Back In Space

After spending a week and a half writing and researching stories about the Eve News 24 botting exposé I was ready to stop writing and get back into space.  So last night I hopped in a Cheetah and started exploring.

I decided to try something new and use 7 probes instead of 5.  I might need some practice because I did not find it any faster to scan down sites using more drones.  Fifteen minutes to scan down three sites isn't very good.  For my purposes of just getting back into the swing of things I'll take it because I found a Ransacked Angel Ship Graveyard, a Provisional Angel Outpost and a Large Crokite, Dark Ochre and Gneiss Deposit.  Oh yeah!

The Ransacked Angel Ship Graveyard is a magnetometric site with six containers to salvage.  I got some tech 2 salvage out of one container, which of course spawned some Angel NPCs.  But that is okay because I was using a Jaguar to salvage with my Bellicose flying overwatch and I dispatched the rats in short order.  The calculator built into the cargo hold showed I collected over 20 million ISK in salvage and drops after I cleaned up the wrecks on the field.  Not bad.

When I was probing down sites I thought the Provisional Angel Outpost would serve as a nice testing ground for my Bellicose.  Populated with elite frigates, destroyers, cruisers with two battlecruisers in the second room I thought I might get some nice drops.  But the gravimetric site was too good to pass up.

A Large Crokite, Dark Ochre and Gneiss Deposit means exactly that.  I really need to move my mining alt into low sec and start using it because I only managed to mine all of the Crokite.  But that is a lot of Crokite.  Refined, that amount of ore produced 7,962 units of nocxium, 7,962 of trit and 15,942 of zydrine.  Of course, with the length of time I spent mining because I only used a Procurer I received several visits from the Angel Cartel.  I didn't keep a careful count but I received at least another million in ISK in bounties and a couple of million in salvage and drops.  What, you didn't think I wasn't going to clean up my mess, did you?

While I was flying around having fun I thought about bringing out some other ships to make the process go faster.  I thought about making a Probe but I don't think the 5% bonuses to codebreaker, analyzer and salvager cycle times is worth giving up the fire power and survivability that a Jaguar offers when I get jumped when I trigger a spawn.  Besides, the Jaguar is just so much fun.

Another ship I'm thinking of bringing out is a Retriever.  I want to stay with the tech 1 mining ships because I don't want to attract attention.  I usually operate in faction warfare systems, which means I usually see a couple of FW pilots in the system with me.  A Procurer isn't worth the time to track down, but a Skiff or Mackinaw?  Someone might take a shot, especially with a Mack.  But if I might get away with flying a Retriever if I only use the ship in gravimetric sites.  I would still use the Procurer for any belt mining I do.

I also could use a Viator.  The Prowler is great but the cargo capacity, especially when rigged for agility and speed like I have, means I have to make a couple of trips whenever I need to transport kernite for a level 4 story line agent.  The agent usually asks for 8,000 units, or 9,600 m3 of ore.  I'm really tempted to start belt-mining for kernite and just stock the stations with the stuff.  Or maybe I get a blockade runner that can actually carry that much.


I should add that there is a corporation that operates in low sec that makes sure all pilots don't stay up too late and gets their sleep.  They are called The Tuskers.  I hear that if you don't go to bed on time they make your ship explode.  First I saw one but I went back for one last load of ore.  Once I saw the second show up, I docked and logged.  While the Procurer has paid for itself many times over, I'm not quite ready to lose it yet.