Official Announcement

WARNING! ВНИМАНИЕ! SOLAR FLEET. EN/RU
From: Kupyc
Sent: 2011.12.07 21:52
To: Shadow of xXDEATHXx,

The Official Statement from Legion of xXDEATHXx of the 8th of Dec 2011.

There will be a standings reset between Legion  of Death and Solar Fleet right after downtime. This tough decision came as a result of all diplomatic attempts, towards our old neighbour Solar Fleet, failed. Drone Regions are no longer the quiet corner of the universe - a war begins now. Not only the ingame war, but political and propaganda warfare: there are already articles on forums, there was  a DDoS attack on our services for the past several hours, our Teamspeak, utilities and billing system.

Alliance Legion of Death is now mobilizing forces to fend off the aggressors and to protect what Drone Regions stood for since the begining.

In addition to direct notice that your welfare is being threatened alliance Legion of xXDEATHXx offers you to stand up for this well-being. Solar Fleet are renowned for the discipline and are a good tough opponent - the war with them will probably become an unforgettable experience. You are welcome to join alliance CTAs. Fleet format, ships and fits will be announced later. This isnt mondatory - join the fleet to experience what you probably wont experience anywhere else.

Regards,  Karer.

-As thus, let the war begin!
-Tassemet

The War Machines of EvE Churn On...

Ok, so in my last blog post I predicted the coming of a large scale war within three to four months.

Well, my post came about two days before Solar Fleet reset the standings towards the alliances of Legion of Death and Shadow of Death. That has kicked off a massive effort to prepare for war- and I myself have been mining ice to fuel capitals. Isk isk baby. This potential war has three options to it- One, Drone Russian Federation wins by a landslide, two- Solar Fleet wins by a landslide, three- each side is evenly matched and we'll be in for a slugfest. Of all the options I like the sound of a slugfest- war is good for industrials.

And to add to that little kicker, I have intel from someone saying Goonswarm is preparing to make a move on the north alliances in an attempt to stir up trouble- although it isn't clear yet whether or not they intend to drive them out of the space and take it, or to just roll through it and cripple all those who stand in their path. Regardless, it'll make for an interesting fight as alliances put their pride and assets on the line in order to subdue their opponents.

Remember: war is good. To my enemies, I say:

Christmas Time

With Christmas around the corner and my own vacation starting in less then two weeks, it's been a fun last week or two, starting with the crucible patch. As my Pandora Radio cranks out tune after tune to add to my christmas spirit, and as my workplace begins to add christmas decorations to our front lobby and lounge, I am once again reminded: It is winter. Yes. It has snowed, EvE has released a new patch, and heralding in this season was the first super capital kill the other day in HED-GP, an old stomping ground of mine that is constantly camped, due to it being a pipe to highsec.

It is rather unfortunate though that he was a scrooge and self-destructed versus fighting the good fight because even with the new changes, he could have taken a few battleships out before being toasted himself. So, it is sad to see this Nyx go to the graveyard without generating a killmail, but i'll still call that a kill. Tis' the season to be killing capitals. And of course, who else would perpetuate such a kill? Why, Pandemic Legion of course! They fought the NC. supercap and killed the pod when it was liberated from within the mass.

Link Here if you want to see PL <-10.0> Kill an NC. Nyx.

On a side note, we had a supercarrier hunt in our alliance the other day as a pilot that was flying a thanatos was attacked and killed by an ev0ke supercarrier. The pilot managed to get his Nyx out before we could get in and capture it with a bubble, and while it was sad, it wasn't exactly a prevented kill. The carrier taken down had no fighters and seemed to be relying only on sentry drones and heavy drones.... so their fault. However, we gave good chase and came up empty. Thanks again to the people who formed up the fleet extremely quickly while my corp and I rallied everyone to the system to try and get the guy. Mad props to your speed.

