Business post: how to be a WH zombie

The wormhole zombie is a Planetary Interaction focused player who uses a wormhole-space system without the ability or intention to defend it, having "doesn't worth attacking" as defense. He doesn't live there, just gets the ISK. I believe zombies are harmful for the game, as they lock down a wormhole from small corps who could start their WH life there. The newbies don't dare (or can't afford) to take the WH by force and have trouble finding an empty one. However this is a business post and not philosophy: being a WH zombie is profitable and if others don't approve you being a zombie, they have the tools to do something about it. Important note: being a zombie needs a high-effort initial phase, followed by years of practical inactivity and milking the wormhole.

How profitable it is to be a WH zombie? I had 10 pilots in the WH, pulled 6B/month income (-0.5B/month fuel cost) for about 20 hours/month effort. 250-300M/hour is much better than practically anything but trading. Further pluses are the relatively low daily effort, as the hauling can be done when your schedule fits it. Finally, a zombie can't be harmed by PvP unless someone muster the fleet to evict him. All your WH pilots should be in the corp and promoted to directors. Do not invite any other player (except for family) to your corp. The pilots need about 2 weeks training to be useful and 2 months to be completed. This means that you don't need to assign accounts to the zombies, you can have a real training pilot (PvE, PvP or for sale) on the account and use the two alt slots as zombies. What skills they need?

1. Cybernetics 1: plug +3 Int, Cha, +2 Perc, Mem, and +1 Will learning implants.
2. Gallente Industrial 4: the only (exception below) perc/will skill, learn it on the starter remap.
3. Remote sensing 3, remap Int/Mem
4. Planetology 4
5. Advanced planetology 4
6. Random support skills 2-3. For simplicity, use the in-game Mastery system and learn Epithal and Itheron V to Mastery level 2
7. Cloaking 2
8. Astrometrics 3
9. Shield and Astronautics Rigging 3
10. Anchoring 3, remap to Cha/Int!
11. Command center upgrade 3
12. Interplanetary consolidation 3, you are ready to enter WH and get to work
13. Command center upgrade 5, finish it while inside
14. Interplanetary consolidation 5, finish it while inside

Have at least one good scanner pilot who can fly a covops frigate and have Astrometrics 5, Astrometric Acquisition, Rangefinding, Pinpointing 4. It's very helpful if you have a pilot who can fly freighter. Have one or more pilot who can fly a Scythe. Have one or more pilots learn Starbase Defense Management 4 (using POS guns).

Select pilots on different accounts (one on each), as many as you can concurrently log in. They need +3 Perc +2 will implants and at the start remap P/W (they will use all bonus remaps while the others just 1 + normal). Train them Amarr destroyer 4, Small energy turret 5, Surgical strike 4, Rapid firing 4, other gunnery support 3, Small pulse laser specialization 3, Weapon upgrades 4.

Log to your Jita trader pilot and set up buy orders for the items needed for your operations. Update the buy orders daily until you get them all:

• Minmatar Control Tower. Faction towers have 10-20% lower fuel consumption at the cost of being more expensive and having a "shoot me, I'm expensive" sign on them.
• Resistors: 1 Heat Dissipation Array, 2 Ballistic Deflection Arrays, 2 Explosion Dampening Arrays
• 14400 units of Strontium Clathrates
• 30000 units of Minmatar fuel blocks
• Corporate Hangar Array
• Ship Maintenance Array
• 4 of each ECM batteries: Ion Field Projection Battery, Phase Inversion Battery, White Noise Generation Battery, Spatial Destabilization Battery
• 16 Sensor Dampening batteries (they force enemy ships to come closer by decreasing locking range)
• 100 Small AutoCannon batteries (yes, hundred)
• 2M T1 medium projectile ammo of each kind: Fusion M, Phased Plasma M, EMP M
• 2 Coercers for every pilot learned Amarr Destroyer, with T2 pulse, Conflagration S, T2 heat sinks low, +CPU +PG rigs according to need, cap recharger mids
• 2 Epithals/pilot + fittings: 4x warp core stabs, large meta shield extender, medium meta shield extender, limited adaptive invulnerability fields, meta EM ward amplifiers, thermic and kinetic shield resist rigs, Low friction nozzle joint rigs, T1 core probe launchers + 8 probes
• 1 Itheron V/pilot + fitting: cargohold expanders in lows, cargohold rigs, T1 cloak, T1 probe scanner, medium shield extenders, adaptive invulnerability field.
• 2 T1 frigs/pilot that he can fly + fittings: T1 cloak, meta nanofibers to lows, microwarpdrive, T1 core probe launchers + 8 probes
• 5 shuttles / pilots
• Lot of Planetary Command Centers, the types matching your wormhole planets
• Scythes for your pilots. The fittings are: large meta remote shield reps to highs, +powergrid and CPU rigs and lows as needed, cap rechargers mids, capacitor power relay remaining lows. According to your skills you might have to replace one large repper to mid to keep cap stability.
• Customs office gantries and upgrade materials for every POCO that you want to plant.

