I have trouble explaining to my non-Eve-playing gamer friends what it is about the game that I find so compelling. It's everything. It's one little thing. It's that other little thing that I love, except when I hate it. It's the people, because they're awesome. It's the people, because they're horrible.
It's... complicated.
I've been playing for two and a half years, and I still find myself sort of chuckling every few days as I mutter "I am so bad at this game." I just try to enjoy the time I have and do better than the day before. There are worse things to take away from a game, I guess.
However.
If I am asked to explain it - to sum up the backstory, or to convey the adrenaline dump from a good fight, or the goosebumps I get when I catch a glimpse of the sheer scope of a game created as much by the players as the company - from here on out, I'm just going to show people the Origins video.
Misadventures in New Eden and Anoikis.
Showing posts with label Links amp; Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Links amp; Resources. Show all posts
2013-04-29
2012-09-28
Life in Eve: How to Kill Joy-sucking Faction Warfare Farmers #eveonline
So one of the more annoying (albeit small) problems with Faction Warfare that I mentioned yesterday is the fact that "running" complexes (either offensively or defensively) is, about 90% of the time, done by guys flying small, cheap ships that are built to tank damage, move fast, and let's-not-even-bother-with-guns. This post details the basic process (and what to do with the loyalty points you make), but since then people have... let's say "honed" the basic idea.
See, while the MLYT version works, it's got -- from a risk-adverse farmer's point of view -- a fatal flaw: it's an armor-tanked ship, and as such, all of its low slots are devoted to tank, which means it can't also fit Warp Core Stabilizers that will prevent anyone from tackling it and holding it on the battlefield. Well, we can't have THAT.
I was going to post up a theoretical fitting for a ship like that, but I don't want to waste the screen space on it. The basic idea is: Take a Merlin, then add an Afterburner, one or two Medium Ancillary shield boosters for an active tank, three Warp Core Stabilizers in the lows, and whatever rigs seem useful or necessary.
Suffice it to say you can spot a lot of Merlins on d-scan in the war zones.
I happen to love the Merlin, and it makes me sad to see it used for such lame activities. It is a noble ship, and worthy of much better things.
It behooves us, when we see such injustice, to put the poor thing out of its misery.
But how?
The problem with this type of ship is that it's very good at what it does, which is:
With the original YLMT ship, it was hard enough to catch the damn things -- anyone even half awake could warp out as soon as they saw you on short-range scan. With the Warp-stabbed version it's even worse, because you might actually get in on top of an inattentive pilot, and he'll STILL get away, because you didn't bring enough tackle to hold him down.
So, in order to liberate the Enslaved Merlins of Farm Warfare, we require a ship with almost the same degree of singular focus in its design as the farmer-frigates it hunts.
Our challenges:
Also, we want the build to be cheap (no extra-strength Faction warp scramblers that cost 14 times more than the rest of the ship), and able to get into any complex in the war zone (no Interceptors).
With these goals in mind, I've come up with a couple options.
The Atron makes a fine steed for your crusade.
All in all, a good ship; nimble and hard-hitting.
Let's try one more:
Let's just sum this up relative to the Atron:
I generally prefer my ships to be a little more versatile than this -- these builds aren't good for much but the job I've laid out here, as they are too fragile for proper PvP and somewhat too easy for bigger ships to blow up in a fleet environment -- however, I could easily see myself spending an evening banging around the war zone in a ship like this, terrorizing farmers, freeing Merlins from ignoble service, and humming a jaunty tune. It would be fun.
And really, what more can you ask?
See, while the MLYT version works, it's got -- from a risk-adverse farmer's point of view -- a fatal flaw: it's an armor-tanked ship, and as such, all of its low slots are devoted to tank, which means it can't also fit Warp Core Stabilizers that will prevent anyone from tackling it and holding it on the battlefield. Well, we can't have THAT.
I was going to post up a theoretical fitting for a ship like that, but I don't want to waste the screen space on it. The basic idea is: Take a Merlin, then add an Afterburner, one or two Medium Ancillary shield boosters for an active tank, three Warp Core Stabilizers in the lows, and whatever rigs seem useful or necessary.
Suffice it to say you can spot a lot of Merlins on d-scan in the war zones.
I happen to love the Merlin, and it makes me sad to see it used for such lame activities. It is a noble ship, and worthy of much better things.
It behooves us, when we see such injustice, to put the poor thing out of its misery.
But how?
The problem with this type of ship is that it's very good at what it does, which is:
- Orbit a structure fast enough to mitigate most damage and repair the rest.
- Leave when anyone shows up to interfere.
With the original YLMT ship, it was hard enough to catch the damn things -- anyone even half awake could warp out as soon as they saw you on short-range scan. With the Warp-stabbed version it's even worse, because you might actually get in on top of an inattentive pilot, and he'll STILL get away, because you didn't bring enough tackle to hold him down.
So, in order to liberate the Enslaved Merlins of Farm Warfare, we require a ship with almost the same degree of singular focus in its design as the farmer-frigates it hunts.
Our challenges:
- Quick travel times. We're going to be roaming all over faction warfare, looking for targets, and we want to do so quickly and with as little interference from third parties as possible.
- Fast closing speed. Bottom line, we aren't going to catch a pilot who's paying close attention to directional scan. A skittish farmer will see us when we land on the acceleration gate that leads into a complex and warp away. Some won't, though, either out of laziness (hoping we won't actually come after them) or lack of attention, which gives us a chance when we land inside the complex. Once on-grid, we are much more likely to be noticed, and we need to get on top of our opponent before they can react; we need the speed of an interceptor in the affordable chassis of a cheap frigate.
- Tackle, and then some more tackle. In short, we need enough tackle to negate a whole rack of low-slots loaded with warp core stabilizers.
- Enough damage to finish the job. Our targets will be fit to tank a bunch of NPCs, so you will have to patiently whittle down their tanks until they run out of power or need to reload their capacitor boosters. Upside: You shouldn't be taking any damage from them as this is going on, so your own tank can range from 'thin' to 'nonexistent'.
Also, we want the build to be cheap (no extra-strength Faction warp scramblers that cost 14 times more than the rest of the ship), and able to get into any complex in the war zone (no Interceptors).
With these goals in mind, I've come up with a couple options.
[Atron, Burn the Farm]
Damage Control II
Overdrive Injector System II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Warp Scrambler II
Limited 1MN MicroWarpdrive I
Warp Scrambler II
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
Light Neutron Blaster II, Caldari Navy Antimatter Charge S
[empty high slot]
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Small Hybrid Metastasis Adjuster I
The Atron makes a fine steed for your crusade.
- Quick travel times. Attack frigates warp fairly quickly for ships of their tech level -- all we'll really need to worry about is how fast we get IN to warp, so as to avoid gangs and gate camps while we pursue our calling. This particular fit get into warp in 2.1 seconds.
- Fast closing speed. With overheating, this little Atron can push over 6600 meters per second, which is enough to get from the warp-in-point to the complex beacon in roughly 10 seconds (depending on the size of the complex). You can lock your opponent about five seconds into that rush, and tackle them about as soon as the lock finishes.
- Tackle. I don't like this part of the fit for two reasons -- one, I'd rather have one long point and one short scrambler, or better yet a web and a scambler, but that's not enough tackle to stop our heavily warp-stabilized farmer, so this is what we have to do. The main problem here is that a farmer with an afterburner can still keep trying to escape at his full speed, which means we'll have to pulse our microwarpdrive to keep up and keep him tackled.
