Stockpiling stuff to take to the hubs
Another low sec route today. Only 25 or so jumps but I've found that with the times I'm playing (mostly early morning EU time) there's not too many people around and plenty of anoms spawned. There were some decent sites and plenty of loot.
A few jumps in I scanned down a site where I needed my "squished" probe formation. Just as I was finishing off the scan someone else pops into the otherwise empty local channel. I returned my probes and opened D-scan and warped to the site. First can, failed the first attempt. Not even from being distracted by checking D-scan every 5 seconds, it was just one of those attempts where nothing you do will ever get you to the end. Not even by being lucky and picking the only route through. It was a can where after the first 2 empty nodes it was nothing but anti viruses, firewalls and restoration nodes one after another blocking every single path. Great start.
Attempt 2, still checking d-scan every 5 seconds. I crack the can and as I do there's a targeting bleep and there's a warp scramble attempt on me. How the hell did he sneak up on me when D-scan was blank of probes 5 seconds ago and 5 seconds before that and so on... Never mind. I warp off, trying to get the contents of the can at the same time but this time it didn't work so a couple of million in loot lost. As I warped the guy posts in local "how many warp stabs? 2? 3? 4?" It was quite funny because someone else had just jumped into the system and was witness to this chat exchange. I replied with "11" which got a laugh and then the new person posted and "epic fail" pic I assume aimed at the failed ganker.
I stuck around in that system for another minute or so to chat. I mentioned D-scan not showing any probes. The guy mentioned stealth probes... are they even a thing? Really, I have no idea if it was just a joke or if stealth probes are real. Can anyone enlighten me?
After that quick chat I then warped off to continue my route. Not much in the next couple of systems but towards the end of the route I started getting more sites. All in all a 2 hour trip (with a 30 minute break in the middle for repairs and food, so 1h30 flying time) netted me 38 million.
After a real life break, I did an hour long round trip in the high sec area of my home space and found another 12 million before heading back to the station to unload and log off. Tomorrow I'll probably head to the various hubs and sell. Rens isn't too far from my home base so if anything has the best prices there it's only a 4 minute trip either way and then I can sell the bulk in Amarr or, more likely, Jita.
Day 13 total: 420 million ISK
(80 million stockpiled)
Today is the day I bought a shiny new cruiser - if only it had been under better circumstances
Yesterday's low sec run was so prolific I tried again today. I've gotta say, it wasn't so successful. There were a combination of factors to this lack of success. Firstly I was tired, secondly I wasn't in a great mood (possibly related to point one) and lastly, I got blown up by another bloody POS defence system -.-
I mean, you would've thought I'd learnt from the last time. Obviously not. I'd already hit several sites and was carrying 40 million in cargo so I was kind of pissed off that I'd done it again. I bookmarked the location of my wreck though and searched the market for a ship I could fly in nearby system that wasn't obviously price gouged. I ended up buying a Maller in the same system for 12 million so picked it up, warped to my wreck, took the 18 million that dropped and got out of there before I could start getting shot at. From now on I'm going to avoid using moons as my safe spots while scanning, too much risk of becoming target practice.
Next I flew over to Amarr to buy and fit Imicus mark 3. Hopefully I won't lose this one. I din't bother selling the loot yet as I wanted to go and finish the SOE epic arc now that I had a cruiser. I fitted it out and flew in the direction of Arnon. Mission accomplished for Chasing Shadows. Dagan on the other hand was a bit more problematic. My dps wasn't good enough to take him down but then again he couldn't get through my shields either... and I have an armour tank. Luckily for me I got some help from a guy in the Eve Uni chat channel. I apologise for not remembering his name but it wasn't Heo (who has a thing for killing Dagan.) I'd highly recommend joining the E-uni chat channel, it's friendly and there's plenty of people from all areas of the game so a great place to ask any question you might have. There's also much less trolling that in rookie chat which is also a nice bonus.
Epic arc completed, I delivered Dagan to the Minmatar official as my standings with them had tanked since doing missions for Amarr and I like having the option of selling in Rens and Hek. After that did a few combat sites in the Maller just to get a feel for it. It's an awesome tank but a little too slow for ratting and missions. I'll probably keep it for the time being though, it looks awesome and tanking is kinda fun.