So speaking of the holiday season and cold, oxygen isotopes are through the roof, almost 1400isk/unit. Goonswarm's "Operation: Interdiction" has thus far been the driving reason behind the price inflation, with the only current places able to get ice and ice products is in nullsec and lowsec, where goons won't venture to place fleets. Besides, on sites such as evenews24.com and from screens I have seen on the web from Kugu forums, it seems that the goons might be in league with the DRF, as a paraphrased quote from The Mittani was stated as "We realize we are handing the Russians a lot of isk. We're ok with that." So any speculation on the fact that it might be the goons trying to inflate ice prices to the point where they would make as much isk as possible selling off stockpiles is clearly wrong. As prices have slumped temporarily I think (winter is coming afterall; even supercaps hibernate too) despite the fact that new fuel blocks will require the oxygen isotopes, it appears that this is being done in an effort to make moving capitals against enemies of Goons or Goons themselves (Gallente capitals only) extremely expensive, and therefore make combat scenarios involving capitals less likely. Well, it might be working. I've heard the gripes and complaints of corps and capital pilots that use their Thanatos for peaceful industrial moving purposes complain of the increasing costs to move stuff around lowsec and nullsec.

And all these leads me to my point: Thank Goons. Despite the fact that they have increased fuel prices, 0.0 ice miners will certainly find their wallets full for all those presents of joy this christmas season. And, despite the fact that there are less capitals fighting and less fighting occuring, I expect that the spring and summer months will will bring about a renewed need for new capitals and industrial handiwork- namely in the measure of dreadnaughts, which right now have seen prices go up 10-25% just for the hulls alone due to the buffs they recieved in Crucible.

As i found out exactly expensive it is to move ships around and goods from high to nullsec via step-off/jump-off systems, I myself plan to get in the market out here and mine ice to sell to my corpies. I've already been offered a massive ice contract which I plan to fill. Myself, I plan to go beyond that and start a stockpile of ice products too- I forsee an increase in fuel prices beyond what they currently are.

So for now, i'm heading out to the ice belt. It's time to quit denying the fact that Winter might not be coming, but that it is actually here, hiding under our frost-bitten noses and that we are keeping it at bay with good cheer, christmas songs, shopping (ingame and out), yule-log fires, PvP and industry.

Fly safe, and Happy Holidays from Tassemet and Elizabeth!

Crucible

(Photo is of the new shaded Drake, thanks to my fellow corp mate and pilot Death for allowing me to photograph)

(Photo of Elizabeth flying a harbinger.)

Two words.

This is...

I'll let you fill in the last word on the new details of the newest eve online expansion to be released. Thus far, only an hour or two into the patch, and the details and patch notes speak for themselves- This is not your momma's expansion. Thus far what i've seen is mind blowing. I'll highlight the chances and drawbacks that thus far I've noticed to be mentionable.

Positives/Advantages
First up is mining lasers- specifically, strip miners. They now have accurate sounds that I think match the style of the ship and the 3D turret animations on our ships. Also included with the strip miners is the new sound effect that goes along with the laser actually hitting the rock. It sounds like it's being buffeted, and a green glow surrounds the site that's being hit. I won't lie, i'm biased for industrialists and it's about time they are getting a little love that they deserve for all their time and effort.

Loot all- FINALLY. It only took CCP a few years to put in a button that cuts down on the clicking that people who endlessly salvage have to do. It will make it faster, more convient, and makes the time requirements to salvage decrease significantly. It made flying by an enemy wreck in space looting take 2 seconds and 2 clicks, one to open the wreck, one to press the button (Loot All). I see this being one of the most used features of this expansion.

The return of the old weapon icons! This makes it easy to be able to identify weapons based on their picture and not have to right click -> get info all the time. So railguns actually look different from blasters and not the visually unimpressive pixelated versions. Hello artwork, we love you <3 Speaking of artwork, they have revamped a lot of the ship's colors to bring them up to par with the new graphics. Also, nebulaes. They are unique per system, and shift slightly when you move to a new system. And to top that off, the gates now face the direction they will send you catapulting through space, and the destination star is quite bright in system.

Last but not least- the new tier three battle cruisers. These bad boys can fit battleship sized weapons while still having the mobility and speed of a battlecruiser. Of the ones introduced, the Talos, Oracle, Tornado, and the Naga, I personally like the visually stunning appeal of the Oracle, with it's golden shimmering hull and smooth curved oblong hull. With some battleship sized weaponry, I forsee these new ships being fast mobile sniper gangs fielded en masse to just tear apart capitals ships, I also see them as close in blaster ships that move fast, shoot fast, and hit harder. With logistics (since these guys can't pack a massive tank) I forsee these fleets becoming a mainstay in alliance and large scale PvP.

Corp Bookmarks- Now we can finally share bookmarks amongst the people of a corp. So now jumpbridges can be shared with the corp and one person can keep track of all of them and modify them as needed. Oh yeah.