Time to get in your wormhole system! To be a good zombie, a highsec-static C1, C2 or C3 is very recommended, C1 being the best. Wormholesales.com has about 30 for sale at the moment, they offer a broker service to mitigate scams. The price depends on the quality of the WH and the amount of infrastructure you get with the sale. You can also do the hard way: scan yourself.

So your scanner is in the wormhole with a covops frigate, equipped with a Sisters launcher and 16 Sisters scanner probe, with scanning strength rigs and scanning midslots. If you can't fly a covops yet, use a T1 scanning frig with the same rigs/midslots and a T1 cloak. Create safespots and make corporation bookmarks of them. Use directional scan to find any towers. Don't forget to warp to far celestials! If any tower has shields, the wormhole is occupied. If you bought a WH bookmark, there shouldn't be one. Check the POCOs too, ask the prospective seller if he can sell them, look their corp up on killboards if not. Check Dotlan of the prospective system for activity graphs, zkillboard for kills.

If the WH isn't occupied, check the Dscan for ships. If there are any, log out and come back later. No ships? Launch your probes, recloak and scan down the signatures. Place corp bookmarks for each with their type and code (like ABC-123 on the scanning interface). More than one wormhole? Log out and come back later (don't worry, "come back later" is just for the initial phase). Just one wormhole? Great, warp to it and bookmark its exact location. Check show info. If it says "end of life", or "verge of collapse" you are out of luck and come back later. Otherwise jump trough it and see which highsec system it leads. Bookmark the other side too, jump back to the wormhole, cloak up, but stay in 50-100 km range from the WH. Time to move in!

