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...