Disadvantages/Negatives:
Pinning Windows- Appearently the feature is gone. Forum crying/threadnaughts have been started as thousands attempt to bring the feature back, as appearently it's used by a lot of people. I personally don't use the feature and won't when it gets back, but then again, I'm for the people, and the people cry MOAR PINNIN'!

Supercapital Nerfs- This is by far the biggest debatable item. Many see this is a positive and negative, mostly negative by the large alliances who use massive amounts of capitals as their fighting force. They removed drone bays in dreads and titans, and nerfed the size of the drone bays on supercapitals. Also, they made it so that supercapitals and carriers can only launch fighters. This is all in an effort to increase the use of subcapitals to counter capital fleets. But I think the new tier 3 BC's are the counter we've been looking for. We'll see how it turns out.

New Font- Some hate it, some love it, most don't have an opinion. However, I'll label this as a drawback. The old font was good, and yes there were a few inconsistencies that made it hard to read, and maybe it's just the newness of this font, but the new font seems more cartoony, doesn't scale well with the -a and +A options in the chat windows, and is extremely hard to find a middle ground on size that is neither too big nor too small to fit in certain window sizes. That, and of all the things in the game, the font seems out of place. I'll label it is a negative for now until I either grow use to it, or I still hate it in a month.

For now though, these are just an overview of all the new features and options available to players in EvE. Come check them out and fly with us.

 Until I see you on the battlefield, or in the asteriod belts though, fly safe!

Slippery Slope

Ok guys, exciting news from the homefront, short post but it will have to do, not much to say in it.

I officially love stupid supercap pilots that allow themselves to be found.
I officially hate said supercap pilot for being smart and getting away.

Yup. That about sums up part of my night as me and a fleet wound up trying to chase down a solo Nyx that came a wee bit too close. Unfortunately, bad timing screwed me (and us) over and it slipped our grasp by a second or two. Too bad, as our bubbler was so ready, along with the fleet.

Anyways, yeah fun night for all! I'm going to toss some mad props to the people who fleeted up in record time and rolled with me, and to the valiant cyno pilot who lost his ship and his pod to a random ass fleet that jumped in.

Until then, we shall be on the prowl.
Fly safe!
-Tassemet

-Tassemet

CCP Live Event Hot-dropped

In the afternoon hours (evening for some), a CCP fleet leaving Polaris arrived in Tama, where they were stationed for a while camping a gate. Hilarity ensued, as well as lag as hundreds swarmed to take a shot at their favorite Dev. Approx 600+ were in local (according to my laggy local chat) and things went swimmingly for about an hour, to ninety minutes- players attacked devs, and they attacked back, fielding mainly amarr apocs with what appeared to be blaster megathrons, with guardians for logistics support.

Then... they were all hot-dropped.

Pandemic Legion, deciding they wanted all the wrecks (loot/drones) for themselves, hotdropped in approximately 6-8 titans (numbers were unconfirmable) and a dozen supercarriers as well as carriers for triage. They then proceeded to clear the field with whoever remained straggling (including myself), where I don't have anything solid past that.

However, a pirate group sat camping the only station in the system, getting kill after kill as people attempted to loot the field (including myself), and looting it for themselves. All I know is, this event seems to have been a success, until Pandemic Legion showed up. Lag reduced towards the end when the capital fleet jumped in... however, I fully expect to see a fight on that gate as other alliances take advantage and jump in capitals of their own and attempt to take on the PL fleet, however, as I am not on grid, I cannot confirm that that is what will happen.

Rest assured, someone (ahem PL ahem) will be making off with a handsome profit of loot, ammo, drones, salvage, and whatever other goodies that CCP has decided to have stored in their cargo bays. I had fun- mainly because it was the first time I have seen titans on a grid, let alone more then one. I hope everyone else had fun too! It certainly was a way to start the Thaknsgiving Weekend!

Some Photos from the Event:

This is not Minecraft... It's SteamCraft, or SteamPunk-Craft!

Hey readers!

So I have some cool shots to show you that come from my cheaters world where I use the mod TMI (Too Many Items!) In it is some cool things. Hold on, you'll see.

