Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

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.

24 comments:

maxim said...

Given all that, WH farming seems to be the best way to earn cash for low-activity player that doesn't enjoy the trading game.

So now i wonder - can those "zombies" be utilized in a constructive manner? For example, can they "provide" their POS to alliances, raking in the POCO and POS commissions?

Anonymous said...

If you are using 10 Characters for this, that means you need to pay for at least 4 Accounts, right? So, unless I am missing something important, you can practically Subtract another 2.5B from your Income. That makes 6-0.5-2.5=3B ISK/Month or 150M ISK/h. That's still quite alright, but not as impressive anymore. Especially when considering that you had to go through the effort of training 10 Characters for the purpose, setting up a whole systems worth of POCOs and the whole business model doesn't scale with more time invested.

Anonymous said...

Why the moon of the innermost planet?

Gevlon said...

@Maxim: unlikely
- zombie wormholes are low class, so they are useless for ratters
- highsec static makes them useless to PvP players
- other PI players would drain the same planets
- so the only one left to cooperate is a WH miner, but he'll need a Rorqual to compress the ore for transportation, which can bring unwanted attention to the zombie

@Anonymous: the PI pilots aren't training, they are using just an alt slot, while the main pilot (who would be there anyway) is using the account. If you make accounts on purpose, put 2 PI pilots on it + one supercapital pilot and sell it. He'll pay for the account + extra

@Next Anon: because signatures spawn around planets, the static wormhole is a sig. So the closer you are to the center, the closer you are to the static. Shorter warps while hauling saves time and decreases the time window of a ganker who sets up a bubble while you are in warp.

Arrendis said...

A few things, from someone who lived in WHs for a couple of years...

1) (Nothing to do w/WHs): Select 1-1 pilots on different accounts

err... did you mean 1-2?

2) Warp it to the wormhole, then warp it to a moon of the innermost planet.

No. No no no no. Everyone looks there first. Everyone. If you want to have time to realize you have unwanted guests, then put it at a middle planet - preferably something w/20+ moons, and put it on a moon in the middle.

This won't slow the intelligent people down, mind you - the easiest way to find every tower in the bloody system is to drop combat probes and scan each planet at .5 au resolution - but it will buy you some time against the idiots that comprise 99% of humanity.

As for shorter warps vs gankers... if a ganker wants to kill you, the shorter warp time won't really help all that much. Once he's found your WH, if he sees a ship (and he has a bubble), he's probably dropping the bubble right away, right on the hole, just to give him the bubble's radius in which to kill you. Otherwise, he'll be scanning you down to kill you. And unless the timing is very bad for you, he'll be looking for a pattern in your movements - so don't warp to the POCOs sequentially, either way. The order doesn't have to be completely random, but the obvious patterns should be avoided whenever possible.

3) This is because if you enter the wormhole twice, you get polarized and can't enter third time.

Actually, you get polarized every time you cross through a wormhole. But the N110 in your old system, and the K162 on the other side, are two different WH objects - just like the Jita gate in Perimeter is not the Perimeter gate in Jita.

What this means is: you can only go through a given WH gate once every four minutes. It has nothing to do with if you 'enter a wormhole twice'. If you have a WH that has a static highsec entrance, and a lowsec that opens up from 1 jump out of that highsec system, and you can managed to make the circuit in 4 minutes, you still won't be able to go through.

(How unlikely is that? I can remember my CEO's drake being caught on the wrong side of a collapsing WH - we scanned down the new WH while he was looking for a route out to highsec w/his own probes, and when we found our new U574, we went in... only to see his drake warping up to the other side. We'd gotten the same C5 twice in a row. Unlikely? Yup. Still happened, though.)

4)Mash your d-scan. It doesn't matter if you're in the force field, getting PI, in warp to the hole... always keep your d-scan refreshing, or fly w/a set of combat probes out and set to find ships. Preferably both. Remember: probes get recalled as soon as you transit the WH.

Arrendis said...

A few more thoughts:

highsec static makes them useless to PvP players

Nope. A highsec static is great for PVPers - just not most PVPers. It's good for ambush predators: they can set up with a small group of T3s or recon cruisers, maybe a hictor, and play venus flytrap: let the hole look dead, wait for a daytripper to come in looking for salvage/ore, and then jump him.

