Fitting for Low Sec is Fitting for High Sec

As many High Sec residents are learning, High Sec by no means is an indication of safety. Sure High Sec is safer, because there is a less pronounced and less spontaneous PvP activity in high sec, but it is not safe. Nearly every high sec PvP victim is a result of fitting with the false expectation of safety.
So what does this mean for the everyday eve pilot? It means that no matter what you are doing, what task you are performing, or what ship you are flying that you fit and prepare for PvP. PvP does not necessarily mean fitting for in your face battle. It means fitting your ship so you can respond appropriately when under threat. In some cases this means fitting your ships for in your face pew pew, but it can also mean fitting your ship for evasion and being able to get out of dodge before it’s too late to get out.
I fit all my industrial type ships (Industrials, Exhumers, Orca) to be able to evade threats. My ships are fitted so that when flown properly, I can bust through gate camps without a scratch. My hulks are fitting to get to warp under 4 second. I also fit most of my ships with ECM or EW modules and a flight of ECM drones that will help me to escape in the unlikely event I do get snagged in a trap. No they don’t guarantee I will get away, but they grant me a dice roll 2nd and 3rd chance to get away.
My mission running and ratting ships are fitted pure ‘poke you in the eye’ PvP. They are not the most efficient for PvE, but when I get snagged, I am not sitting in a PvE ship, I am sitting in a PvP ship. This is something many aggressing PvPers are not counting on. They are counting on you to be fit like rib racks with those little chef hats on each tip, in other words, to die under their fire. However, you can turn the tables on them simply by being ready.
Another long term affect this would have, is if all pilots fit for PvP of one sort or the other (evasion or poke you in the eye), then aggressing PvPers at large will all think twice about your ship being simply a tasty morsel on the buffet table. Beyond your individual survivability, Eve as a whole will change for both the PvP and non-PvP playstyles. There will no longer be the jaded division between pirate and carebear, but the division will more equivocal. Yes it means PvPers will bring larger teams and fly solo less often, but that is good for you, because it means the roams will likely be more condensed, less profitable for the pirates, and therefore a less frequent encounter. Of course that only will happen with a paradigm shift of basic fitting styles at large.

Seriously? Seriously?

So I get a lot of crap flying my Orca through low sec. I mean, you know I pretty much have just converted the crap into tears which I collect just like any good pirate would if the circumstances were reversed, but seriously...

If I hadn't figured out how to fly industrial type ships out in low sec, then you Mr. Baddy Bad Pirate wouldn't have any targets except the occasional clueless newb and other pirates. Is that really what you want? Seriously?

Wouldn't you rather have some big juicy targets that are harder to catch, but a whole lot more valuable and a whole lot more frequent? I mean really, low sec is low sec, of course and that means we have to defend ourselves out there, not CONCORD to help us out in a bind or take retribution. I get that, but you seriously would rather I wasn't flying my Orca full of goodies around low sec, and you seriously don't want me to spread the word how? Seriously?

I Am Escoce

Welcome to the eighteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the
monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by none other than
me, CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of
gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a
week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting
articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead
serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the
EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out
other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!


On May 6th 2010, EVE Online celebrated its 7th Anniversary. Quite a
milestone in MMO history, especially considering that it is one of the
few virtual worlds out there to see its population continually grow
year after year. For some of you who've been here since the very
beginning, EVE has evolved quite a lot since its creation. With the
expansion rolling out roughly twice a year, New Eden gets renewed and
improved regularly. But, how about you the player? How has you gaming
style evolved through the years or months since you've started
playing? Have you always been a carebear, or roleplayer? Have you only
focused on PvP or have you given other aspects of the game a chance -
say manufacturing. Let's hear your story!



I am Escoce. I have always been Escoce. I do not have alternate identies and Escoce grows and deals with the consequences of all my actions, whether that is doing well on the markets, mining asteroids, busting gate camps with more vocal bravado than normally recommended or not. That is who I am and who I will always be within New Eden.

If one wishes to read all the details of my history they can start at te beginning of this blog with post #1, because I have kept a loosely organized journal of my goings on. However, I'll try to sum it up briefly with what I think the greatest changes are that I have made.

I started out very timid, mining asteroids in the cistuvaert system. I was afraid of getting lost and didn't even jump out of the system for at least several days. I had no idea how detached one really is from their home system. I think I made my first excursion out of Cistuvaert when there was no asteroids left to mine. I had no choice but try another system. I found one next door called Aidert. I minted for a bit there, and learned about NPC pirates and I got my little frigate blowed up if I recall and I became scared of 0.6 security systems. I tried to stay in cistuvaert as much as possible since I didn't know of any other 1.0 systems near by (remember I was a newb who had no idea how small geographically or astrometrically the game actually is to a more experienced player). I ran into my first player pirate can flipper from Whiskey Pete's Dry Cleaning, and got my butt handed to me. Later when I could fly a vexor, which I used for mining I also started carrying flights of drones and I ventured out into aidert once again and let the drone take care of the rats while I ignored them.