As you can see to my left, there's a cool photo. in it is the beginning of a steam plant I built. It uses steam engines (the grey blocks with the blue tops) to create electricity with each cycle. The electricity is moved through conduction pipes (a la wires) to a block that does work, such as a quarry, or a pump, or a refinery. The whole thing is powered with coal, which I place in chests on the first floor. There, redstone engines (powered by redstone switches) move the coal through pipes (the grey ones) to engines. If the engine is full, the coal won't go to it, but if it needs it, the coal is moved to the engine, and consumed. Each engine can hold a stack of 64 coal each, so saturating the system (aka turning on the coal pumps) before actually turning on the machines themselves primes the system for long use. Each coal lasts a minute or two, so each engine can run for an hour to 90 minutes without actualy needing filled.

 Here is two floors of the steam plant, which is still being worked on. As you can see, coal delivery is highly efficient, and I can fuel multiple floors all from the first floor without actually having to go to each individual floor! Makes it simple just to spawn coal using TMI, load the chests, and then go monitor the pumps on the first floor, or occasionally walk the floors to check for overheating. Overheating is bad, because in engines more powerful then redstone, they explode. And seeing as how the building is all engines... it's like a TNT factory waiting to happen if done wrong. But thus far, I have tried my hardest to have them overheat and I can't get them to run past blue (cool) which is fine. In this build, my goal is to have 6-8 floors of these engines running, and maybe have only the top 2 floors there as spare/auxillary back up systems. We'll see though, as I need ot get a new laptop before actually completing this build. As it stands, it lags. Badly.

Until then though, you have my BlogCraft World. So now, back to your regularly not regularly scheduled blog posts!

Night 2 through... Shoot. Creeper.

Ok, well, it's been a few nights in the game and before I go off to sleep in real life, I'm going to give you a quick summary:

1. Creepers suck.
2. Creepers suck.
3. Creepers suck.
... You get the picture.

But for real pictures:

 Yes. A creeper. Hate those buggers.

In the top photo, is the mountian i'm slowly shearing off. As I found it, it's only accessable by a waterfall, which means I can work through the night up there and not worry about mobs. Yay. Also in the top photo are the trees I'm growing to cut down so I can stay up there almost indefinitely. All I need is wood and a chest to store the blocks.

Well, i'm saving the world, and i'll continue my adventures tomorrow! The goal? Get some minecart track laid down!

Until then, may your houssssssssssse be sssssssssssssafe from creeperssssssssssss!

An Inconvienient Creeper

Ok. yeah. As you can see. This is how my first night went... -_-

A creeper managed to blow apart the outside of my temporary structure, which is positioned at the foot of a massive mountain, which I plan to level. However, not all was lost! I managed to pick up a few arrows and gunpowder, and some bones. Here's to night 2.

Squares are for Mining!

Hey blog readers!

So, it's official! The release of the full minecraft has happened! And while I don't have it yet, I plan to get it soon, but for now, I have Beta 1.8.1 since all my mods are installed and working on it.

I have decided though, to commence in a new world and take screenshots and FRAPS (if I ever get it and figure out how to work it) of my world. Now, I do have the mod Too Many Items installed, but I don't plan to use it (at least in this world), however, I do have Buildcraft installed, and will make use of that through the recipies and crafting bench!

If I don't remember a recipie, I will use a tool called Minecraft Canary, or Minecraft Wiki, or Buildcraft Wiki. Othe rthen that. I'm gonna go squares to the wall and get started!

Opening world photo.... yup. Trees...

I like Big Belts And Long Blog Posts and...

Greetings to my fellow readers!

Today's blog post will be following some stuff on planetary interaction, more 0.0 living issues, how to avoid being a target, and how to have fun safely in nullsec while still being in danger. Oh, and skill updates. Heck yes.

Ok, so let's start with planetary interaction. So far, i have been extracting on my planets nonstop making mechanical parts and consumer electronics just stockpiling as much as my planets can produce. Thus far, if I started robotics production, i'd easily get about 100 robotic units. That totals out to about 4-6 million isk, just resetting the extractors and exporting the P2 goods. Right now, I'm running a barren planet and a lava planet, and both are just extracting away and processing...