Yeah, that's a thing.

so the only one left to cooperate is a WH miner, but he'll need a Rorqual to compress the ore for transportation, which can bring unwanted attention to the zombie

A few thoughts on this specifically.

You have a static highsec exit. You don't need the Rorqual. Yes, it's beneficial for all sorts of reasons. Yes, you want one. But you don't need to compress, it just means you'll want to haul out to highsec more often. You can use a freighter, or freight contracts, to gather all your ore in Jita for refining/sale.

But yes, you want a Rorqual - and not just for compression. Compression's nice, sure. The mining boosts are also pretty damned nice. The fact that the rorqual can sit as a triage unit, though... that means just having the Rorqual in any system smaller than a C5 (and yes, you'll have to build it in there, and that's an assload of minerals) can give you a potentially huge advantage in any siege. Nothing the enemy brings in will have enough firepower to alpha you off the field, and if needed, you can spider up the shields w/the scythes.

Gevlon said...

@Arrendis:
"1-1" fixed

The POS is at the innermost planet because it WANTS to be found. Anyone dumb enough to warp there is volleyed down.

The warp disruptor probe can be seen on dscan, so you can align, dscan and warp. He has to time his bubble very good.

Polarized effects explained by you aren't different from mine. You exit the N110, you must not re-enter before the timer is up, or you can't re-exit if pointed. The hauling is simple: you exit WH, dock in the system, undock, you are back in 2 mins.

No need to be paranoid. The zombie can only use a 3M meta-fit Epithal and an empty (or unused learning) clone.

If your PvP is jumping daytripping T1 cruisers with T3, you are probably the sorriest ganker in EVE.

You can't haul a freighter out of a C1-3 WH! You must haul it in a Miasmos. That's 60K m3. 14 jumps just to fill one Red Frog contract. No thanks.



Anonymous said...

This seems like an awful lot of effort (like hiring mercs too... wtf?), and a fairly large risk for a really tiny payout. So tiny in fact that you can beat it with high sec factory planets which take less effort for 1-1.5b /month / char.

With high sec factories, you don't have to worry about your static coming out in a weird place and you can do all of your hauling with a single freighter pilot. The hauler dumps all of the materials and picks up all of the goods, while all your alts have to do is ship between the station and the planets every 2 days or so. For that you can easily make a billion per alt per month, with less setup costs and a much simpler repeated process.

Foo said...

My current preferred 'safe' yet easy access hole is a c4 with c1 static, especially if you have battleship pilots.

The c1 means that most of the time, hostiles can't bring battleships in on a whim; though they will be able to when class 2 wormholes open up into your space. It also means that when its time to move out, with a little patience you can take your BS, Orca or Marauder with you.

@maxium; The foo corps run such services; we also have allowed some corps to set up in our wormholes.

foo-ve.blogspot.com.au/p/recruiting.html

Gevlon, I know you don't recommend what I am doing. I am still going to do it.

Gevlon said...

@Anonymous: I've done highsec factory and the numbers are far from yours on average. The main catch is that P2-4 prices swing fast as others jump on the profitable materials.

Anonymous said...

While the prices can swing, that's where being half competent at trading comes in. I regularly make over a bil per character and rarely have to swap out plans, and the effort is miniscule. A single hauler and trader move all of the materials and product between hubs and the factory system and the PI can be done in any system with suitable planets no matter how popular since you don't worry about depletion.

Prices do move, but the general price is pretty flat. If you buy and sell within limits and are willing to trade away from Jita, there's far more isk to be made in it than in a wormhole with none of the risks and vastly reduced effort.

Gevlon said...

"If you are willing to trade away from Jita" is trading income and unrelated to PI. You can get this profit by buying in Jita and freighting it to the local market (or the other way)

Anonymous said...

http://eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&plt_id=167461
There is also something wormholers call womhole diving.
People scanning wormhole form high sec jumping into them with cloaky ships (even bombers)and hunting who ever they may find.
They might not do much damage but they are in it for the hunt.

Anonymous said...

"is trading income and unrelated to PI."
Sorry, I think you may have misunderstood. Margins in Jita are tight, so competing in that market may cause you to be unprofitable when prices fluctuate, but if you are willing to base out of a less popular hub, you will see reduced sales volume but a better profit. You could add inter-hub trading to this by buying your materials at the best price and shipping product to the best place to sell, but that's not a requirement. You can make a lot of profit and remain pretty steady basing out of a different hub.