- Damage. This fit does around 155 dps, which is more than enough to finish a farmer frigate quite efficiently. Bring more ammo than you would for a normal PvP fight, since you'll need to wear through a ship that relies on a strong, cap-booster-supported tank.
All in all, a good ship; nimble and hard-hitting.
Let's try one more:
[Slasher, I Come for My People]
Damage Control II
Overdrive Injector System II
Warp Scrambler II
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Warp Scrambler II
Limited 1MN MicroWarpdrive I
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
150mm Light AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Phased Plasma S
Small Energy Neutralizer II
Small Polycarbon Engine Housing I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Let's just sum this up relative to the Atron:
- Travel. Lacking some of the agility mods of the Atron, this Slasher gets into warp just a shade slower (2.3 seconds) but it's still quite quick out of the blocks.
- Fast? Again, it's a hair slower than the Atron, pulling 6200 meters per second while overheating, but still quite fast.
- Tackle. This is where the Slasher has an advantage over an Atron, as the fourth slot lets you address the issue of holding an afterburner-fit farming frigate down. I've opted for a dual-propulsion solution, which lets you switch to the afterburner once you have the ship tackled, easily running circles around the tackled ship, but you could accomplish pretty much the same thing with a webifier in that fourth slot. As an added bonus, the Slasher can easily run a Small Energy Neutralizer, which should let you shut off their afterburner in a cycle or two. You can't run it permanently in this fit, but you shouldn't need to.
- Damage. The Slasher boasts about 65% of the Atron's damage output, but you can afford to be patient -- with superior tackle to the Atron, the ship isn't going anywhere, and eventually the farmer will run out of cap boosters... bring lots of ammo.
I generally prefer my ships to be a little more versatile than this -- these builds aren't good for much but the job I've laid out here, as they are too fragile for proper PvP and somewhat too easy for bigger ships to blow up in a fleet environment -- however, I could easily see myself spending an evening banging around the war zone in a ship like this, terrorizing farmers, freeing Merlins from ignoble service, and humming a jaunty tune. It would be fun.
And really, what more can you ask?
2011-10-13
Life in a Wormhole: Day-tripping #eveonline
A few days ago in the comments, Ko asked:
Really, really good question I'm probably going to answer poorly.
At what point do you say “thanks but no thanks” to a hole?
The short answer: "If there's any kind of activity."
That doesn't mean "if you see Towers", or "if you see ships". It means you see ships, and there's pilots in them, especially if they're doing stuff. (Really, the only way to tell if there's pilots in them is if you can tell they're moving around, or by getting on grid with them, which means finding their tower and looking at them. If the overview shows you a Drake in one column, but a player name in the other column, it's piloted. If it says the ship type in both columns, it's just floating there.)
The long answer: You should cancel your original plans of shooting sleepers if you see online pilots in system, for sure, although it's possible that you can make new plans that involve doing pointy things to the pilots. By yourself, you won't be able to do much, but mugging a lax miner or a badger out collecting planet goo is a fun change of pace, and maybe you'll scare him into logging off so you can shoot sleepers in peace. If you have a couple friends online, you might even be able to lure a guy into attacking you and ambushing him.
It seems that most holes spawning into High Sec space are occupied, regardless of how many sites left. They are positively littered with POSes and more often than not, ships.
I would say that at least 9 of every 10 wormholes I encounter are occupied to some degree, yes. Keep in mind I'm talking mostly about Class 2 and Class 1 systems, but given that Class 2s are the most numerous type, this is indicative.
With that said, "occupied" isn't the same thing as "active". A few minutes of poking around when you get into a system will tell you a lot about what's really going on there. If you do a passive scan (using your onboard scanner), do you see a lot of anomalies? If so, these guys either aren't terribly active, or they just aren't there for the Sleepers (they're doing gas reactions, or making tech3 cruisers or something).
You can also tell by the modules they have on their towers. Are there a lot of silos and coupling arrays? Then they're doing some kind of industry. Online ship assemblies (or ammo or drones or whatever)? Building stuff. Is it nothing but guns and a few hangars? They shoot stuff.
And as I said, just because you see a lot of ships doesn't mean anyone's online. Lots of people are very sloppy and just leave their stuff floating inside the tower shields. The only way to tell for sure is to get on-grid with the tower and look, and that means finding the tower first. More on that in a bit.
I’m wondering what I can do to increase my security.
Okay, so here's me, coming into a system for the first time. I'm not day-tripping, but aside from that, nothing is really different, nor should it be.
I'm outside the wormhole, cloaked. I bookmark it. I have the scanning window up, and I have the in-game browser open and minimized. The homepage of my browser is set to wormnav.com.
I approach the wormhole and jump.
I am on the other side. I have less than a minute before my the 'jump cloak' drops. I check my overview (which is currently set for basic PvP and tower-hunting) and hit both my ship's passive scanner and d-scan. I open the browser window and tell wormnav to update to my current position (something it can only do if it's open in your in-game browser).
Bookmark this side of the wormhole.
I now have data to analyze. Assuming no one is sitting immediately on the wormhole, I align to convenient celestial and immediately cloak. Maybe I jump somewhere to sit at a safe spot, or maybe I keep flying off in random directions while cloaked. Up to you. Time to analyze the data I have.
1. Passive scan: Least-important, but fastest to analyze. Are there anomalies here? "Few or none." means this system is actively occupied, or has very hungry visitors. "A half-dozen or so" means they occupants aren't very active, or they're very inactive and someone cleaned them out a few days ago. "Many" means they're inactive and haven't been visited recently. "OMG it's full of stars" means no one lives here. Jackpot.
2. D-scan. Any ships or towers? If ships AND towers, they're probably together. If ships and no towers, uncheck 'use my overview settings' and re-d-scan, looking for wrecks. If you see wrecks and ships, they're shooting sleepers. No wrecks might mean mining, gas harvesting, Planetary Interaction, space rugby, or ... hell, lots of stuff. If Tower and no ship, probably everyone's asleep. Make sure your overview is set to also show you force fields; if you see a tower but no forcefield, it's abandoned.
If you see no ships or towers, open your system map and see which planets with moons are more than 14AU from you. You will need to warp to those planets (NOT THE MOONS) and refresh d-scan in that area until you have d-scanned the whole system.
Do that even if you initially find a tower. There may be more.
Rule 0: there is a tower. There is always a tower.
3. Wormnav. This page will tell you lots of things about the system, but mostly you're looking for the readouts in the middle that tell you about recent jump activity (random, far-flung spikes indicates visitors-only; lots of consistent jumping means occupants that are active), NPC shooting in the last week or so (indicates activity), and PvP ship and POD kills.
If you see ship and pod kills, reconsider sticking around, unless you're looking for a fight.
If you see ship and pod kills, go to the bottom of wormnav and open up the battleclinic link for more details. Maybe it's the locals who get shot up all the time; that's not bad news.
If you see very little activity, then things are looking pretty good for you.
Let's have a look at that tower. (Or those towers.)
Directional scan is called that for a reason. At this point, it's time to figure out where the towers are and go look at them. Change the 'angle' of your d-scan down to about 15 degrees and swing your camera around so that a planetary cluster within d-scan range is dead-center, then scan.