While moving about in friendly space in fragile ships with neutrals and hostiles about, there's a few important things to know. One important one is to use your intel channel. No doubt, this thing has saved my life on numberous occasions. It has also screwed me over, since intel reported is usually old 30 seconds later. In 0.0, the distance between populated systems is also great, so sometimes a fleet might be 13 jumps away, then 2 jumps because there was nobody between the two points to report anything. It happens though, that if they make it into your system, and a fight is imminent, or they are trying to scan you down, that you have a tool that gives you an idea how much time you have left. It's called Directional Scan, or D-Scan for short. It allows you to see what is in space (not necesaily how far away it is), which allows you to see fi there are probes dropped in space, or even ship types of your enemies. This is limited though, to a certain scan range, so you may see probes on scan, but if the ship is outside your scan range (due to large solar systems) you may not see the owner.

Now, you may think that this is all a lot of risk in nullsec for a small gain. Well, let me tell you, it's a large gain. If you are a miner, and your system has an infrastructure hub, you can get gravimetric sites which allow you to mine in hidden asteriod belts. Now, the rats that spawn will be battleships and below, and sometimes there are 1-3 battleships a spawn, but this varies. For best results, it is easiest and safest to mine with a buddy, or in cases like mine, have one account tank the spawn and allow the other account to mine away peacefully. When it comes time to haul, take one of your characters and kill the spawn, and haul the ore. Then, repeat the process. Out here, one rock can net you 60 million isk alone. One rock! Worth it if you ask me.

Finally to do the skill updates.

Tassemet is progressing quickly towards tech 2 sentry drones. Only last night he finished drone interfacing V, which allows me to do another 20% damage with my drones. Right after that, he started training sentry drone I, II, and III. III finishes later tonight, and IV starts right after. Then, he'll be forced to wait approximately 25 days to finish sentry drone V. What a pain. It seems Tassemet is powering through some of the worst time length skills ever. But, it will be worth it when he flies a carrier, or when he flies a Dominix and powers his way through Hordes and Sanctums.

Elizabeth is still working on Amarr Industrial V. It finishes in a little less then a week. After that, I have nailed down the final draft of her skill plan, which will have her flying a harbinger that can tank rat spawns. She may not be able to kill them, but tanking for now will be enough. While she serves a useful purpose of keeping dornes off Tassemet while he mines, she will be training her support skills to be able to fit the Harbinger better, and it will eventually culminate in her having the skills necessary to be fully tech 2 fit and battle ready.

For now though, Elizabeth is hauling ore and Tassemet is mining with a buddy. And speaking of rats... here come some now for me to kill...

The Fledglings Rise Against!

Well!

It's been one of those days where after taking care of all the things I need to go about my day are done that I once again settle into flying spaceships! Today, I decided to answer questions in the Rookie Help channel. Now, despite the fact that I can't stand people begging for isk constantly, there are some very bright and intelligent rookies in the up-and-comings. Despite the fact that I thought my eyes would bleed, somehow explaining to a new person why it is better to fly around in a shuttle then just a bare pod brought me to realize a few things. One- my memory of this game and playing it for the past six years is amazing. Two- it reminded me of the basics of PvE and PvP. And last but not least, 3- it reminded me how fun it is to be a new person flying around the wonders that veteran players take for granted.

Today, i've been mining a lot and looking over the things that I would love for Elizabeth to fly, and I think that I will be training her support skills and get her working towards a completely tech 2 fit Harbinger. This will allow her to realize the potential of being a support character and will allow her to make isk ratting and since she is finishing up Amarr Industrial V in a few days, she will be able to haul with the ability to move to a Providence within a week or two.

Plans for this upcoming week include more mining and maybe seeing if i can get a ship or two built, as well as finishing up Tassemet's training of Drone Interfacing V. From there, I plan to expand on sentry drones, since they will provide me immediate usage (versus something like Jump Drive Operation V which is only good once I have the capital ship), and from there, we'll see.

For now though, Elizabeth will haul, Tassemet will mine, and I will blog of our adventures and plans!

Just Like Good Times.

Well, it has been a few months since I last set myselfto the task of making a blog post. My sincerest appologizes to any of my readers who suddenly found their evening reading material gone. Consider it back now.

So, what i've been up to in the last few months. Well, a lot has happened. I've gotten more sleep, gotten better grades, and played more eve now that schooling is for all intents and purposes, done. Since the last blog post, I have moved corps once, made a few friends, and then moved back to 0.0 with my friends Southern Comfort Armaments. Coming back to their space, a lot has changed. They now have allies, and an outpost, which makes asset handling and corp hangar access better and more efficient. And, I also have a friend I play with, she hauls for me now, and I'm putting her into a freighter as fast and as soon as possible to help facilitate the movement of raw goods, either alloys or ore, to a refining station. And seeing as how Arkonor, Bistot, and Crokite are heavy, dense ores (approx. 16m3 per unit) being able to move a large volume of ore becomes an absolute necessity.

