Last night reminded me of my greatest fear for Odyssey: that the expansion will drive me out of low sec. I scanned down an Average Dark Ochre and Gneiss located 0.3 AU from two stargates in a 0.1 security system and started munching on some asteroids. I was able do that because I could just sit in the site hitting the directional scanner every few seconds whenever someone new showed up in local. If I saw probes in space, warp off. With a Procurer that can do 0 to warp in 7 seconds with the fleet bonuses I normally enjoy, I'm pretty safe as long as I pay attention and don't get cocky about my combat abilities (which are pretty poor). With no threats to make me dock up, I managed to mine 120,000 m3 before logging off. That is over 20% of my mining activity for the month of May.
The change to grav sites will make that performance impossible. And please don't tell me I just have to stay aligned. What's to keep a nice cloaky stealth bomber from sneaking into the new ore sites and tackling me when I have to change objects I'm aligning to? Nothing. I can chase off one ship, but if the cloaker has friends in an adjacent system? Pop goes the Procurer.
My current project is comparing my life in low sec before and after Odyssey hits Tranquility and I plan on publishing some of the data on Monday. For eveyone hoping I'll leave low, you'll have to wait another month because that's how long the project will run collecting data on life after Odyssey. The funny thing is that I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and went to low and now CCP is making changes that seemingly will make low sec less comfortable for me. Then again, the possibility exists that I'm just a carebear and carebears are always afraid of change. That's why I will HTFU, not give into my fears and give low sec a real chance for a month.
If I find low sec is even less profitable in Odyssey than today, I will not flee to high sec. But I don't want to live in null sec either. Can you image the drama in any null sec corp I joined if someone started awoxing bots? First, could I resist? Second, would anyone believe I could resist? So living in null sec is probably out of the picture.
So if the low sec period ends, I'll become a cafeteria capsuleer. I'll pick a couple of features from high sec, a couple of features from low, throw in a dash of null sec and w-space and come up with my own play style. While not as cool as being a low sec carebear, that could provide a challenge. But right now I don't really want a challenge. I would just like to get more comfortable in low sec and really explore the possibilities, which I was just beginning to dig into with my operation selling ammunition in a low sec station in Molden Heath. I guess I'll just have to see what Odyssey brings.
I'm totally on board with the grav anom changes being a negative. The change is pointless and actually detracts from the theme CCP is going for in Odyssey. "We want to focus on exploration and make it fun for new players! We're going to do this by removing one thing from the list of those to explore and probe out!"
ReplyDeleteWhat?
I'd love to read those nullsec Nosy vs botter AAR blog posts. :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd if the shit really hits the fan, there're a lot of WH corps recruiting... Especially ours.
When Odyssey comes, make sure you don't stay anywhere near the warp in beacon for the site. To land right on top of you will still take combat scans. It will also help if you position your Procurer so there is a big, fat rock between you and that beacon. Make any would be bomber have to re-position. Also, what's to prevent you from having probes out yourself? Use local and combat probes to cross reference local with known ships. If there is one more in local than you see on your scanner, you have a cloaky about; react as you see fit. This change will cause you to do more work, but I don't see it driving you out of low sec. Remember, other's could have always used deep space probes to find you before and you'd never know they were doing it. That crowd is more upset than you that CCP is eliminating deep space probes. My point in that is your feeling of safety in an old gravimetric site was a false sense of security. They could always find you undetected if they wanted to. Maybe no they will want to find you more often since it will be relatively easy now. But in my experience, having to use deep space probes wasn't much of a deterrent. If they weren't looking it was because they were uninterested. That lack of interest will continue with perhaps a brief "try the new thing out" at the beginning of Odyssey. Hang tough.
ReplyDeleteStay positive and look at it like a new challenge to overcome. Using probes yourself is one good idea. In many pockets of low sec there is hardly ever anyone there, is that not the case where you mine? One thing you can do is find a low sec pocket with 1. no station and 2. only one gate in or out. Mine grav sites there with safe spots set up etc. Then, park your alt at the other side of the gate coming in to your system. Every cloaky ship has to uncloak to enter, so if you have a second account up (esp. on another monitor) you can see if a cloaky (or a gang etc.) is coming into your system. Then, get to the safe and log, or just bounce from safe to safe. Look at it this way, too: if Odyssey makes other low sec miners/industrialists leave low, that means more profit for you if you stay.
ReplyDeleteWe aren't thrilled with the new changes. As our reactions and jobs finish, we'll start taking down our lowsec towers and moving back to high after the expansion hits. We've got a couple invitations to move to null, so we may take one of them.
ReplyDeleteI didn't get a lot of mining done during our stay in low, as mostly I was baiting PvPers with my mining barge. Sadly the locking and targeting of a procurer is so sad that every one of the targets got away. Especially since a webbed and scrammed frigate *still* moves faster than a barge.
When the so called mining buff hit Tranquility, I'm wondering if venture would be viable ninja those ABCs in wh...
ReplyDeleteYes, by all means /\///\/_//\ those ABCs in a WH. Nothing a wormhole pilot loves more, than to log in and warp directly to his/her pre-scanned bookmarks to find you.
ReplyDeleteYes, once in a while - depending on where you live, maybe once in a blue moon - you'll lose a Procurer...
ReplyDeleteSo? It is not that expensive a ship ... cost of business.
Don't sweat it, Noizy. Low sec isn't going to suddenly become so awesomely popular and crowded (well, unless you happen to live in FW space, which is where CCP spends almost all of its low sec dev efforts).
ReplyDeleteNull sec is going to be way too busy fighting over the R64 distribution, new 'roid minerals and ice, to give a crap about low sec and Tags4Sec. This includes the major sov alliances, as well as the folks playing around in NPC space.
And, no matter what Soundwave wants, high sec isn't going to migrate to low sec... ever. The carebears will quietly go find some other game to play, rather than be "forced" to low, or null, sec.
Which leaves us with the WH players, none of whom have any interest whatsoever in low sec.
So, your part of the sandbox is probably not going to change much at all. You might see a few more of your low sec neighbors bopping through belts, looking for rats, but they will probably just ignore your cheap-ass mining barge. Killing you just won't be worth their time, if they are really out farming billions of ISK from Tags4Sec.
I feel for your concerns. I used to mine in low sec as well, to manufacture my ships I lose, but with the Odyssey changes, I can't see it being profitable anymore.
ReplyDeleteI moved out to CVA null for now. I hate being so far away where I PvP and make ISK, but supposedly CVA does have a good deal of anti-pirate PvP, so we'll see how that works out.
Don't mine in a WH though. Been there, done that, it was terrible. No one ever mentions the problems of logistics.