Do you see the tower on the results? If yes, then the tower is at one of those planet's moons. Warp to that planet at some random distance (not 0 and not 100). If no, repeat this with each planet until you get a 'yes'.
Once in orbit around the planet, swing your camera around to point at each of the planet's moons, d-scanning each, until you figure out which moon is concurrent with the tower. That's your moon.
Make sure your d-scan is showing you EVERYTHING, then scan again, looking for a lot of secure containers, abandoned drones, or corpses, concurrent with mobile warp disruptor bubbles. Such things equal traps meant to snag and decloak you. Be wary.
Warp to the moon and check out the tower. See if the ships are piloted. "Show info" on the tower, check out the owning corp and alliance, and see what their corp info says. Look up the corp and alliance on the battleclinic kill boards. Google them. See if they have a website. Do your research.
Repeat this for every tower where you see ships.
Is everyone logged out? Are you alone?
Good.
Now.
Finally.
You may deploy scanning probes.
Wormnav will tell you how many wormholes there should be in the system. Use your scanning probes and verify there aren't more than that, but don't visit them if you have the right number and want to keep the system quiet.
So: Are we cool? All things are right in the world?
Now you can go get your Drake. Hopefully, all of this hasn't taken more than an hour or so. If you're lucky, or you get good at it, it'll be about 20 minutes, top to bottom. (Yes, it takes a tedious amount of time. I've said as much. C'est la EvE.)
What if there isn't a tower?
There is always a tower.
If you really think there isn't, drop a single combat scanner probe, set it to 64 au, and scan the whole system.
If you don't get any hits but you, congratulations: You either just found your new home, or are about to make about 300 million isk or more from selling the system's location.
I feel like I’m being stretched 5 ways from Friday trying to keep an eye on the d-scan while running sites and keeping myself aligned to a celestial or safe spot.
You're doing it right, mostly. Solo, daytripping into a wormhole, you need to land on the site, align to a celestial, keep moving, and be ready to warp away to that celestial the moment you see anything weird on d-scan (which window should simply never be closed, and which you should be hitting every 10 to 15 seconds, at minimum.
Don't salvage on that Drake, though; not while you're solo and fighting (if you have friends with you, one of them can salvage as they fight, if they're very good at it, but don't expect them to watch d-scan). Bookmark a wreck as you keep moving and killing. When everything's dead, warp to another site and keep going, or warp away somewhere and wait, or warp home for a salvaging ship. In 20 minutes or less, the site will despawn. (You'll know it has if you try to warp to the wreck and DO NOT see the little pop-up message.) Don't salvage until it's despawned. Preferably, do it in a dedicated salvaging boat, because it's better to do it faster and get out, and frankly one salvager on a properly tanked Drake will take WAY too long.
The reason you wait for the despawn is because anyone in the world can find you with no probes in an active anomaly (they need only d-scan and the passive scanner), but in a despawned anomaly, they must use probes, and that gives you a layer of protection and a few more seconds of warning.
And if you have someone following behind you to salvage, try not to do what these guys did.
Hope that helps. More good questions and bad answers in the comments...
Question, when day tripping, at what point do you say “thanks but no thanks” to a hole? It seems that most holes spawning into High Sec space are occupied, regardless of how many sites left. They are positively littered with POSes and more often than not, ships.
I’ve been probing down with cov-ops, peeking inside and running a quick passive and d-scan. If ships are present I’ll pull out the probes. I then run back to high sec for the Drake if things look nice. I’ve been lucky so far, but after a close call a few days ago (got tackled by an assault frig with his friends in-bound.) I’m wondering what I can do to increase my security.
I feel like I’m being stretched 5 ways from Friday trying to keep an eye on the d-scan while running sites and keeping myself aligned to a celestial or safe spot, and I’m at loathe to run a cloak on the Drake since I’ve already got a probe launcher and salvager.
Really, really good question I'm probably going to answer poorly.
At what point do you say “thanks but no thanks” to a hole?
The short answer: "If there's any kind of activity."
That doesn't mean "if you see Towers", or "if you see ships". It means you see ships, and there's pilots in them, especially if they're doing stuff. (Really, the only way to tell if there's pilots in them is if you can tell they're moving around, or by getting on grid with them, which means finding their tower and looking at them. If the overview shows you a Drake in one column, but a player name in the other column, it's piloted. If it says the ship type in both columns, it's just floating there.)
The long answer: You should cancel your original plans of shooting sleepers if you see online pilots in system, for sure, although it's possible that you can make new plans that involve doing pointy things to the pilots. By yourself, you won't be able to do much, but mugging a lax miner or a badger out collecting planet goo is a fun change of pace, and maybe you'll scare him into logging off so you can shoot sleepers in peace. If you have a couple friends online, you might even be able to lure a guy into attacking you and ambushing him.
It seems that most holes spawning into High Sec space are occupied, regardless of how many sites left. They are positively littered with POSes and more often than not, ships.
I would say that at least 9 of every 10 wormholes I encounter are occupied to some degree, yes. Keep in mind I'm talking mostly about Class 2 and Class 1 systems, but given that Class 2s are the most numerous type, this is indicative.
With that said, "occupied" isn't the same thing as "active". A few minutes of poking around when you get into a system will tell you a lot about what's really going on there. If you do a passive scan (using your onboard scanner), do you see a lot of anomalies? If so, these guys either aren't terribly active, or they just aren't there for the Sleepers (they're doing gas reactions, or making tech3 cruisers or something).
You can also tell by the modules they have on their towers. Are there a lot of silos and coupling arrays? Then they're doing some kind of industry. Online ship assemblies (or ammo or drones or whatever)? Building stuff. Is it nothing but guns and a few hangars? They shoot stuff.
And as I said, just because you see a lot of ships doesn't mean anyone's online. Lots of people are very sloppy and just leave their stuff floating inside the tower shields. The only way to tell for sure is to get on-grid with the tower and look, and that means finding the tower first. More on that in a bit.
I’m wondering what I can do to increase my security.
Okay, so here's me, coming into a system for the first time. I'm not day-tripping, but aside from that, nothing is really different, nor should it be.
I'm outside the wormhole, cloaked. I bookmark it. I have the scanning window up, and I have the in-game browser open and minimized. The homepage of my browser is set to wormnav.com.
I approach the wormhole and jump.
I am on the other side. I have less than a minute before my the 'jump cloak' drops. I check my overview (which is currently set for basic PvP and tower-hunting) and hit both my ship's passive scanner and d-scan. I open the browser window and tell wormnav to update to my current position (something it can only do if it's open in your in-game browser).
Bookmark this side of the wormhole.
I now have data to analyze. Assuming no one is sitting immediately on the wormhole, I align to convenient celestial and immediately cloak. Maybe I jump somewhere to sit at a safe spot, or maybe I keep flying off in random directions while cloaked. Up to you. Time to analyze the data I have.
1. Passive scan: Least-important, but fastest to analyze. Are there anomalies here? "Few or none." means this system is actively occupied, or has very hungry visitors. "A half-dozen or so" means they occupants aren't very active, or they're very inactive and someone cleaned them out a few days ago. "Many" means they're inactive and haven't been visited recently. "OMG it's full of stars" means no one lives here. Jackpot.