As for me, Tassemet, I have finished a few amazing skills and started new ones. The big one that I am most satisfied with thus far is Gallente Battleship V. Thus far, it has proven to be useful not only for moving over to carriers, but to augment the current battleships I currently fly. A few other skills are minor and have helped in small ways, but also move me towards a larger goal. One of those skills was Drone Interfacing, of which I currently have a 16 day train left on it. This will allow me to use fighters and progress ultimately towards my goal of flying a carrier in null security space.

Other things that have happened is my mass amount of mining I have done. I have run a lot of lasers and hybrid guns to get ore and alloys. I have refined the alloys and will use them to build ships to sell out here at this station, and the ore I will sell to my corp to avoid the hassle of moving it for now. I will admit, it is a wonderful feeling of having my local chat pulled out of the chat window to keep an eye on local. I missed that about highsec. it was too safe, and not very profitable. While I was there though, i did get a lot of veldspar mining in, and coincidentally, that is what we mine for out here in nullsec. Aquiring highend minerals is easy, but we don't use very many. However, tritanium is not so easy to come by. Everyone mines the high ends to profit as much as possible and trit and veldspar are all but forgotten in most cases. But that is one thing i like about being out in nullsec... I get all the minerals I need where ever I so look.

Until next time I post though, I shall be mining and having this arkonor and bistot hauled for me...

Logistics Are a Pain

My appologizes for the long time since I last blogged, I haven't gotten much eve time (or time to myself) due to studies and job constraints


As I've said before, and I'll state again, nothing in nullsec is easy. I have been accused of leading people astray with how easy it seems to make isk out here; Let me highlight the reasons it isn't safe and easy, but dangerous and hard.

The first thing out here that is a pain is sometimes the lack of a station, or an outpost as they are known in 0.0. This means you can't dock, can't have a proper hangar, and defenitely not a proper ship bay. Until you get one placed down, which can cost upwards of 15+ billion, you have to live out of something called a player owned structure, or POS. The POS usually consists of a tower, gun and associated offense modules, shield hardners, and a corporate (key word there) hangar array, and a ship maintenence array. In this small area, you and about 10-15 of your corpmates will store all your items, ships and loots. It's not like a station where you have a personal hangar- depending on how everything is configured, you might have to share your hangar with everyone. This can be an inconvienience because everyone can and will have access to all your stuff. Not only does that mean they can use it, but in some cases, they will use it. In my current situation, we all have noctis' that we rotate between us, same with Hulks as well. Oh yeah, did I mention the limited space? 1.4mil per corporate hangar. 20mil m3 for the ship hangar. For 10 people. Do the math.

Another thing is logistics, or getting the stuff out to where I live. Most people simply just fly stuff about. Not so here. Out here, gate camps are nightmares. So instead we turn to the almighty jump freighters and carriers, and Rorquals. Jump Freighters move goods for us in mass quantities. Carriers carry our ships, and Rorquals are used to compress ore and do a mixture of the above two jobs. However, not everything can be brought in, some things have to be built on site and moved via freighter- and a freighter in nullsec is a very dangerous thing.

Oh, and did I mention the costs of living? So far, my wallet hasn't gone positive or negative, but imagine a world where people get items or make them and then mark them up 20% of jita price, just because they can. So you either buy something or you make it. And therein lies the problem- making things. In my current position I have no station, I live in a POS and we can't really make things, so we have to have them moved in the old fashioned way- via said methods above.

So that's how awesome nullsec is. So before one of my readers says such statements as, "Tass, I think you;re leading young sweet things to their deaths with your blog," I feel I have explained both the positives and negatives associated with nullsec. So, before jumping out here, consider both sides. It can be worth it if you are well skilled and properly prepared. For those who aren't the only thing that is certain is death and clone taxes.

I am prepared to do what I need to profit...

The Only Easy Day was Yesterday.

"You feel like you're alone, but you're not. As your ship lands, strangely shaped ships appear from bunkers... You aren't alone after all as the drones lock your target for disturbing their hive..."