It was very much a "break even" kind of day. I did come out ahead with 30 million sat in Amarr waiting to be sold but with fitting the Maller and doing mostly combat related stuff after the loss of the Imicus, my wallet was pretty much where I'd started at the beginning of the day.
Day 12 total: 420 million ISK
Low sec: A money maker ripe for the picking
My last couple of trips to low sec didn't exactly go well. The first where I got shot at by the only other person in local but escaped and the second being blown up by a POS defence system that I didn't realise could shoot that far. Third time lucky right?
From my last excursion into null I'd left some stuff in random stations and I ended up using one of these as my home base. It turns out it's a good system to begin exploration from as there's a couple of different "round trip" paths I can use depending on the day and how many people are in the area. There's also a lot of low sec systems in the area and it's these I was going to explore today.
Off I go then. It's worth pointing out that my sleep pattern is pretty messed up mostly due to work so I play at really odd times, again it was fairly early morning and on a Tuesday so there were maybe 16-17000 people online. Quiet then. Most of the systems I hit were completely devoid of people so I scanned and looted all the sites I came across. After 20 minutes I was up to 20 million in cargo. Awesome.
4 or 5 systems in and someone pops into local while I'm scanning. I warily continued and found a data site and began with the first can. Just as I cracked it a ship warps in. Crap. I warped out immediately (managed to grab the loot first) but saw as I was leaving that it was only a Probe. Not so scary. Still, better to be safe than dead and frozen floating in space right?
There was a Relic site in that system too which I'd already scanned down. By this stage of my playing "career" I was pretty proficient at multitasking so usually when I'm in a site I'm already scanning down the next anomaly. This speeds up the process hugely and it's pretty safe to do as long as you keep an eye on local and your overview. So I warped to the relic site and began cracking cans assuming that the probe would appear in a couple of minutes. There were 2 cans left in the previous site plus I assumed the guy was fairly new to scanning so wouldn't be scanning while hacking.
There were 5 cans in this site and I'd hit 3 of them before the guy warped in. This time I didn't bother warping out and he went for one can while I cleaned out the other. After that I already knew the remaining anomalies were combat sites so I jumped to the next system. As I'm in the first relic site I find, the same guy jumps into the system. This is going to turn into a race. I cleared out the site leaving one "carbon can" so the site remained on his scanner and warped over to the next one. Cleaned it out and jumped to the next system.
A minute later and he's there too. I hope he liked the gift I left him. I'd already established by the time he jumped that of the 3 anomalies there were no hacking sites. Next system. He obviously put 2 and 2 together at this point and realised I'd either cleaned out the good stuff or there were no sites because he jumped almost immediately after me. Again, I scanned down and got to each site before he could, leaving the empties and collecting the good stuff.
Unfortunately after that system we parted ways. I went right and he must have gone left (or back) and so my fun was over for the time being. I carried on through another 8 or 9 systems, none of them with hacking sites, before finding a nice juicy system with 4 sites. Yum. Just those 4 sites were another 20 million. My round trip was coming to an end and I was back in high sec by this point. I got back to my home station with 80 million in my cargo hold. Better than null and without the stupid gate camps to boot.
I quickly checked prices online and carted all the loot over to Jita via Amarr. I'm starting to love low sec!
Day 11 total: 420 million
A day spent in High-Sec, yet massively profitable
Null sec is fine, no where near as bad as the reputation it has but I needed a day away from constantly looking over my shoulder and quick improvisation. A leisurely cruise around high sec in a ship generally not worth ganking should do it. As a general rule of thumb data sites are more profitable in high sec than relic sites while the opposite is true in low and null. Good thing I was getting a lot of data sites then!
After a couple of hours of uneventful exploration I headed to Amarr to pick up a bunch of stuff that had come from buy orders and then onwards to Jita. My wallet was looking very healthy and I thought it was about time I should get some +3 implants. A quick search gave me some odd results. For example, some of the +3 implants that give additional bonuses were 2-3 million cheaper than just the basic +3s. So yeah, I now had random bonuses to an attribute I don't need (something to do with ewar) from 2 of my implant slots, 2 with normal +3s while I just stuck a +1 in the Charisma slot.
So nearly 40 million dropped on implants but the stuff I'd carted up from Amarr sold for about that too. I then went back down to Amarr with a bunch of stuff I'd bought in Jita and set up sell orders for it all. A steady stream of wallet blinking began as I set out to do a bit more exploring. Once the flashes died down after a couple of hours I knew I'd been undercut so headed back to Amarr to sell some of the loot I'd found and update orders.