2. D-scan. Any ships or towers? If ships AND towers, they're probably together. If ships and no towers, uncheck 'use my overview settings' and re-d-scan, looking for wrecks. If you see wrecks and ships, they're shooting sleepers. No wrecks might mean mining, gas harvesting, Planetary Interaction, space rugby, or ... hell, lots of stuff. If Tower and no ship, probably everyone's asleep. Make sure your overview is set to also show you force fields; if you see a tower but no forcefield, it's abandoned.
If you see no ships or towers, open your system map and see which planets with moons are more than 14AU from you. You will need to warp to those planets (NOT THE MOONS) and refresh d-scan in that area until you have d-scanned the whole system.
Do that even if you initially find a tower. There may be more.
Rule 0: there is a tower. There is always a tower.
3. Wormnav. This page will tell you lots of things about the system, but mostly you're looking for the readouts in the middle that tell you about recent jump activity (random, far-flung spikes indicates visitors-only; lots of consistent jumping means occupants that are active), NPC shooting in the last week or so (indicates activity), and PvP ship and POD kills.
If you see ship and pod kills, reconsider sticking around, unless you're looking for a fight.
If you see ship and pod kills, go to the bottom of wormnav and open up the battleclinic link for more details. Maybe it's the locals who get shot up all the time; that's not bad news.
If you see very little activity, then things are looking pretty good for you.
Let's have a look at that tower. (Or those towers.)
Directional scan is called that for a reason. At this point, it's time to figure out where the towers are and go look at them. Change the 'angle' of your d-scan down to about 15 degrees and swing your camera around so that a planetary cluster within d-scan range is dead-center, then scan.
Do you see the tower on the results? If yes, then the tower is at one of those planet's moons. Warp to that planet at some random distance (not 0 and not 100). If no, repeat this with each planet until you get a 'yes'.
Once in orbit around the planet, swing your camera around to point at each of the planet's moons, d-scanning each, until you figure out which moon is concurrent with the tower. That's your moon.
Make sure your d-scan is showing you EVERYTHING, then scan again, looking for a lot of secure containers, abandoned drones, or corpses, concurrent with mobile warp disruptor bubbles. Such things equal traps meant to snag and decloak you. Be wary.
Warp to the moon and check out the tower. See if the ships are piloted. "Show info" on the tower, check out the owning corp and alliance, and see what their corp info says. Look up the corp and alliance on the battleclinic kill boards. Google them. See if they have a website. Do your research.
Repeat this for every tower where you see ships.
Is everyone logged out? Are you alone?
Good.
Now.
Finally.
You may deploy scanning probes.
Wormnav will tell you how many wormholes there should be in the system. Use your scanning probes and verify there aren't more than that, but don't visit them if you have the right number and want to keep the system quiet.
So: Are we cool? All things are right in the world?
Now you can go get your Drake. Hopefully, all of this hasn't taken more than an hour or so. If you're lucky, or you get good at it, it'll be about 20 minutes, top to bottom. (Yes, it takes a tedious amount of time. I've said as much. C'est la EvE.)
What if there isn't a tower?
There is always a tower.
If you really think there isn't, drop a single combat scanner probe, set it to 64 au, and scan the whole system.
If you don't get any hits but you, congratulations: You either just found your new home, or are about to make about 300 million isk or more from selling the system's location.
I feel like I’m being stretched 5 ways from Friday trying to keep an eye on the d-scan while running sites and keeping myself aligned to a celestial or safe spot.
You're doing it right, mostly. Solo, daytripping into a wormhole, you need to land on the site, align to a celestial, keep moving, and be ready to warp away to that celestial the moment you see anything weird on d-scan (which window should simply never be closed, and which you should be hitting every 10 to 15 seconds, at minimum.
Don't salvage on that Drake, though; not while you're solo and fighting (if you have friends with you, one of them can salvage as they fight, if they're very good at it, but don't expect them to watch d-scan). Bookmark a wreck as you keep moving and killing. When everything's dead, warp to another site and keep going, or warp away somewhere and wait, or warp home for a salvaging ship. In 20 minutes or less, the site will despawn. (You'll know it has if you try to warp to the wreck and DO NOT see the little pop-up message.) Don't salvage until it's despawned. Preferably, do it in a dedicated salvaging boat, because it's better to do it faster and get out, and frankly one salvager on a properly tanked Drake will take WAY too long.
The reason you wait for the despawn is because anyone in the world can find you with no probes in an active anomaly (they need only d-scan and the passive scanner), but in a despawned anomaly, they must use probes, and that gives you a layer of protection and a few more seconds of warning.
And if you have someone following behind you to salvage, try not to do what these guys did.
Hope that helps. More good questions and bad answers in the comments...
2011-09-23
Life in a Wormhole: "How do I shot teh Sleepers?" #eveonline
Those of you who don't really play EVE and just read this stuff to see what I got blown up this week might want to either skip this post, or just read the bits that aren't in text-blocks.
This post is a bit of a departure from my normal day-in-the-life post series in two ways.
First, it's intended as something of a guide, which isn't something I normally do (or really feel that qualified to do).
Second, it's not time-shifted; unlike my regular posts, which recount events that have already gone past, this particular post exists due to the fact that we have some new players in EVE who are thinking about joining us in Wormhole Misadventures, and are trying to figure out what kind of ships they need to train for RIGHT NOW.
(Related: the ships I list below will, in general, not be the leet tech2 and tech3 hulls that are so popular in wormholes -- this guide is written for the newcomer to a lower-class wormhole like a class 1 or class 2, and as such, you're not going to see me cover good fittings for a Tengu Strategic Cruiser.)
So, this post is about what kind of ships, VERY SPECIFICALLY, to bring in a wormhole as a relatively new player and (again, very specifically) how to fit them so you don't immediately explode.
"Probes Going Out"
In a minute, I'm going to get into the ship category everyone wants to know about: PvE or "Sleeper-shooting" ships, but I want to make this point very clear: this is NOT the most important category of ship for life in a wormhole. That distinction goes, without doubt, to your dedicated scanning ship. If you can't scan, you're dead. If you can't scan reasonably well, in fact, you have no goddamn business in a wormhole, and I'm not talking about your character's skills; YOU, the player, must be able to competently manipulate the scanning interface, and that means you need to practice. You can't just sit on your ass until your corpmates do the work and hand you some bookmarks; you're not a tapeworm, for fuck's sake: Get scanning.
Seriously: if you can't scan, you shouldn't be in a wormhole. You're a danger to yourself and a dead fucking albatross to everyone around you.
I'll talk more about scanning ships in a later post.
With all due respect: No, you don't. When it comes to Sleepers, you are a rank amateur, and if you bring in the stuff you are used to flying in New Eden missions, you will lose that shiny ship in a few minutes. In known space, you will fight npc opponents who are generally vulnerable to specific types of damage, and who do specific types of damage, so fighting them (and fitting your ships to deal with them) is relatively simple: shoot them where they're weak, defend yourself against their best attacks, and you're fine. Only the Sansha forces in Incursions -- the toughest NPC opponents in New Eden -- don't work this way.
And of course Sleepers don't work that way. They hit you with every kind of damage type, which means you can't leave any defensive holes, and they hit you HARD, which means your defenses have to be both all-inclusive AND strong. Further, they don't have any real defensive holes*, and they both self-repair and remote rep their allies, which means that while you have to gimp your damage a bit to get your defenses up to snuff, you can't hinder your offense too much or you just won't be able to kill the frakking things.