Yup, that's right. I'm in the drone regions of nullspace. This place is pretty fun, and interesting. One major thing to note is the lack of bounties, but instead of bounties, drones drop alloys which can be refined for minerals which can be made into ships which can be sold for isk... you get the picture. Anothe rmajor difference is the fact that I need to omni-tank my ships, that is, tank for all damage ypes, as they shoot all of them.

Yes I admit, setting up here is a little bit difficult and wallet-hurting, but once you get your logistics down, you roll in the isk. For example:

"Guys, in the last day, we've made half a billion isk. With 5 of us. Five!" -Anonymous TS source

"If we wanted to, we could build a carrier tomorrow and then another one the day after that. " -Anonymous TS source

Those two sources alone should give you an idea of the profit to be made here in these regions. Add this to the fact that were I am, nobody really ever comes bothering you and life is nothing but rats and looting. Let me put it this way- our biggest problem running complexes wasn't DPS, as the drakes could handle and tank anything with no worries, but rather with salvagers keeping up. And this was with two people salvaging. Imagine when we get up to full speed with more people and more sites to run!

Upgrades wise, we're steaming onward and it seems that we will be on par to have level 3 upgrades before downtime tomorrow. The rest, will only come with time and effort- both of which we have plenty to give.

As for my own personal efforts out here, I've managed to put up two PI infrastructes on gas planets churning out misc. PI goods or resale in empire or null. Let me put it this way- I've had it running one day cycles and it's been producing so much P0 components that I needed to split the output of the one extractor head  with 10 extractors to two spaceports to hold it all for processing into P1 materials. And for processing, I have 6 basic factories that are struggling to keep up with the input, one of the reasons I split the extractor output to 2 spaceports. Tonight I'm emptying the P1 holding spaceport and running a gatecamp in my cloaked Viator, named Pride, to get to a lowsec/0.0 system to sell my goods. Oh, and I need to do this twice- the one planet is making oxidizing compounds, the other is making oxygen. Should make for a fun time.

Disadvantes we've encountered so far are few- I mean, I need to reload, oops, no missiles for me to go get from our POS. It's fustrating but eventually, we had someone do a trip in a rorqual and bring out just a massive amount of ammo. Like 300k units for 3 different ammo types massive. The other one is the fact that we all currently work out of a POS while we work on getting other arrangements settled. But that's enough for now. We have our work cut out for us and we plan on getting fully settled and on to our main task.

For the time being, my task is to kill these drones with my myrmidon...

The Fall of Imperial Order

That's right, you'll hear it here first. IO is no more.

Quoting inside sources, IO has fallen due to the acts of a PL spy named PuppetMaster. This comes after he was supposedly promoted due to being an "excellent FC." To be honest, we all saw this coming when s33mn (henceforth called jizz for simplicity's sake) was kicked from the corp for spamming alliance mail. This lead to many jump bridge systems down (0.0's main method of travel across large and sometimes hostile space) to go down and take forever to be brought back up. This brought hostility, but eventually it was all settled and they were brought back online and life went on for another week. Then, an unapproved TS change confused many causing everyone to look to high command for help, and alliance mails were sent between many of the leaders, including one where Dr 0wnage himself said,

"Hostile take over coming, take cover!"

It went down a little less then 90 minutes ago, at approx 0000 to 0100 eve time, and right now, listening to TS channels.... nobody has no clue what to do. It seems the shift will go to Imperial Ascention so that corporations will still remain blue to Triple -A- and Red.Overlord. However, this will do nothing against the rumored Pandemic Legion fleets that will most likely be sweeping the area, trying to pick off people as they flee with assets and  ships. As new information comes in even now, at 0245, Territorial Claim Unit is dropping down new TCU's to take control of the system. It seems others saw this fall coming as well.

Now, lots of spais, not trusting, every man for himself. Everyone has been given the order to stay docked, or if not docked, get into a POS. Standings are being shifted and such, and corps are trying to get their standings back to get assets out, but either way, whether or not we get access again, when the dust settles, my assets are safe. If friendlies get the station, carriers will move my stuff out. If reds take it over... well, i'm blue to those who were my previous enemies. I'll get my stuff back either way.

Anyways, a lot has shifted, is shifting, including myself.