Generally you can make a lot of ISK station trading by just updating orders once or twice a day but I suppose at the moment I'm impatient. So whenever I'm close and it's not too far out of the way I head to the hubs and update.
More wallet flashing.... yay. Both buy and sell orders were filling nicely and I wasn't even getting undercut that often.
Really not a bad day. Lots of money spent but even more made to give me a +60 million total from yesterday.
Day 10 total: 340 million ISK
Told you I had plans for exploration today.
On the back of my previous success in null sec I wanted to try again, surely the first time wasn't just a fluke getting in and out with no problems? It was just after 7 a.m. local when I left Amarr, this time going for a different route that last time. It was 20 odd jumps to get to my point of entry and along the way I did some scanning as there were an unusual amount of signatures. I ended up with a full hold after 9 jumps so dropped it all off at a random station and carried on. Another few jumps and I had to do the same again! Now I know why most people leave the Positron Cords. Finally at 8:30 I get into null.
Things got hairy immediately. I came out of the first stargate 10km away from a group of warp disruption bubbles and a guy in a Navy Issue Raven. This is going to be fun. I warped off but not before he pretty much insta targetted me and tries to warp scramble. Warp Core Stabilizer I for the win. I came out of warp close to the next gate and I have no idea if it was the same guy or just his friend (there were 2 others in local but I didn't really have time to check the names) in another Raven who sets his drones on me while trying to gun me down. Luckily he's well out of range and I managed to MWD over to the gate and jump just as his drones got to within 5km of me. Close call but the first gate camp escape of the day. I kind of imagine the guy in the Raven being like that Star Destroyer Captain from the Empire Strikes Back; "Our first catch of the day"...... /Ion Cannon
Moving on. I flew deeper into null finding a lot of systems empty of life but not of cosmic anomalies. My planned route was 50 odd jumps and would eventually take me out of null in a different place to where I came in. Like last time I encountered quite a few unmanned bubbles but most of the players that entered local were gone just as fast as the arrived.
The actual relic and data sites weren't too bad. Better than last time at any rate in the sense that there were fewer empties and those that were empty I was weeding out with the cargo scanner. I ended up finding quite a few BPCs. Things like Integrated drone blueprints. While they're not worth huge amounts they were all 60 run copies which go for a couple of million each. Once I'm PLEX'd I'm hoping selling all of the BPCs I'm finding in bulk via contract will at least net me a good portion of my next PLEX.
After about an hour I was flying around with an estimated 40 million in cargo plus the worth of the blueprints so I felt it was time to head home a bit early. Mostly because it was Sunday and I thought it was likely that things would get busier soon. At the time I was in a system that was 'out of the way' as in, the systems either side had a direct stargate to each other so unless you you needed to be in that system, you would generally fly straight past it and not pay it any mind. I warped to the gate from the data site I'd just cleared and hit an unmanned bubble. Problem was, it wasn't "un-droned" There were 7 or 8 drone npc's waiting around and they looked angry. Choices choices. Do I warp out, go back and hope the stargate from the previous system to the system I'm going to isn't camped. I could, but from what I remembered there were players in local so chances are it is. The only other option is to burn through and hope the drones don't get me.
Option 2 seems like the quickest way at least. I hit my MWD and off I shoot at 2500m/s. At 50k I get targetted. The drones close. 20km to the gate and the frigate size drones catch up to me. My shields go down at 10km. 2km and my MWD has about 1 second left of the cycle so I can't warp out. My Armour is at 40% left.... and I jump. Phew. Still flying. I warp off from the gate and head ever closer to high sec.
6 or so systems from "safety" I hit a highly populated system. My heart sinks. I'm already too stressed to deal with the inevitable gate camps. Lets get it over with then. I warp, hoping to just get a clean jump. Ahh, giant blue bubbles.... I'm 40km from the gate, no players visible but that doesn't mean much in this world of cloaking devices. I warp to a planet and burn away from it to give me time to plan my next move.
At this point I get a "o/" in local chat from one of the residents. I reply with "Don't mind me, just trying to avoid being blown up by you guys." No response. D-Scan shows a couple of T2 frigates in the area but no one had scanned me down yet. There was movement though with ships coming in and out of D-Scan range. After a couple of minutes I thought to myself, "why not." So I warped back to my target gate and hit the bubbles. This time 15km from the gate so I just burned through unopposed.
