche and make a few million ISK a month.

I also need to do something that has always scared me: low sec planetary interaction.  I don't need that much product for my personal needs so I can sell the excess in Rens or Hek.  I just need to figure out what my needs are first.

I realize that perhaps I haven't given the expansion enough time to establish itself.  A fair criticism, which is why I'm holding off on a full examination of Odyssey until my data collection effort ends in early July.  But I see the trends and don't want to wait another three weeks to move on with my progress in the game.  I see the direction things are going so I'm going to go with the flow.

8 comments:

  1. What's scary about lowsec PI? I think you would be at more risk with your belt mining and exploration. AFAIK, most of it can be done remotely with only having to swing by to pick up the products once a week or so.

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    1. It's the swing by part that is scary...

      You are in an Industrial (in Empire and when we were solo in the C2 and C3 I used a cloaky Prowler) but you HAVE to land on the POCO and uncloak at some point and then you have to be head down in POCO and cargo hold screens while you move products around leaving you moar vulnerable... because POCOs are sweet ambush spots.

      And if 'they' study their prey (sorry there Noizy but you know what I mean...), they will have an idea of what his last pick up is and gank him when he is a pinata full of treats...

      So yea, there is a very real 'risk' to running PI solo... and there are ways to reduce that risk;
      (1) get friends to fly combat ships with you;
      (2) get borged and live in Null where Das Mittens and his Legions of Minions will make you safer than a carebears wet dream or...
      (3) fly cloaky, do an aligned-at-speed-pass just in transfer range of the POCO and have everything ready so your swap time is as short as possible... (my SOP) and pray that Loki that just uncloaked 500m off your starboard bow isn't dual Sebo fit... but (insert Yoda voice over here) he will be... he will be... BUAHAHAHAHAhahahaha... =]

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    2. @Tur - Don't worry about the prey comment. I actually wrote a post about me being basically that.

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  2. May I as for a ref for your: CCP thinks the payout is too great..." I find that interesting because…

    We finally ran the data site in Bastion (our C6) and the absolute best thing I can say about it is... meh.

    Really, we had the whole site fleet there, minus Caps & Dreads, as I tried my hand at the new minigame with my weakass L3 skills (augmented by the hacking/salvaging 'plants) in my Sarum Magnate (which bonuses hacking) w/ T1 mods...

    Very hard at first and I was tempted to name it "Click All The Things" until someone said try going ‘round the perimeter, don't go into the center unless you have to... OK, that helped as most if not all of the Data Cores I found were on the edge on the other side of the grid.

    OK, once I got that down I learned to FEAR THE RESTORATION NODES! Those things SUC. They constantly pump up the power of the firewalls, when you see one, KILL EET!! KILL EET NOW!

    The rest is actually kinda meh... you will find firewalls that block you and data caches which can be tools or a firewall or some other defense. I personally open all data caches as the tools you simply gotta have. If you hit a Restoration Node early you might kill it, but you won't kill anything else until you get some tools, and firewalls just stop you from that going farther along that line.

    So grab all the Tools you can, go ‘round the Firewalls until you can't, immediately KILL all the Restoration Nodes you find and hope you find the Data Core... once you do, check it's strength against yours and you will know if you can hack it or not... it's a numbers game at that point. If yes, shout out in COMMMS for everyone to get ready, if not... go a clickin into the heart of the grid and hope you find the Tools you need to boost you up, or die trying.

    So, over all the minigame is interesting inna solitaire sorta way... but profitable? Uh, we live inna C6 wormhole and we netted like 15 to 20mISK TOTAL for all cans in the site... oh effin please.

    Tie up at least 3 guys, only one of which is playing the minigame, for 30 mins (or more) for 20mISK?? After they just ran Combat Sites against C6 Sleepers to the tune of several HUNDRED mISK each over approx an hour?? Uh, no.

    But… on the bright side the number of Sleepers that guard the Data Sites more than make up for it... so far the Data Sites Lewtz and Slavage (over 1bISK PER site) are the best for any single C6 Sleeper site I have salvaged to date...

    We just Kill All (but one of) The Things and ignore the cans... (yea, you can ‘farm’ the data sites too… WIN!) So the upshot is that in Anoikis the minigame is a complete fail but the site, as re combat, is a win...

    Again, not what I expected out of an Exploration themed Expansion... at all.

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    1. I look at Odyssey in the Homeric way. A very long trip.

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  3. Welcome to the world of industrialists waiting for moon goo prices to fall. There's not much T2 related that one can build profitably at this time, though that may change in a month or so. May I suggest you do some planning and discover which blueprints will yield the most profitable results? I use EVE Isk Per Hour to plan my income stream. http://sourceforge.net/projects/eveiph/

    The developer of Eve Isk Per Hour is a very nice and helpful individual, Zifrian. He keeps the app updated, and certainly earns the isk donations I send his way.

    Best of luck to you!

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    1. That sounds like very sound advice. I can do the invention in the meantime while I wait for the prices to drop.

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    2. Heck Nosy, now is the time to be buying all the T2 BPCs that no one wants at 50% of the usual rate. At some point we'll run out of T2 battleships, cruisers, and frigtes, prices will rise and the smart ones will just build all those T2 BPCs that they bought for pennies on the dollar this month.

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