Now, I'm part of a new corp in new space doing secret stuff that will make me a lot. As of today, I've dropped a  POS and made numerous runs into this new space, and enjoyed listening (or reading) my new friends and their cyrilic letering. Currently, setting up a logistics train is a pain in the neck, but slow and steady progress is being made. I'm having fun building my new corp from the ground up. It's going ot be a lot of work, but in the end we'll all make isk, and lots of ships, and once I can fly a carrier (which is what i'm skilling to fly now) I've been told I'll get one.

We'll see what the future holds. For now though, I'm going to let the dust settle.

The True Dangers of Null

Web and scramble. Boom. Pod. Pop.

That's pretty much what happens out here to the unlucky, the stupid, and the foolhardy.

Just today I heard the cries of help from a fellow corpmate as she attempted to move her hulk through a few jumps.

Jazzbox > "I'm Scrambled! Come help me!

...Never mind, I'm gone."

 It is these words that are a daily occurance, all over nullsec. Ratter, especially, and miners are those most succeptable, even when watching  local and intellience channels. Small, fast fleets can move in and be gone before they are seen, sometimes before they can be reported. And they strike fast, and then dissappear again, sometimes to be chased by home defense fleets, other times not.

Another unforseeable danger is gate camps and warp bubbles. These will drag you out of warp past the gate, or before the gate, and you can't avoid them, except by "bouncing" off a planet. Even this doesn't allievate the problems as sometimes they will have more then one bubble set-up. Once ensnared, you have nothing left but to await a certain doom...

Her echoes will haunt my dreams as her pod exploded into the great void of black and cold space...

Isk Isk Baby!

Well, made myself some popcorn (it smells good in a pod, you know?) and decided to play the market a bit and look for oversights to make myself some isk. Well, glad I did.

Pulled up the market info and surfed through it all in nullsec, looking at all the buy and sell orders. Yes, numbers do get tiresome after a while, but, I got lucky. I found an item(s) that if moved only 1 jump throough a jumpbridge would net me 60mil for only 15mil input! So, I took some isk I had made from the night before and bought the goods... and then moved them through a camped system in an iteron mark 5.

That was just one instance, but out in null, there were at least 10 I capitalized on, making a grand total of just short of 80 mil in about two hours. Deciding I made myself enough isk (and lacking more ways to make it), I went to sleep, happy again.

I woke up the next day in my captain's quarters, watching the sun peek in through the docking bay, and decided to try the market again to make the 100 million I wanted. At first, I started with things I wanted to do again the night before, but again, there was no openings, so I found new ones to exploit. Overall, another 40 million was made, brining my total up to 120 million made in about 4 hours. Not too bad for hardly any work.

Oh, total wallet balance so far? 530 million isk!

Even now as I write, i'm bargaining with other players to play the market even more...

Baby Tass goes to Nullsec

Nullsec.

A lot of people dive for cover, or pull out their PvP ships, and hulks dock up at their local mining stations at the word. Now me, I'm an industrialist that also has some awesome leet PvE skills. Getting tired of my life in empire, and constantly mining veldspar for hours on end, I decided to hit the recruitment channels and join up with a 0.0 corp.

Lo and behold, I did find one, Southern Comfort!

These guys offered to move me out there, so I loaded my Hulk and Megathron into their carrier and proceeded to kill myself (quite litterally) to nullsec. Waking up in the clone bay in null is always a shock, seeing those red numbers indicating negative values in your current location bar. Always. But, I had my hulk, so, without a care in the world, I jumped into a mining fleet and undocked after the smacktalk had died down.

Flying into asteriod belts in nullsec is another experience. Normally in empire, belts are close and horse-shoe shaped, and with a fully boosted Orca, you never have to leave your spot once you land. Out in nullsec however, that isn't the case. It isn't unusual to see asteriod belts strewn over an area 250km, and you only sit in one place for so long because the ore is large. Yeah. A few cans later and I was still mining the same Bistot asteriod. But no worries because after I got it hauled to the local station, and I refined it, I was sitting on a lot of rare minerals... Worth a lot.

Deciding that I had tested the waters on mining, I had my pod transferred to my Megathron, and undocked in that. Again, I flew to an asteriod belt, and began to engage the rats there with my railguns. It took a a bit, but the rewards were amazing. 3 million isk and some alloyed trit bars later, and I decided to call it a night. All in all, I had mined about a covetor's worth of mineral, and made about 15mil in bounties from the rats.

I went to sleep happy that night.