1. Put the stuff into your freighter (or get a rush job from a hauler corp) and get them to the highsec system where your WH leads. Multiple freight trips are needed, the first must contain the tower, packaged Itherons with fitting, fuels, shuttles, Scythe with fittings. Get as many pilots to the highsec system as many accounts you can concurrently run. Switch to your scanner and check for new signatures during the transport (click on the "show anomalies" twice to refresh). If a new one opens, scan it down. While waiting for the transport, watch the wormhole. If someone enters it, he is now inside. Use Dscan for ships too. If a new wormhole signature appears, or a ship enters the wormhole, you're out of luck and you can wait a day again.
2. Still just one wormhole, it's still there, no one around and your stuff arrived? Put the tower, some fuels of both types into an assembled Iteron (change its name!) which has a T1 cloak too. Warp it to the wormhole, then warp it to a moon of the innermost planet. Open cargohold, "launch for corporation" on the tower, then click on it in the space and anchor. It will be teleported to the proper spot and the anchoring starts. Bookmark the tower, cloak up and slowboat away from it, to about 200 km. Bookmark that spot. It will take 30 minutes to anchor. Keep your scanner pilot watching the wormhole. If anyone enters, wait until he exits again.
3. Anchoring is complete and no hostiles entered? Warp to it and click on the "access fuel bay" option. Fill the Minmatar blocks to the fuel bay, Strontium to the Stront bay. Right-click the tower and online it. This will take another 30 minutes. Warp back to your safe and cloak.
4. The tower is online! Warp back to it, right click, manage! Give the forcefield password (not something obvious). The forcefield appears and you are safe from roaming pilots now. Click on "corporate use" to let your other pilots under the shield. Also click on defense tab and select only "Attack if standing is lower than" and type in 2.0. All neutrals will be shot by the POS. No need to check for wormholes or pilots anymore, the scanner can warp to the safe and log out. The hauler can warp to the wormhole, exit and dock up in the station. Either wait 3 more minutes or use another pilot. This is because if you enter the wormhole twice, you get polarized and can't enter third time. Since you just exited, that's one. You reenter, two, polarized. If a stealth bomber decloaks, you can't jump back to highsec and dead. It's best using two or more pilots to haul in so they can wait without you waiting.
5. Grab the corporate and the ship maintenance arrays, a packaged shuttle and some more fuel. Warp to the wormhole, enter, warp to the POS bookmark. If anyone points you at the wormhole, jump back to highsec. Under the tower shield, launch SMA and CHA for self, anchor and online them. More info here. Put the fuel to the fuel bays of the tower, put the shuttle to the CHA, assemble it, move to the SMA, change its name and right-click "board ship". The Iteron is now in the SMA, you are in the shuttle. Warp to the wormhole and exit. The only way you can be caught if someone drops a bubble, this case try to warp back to the tower.
6. If you have a spare concurrent account, jump in a Scythe, fly it just outside the shields, lock the tower and start repping it. Do not do it if you need accounts to haul. The shields regenerate on their own, it just speeds it up.
7. Freight your stuff in with Iterons. Leave the Iterons in the SMA and exit in shuttle until you have no more Iterons in the station. One pilot should remain in the POS and do the anchoring while one is hauling and the third is waiting out the polarization timer. Onlining takes time and while it's going on, you can't anchor! Batteries anchor outside the shield, arrays inside.
8. Everything anchored? Then start onlining. First there resistors, then the ECM, finally the guns. You can't online all the guns, due to not having powergrid. It's OK. While onlining, keep hauling in the rest of the stuff: the ammo, the packaged frigates and Catalytsts and fittings, the command centers. Put everything to the CHA. When everything is inside except fitted Epithals (fit them before you move in fittings), leave in shuttles and return in Epithals. If at any point the wormhole closes due to too many jumps, log in scanner, scan down the new static, freight everything there, continue.
9. Guns online, everything inside? Open the inventory and move the ammo into the guns. EMP into the first, phased plasma to the second, fusion to the third, repeat. Welcome to your fully operational deathstar POS.
10. Log in your other pilots and get them into the wormhole too.

After the tower and the CHA, SMA are online, you can relatively safely take a break (I mean even a day long one), so you don't have to do all these at one sitting. While the incomplete POS has incomplete defenses, randomly roaming pilots won't bother reinforcing it. However do one very important safety measure before you log out, every time! Select "Board ship" on an Iteron and move stuff from the CHA into it. Select "Board ship" to the next Iteron and continue until your CHA is empty. Then offline and scoop it into the last Iteron. The reason for that is if your tower is reinforced, you can't access the CHA, but you can access the SMA, so you can board your Iterons and log off in a safe (or inside the shield if bubbled), so the attackers get nothing. You can online extra guns using the freed powergrid of the CHA.

OK, the POS is complete! Time to set up PI, and destroy NPC and alien POCOs. You need to scan new signatures (there will be several if you have a life and didn't do that in one sitting. If there is more than one wormhole (your static) or ships on Dscan, forget POCOs, but you can set up PI. If the "manage" tab says less than 100% POS shield, it didn't fully regenerate yet, send out Scythes, just outside the shield, that's relatively safe, thanks to your guns and ewar batteries. If some fool scans them down and warps on them, free loot. In the meantime, log in one pilot, warp him to the POS, man an Iteron with Planetary Command Centers, and set up colonies. You don't need to leave the shields for that. When finished, get back to the frig, warp to safe, log off, next.

As you are a zombie, stick to P1 extraction only! Why? Because being a zombie means that your only defense is "not worth fighting for". A bunch of colonies full of high level planetary materials, plus stocks in the tower are all assets in danger. Hostiles can open planets and view your colonies, so they can see what kind of production is going there. If you have nothing but P1 exctraction, you can only lose the P1 generated since last haul, which isn't a big value. Also, your Epithals can only be caught full of P1 (about 60M). Unless you are EVE-famous, no one will bother hunting you.