So, we're talking aboutcheap reasonably affordable ships that can take a pretty good pounding (tanking around 350dps with mediocre skills) and dish out a reasonable pounding in return.
Cruisers?
It might be nice to think that you can jump into a cruiser with a big thick tank on and go poking around in wormholes, but the fact of the matter is, there's really very few tech 1 ships in this class that can survive a sleeper assault.
The trick is working out a balancing act between resists and recovery. Your tank needs to recover fast, and it needs to sport some pretty powerful resistances to all damage types, and unless the ship already comes with some good solid resists right out of the box, you'll have to spend so much fitting space getting the resists to up par that you won't have the room to get the Recovery where it needs to be. This is a real problem on cruisers, because they have fewer fitting slots to work with, compared to their big battlecruiser brothers, and at this point the only tech1 cruiser I've been able work out that can survive in a sleeper combat situation is the Caldari's Moa-class cruiser.
(Yes, the Amarr have a cruiser with a bonus to armor resists, but it doesn't have enough fitting space to give you a sustainable omni-damage tank. The Moa is your only tech1 cruiser option.)
The thing with the Moa is its really remarkable baseline shield resists and a pretty good slot layout for a tank. This sucker is TOUGH: with a well-skilled pilot, it can easily ignore anything a class2 wormhole can bring to bear. What this ship isn't is mean; it's damage is mediocre, trending to weak -- it probably couldn't solo even the easiest of the class1 sites, but that's not the point -- it's a stopgap kind of ship that lets you come visit your wormholing buddies, and since it's Caldari, you're probably training to one of the great workhorses of Wormhole living, the Drake battlecruiser. In the meantime, your job is going to be killing the close-range frigates that are orbiting your buddies and annoying them with energy draining.
(Note, though, that this Moa build doesn't use Caldari railguns, but Minmatar projectile weapons -- sorry, but you can't maintain that amazing tank without using guns that don't hit your capacitor. Them's the breaks. You might as well train for Projectiles anyway: they're pretty much better than Rails and Blasters in every respect.)
As an added bonus, if you *do* happen to fly one of these as a training-wheels-on wormhole ship, you can retask the thing later for other non-combat things when your skills improve; the Moa makes a fine-if-not-great gas cloud harvester (and can basically just ignore the piddly little sleeper frigates that show up in class 2 gas clouds), or with even less tweaking can be used to salvage Sleeper wrecks WHILE your buddies are still in combat, making it one of the few cheap(ish) salvaging ships that won't explode the moment a sleeper sneezes in their direction.
So talk to me about Battlecruisers
Battlecruisers come in two Tiers. The first tier battlecruisers look cooler (and are good for PvP). The 2nd tier battlecruisers are better for killing sleepers. That's just how it works. The only Sleeper-killing tier1 battlecruiser exception is the (again, Caldari) Ferox, thanks to the shield resist bonuses that it shares with its big brother the Drake.
The damage on this ship isn't bad, the tank is adequate (new pilots can put another field purger rig on for more tank), but it's still kind of a head-scratcher, because if you can fly this, you can (or almost can) fly a Drake... and to be honest, you probably SHOULD. Still, if you want to save 10+ million isk on putting a ship together, and your rails skills are good, this works.
Since we're already talking about Caldari, let's talk very briefly about the Drake: Shield resists built into the ship. Tons of fitting slots for a shield tank. Weapons that don't use capacitor power. Relatively inexpensive. Actually symmetrical. The Drake's only downside is that they're so goddamn common - they're the Toyota Corolla of Wormholes - but they're common for a reason.
The nice thing about this is that you can downgrade pretty much every tech2 module on this thing to some kind of tech1, 'named' module, and it can still tank most stuff in a class 2, which means if you can fly at Drake AT all, and fit anything kind of in the basic neighborhood of this fitting, you can survive well-enough (be ready to warp out just in case), and keep getting stronger and stronger as you continue to skill up.
That's nice, but what if I don't fly Caldari ships?
Well, every tier2 battlecruiser can tank a class two sleeper anomaly, but you might not always like how I get there. Let's look at the options from the least objectionable to the most WTF.
The Hurricane is an excellent wormhole-running ship, and as an added bonus you can take a second one and fit it out for PvP -- just don't get the two mixed up, cuz they will each suck at the other's job. Although the 'cane is running one additional Invulnerability Field, it's capacitor life is still about the same, thanks to... I dunno. Better cap regen than the Drake? Maybe? Maybe it's just that awesome.
In any case, the tank is solid, the ship looks cool as hell, and the artillery cannons make really big booming noises. As usual, one utility high goes to an emergency "OMG all my buddies are dead and I need to scan a way out of here NOW" probe launcher, with the second utility slot going to a remote armor repper you can use between anomalies to repair your drones -- hell of a lot cheaper than replacing them all the time.
What if you fly Gallente?
That means flying the Myrmidon, which would typically mean sporting an armor-repping tank, but it's damn hard to make an armor-repping build work, thanks to the balancing act of Resist/Repair, so what I typically suggest is a shield-tanked version, using minmatar artillery cannons (since the ship doesn't give you a damage bonus to any particular kind of guns anyway).
This is a tight fit, so if you may need to tweak this a bit to make it work, but it's a solid, solid ship. Yes, I'm putting artillery cannons on yet another ship, but frankly projectile weapons are, pound for pound, better than both railguns and blasters, so as a Gallente pilot, you should continue training them.
Don't blame me -- Gallente guns are just fucking broken. That's how it is right now, and how it has been for a long, long time.
Now with that said, it's actually not impossible to make an armor-tanked version work (something you won't find me saying very often), and CB has been known to roll out in this guy, which can compete with the shield-Myrm in tank+dps pretty much point for point, though the ratios are different:
Somehow - and damned if I know how - it's even cap-stable. Just remember to switch to Uranium ammo when you're going after frigates.
Finally, the Amarr.
Dear god, the Amarr...
Armor tanked, by preference, but with incredibly intensive power requirements, which make armor reppers difficult at the best of times, and pretty much impossible when you have to tank every kind of damage at once.
Nope: have to go shields. Luckily, the Harbinger doesn't really have any armor-tanking bonuses, so he doesn't seem to mind:
I tried my best to come up with a Harby armor fit that actually worked, but there's just no way to do it and keep your guns firing for more than about 3 minutes, even assuming PERFECT Amarr piloting skills. That's not enough.
These guidelines are built under the assumption that you're (a) a fairly new pilot and (b) in a class 2 or class 1 wormhole. Battleships require more training, yes, (especially if you want to fly more than one race's ships) but more importantly if you put Battleship sized guns on your Battleship (as you should) you won't be able to hit most of the sleeper ships that are commonly found in a smaller wormhole -- they're too fast, and too small for those big guns to track.
Listen, I'm a drone-control freak and I don't care who knows it. Just give me something I can fly.
... Fine.
Yeah... that's a shield-tanked Dominix, mounting cruiser-scale minmatar artillery cannons because they don't use up the capacitor and they can actually hit what you're shooting at. It's wrong on so many levels it makes me hang my head in shame.
But it works.
Now let's never speak of it again.