The same can flipper showed up, flipped my can. And I went ahead and sicked my drones on him. I actually almost had him, he was deep into hull before I went pop. Ah well I felt pretty good for the try, but I was still mostly broke as new miners typically are. So I started again with the frigates. I graduated to industrial ships and when I didn't have time to mine with 1 minute cycles into cans, inwiuld park my uterine of various grades over time next to the asteroids and jus let the laser fill the cargo bay before thenroids went pop. It was still really slow progress. I could barely afford new skills let alone ships.

Anyway I kept in mining until I could fly and mastered mining with the hulk. I went into debt to get the hulk sooner, but had to work hard to pay it off. All that work soured me to mining. I was so sick of mining.

I figured i could still deal with minerals since I know what they are worth and I sold my hulk and used the capital to start buying minerals in Arnon and its neigbors and selling them in Oursulaert and Jita if the price warrented the longer trip. As I could afford rigs, I fitted them (this was when they were still one size and ultra expensive). My Iteron V was gradually become more costly than an obelisk, but it was a little at a time. After about six weeks of all night back and forth, I was about halfway togetting a freighter.

I ended up borrowing a billion isk from a total stranger (believe it or not), and I bought my freighter, realizing after the fact that I still had 4 days to go to complete Spaceship Command that I needed to train Advanced Spaceship Command so I could fly the darned thing. So anyway started hauling with the freighter and the ISK started to flow. Over a period of a few weeks, I started carrying mining equipment to Arnon to sell as a loss leader to get the miners working in Arnon and neighbors to stay put and mine more rocks for me. It worked. I started pulling 3-5 freighter loads of tritanium out of that constellation every single day since people don’t like hauling Trit. It takes more time to haul the Trit to Oursulaert than it does to mine an equivalent amount of ore for the other minerals.. After some time it dawned on me that the names of the people dumping minerals on my buy orders were rather random looking and I realized I was buying Macrod minerals. I filed a petition saying that look, I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but I think I am buying illegal minerals in a legitimate manner. The GM told me so long as I procured them in good faith at a fair price and I wasn’t buying them for something like 0.01 ISK, that I was safe and thanks for the notice. Well that combined with my internet connection going out for 10 days or so, the whole market collapsed. I tried to restore the mineral market, but my steam was gone, and it was no fun and a constant trade war with the other people who moved in while I was gone. So I changed everything and became a low sec trader.

I had trained for bigger and better ships, and I started flying occators through low sec to pickup minerals I bought with region wide orders than I could get cheaper than staying in high sec. I hauled those minerals for cheap out of low sec (for a fair price, just a better price for me). I did just fine with that and the extra margin made up for the loss of volume. I stopped trading tritanium because now it wasn’t worth it for me to haul it anymore since I couldn’t use my freighter to pick up minerals in low sec, and I started hauling the higher valued minerals (Pyrite was never good for trade for me). With the fit I had with the Occator, I was pretty much invincible with the shield extended up the wazoo and I carried WCS in my cargo hold in case I found a heavy gate camp to bust. I did just fine with ammo bouncing off of my shields until I went to warp until I ran into my first Heavy Interdictor in low sec. I didn’t know they could use their Warp Distruptors in low sec with a special script, but I learned it that day. All low sec operations halted while I figured out how to make this work again. I finally developed the Invulnerable MWD/Cloak/Warp for the Deep Space Transports. I haven’t lost another Occator since.

Every since then, I have been figuring out how I can draw more people out to low sec to reap the benefits of low sec, and increasing available space for all pilots by spreading out a little and all the other benefits that go with that…more targets for pirates, better targets that are harder to catch and so more fun to hunt, safer grounds for the industrialists that aren’t too carebear-ish for low sec. I began developing “safest” fits for industrial ships like mining frigates, mining barges and exhumers. I started an alliance meant to foster this education and use of low sec (which is still very much in development due to lots of spring time outdoors AFK from many alliance members, but mostly me).

Finally, the piece de resistance, the low sec Orca fit I recently developed and wrote about. I have been using it to bust camps with great confidence and non-chalance since, moving tons more stuff through low sec than ever before possible without a jump frieighter (requires alts or cyno team mate and 5 billion isk for just the ship). It can be flown solo, and carries roughly half the stuff the jump freighters can carry. Good shit!!! My mission is to continue to help develop low sec, write an article for E-ON magazine describing how to fit, fly and behave as an industrial based character in low sec in order to survive and thrive. I will continue to be very vocal about the benefits of being in low sec and how one can fly there safely if one follows the basic rules of low sec piloting. One might even be safer in low sec than in high sec if one considers that they let their guard down in high sec. I honestly can say that since I have lived in low sec that I have lost more ships in high sec than I have in low sec…all because I drop my guard.

