2011-10-20

Life in a Wormhole: Dangerous When Bored #eveonline

It's less than 24 hours since I first heard murmurs about getting a Rorqual for the system, with a number of ideas tossed around about funding the whole thing.

Twenty-four hours is a long time for a bunch of pilots trapped in a single wormhole -- a lot of things can happen, and apparently they have; by the time I log in, Em has a new spreadsheet set up to track "the Rorqual project", and people are mining away, tallying up the value of the ore and adding it to sheet in a slow count toward lofty monetary benchmarks.

It would appear we're doing this, or at least we're seriously considering it. Our corp is lagging behind, so I cast our vote with an enthusiastic email and three hundred fifty million ISK sent over to Em to get the wheels turning -- I'm a shite miner, but I do have cash, and since the Rorqual plan involves repaying all the investors (eventually), I'm more than happy to chip in.

Honestly, I would be anyway: as I said, I'm not much of a miner, but several of our other pilots (CB, Gor, Wil, to name a few) definitely are; They don't mine in wormholes due to all the problems with mining that I've mentioned -- I love the idea of them being able to use more of their character's abilities -- ultimately, a completely 'realized' wormhole should be allowing you to use all aspects of your EvE pilot's abilities (except your official "social" skills, maybe), and this is a step in that direction.

We're still running the home system with the wormholes closed up, so I've little enough to do other than that. The wardec has a few days left; the alliance has lost a hauler in a ridiculous example of poor decision making, but we've popped a couple tech 2 assault frigates, so with all that said, we're 'ahead' for the week, and will easily cost the wardeccing corp more than they cost us.

This is probably the most dangerous part of the wardec: with only a few days left and nothing much happening, this is when someone decides to take a chance and run to a market system. I'm not a patient person, and I've got no mining ship with which to distract myself, so the safest thing I can do is log out for the night to keep myself out of trouble.

As I head back to the tower, the mining continues, and although there's no sound in space, I'd swear I can hear the pilots humming a tune over comms.

Pilot you’re a punk
flyin' cheap junk.
Playin’ in wormholes
gonna go mine some rocks today.
Shootin' Plagioclase
You big disgrace
Kickin’ jetcans all over the place.

We will we will Rorqual
We will we will Rorqual.

Pilot you’re a carebear
don't care
Lookin’ for a way
gonna pay to smash some ore today.
You got dirt on yo’ face
You big disgrace
Screams of boredom make no sound in space.

We will we will Rorqual
We will we will Rorqual.

Pilot you’re an rich man
ore man
Lickin' cracked lips
Gonna make you some ISK today.
Crushing ore in a vice
You're not that Gneiss
Gotta crazed glaze creepin' over your eyes.

We will we will Rorqual
We will we will Rorqual...


(With apologies to Freddy Mercury... and everyone else.)

12 comments:

Tweed said...

I like it!

How can you exploit the clone vat bay? Not sure how the player owned version works.

doycet said...

Unfortunately, you can't -- there's no way to clonejump into wormhole space. I wish like hell there was.

That and the jump drive are pretty useless in WH space, which pretty much leaves you with the ore compression... ship hangar... and fleet boosts (which the Orca does better and more cheaply).

So... pretty much the ore compression. Which still makes it worth it. :)

Tweed said...

Oh that sucks. Thought this was the way around that problem.

Sooo this is going to be a POS decoration then? Orca out w/ the miners?

There is something really sweet about the "ship in a bottle" concept w/ WH's.

doycet said...

Honestly, it won't even be out during mining ops, but after them -- crushing the ore requires the Rorq go into 'siege mode', so it's something we'll do after the ops are over. In between, we park it, and let the Orca pilots with their perfect leadership skills do the boosting.

CB said...

The inability to use a clone bay in WH space is stupid. I can get mail and bills in WH space and if I get podded in WH I come to in a clone, why won't a clone jump in WH space?

doycet said...

Here's hoping that's fixed at some point.

Em said...

You sure can get jumped out to your clone if you get podded in WH space too.

Splodger said...

When you have a direct connect to Null/Low, you could hop the Rorqual out and then pilots could jump to it that way.

doycet said...

I don't believe the Rorq will be able to go out through the C2s static to lowsec. Too small.

dianalynnETC said...

you song made me laugh and now I can not get it out of my head.

doycet said...

Victory!

Philip Richardson (@DSI_PhilR) said...

"fleet boosts (which the Orca does better and more cheaply)."
Rorqual does the boosts better (10% per cap industrial skill level while the industrial core is active in the rorq vs 3% per level of industrial command ships in the orca), but the Orca does them more cheaply (no fuel needed to get the 3% bonus per level).

If you're compressing and mining at the same time, the Rorqual wins hands down. You might consider doing one or two ops Orca boosted and then do one or two Rorqual boosted while compressing from the first op. Definitely have capital industrial ships trained at least to level 2 (4 ideally) when you do this to save on fuel and increase boost effect.

And any Rorqual built in C4 and down is stuck. No connecting wormholes are ever large enough to allow it to pass. Same with all other capitals you can build in WH.

As for the clone bays being not usable in WH space, it's by design and not likely to change.