Arrendis said...

The POS is at the innermost planet because it WANTS to be found. Anyone dumb enough to warp there is volleyed down.

Anyone dumb enough to warp there is... warping in cloaked, at 70-100km. And not worrying about your guns one little bit. W-space hunters - actual w-space hunters, not goons coming in for what amounts to a slosh-op - are not stupid. The stupid ones quickly learn that they are not the hunter, but the hunted.

He has to time his bubble very good.

No, he just has to have the anchorable bubble up and online before you warp. Honestly, warp disruption probes? Interdictors have no tank. The only people using DICs in w-space are the people coming in from outside, and to be completely honest (and with the understanding that I fly w/Goons) 99% of the time, you can ignore anyone coming in from outside.

What you have to worry about isn't the guy coming in from... well, I've heard it called gate-space, K(nown)-space, C(ontiguous)-space, whatever. The guy you have to worry about isn't coming from K-space, he's coming from W-space, and he's out hunting. And if he sees your hauler moving and wants to use a bubble, either a)he's got a large mobile bubble anchoring on the hole out, or b)he's flying a HIC. If he's flying a HIC, you are screwed a hundred ways to Sunday if you leave your force field, because HICs don't move around alone in W-space - they can't warp cloaked.

And you should never move around alone in W-space, either. Never haul out without a cloaky ship 100km off both sides of the hole. Turn your volume up so you can hear if the hole activates while you're looking at your hauler. If you have multiple monitors, for the love of god, keep at least the w-space watcher client visible so you can see if someone's found you and is loitering in something shooty. (This is just common sense, of course.)

Arrendis said...

You can't haul a freighter out of a C1-3 WH! You must haul it in a Miasmos. That's 60K m3. 14 jumps just to fill one Red Frog contract. No thanks.

No, you can't bring a freighter into a C1-4 - only C5/6 can handle larger than 'Large' hulls. The most massive thing you can pull in and out of a C4 (which can also get into a C2) is an orca - but I wouldn't recommend it, unless you're a daytripping mining crew (which does happen, and is what the ambush-gankers in C2s are really setting up for, not the T1 cruisers).

But regardless of whether you're hauling compressed or uncompressed, you haven't changed the number of transits you need in order to fill a freighter order. You've just made each one more valuable - and thus, increased the amount you have on the line in a cheap, vulnerable T1 hauler.

Personally, we never used anything but Viators and a Mastadon to haul out from our C4, but we also never hauled out without eyes on every hole and at least 2 HICs on station ready to lock down bad guys long enough for us to get scimitars and dps ships in motion.

The point is, either you have your own freighter - in which case, you haul out to yourself and screw worrying about a freight contract - or you don't, in which case, why aren't you handing it off to your own high-sec Miasmos pilot, and why isn't he in a freighter yet? Moving things from wherever you come out to whichever trade hub is closest is something that can be done in the background - your priority is 'get it out of the hole, and get the assets in the hole buttoned up again'.

Once it's in a regional trade hub, then if selling it isn't better than shipping/selling in Jita, it can either wait until you have a full freighter run in that hub to ship to Jita. Or, if it is... sell it there. Duh.

But you always want to check first, lest you get yourself a full month of work stuck in a high-sec pocket that has nothing but lowsec for 4 jumps all around it.

Polarized effects explained by you aren't different from mine.

No, the net effect isn't different - unless you need to know how to get around it. You're giving out information here. Let's not give out incorrect information, even unwittingly, eh?

No need to be paranoid.

BE. PARANOID. Do not allow yourself to develop bad habits. Do not allow yourself to get comfortable. The 'zombie' may only be flying a 3M isk hull, but he's carrying a lot more than 3M isk of product in it - if he wasn't, why bother?

Why make your effort a waste of time, even if it's only 20h/month? Why build in behaviors that will cause failure, given time?

BE. PARANOID. Wormhole space is the epitome of a line from Strange Days: "The question isn't whether or not you're paranoid. The question is whether you're paranoid enough."

If your stated intent is to teach, then don't teach the kids how to do it wrong. ;)

Von Keigai said...

This is a very good primer on a low-playtime method to use lower wspace. Good work, Gevlon.

I have a few points of disagreement though, which I will mention.