If you're looking at these fittings and thinking "I can't fly that", then you need to train up until you can. Yes, seriously. If you have some extra isk, you can cut some corners by buying more expensive named modules on the market -- lower requirements with the same output -- but ultimately, you need to get the skills; in the long run, there's no substitute. This is what you need to survive Sleepers in a Wormhole.
Surviving the other players is a whole different problem.
This post is a bit of a departure from my normal day-in-the-life post series in two ways.
First, it's intended as something of a guide, which isn't something I normally do (or really feel that qualified to do).
Second, it's not time-shifted; unlike my regular posts, which recount events that have already gone past, this particular post exists due to the fact that we have some new players in EVE who are thinking about joining us in Wormhole Misadventures, and are trying to figure out what kind of ships they need to train for RIGHT NOW.
(Related: the ships I list below will, in general, not be the leet tech2 and tech3 hulls that are so popular in wormholes -- this guide is written for the newcomer to a lower-class wormhole like a class 1 or class 2, and as such, you're not going to see me cover good fittings for a Tengu Strategic Cruiser.)
So, this post is about what kind of ships, VERY SPECIFICALLY, to bring in a wormhole as a relatively new player and (again, very specifically) how to fit them so you don't immediately explode.
"Probes Going Out"
In a minute, I'm going to get into the ship category everyone wants to know about: PvE or "Sleeper-shooting" ships, but I want to make this point very clear: this is NOT the most important category of ship for life in a wormhole. That distinction goes, without doubt, to your dedicated scanning ship. If you can't scan, you're dead. If you can't scan reasonably well, in fact, you have no goddamn business in a wormhole, and I'm not talking about your character's skills; YOU, the player, must be able to competently manipulate the scanning interface, and that means you need to practice. You can't just sit on your ass until your corpmates do the work and hand you some bookmarks; you're not a tapeworm, for fuck's sake: Get scanning.
Seriously: if you can't scan, you shouldn't be in a wormhole. You're a danger to yourself and a dead fucking albatross to everyone around you.
I'll talk more about scanning ships in a later post.
I Run Level Four Missions, I Know How to Shoot NPCs
With all due respect: No, you don't. When it comes to Sleepers, you are a rank amateur, and if you bring in the stuff you are used to flying in New Eden missions, you will lose that shiny ship in a few minutes. In known space, you will fight npc opponents who are generally vulnerable to specific types of damage, and who do specific types of damage, so fighting them (and fitting your ships to deal with them) is relatively simple: shoot them where they're weak, defend yourself against their best attacks, and you're fine. Only the Sansha forces in Incursions -- the toughest NPC opponents in New Eden -- don't work this way.
And of course Sleepers don't work that way. They hit you with every kind of damage type, which means you can't leave any defensive holes, and they hit you HARD, which means your defenses have to be both all-inclusive AND strong. Further, they don't have any real defensive holes*, and they both self-repair and remote rep their allies, which means that while you have to gimp your damage a bit to get your defenses up to snuff, you can't hinder your offense too much or you just won't be able to kill the frakking things.
So, we're talking about
Cruisers?
It might be nice to think that you can jump into a cruiser with a big thick tank on and go poking around in wormholes, but the fact of the matter is, there's really very few tech 1 ships in this class that can survive a sleeper assault.
The trick is working out a balancing act between resists and recovery. Your tank needs to recover fast, and it needs to sport some pretty powerful resistances to all damage types, and unless the ship already comes with some good solid resists right out of the box, you'll have to spend so much fitting space getting the resists to up par that you won't have the room to get the Recovery where it needs to be. This is a real problem on cruisers, because they have fewer fitting slots to work with, compared to their big battlecruiser brothers, and at this point the only tech1 cruiser I've been able work out that can survive in a sleeper combat situation is the Caldari's Moa-class cruiser.
(Yes, the Amarr have a cruiser with a bonus to armor resists, but it doesn't have enough fitting space to give you a sustainable omni-damage tank. The Moa is your only tech1 cruiser option.)
[Moa, I Just Want to Come See a Wormhole and Not Die]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field II
'Malkuth' Standard Missile Launcher I, Piranha Light Missile
'Malkuth' Standard Missile Launcher I, Piranha Light Missile
425mm Medium Carbine Repeating Cannon I, Depleted Uranium M
425mm Medium Carbine Repeating Cannon I, Depleted Uranium M
425mm Medium Carbine Repeating Cannon I, Depleted Uranium M
425mm Medium Carbine Repeating Cannon I, Depleted Uranium M
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Hobgoblin II x3
The thing with the Moa is its really remarkable baseline shield resists and a pretty good slot layout for a tank. This sucker is TOUGH: with a well-skilled pilot, it can easily ignore anything a class2 wormhole can bring to bear. What this ship isn't is mean; it's damage is mediocre, trending to weak -- it probably couldn't solo even the easiest of the class1 sites, but that's not the point -- it's a stopgap kind of ship that lets you come visit your wormholing buddies, and since it's Caldari, you're probably training to one of the great workhorses of Wormhole living, the Drake battlecruiser. In the meantime, your job is going to be killing the close-range frigates that are orbiting your buddies and annoying them with energy draining.
(Note, though, that this Moa build doesn't use Caldari railguns, but Minmatar projectile weapons -- sorry, but you can't maintain that amazing tank without using guns that don't hit your capacitor. Them's the breaks. You might as well train for Projectiles anyway: they're pretty much better than Rails and Blasters in every respect.)
As an added bonus, if you *do* happen to fly one of these as a training-wheels-on wormhole ship, you can retask the thing later for other non-combat things when your skills improve; the Moa makes a fine-if-not-great gas cloud harvester (and can basically just ignore the piddly little sleeper frigates that show up in class 2 gas clouds), or with even less tweaking can be used to salvage Sleeper wrecks WHILE your buddies are still in combat, making it one of the few cheap(ish) salvaging ships that won't explode the moment a sleeper sneezes in their direction.
So talk to me about Battlecruisers
Battlecruisers come in two Tiers. The first tier battlecruisers look cooler (and are good for PvP). The 2nd tier battlecruisers are better for killing sleepers. That's just how it works. The only Sleeper-killing tier1 battlecruiser exception is the (again, Caldari) Ferox, thanks to the shield resist bonuses that it shares with its big brother the Drake.
[Ferox, "I fly Caldari But I don't like Missiles
Magnetic Field Stabilizer II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Dual 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Uranium Charge M
Dual 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Uranium Charge M
Dual 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Uranium Charge M
Dual 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Uranium Charge M
Dual 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Uranium Charge M
Dual 150mm Compressed Coil Gun I, Uranium Charge M
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Medium Hybrid Burst Aerator I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Hobgoblin II x5
The damage on this ship isn't bad, the tank is adequate (new pilots can put another field purger rig on for more tank), but it's still kind of a head-scratcher, because if you can fly this, you can (or almost can) fly a Drake... and to be honest, you probably SHOULD. Still, if you want to save 10+ million isk on putting a ship together, and your rails skills are good, this works.
Since we're already talking about Caldari, let's talk very briefly about the Drake: Shield resists built into the ship. Tons of fitting slots for a shield tank. Weapons that don't use capacitor power. Relatively inexpensive. Actually symmetrical. The Drake's only downside is that they're so goddamn common - they're the Toyota Corolla of Wormholes - but they're common for a reason.