If there is no other WH on scan than your static and no ships either, unpack your CHA again and move the stuff back from the Iterons. Assemble the Coercer destroyers, put them to the SMA, put the remaining stuff back to Iterons and pack the CHA. Log in the Amarr Destroyer pilots, get them into Coercers and warp the whole fleet to a customs, set them to close orbit, and start shooting. You can do that before you go to work or sleep. In normal cases you find them scattered as they fly in straight line after the orbited POCO popped. In some cases you find them in highsec stations. Update clone, fly them to the nearest hub for a new destroyer and new implants if they are still training (just cheap ones) and autopilot to the highsec system where your static goes. If you can't log in at least 4 accounts at the same time, their DPS won't be enough to break shield regen. You either have to learn Taloses (and be at least semi-AFK), or hire mercenaries to deal with the customs. When a customs office is destroyed, warp out an Iteron with the Gantry and upgrades. Launch for corporation, anchor, open upgrade hold, load stuff, upgrade, done. Bookmark it.

You have all the POCOs and colonies set up? Great, you are officially a zombie! Your presence in the wormhole is limited to a bunch of POCOs, a deathstar POS with only an SMA + resistors inside. When you log in to restart extractors (I suggest daily restarts, that way you can keep 8-10 P1 factories busy), cloak up with your frig after your emergency warp ends. Unless you are dscanned during that time, no one will know anyone is here and there is no way for them to tell who is it in that frig (unless it's named "John Smith's Rifter"). Update your planets and do a dscan. Unless you see combat probes out, log out. I you see combat probes, stay cloaked and wait until they leave.

You have more time to play than usual? Time for harvesting. Log in your scanner, Dscan, scan down signatures. If there is more than one wormhole, stick to just restarting. One wormhole and not "end of life"? Jump out, bookmark exit, see how far you are from Jita. Hauling out to a highsec island, a stationless system or 30 jumps away are not good ideas. Everything fine? Restart extractors for the first pilot (the scanner) and move the products to the POCO (you have to do it when they are near full during normal restarts, just select launchpad and click launch icon to open POCO interface). Now warp to your POS, board an Epithal, warp to the first POCO, grab stuff, warp to second, fill the Epithal, warp to wormhole, jump out, dock. Log in second pilot, do the same. Switch back first pilot, who is way beyond the 5 minutes now, warp to hole, jump in, warp to third POCO, grab, warp to forth, fill, warp to hole, jump, dock. When you docked last time, contract the stuff to the last pilot. When the last pilot is finished too, create packages to a courier corp and get the stuff hauled to Jita.

While hauling, keep alternating between pilots to always wait out the 5 minutes, so you can jump back to highsec if tackled on the hole. If you are tackled on the POCO, fill everything back to POCO. If not all fits in, transfer them to the two planetary launchpads to make space. Jettison the remaining to deny kill value. If you land on the bubble, immediately align back to where you came from and warp when you can and hope your 4 pt warp core stabilizers are enough.

One more thing: fueling. Always have your fuel bay full and extra fuel in Iterons in the SMA. When you no longer have enough for the fuel bay, get some! That's about all being a WH zombie, enjoy the easy profit! Note: I didn't follow this guide myself, as I finished it after the experience gained during the eviction. I didn't plan to be a zombie, it just turned out this way.

One last thing: the eviction. While unlikely, you can be evicted. You are instantly notified when your POS or POCOs are attacked. To see these notifications, it's best to have a frequently used pilot (like your Jita trader) in the WH corp. If you see an attack notification, immediately log in your scanner, warp cloaked to a bookmark 200-300 km from the tower and see what's going on. You can inflict serious damage to them by manning the guns and direct fire (need about 2 weeks training for each pilot involved to use 4 batteries). When they incapacitate something, online another gun (that's why you have 100). Leave only 3000 fuel in the tower and move the rest to Iterons. After your tower is reinforced and they left (they will not guard it constantly) and you have guns useful, online and man them to destroy anchored bubbles. Use Catalysts if not. Your microwarpdriving frigates have good chance getting into the POS shield. Of course if you lose one to a camper, don't risk another one, wait. If you are at the SMA, grab a filled Iteron, warp it to a safe and log out. After a few days they'll finish camping and you can scan your way out to get the Iterons out. This way all they got is a tower with nothing but empty Epithals and T1 frigs inside.