First, if you have found or bought an unoccupied wormhole, do not wait to put a tower into it! Towers with force fields are de facto claims of ownership; once you have one there, most people will avoid settling that system. Furthermore, Taggart Trading (the people who are the trusted third parties at wormholesales.com) do not allow the sale of occupied wormholes, where "occupied" is defined as "tower with force field".

So, do not buy a wspace system until you are ready to move in. If you want to search down your own, and if you enjoy exploration, then maybe take the chance. But even here, it's best if you can make your claim ASAP.

Second, I would not fit an Iteron V like an Epithal, in part because it's impossible to fit a large shield expander on it. (For the mids: three Medium Subordinate Screens and one Limited Adaptive Invul.) Rig it with Cargohold Optimizations. With a highsec static, you should never be doing anything risky for more than a few seconds with an Itty V, so it does not need a lot of EHP. Meanwhile, it does benefit strongly from 50% more cargo: it means you get the same stuff moved with 2/3 as many trips. You can hold 50% more stuff when you log out.

Third, you don't need Scythes. Your tower will charge its shields just fine on its own; it takes about two days. The chance of you being attacked during this time is next to nil, since nobody knows you are here yet.

Fourth, you mention destroying alien POCOs, but I have found most people are reasonable. Contact the owner and make an offer to buy them. Building them yourself costs about 100m in materials, and requires killing the old one (moderately risky). So offer 95m or whatever. If the CEO won't sell, try to get him to put your corp at 0% taxes; such a POCO is actually superior for you (so long as he does not try to set non-zero rates). Only if the owner won't sell and won't set you a 0% rate should you kill it. (Or, just by talking to him you might find out that he plans to reoccupy the system, and will fight you for it!)

Gevlon said...

@Arrendis: but there is nothing to see at the POS. The pilots aren't there.

Anchorable bubbles are also visible on dscan

You can't come from W-space if there is no WH but the highsec static

Compression: a 850000 m3 Veldspar: 126M
850000 m3 Compressed Veldspar: 10B
A bit of difference here

Paranoia costs money. It costs more money than gankers. For example I lost 2 Epithals in 3 months. Since my POCOs filled up in 3 weeks, that means 4 hauls for every pilot, every colony. That's
240 hauls. If I first warp to a perch and then the POCO, that's 240 extra warps, aka 2 hours. Don't you think that wasting 2 hours for 2 Epithals is dumb?

@Von Keigai: the problem with making a claim is that you have nothing to put behind it. If anyone wants to contest your wormhole, you lost anyway. So why lose a tower when you didn't want THAT PARTICULAR system anyway?

Cargo rigs for Iterons is right, I fix it.

Scythes are cheap and good for repping incapacitated modules while reinforced too. But not mandatory and I wrote it.

If you buy a wormhole from someone, he surely sell you his POCOs. If there are third party POCOs, do you really want to scan someone in who has assets in your hole?

Von Keigai said...

You're going to be making a claim anyway, a week later or whatever. And you're just a weak then as you'd be immediately. You do not intend to fight. Meanwhile, by staking a claim you prevent people from moving in who would otherwise. That's of value, and that is why it is worth risking (not losing) a tower.

What you should not do is buy a wspace system, then not claim it. As soon as it is sold, if it remains unclaimed it is legal for anyone to sell it at wormholesales. Wormholesales is not a property registry.

You are right that if you buy a wormhole, you should also buy the POCOs if you can. But it is possible to buy systems without buying POCOs, because the seller does not own them. This happens when a corp abandons a wormhole (or is evicted and does not return). In fact I did exactly that when I left my first system, a C1, for a C4. I had a friendly corp in my C1 when I moved out, so I could not sell the system on wormholesales. My friends later got evicted, and a new corp moved in who evidently did not do PI. (Or at least, they did not shoot down my POCOs nor did they use them.) Eventually some guy who was ninja-PIing and thinking about moving in bought them from me.

Arrendis said...

You can't come from W-space if there is no WH but the highsec static

Remember what I said about being paranoid? Another WH can open at any time. Be paranoid. Be careful. Always assume someone's been waiting for a couple of hours in your hole to gank you. I've done it, so have others. Late night, you find a route into someone else's WH. Critical it out, pop it on your last jump out, and then... safe up, and go to bed. Start hunting when you wake up. I've got a probe launcher, and patience, I'll find my way home eventually. Worst case, I find a route out, and so do my corp-mates. Hell, we used to have a running joke that the easiest way to guarantee easy high-sec access from our C4 was for me to get stuck out in k-space, because I would be home within 24 hrs. And until I am, I'm finding more potential systems to hunt.

