Monday, December 24, 2012

War!

The past week haven't been that pretty. I hear 450M is the weekly contract. Yet we're getting wardecked from to day onwards.

We don't expect it to hold up, after all they are mostly griefers looking for easy kills with great killboard stats. But that's not really going to happen.
Of course if I undocked a hulk on a daily basis as I've been doing for a while with Concord to protect and serve. They would have it their way.

But I'm not going to do that. Not sure what I'll do, but mining sounds like a no go. Of course the rest of my fleet fellows are unaffected, and will continue as usual and promise to include me as possible.

All this isn't something overly new. Since the expansion I've noticed an increase in griefer ganks. The last one I encountered I had a minor chat with. He was coming from test so intelligence wasn't something I expected in the first place. But anyhow here's his perspective:

He wants a 1B bounty on his head. the means to do so is to miner gank in Highsec.

He was flying 2 destroyers (I suspect him of having an alt on board) mostly T2 fitted.
Of course he was successful in both popping my hulk and the pod. still going back I salvaged a full T2 setup to fit on a Thrasher. (couldn't have been cheap the ammo alone...) 

Having a minor chat I understood he either
a. wasn't aware of the price tag on his riggings
b. was sponsored.
Of course seeing where he comes from that makes sense, but still he could have done so with considerably less expensive equipment.
I was flying a hulk, I ended up taking little under 8k total damage, in 3 strikes.
I was flying in 0.5 so concord was at least 30 seconds to arrive.
So essentially 3 weapons cycles dealing 3k. Raw damage. I'm doing 500 pr salvo using 5 launchers. He was 2 setting my meager skills to do 1k which is 33% of what he did.

Anyway that's not the point. He got a kill mail on my hulk around 200M, losing 2x 25m that's only 150 for a barge kill. Not very effective in my book, guess they let anyone in to Test now a days.

He's not going to take my focus any longer anyhow.
My point is that this behaviour is becoming prevalent. Since the expansion I've seen the take down of 5 Exhumers. That's alot. and it's not exactly cheap, yet it's still within coverage I hear. But then again if we gather 400M pr week, we can drop an exhumer pr week and still make a profit.
For now I'm in a mack (it's cheaper, yet even more boring then a hulk. But let's see, if we're to relocate during Christmas also let's see.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Getting there.

So another week has passed.
I'm starting to gather the mining fleet intell, as I'm now being an active part of that fleet I figure I should atleast get paid a decent part share of the "loot".

So this weeks intell was 445 million for 56 million units of minerals coming from the usual 2,5 million m3's of random high sec ore + rat loot.
I want to get a system up and running for that I believe.

So the system we're at currently is as I might have mentioned before, high trafic, good selection of belts, but also high miner density. That's all fine except you from time to time run into the belt raiders that have removed all traces of ore in a 2 jump radius. Also talking to friends, I hear that Caldari Ice products are in higher demands then Amarr.
So I guess we'll be pulling roots eventually.
We finished in nice time this week so I actually had time to mission run a bit. And as with the belt rats, I do notice I have an issue dealing with things that eat up drones.
The Caracal has a 10m3 drone bay and as I've fitted it with Heavy missile launcers and a painter I have a problem taking things down like Angel Vipers (Dramiels) They just don't take enough damage vs their repair rate. Sending small drones after them helps but they don't like drones so they are popped fast. But the Salvage drone I like alot. as long as they leave it alone I'm fine. and i get salvage.

Next week includes Christmas times and therefore I must expect a more condensed working hours schedule, we'll see. The fleet in general calls it 2,5 million ore pr. week. and then they provide me with Plex, and thus far mining equipment. I'm told they have a goal of collecting another 0,5 Billion and then they'll have more liquid funds from the operations. Something about treasuries. But that'll be only another week or so. Then maybe I'll get paid directly. Let's see.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Resettlement

So whom of you have had to uproot everything and move on?

I can't remember if i mentioned it in my last post, that my system was camped by gankers, and I've lost 4 hulk in as many days which is kinda unprofitable or sustainable for longer periodes.
And as any carebear, what do you do? you move....

So I've moved. I was looking for a place with amarian Icefields to go Ice mining and setup a business that way, and I found a pretty okay system. (Hey, maybe I didn't do the work, but I can still take credit as noone else are going public anymore)
Trouble seems to be the balance between high trafic, few miners and decent belt counts. (we're talking High sec, as low and Null sec would have different issues).
So there's High traffic, plenty belts within 2 jump radius from base. All is High sec. But we have way too  many miners around. We even seem to have an established ore rapist.
I see often the 2 hulk + an orca fleets swooping down the systems and removing everything within half a day.

But when they are not here everything seems stable. (I forgot to mention they are an alliance). Still the settlement isn't all the jazz I wanted it to be and maybe... Just maybe I can get a steady off loader with Caldari Fuelblocks. Now to find a caldari system that works out?

This means I'll have to resettle again and I hate that as you need to move things, and you most likely need to carry stuff. Plus it's a new place so you will be unfamiliar with teh places you need to know.
Still for me it's vital to aquire the monthly plex, and with the price in an upward trend that seems to never end... You just need MOAR and MOAR.
It's actually kinda interresting to see the market is in constant growth. Everything keeps getting more expencive over time. Maybe I should start some form of statistics on the prices calculated in Trit rather then ISK. Back when a Plex landed on 300 million isk, the Trit price was 3 isk pr unit I seem to know. Currently the price of trit is 5,5-6 isk pr. unit. and say what's the Plex price currently? 550-600 million. Wonder if the index of 100 million trit pr plex could hold up? Would be rather funny, wouldn't it :)