That’s who was a timid miner afraid of leaving his home system to become, low sec trader, low sec developer, low sec industrial educator and crazy ass pilot finding ways to make the big ships safe to bust camps.

I am … Escoce



Participants:
CrazyKinux's Musing: The Heroes with a Thousand Faces
StarFleet Comms: Life. Evolved.
A Carebear's Journeu: This Carebear Thinks He Is Developing Teeth
The Elitist: Our ventures in EVE
A Mule in EVE: From a guppy predator
Travels of the Ronin: Evolution and Adaptation
The Ralpha Dogs: The Past Through Tomorrow
Where the frack is my ship: A journey, not a destination
I am Keith Neilson: 7 Year Itch?
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Evolution Me
EVE Opportunist: A long history of a short time
Roc's Ramblings: Things Change
Guns Ablaze: Onwards and Upwards
EVE On Real Life: Haven't you grown up yet?
More as they get published...

[Delicious Tag: eveblogbanter18]


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone, so deal with any mispelling, grammatical errors or strangly out of place words caused by mis-autocorrection.

Orca 1 : Pirates 0

So I have been busy and mostly away from both Eve and therefore by extension haven’t had anything really to write about. In March, I spent a week in the desert speaking at the 3rd annual organic beekeeping conference. Being out in nature and away from all thing internet for a week really changed my perspective a bit, plus spring has arrived and all the outdoor work that is involved in that, including beekeeping stuff, like building beehives and managing the colonies that survived winter, etc. Anyway, so much in Eve for me hasn’t happened except to log on to manage my skill queue and ensure I am still training something useful.

Well I have been spending some time in low sec as you all know, and in fact I hadn’t been back in high sec in several months, except for a few weeks ago I did take a few loads of minerals purchased in lowsec over those months to sell in high sec for some quick cash.

Last week however I decided to bring my industrial gear deeper into lowsec where I planned to operate most of my industry related stuff, so I did a brief scouting of the route in my Helios checking for local activity along the route (not just kills). I returned and hopped in my Orca full of working ships, and headed out along the way. Immediately someone popped into local, and we apparently arrived together at the same gate along my path, and of course my heart skipped a beat before I realized it was a Bestower. Ok no big deal, so we went along on our business following mostly the same path, and nothing else exciting happened.

I hadn’t flown the orca through low sec in a while, so I was being as careful as I could be to hone my gate camp busting skills at each gate even though I didn’t need to use them. It’s a good idea really to do it in low sec anyway. You have no idea how quickly you can get targeted and HIC scrambled compared with how long it takes to align an uncloaked Orca. As I approach the last gate to my final destination, I discovered the blood rush pounding in my ears could get louder than it ever had before, or rather at least as loud and hard as the last time it happened. I flew right into a big cloud of pirates.

For the sake of disclosure, I cannot purely say I have never lost an Orca in low sec, but at least I can say I haven’t lost one due to a lack of skill or negligence or poor piloting. I lost one many months ago when I first skilled up and learned how to fit and make safe an Orca for low sec use. I can legitimately say I lost my ship due to my client locking up. You see I run LINUX on my computer which then in turn requires I use WINE to run windows applications on my LINUX system. This ordinarily works perfectly, however the release of WINE during that encounter had a known bug (which I didn’t know about), that caused a Fatal Exception Error to occur during certain types of graphics glitches (such as shading and texturing of models) which are common but barely noticeable for Eve-on-WINE users. Anyway, as soon as I got shot, the graphic representation of the Orca has or had one of those glitchy graphics and being hit caused my client to crash. I had to work fast to kill all the EVE and WINE related processes running and stuck, so I could restart Eve to hopefully find I had warped to a logoff safe spot. Well, when I finally logged back in, I found myself in my backup clone with about 3.5 billion to spend to replace what I had lost. That was the first time the blood rushing in my ears pounded this loudly. But look, I am not a carebear. It hurt, and it wasn’t my fault and not fair, but it was part of my choice to live life this way and the only thing to do is file a petition, and hope and just move on forward. I don’t recall getting even a response for the petition…I don’t even remember if I filed one…ah well besides the point.