Scythes are cheap and good for repping incapacitated modules while reinforced too. But not mandatory and I wrote it.

Actually incapped modules were screwed until... this morning, actually. A Scythe isn't going to help you one little bit repping up hull damage - but the new hull bots will. You'd be better off w/an Exequoror running a pair of large remote armor reppers and a raft of the new medium hull repair bot IIs (all logi drones - 100% effect). Shields regen on their own, after all.

Paranoia costs money. It costs more money than gankers. For example I lost 2 Epithals in 3 months. Since my POCOs filled up in 3 weeks, that means 4 hauls for every pilot, every colony. That's
240 hauls. If I first warp to a perch and then the POCO, that's 240 extra warps, aka 2 hours. Don't you think that wasting 2 hours for 2 Epithals is dumb?


If that's what I'd suggested, it might be. But it's not. I suggested having eyes on both sides of the hole at all times when hauling, and watching d-scan, always.

Having someone cloaked up off the WH tells you right away, before that first warp, if you're warping directly to the hole... or not warping at all. Either you warp to 0 on the hole, or you don't warp. No extra time involved at all. This isn't like running around in k-space making perches on gates. If you treat it like regular nullsec, you'll make mistakes, and you'll lose money.

Be paranoid. But don't be dumb.

As for the POCOs... if you can strike a deal w/someone to buy his POCOs, go for it. If he'll set you to 0% taxes, do it - just keep an eye on that.

This is part of the social part of the game that's alien to you, Gevlon. No judgment, no slam, it's just not in your scope, and I get that. But as a general guide, remember that most of the people who are going to be reading this are not high-functioning a-socials, and if they can establish beneficial and positive relations with their neighbors or business contacts, this will be to their benefit in the long run.

W-space is a place where you need to be paranoid. But it's also a place where solid friends are worth more than any single system ever will be.

Satori Okanata said...

""is trading income and unrelated to PI."
Sorry, I think you may have misunderstood. Margins in Jita are tight, so competing in that market may cause you to be unprofitable when prices fluctuate, but if you are willing to base out of a less popular hub, you will see reduced sales volume but a better profit. You could add inter-hub trading to this by buying your materials at the best price and shipping product to the best place to sell, but that's not a requirement. You can make a lot of profit and remain pretty steady basing out of a different hub."

Lol, and exactly the same thing again. You're not a trader man. The only thing missing is that you say that you "got the mats for free."

Anonymous said...

what is the initial cost? besides having 4 accounts?
is it worth it with less accounts?

Gevlon said...

@Von Keigai: you're right, post changed.

@Arrendis: spamming dscan and scan, watching the hole all time also costs time which might not worth for saving an Epithal, even with a full load of P1.

@Anonymous: tower, modules, fuel, cheap ships: about 1.5B. It can work with less accounts but I doubt if its profitable (compared to other options).

Arrendis said...

spamming dscan and scan, watching the hole all time also costs time which might not worth for saving an Epithal, even with a full load of P1.

Behaving like prey encourages predators. If someone gets your epithal because you're acting clueless, they might hang around to see if you'll try again if things are quiet for half an hour, or an hour. You can talk about it being an inefficient use of time all you like, it's still how ambush predators work.

And plenty of people in W-space are ambush predators. Money's not an issue - they're running C6 combat sites for salvage, probably sucking down the gas for minimal effort, too. But that doesn't take a lot of time, and after that... well, you log in your cloaky T3 and go looking to make some poor bastard miner or PI-runner's night worse.

So they get a kill, because you were too busy to think 2 seconds to flip over to the other client and see if someone's there, too busy to tap d-scan repeatedly while you're doing things to get ready, too busy to do the very simple things that prevent needless losses.

Now what? Well, they're probably carrying plenty of ammo. If not, hey, you have a high-sec exit, they can go buy more. And then they come back in and start looking for another way out... or they decide to log off overnight, and see if you're going to be 'too busy' again tomorrow.

The more you act like prey, the more you're inviting the predators to hunt you. Don't act like prey.