[Drake, The Drake is Not Always Bait]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Ballistic Control System II
Invulnerability Field II
Target Painter II
Invulnerability Field II
Shield Recharger II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay, Scourge Heavy Missile
XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay, Scourge Heavy Missile
XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay, Scourge Heavy Missile
XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay, Scourge Heavy Missile
XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay, Scourge Heavy Missile
XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay, Scourge Heavy Missile
XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay, Scourge Heavy Missile
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Hobgoblin I x5
The nice thing about this is that you can downgrade pretty much every tech2 module on this thing to some kind of tech1, 'named' module, and it can still tank most stuff in a class 2, which means if you can fly at Drake AT all, and fit anything kind of in the basic neighborhood of this fitting, you can survive well-enough (be ready to warp out just in case), and keep getting stronger and stronger as you continue to skill up.
That's nice, but what if I don't fly Caldari ships?
Well, every tier2 battlecruiser can tank a class two sleeper anomaly, but you might not always like how I get there. Let's look at the options from the least objectionable to the most WTF.
[Hurricane, Passivecane (WH)]
Gyrostabilizer II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Damage Control II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
650mm Medium Prototype I Siege Cannon, Fusion M
650mm Medium Prototype I Siege Cannon, Fusion M
650mm Medium Prototype I Siege Cannon, Fusion M
650mm Medium Prototype I Siege Cannon, Fusion M
650mm Medium Prototype I Siege Cannon, Fusion M
650mm Medium Prototype I Siege Cannon, Fusion M
Small Remote Armor Repair System I
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Hobgoblin II x4
Hammerhead II x1
The Hurricane is an excellent wormhole-running ship, and as an added bonus you can take a second one and fit it out for PvP -- just don't get the two mixed up, cuz they will each suck at the other's job. Although the 'cane is running one additional Invulnerability Field, it's capacitor life is still about the same, thanks to... I dunno. Better cap regen than the Drake? Maybe? Maybe it's just that awesome.
In any case, the tank is solid, the ship looks cool as hell, and the artillery cannons make really big booming noises. As usual, one utility high goes to an emergency "OMG all my buddies are dead and I need to scan a way out of here NOW" probe launcher, with the second utility slot going to a remote armor repper you can use between anomalies to repair your drones -- hell of a lot cheaper than replacing them all the time.
What if you fly Gallente?
That means flying the Myrmidon, which would typically mean sporting an armor-repping tank, but it's damn hard to make an armor-repping build work, thanks to the balancing act of Resist/Repair, so what I typically suggest is a shield-tanked version, using minmatar artillery cannons (since the ship doesn't give you a damage bonus to any particular kind of guns anyway).
[Myrmidon, Minbari Artillery]
Gyrostabilizer II
Gyrostabilizer II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
650mm Artillery Cannon I, Fusion M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, Fusion M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, Fusion M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, Fusion M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, Fusion M
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Hornet EC-300 x5
Light Armor Maintenance Bot I x5
Warrior II x5
This is a tight fit, so if you may need to tweak this a bit to make it work, but it's a solid, solid ship. Yes, I'm putting artillery cannons on yet another ship, but frankly projectile weapons are, pound for pound, better than both railguns and blasters, so as a Gallente pilot, you should continue training them.
Don't blame me -- Gallente guns are just fucking broken. That's how it is right now, and how it has been for a long, long time.
Now with that said, it's actually not impossible to make an armor-tanked version work (something you won't find me saying very often), and CB has been known to roll out in this guy, which can compete with the shield-Myrm in tank+dps pretty much point for point, though the ratios are different:
[Myrmidon, RAILS, BITCHES]
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Armor Thermic Hardener II
Armor Kinetic Hardener II
Armor Explosive Hardener II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
Cap Recharger II
200mm Prototype I Gauss Gun, Antimatter Charge M
200mm Prototype I Gauss Gun, Antimatter Charge M
200mm Prototype I Gauss Gun, Antimatter Charge M
200mm Prototype I Gauss Gun, Antimatter Charge M
200mm Prototype I Gauss Gun, Antimatter Charge M
200mm Prototype I Gauss Gun, Antimatter Charge M
Medium Nanobot Accelerator I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Capacitor Control Circuit I
Hammerhead II x5
Hobgoblin II x5
Ogre I x2
Hammerhead II x2
Hobgoblin II x1
Somehow - and damned if I know how - it's even cap-stable. Just remember to switch to Uranium ammo when you're going after frigates.
Finally, the Amarr.
Dear god, the Amarr...
Armor tanked, by preference, but with incredibly intensive power requirements, which make armor reppers difficult at the best of times, and pretty much impossible when you have to tank every kind of damage at once.
Nope: have to go shields. Luckily, the Harbinger doesn't really have any armor-tanking bonuses, so he doesn't seem to mind:
[Harbinger: Attitude Adjuster]
Damage Control II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field II
Focused Modal Medium Laser I, Multifrequency M
Focused Modal Medium Laser I, Multifrequency M
Focused Modal Medium Laser I, Multifrequency M
Focused Modal Medium Laser I, Multifrequency M
Focused Modal Medium Laser I, Multifrequency M
Focused Modal Medium Laser I, Multifrequency M
Small Remote Armor Repair System I
Core Probe Launcher I, Core Scanner Probe I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Medium Core Defence Field Purger I
Hammerhead II x5
I tried my best to come up with a Harby armor fit that actually worked, but there's just no way to do it and keep your guns firing for more than about 3 minutes, even assuming PERFECT Amarr piloting skills. That's not enough.
Y U No Battleships?
These guidelines are built under the assumption that you're (a) a fairly new pilot and (b) in a class 2 or class 1 wormhole. Battleships require more training, yes, (especially if you want to fly more than one race's ships) but more importantly if you put Battleship sized guns on your Battleship (as you should) you won't be able to hit most of the sleeper ships that are commonly found in a smaller wormhole -- they're too fast, and too small for those big guns to track.
Listen, I'm a drone-control freak and I don't care who knows it. Just give me something I can fly.
... Fine.
[Dominix, What I dont' Even...]
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Shield Power Relay II
Power Diagnostic System II
Power Diagnostic System II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Large Shield Extender II
Invulnerability Field II
Invulnerability Field II
650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
650mm Artillery Cannon I, EMP M
Drone Link Augmentor I
Large Core Defence Field Purger I
Large Core Defence Field Purger I
Large Core Defence Field Purger I
Ogre II x5
Hammerhead II x5
Bouncer II x5
Warrior II x5
Yeah... that's a shield-tanked Dominix, mounting cruiser-scale minmatar artillery cannons because they don't use up the capacitor and they can actually hit what you're shooting at. It's wrong on so many levels it makes me hang my head in shame.
But it works.
Now let's never speak of it again.
In Conclusion...
If you're looking at these fittings and thinking "I can't fly that", then you need to train up until you can. Yes, seriously. If you have some extra isk, you can cut some corners by buying more expensive named modules on the market -- lower requirements with the same output -- but ultimately, you need to get the skills; in the long run, there's no substitute. This is what you need to survive Sleepers in a Wormhole.
Surviving the other players is a whole different problem.
2011-07-24
Life in a Wormhole: Don't Shoot the Good Guys #eveonline
The formidable weaponry of our fully armed and operational battle station has been brought to bear on a hapless intruder into our system! The pilot warped close to the moon our tower orbits, decloaked within the (formidable) range of our guns, and got their ship popped. The fool! They will know better the next time they --
Wait, what? It was one of our own guys?