2 Jumps from safety and it all goes South. I enter the system. One person in local, fair enough. Warp, hit a bubble and the guy is on me almost instantly. I mean, it sucks but at least he's competent at what he's doing unlike everyone else that's tried to actively gank me so far. So I'm 60km from the gate, no chance of getting out of the sphere to warp away because there's an Interdictor ramming me from behind. MWD on and I try to get to the gate. You know, maybe his tracking is really bad or something... Well, not much to do in the end but wait for the inevitable. I was 30 odd jumps away from home base so once my poor Imicus was finished off I didn't even try and escape the pod kill. Here's the kill mail. Most of the good stuff was destroyed, oh well.
No complaints from me about the kill. I'd probably been riding my luck for too long as it is. If I'd have known more about bubble camping I think I might have survived, I definitely would have done things differently. So while 40 million wasn't a huge setback in the grand scheme of things it was demoralising. Then again, I think of how easy it's been so far getting to 220 million and the ease of even getting that 40 million in loot in the first place and realise it's not all that doom and gloom.
I wake up a jump away from Amarr in my shiny new clone and head off to buy an new Imicus. "Why do we fall Bruce?" Batman quotes aside I went back out into the big wide World and scanned down some sites in high sec. Some pretty decent ones too including a 10 million relic site. After the events of the morning, that in particular made me feel much better. To top it all off, during my trip to Jita I came across some implants that had a lower Jita sell than Amarr buy plus I invested in a 52 mil implant that I later sold for 63 mil in Amarr. A quick 15 million ISK profit off that journey after taxes.
Even with the setback, I came out of the day well ahead of where I'd been in the morning. The goal looks very attainable right now.
Day 9 Total: 280 million
Honestly, another slow day.
A few more buy and sell orders filled over night meaning I could update new ones but other than that I decided to take a bit of a break from exploration so bought and fitted a punisher for some level 1 Caldari Navy security missions. Why Caldari Navy? Jita... An effort to slightly reduce tax rates on my trading.
The punisher, using a fit similar to the basic PVE fit here, is fun to fly. Getting up close and personal and then armour tanking the crap out of incoming damage was a welcome change of pace from scanning and can cracking.
Other than a few level 1's the day was uneventful. I flew back down to Amarr with a some of the items I planned on flipping for profit down there and logged off after listing it all with the intention of getting down to some serious exploration in the morning. I only have 2 weeks left after all and my liquid ISK was slightly less that a third of what I needed to buy a PLEX. Thankfully prices were coming down ever so slightly though so I was looking at the possibility of getting one for 775 million rather than 800 million. Still time for prices to go up again though.
Day 8 total: 220 million ISK
Business end at the front, party at the back.
Another uneventful day as far as blogging goes unfortunately. I didn't have a great deal of time to play today but I did do a spot of both trading and exploration.
The most interesting thing to happen was finding an implant on the market of which the sell price in Amarr was 150k cheaper than the best buy price in Jita. So I of course bought out every single one that would make me profit after tax calculations and flew the 9 jumps to that most wretched hive of scum and villainy. 5 or 6 million profit off that item, plus the tens of millions of exploration loot I sold wasn't bad for 10 minutes of jumping. I mean, I know more established players can make that much quicker but as a new player every little helps. I could also have listed the implants as sell orders but honestly the volume of past sales wasn't reassuring so I was more comfortable just selling to buy orders rather than waiting for a) people to buy the implant or b) people to 0.01isk undercut.
While in Jita I placed some more buy orders on items I could transport down to Amarr on my daily trip back and flip them there for between 30-120k profit per item. And these were items I was buying for 5-10k. Such a huge discrepancy between the two main hubs but great margins for me and on a route I'm already taking daily.
Just as an aside, I won't be keeping track of exact amount of buy and sell orders because it all moves very quickly so my daily ISK total will only be what I have liquid in my wallet or, if I start stockpiling before selling, unsold exploration items. Although technically anything can go wrong on the way to sell so I might not even be comfortable giving that total - don't want to jinx it :) Not listing buy and sell orders will mean the ISK total won't reflect exactly how much I have until I cash out so it might seem like I'm not getting anywhere. Don't worry, I am!
Day 7 total: 200 million ISK