So here I am in space, in an Orca, just flown into a gate camp, and they were 5 or 6 sensor boosted HICs waiting at the gate for my arrival. This isn’t the time to think about what to do, either your training takes over and you just do what you are supposed to, or you die. I am glad I spent months training all my navigation skills to max out my agility and align times and fit all the modules and rigs to bring my ship to bear quickly on my warp out point. I spent weeks perfecting the timing involved, because the operation is slightly different than the Occator which I am as comfortable in as my own skin, but that slight difference in operation is the difference between life and death here and now.

I jump through the gate. There is one pirate on the other side scouting that side of the gate. Again, there is no time to let them to regroup and get ready, I must act instantly. Within the bat or two of an eye, I align to station, hit my MWD and cloak. Pirate ships are jumping in all around. Boy the ship sure does turn quickly when she’s at stop, agility boosted, and with the MWD going, and the cloak running. Yes the cloak helps your turning speed by slowing down forward acceleration. This helps the ship turn faster since a moving ship turns much slower a ship that is stopped. I turn off the MWD and wait for the cycle to reach that critical moment to shut off the cloak and hit warp. More ships jumping into local, four, five then six of them all trying to find me. There, I do it, and I am sitting there waiting for the Orca to lurch forward. It sure seems like I am visible and vulnerable for a long time. Then finally she accelerates to warp speed.



To sum up what followed:

The very next thing I see in local from some girl toon is:

 /me jaw drops to the floor
Next thing I see from someone else is:

 ^#%^W cheater


The girl said something like, “Hey, you’re the guy that does ”

I said, “Yea, you read my blog then?”

She, “sometimes”

Me, “Well now you know I wasn’t bullshitting”

She, “That was really impressive”

In private convo shortly later with the gang leader who didn’t want his guy to start swearing angry again so made it private told me when I asked that my ship was totally invulnerable to target locking during that episode. I thought that was pretty awesome to have feedback from someone genuinely trying to kill me.

All in all they ended up being a really straight up gang, and I think I made some friends, though I am certain they’ll continue to try and kill me. I’ll update this blog post with their names, but I am writing this at work and don’t have the chat logs with me. I’ll also post the edited for brevity chat logs in another post tomorrow or the next day after I can clean them up a bit.


Anyway, I thought you might like to read about my first TRUE gate camp busting episode with an Orca.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone, so deal with any mispelling, grammatical errors or strangly out of place words caused by mis-autocorrection.

Learning Skill Tree - My Turn

So lots of good thoughts and arguements going on about learning skills. I recommend you take a look at the following blog posts. The arguements are varied and each different:

http://www.tigerears.org/2009/10/08/skill-training-continues-towards-damnation

http://eve.finkeworld.com/2009/10/08/i-should-be-allowed-to-think

http://podsandpills.baywords.com/2009/10/08/learning-skills-and-why-they-fail

However, now it my turn. I think learning skills are and important part of the game and allows each of us to model our characters differently than the next guy. Beyond the limited selection of attributes we may further advance our training to any degree we see fit. We can either choose sucky attributes at character creation and leave it there or we can spend a little time and money training our attributes higher. Yes you, me and the next guy may say that training your learning skills is essential to playing this game, but I know plenty of people who hadn't and are quite happy with their characters. As well I have seen people who hadn't trained learning skills at all, but after a while of playing wish they had. This is a choice all of us has and we need to live with these choices. The person who chooses not to train learning skills is early going to be ahead of the training curve, but later on behind the curve.

I really agree with Kename Fin when he compares the learning skills with science and social skills. I'd also like to make the next leap and compare them to all skills in the game. Yeah it sucks training your learning skills to max, no one REALLY wants to do it. In fact I have not done it, though they are fairly close. All my rank 1 skills are maxed and my rank 3 skills are all at 3, 4 or 5, further I only have cybernetics 4. Yeah I trained up the bulk of the skills to where I am happy with the amount of time and effort and the payback I get from them. I may eventually train them all to level 5, but chances are the only one I am going to do that with is cybernetics since I get to boost all 5 attributes at once (of course with 1 billion ISK pricetag I know). But really, this is just another choice, my choice.

Learning skills cost money. They cost a lot of money for the early game. I saved up just to get the rank 3 skills. Learning soils take time, but just like every other part of the game you get to choose how much time you spend on them. For a person on a trial account just trying things out, learning skills would be a waste of time, but for those of us in game for a year or longer the skills have already paid off. I train at somewhere around twice the speed than I did when I first started and inal glad I took that time.

So training learning sucks, yep, but does it suck any more than training 40 or more days for battleship 5 to get that sliver of an extra bonus, or how about traing for a hulk? Maybe I should just have been able to fly one right away without traing frigates, barges and astrogeogy first.

At least learning skills aren't a prerequisite to other skills or equipment. So I think y'all should harden the fuck up, or lighten up, or just sit down and shut the fuck up. They all mean the same fucking thing anyway; quit crying.