Oops.
Specifically, it was Bre, who actually isn't part of our corporation, just a friend. In fact, she's supposed to be marked as a trusted friend of the corporation, and we thought the tower guns understood that, but when we think about it, we realize that she's been flying a cloaked covert ops ship almost a hundred percent of the time, and has never actually been visible to the guns at any point, except when she was safely inside the tower shields.
Until now.
Oops.
The reason Bre was decloaked outside the tower was to set up a pair of 'mailboxes' outside our tower and the tower of ze Germans -- password-locked containers, floating in space, where our two corporations can leave each other bookmarks to all the cosmic locations we scan down -- just one more way we can establish a good relationship with our neighbors.
(I don't think I put this much effort into getting to know the people I actually live next to.)
Bre was handling this part of the project simply because she's the best scanner we have and she can fly around the system without fear of enemy ambush (friendly ambush is another story).
I'm annoyed that we still haven't gotten the security on the tower set up correctly, and the Germans sympathize, because they still haven't figured out how to get their tower to stop shooting at us either, which seems to embarrass them more than a little.
In fact, they seem to feel particularly bad about the fact that Bre's ship was destroyed while she was distributing bookmarks for their corp as well as ours, and three of their leaders each send her a sizable bit of isk to compensate her for the loss -- more than enough to replace and refit her covert-ops frigate. This makes quite a good impression on us -- words are nice, but actions speak considerably louder, and in EVE, actions involving money speak loudest of all.
The Germans send their condolences.
The tengus slumming in our system the night before seem to have cleared out all the local sleeper sites, but luckily we have a persistent connection to class 1 wormhole space. Some exploration reveals that there are dozens of small pockets of the semi-dormant homocidal drone ships in that small abandoned system, so I start cracking them open and pulling out their candy-like ancient technologies while Bre builds herself a shiny new Buzzard cov-ops ship.
I'm going after the Sleepers solo, because Gor is out for the day and CB is still back in Empire space after his encounter with roaming bombers the night before, but my Myrmidon battlecruiser takes longer to reach the ships than blow them up. I bookmark a wreck in each site, leaving them in my wake as I go, so that the cleared sites despawn and drop off of the system scanner. The wrecks will remain for several hours, but there won't be an easy way for ... let's say ... a pair of stealth bombers to locate and drop in on me when I come back in my salvager ship.
CB is online, however, and we chat on voice while I slap the evil drones around. He's still analyzing the ambush, and bemoaning the loss of so much ore. Our lessons learned from the event are two-fold; CB decides he need to adopt a 'save early, safe often' mindset, and 'waste' some time flying the ore back to the safety of the tower more often than he's used to doing in high security space. For my part, I think it's fairly likely the fragile bombers would have left CB alone if he'd had a pointier ship nearby -- rather than running around doing errands, we might have saved ourselves a ship loss if I'd played bodygaurd the night before; you'll always be safer with a friend than flying solo.
In fact... it occurs to me that I'm solo right now, and flying a fragile salvager ship. Hmm.
I hurry the last of the post-combat cleanup and skitter on back to the tower. There's plenty of time left in the evening, but I think I can wait to share the profit (and risk) with another pilot.
Wait, what? It was one of our own guys?
Oops.
Specifically, it was Bre, who actually isn't part of our corporation, just a friend. In fact, she's supposed to be marked as a trusted friend of the corporation, and we thought the tower guns understood that, but when we think about it, we realize that she's been flying a cloaked covert ops ship almost a hundred percent of the time, and has never actually been visible to the guns at any point, except when she was safely inside the tower shields.
Until now.
Oops.
The reason Bre was decloaked outside the tower was to set up a pair of 'mailboxes' outside our tower and the tower of ze Germans -- password-locked containers, floating in space, where our two corporations can leave each other bookmarks to all the cosmic locations we scan down -- just one more way we can establish a good relationship with our neighbors.
(I don't think I put this much effort into getting to know the people I actually live next to.)
Bre was handling this part of the project simply because she's the best scanner we have and she can fly around the system without fear of enemy ambush (friendly ambush is another story).
I'm annoyed that we still haven't gotten the security on the tower set up correctly, and the Germans sympathize, because they still haven't figured out how to get their tower to stop shooting at us either, which seems to embarrass them more than a little.
In fact, they seem to feel particularly bad about the fact that Bre's ship was destroyed while she was distributing bookmarks for their corp as well as ours, and three of their leaders each send her a sizable bit of isk to compensate her for the loss -- more than enough to replace and refit her covert-ops frigate. This makes quite a good impression on us -- words are nice, but actions speak considerably louder, and in EVE, actions involving money speak loudest of all.
The tengus slumming in our system the night before seem to have cleared out all the local sleeper sites, but luckily we have a persistent connection to class 1 wormhole space. Some exploration reveals that there are dozens of small pockets of the semi-dormant homocidal drone ships in that small abandoned system, so I start cracking them open and pulling out their candy-like ancient technologies while Bre builds herself a shiny new Buzzard cov-ops ship.
I'm going after the Sleepers solo, because Gor is out for the day and CB is still back in Empire space after his encounter with roaming bombers the night before, but my Myrmidon battlecruiser takes longer to reach the ships than blow them up. I bookmark a wreck in each site, leaving them in my wake as I go, so that the cleared sites despawn and drop off of the system scanner. The wrecks will remain for several hours, but there won't be an easy way for ... let's say ... a pair of stealth bombers to locate and drop in on me when I come back in my salvager ship.
CB is online, however, and we chat on voice while I slap the evil drones around. He's still analyzing the ambush, and bemoaning the loss of so much ore. Our lessons learned from the event are two-fold; CB decides he need to adopt a 'save early, safe often' mindset, and 'waste' some time flying the ore back to the safety of the tower more often than he's used to doing in high security space. For my part, I think it's fairly likely the fragile bombers would have left CB alone if he'd had a pointier ship nearby -- rather than running around doing errands, we might have saved ourselves a ship loss if I'd played bodygaurd the night before; you'll always be safer with a friend than flying solo.
In fact... it occurs to me that I'm solo right now, and flying a fragile salvager ship. Hmm.
I hurry the last of the post-combat cleanup and skitter on back to the tower. There's plenty of time left in the evening, but I think I can wait to share the profit (and risk) with another pilot.
2011-02-23
EVE Online: Missions, Agents, and earning Faction Love
The most striking thing about EVE Online is the way in which the game is not like its digital brethren. Unique can be a good thing: when you're sick to death of the same-old-same-old, something that works completely differently can be a real breath of fresh air. It can also be a bad thing: sometimes, the reason that everyone solves a design problem the same way is simply because it's actually the best way to solve the problem. "Unique" is a risky balancing act -- when you get it right, it can set you far above your competition -- get it wrong and you've set yourself up for mockery and painful failure.Say what you will about EVE, it's definitely not a game that's ever been afraid of being different from everyone else. Sometimes that works out well, and sometimes it makes players want to kick innocent puppies to relieve their frustration. Today, in the /diff files, I'm going to take a look at EVE's version of the MMO-ubiquitous "quest" mechanic: Missions -- and see which end of the spectrum they end up on.
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