My Factory Planet Layouts

I am posting my version of factory planets that take Tier 1 products and miraculously turn them into Tier 4 products. Please try not to dwell too much on my amazing Paint skills…

I have Command Center Upgrades 5 and am able to exploit 6 planets. All skills except Remote Sensing are at level 5. All the pictures you see below are on a single toon on my account. I have two other toons on my account with the same Planetary Interaction skills. Those toons harvest P1s from their planets. I normally still need to buy certain P1s off the market to keep things running on a regular basis. If you are in W-Space or 0.0, you may be able to pull it off with the right amount of temperate and/or barren planets. It is easier if you have at least 5 temperate and/or barren planets in a single system.

To produce Broadcast Nodes and Recursive Computing Modules on a single planet:

To produce Integrity Response Drones:

To produce Nano Factory and Organic Mortar Applicator on a single planet:

To produce Self-Harmonizing Power Core and Sterile Conduits on a single planet:

To produce Wetware Mainframe:

All these setups are provided you either produce or purchase the required P1s.

I take an Occator that can haul at least 48,974.4m3 of P1 material. I take it to each POCO and transfer the prescribed amount of each P1 shown on each factory planet picture. It fills up the launchpad with enough materials for between 18 runs and 27 runs. It is probably not a perfect system, but my small brain managed to come up with a system that works. There are leftover P2s and P3s that stay in the storage facility such as in pictures 3 and 4. That is why I route everything through the storage facility prior to it going to its next destination (to not waste anything). I also keep the numbers in my notepad for easy reference (small brain, remember?).

I hope you find this helpful. Fly safe.

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Project Fortizar

It has been over three years since my last post, but that does not necessarily mean that I have not been playing Eve. There was a solid year that I put Eve on the shelf due to other cool games and such, but thanks to Evehermit, A Journey Through The Mind, and other awesome blogs, I managed to keep somewhat up to date and interested. There has been nothing of interest to blog about in my little corner of space, and that is the main reason for not blogging. When I log in, it is normally to run missions or mine while I do homework. A lot of the last three years has seen me running around space in an Alpha Clone, as I cannot always justify spending $15 to play casually. Now that the end of the semester is upon me, I can put some of my recent ambitions to work. I understand that many solo pilots with a few alts have built big stuff as a project, but have they blogged about it? Maybe.

I had been stockpiling PI materials for some time now, and now I have a plan to build a Fortizar from scratch. I bought the BPCs for all the required components and shipped them to my little corner of space. I have a series of factory planets that I have set up to dump in all the P1 materials, and at the end of the line, between five factory planets, I get all eight advanced PI materials.

I have 18 planets across my three toons on Red’s account; 13 of those were churning out P1 material that was in abundance in the surrounding systems. I would then buy the missing materials from Dodixie. This whole process was relatively smooth, but it started becoming very expensive to purchase the P1 material and pay all the Customs Office tax. I took a page out of my old book of shooting mindlessly at structures belonging to inactive Corporations. Only this time, the structures were Customs Offices.

Now you see it

Now you don’t

A total of six POCOs were replaced with my own, and taxes still exist, but they are lower for all to enjoy. The one thing I failed to research prior to shooting at these things was the reinforcement timer (face palm). After planning the start of the war with the inactive Corp, the reinforcement timer threw all my plans off. A thing or two were learned. Ultimately this was a success, and now I am importing and exporting planet goo in vast amounts. Here is what my five factory planets resemble:

From P1 to Advanced

I have some new planets for my other toons’ networks in an effort to have to buy less P1 off the market. I have completed only three of the required components for the Fortizar BP, but it is a work in progress, and it is a goal, which I have not had a solid one in a long time. I suppose my motivation for this project is the 11 billion ISK they are currently listed for. I have thought about moving into a wormhole again for the sole purpose of increasing PI output.

This is a very slow process, but it seems blog-worthy for my standards. Is anyone else undertaking any daunting projects? Let me know about them.

As always, thank you for reading. Fly safe!

100 million! Welcome to the club.

Last weekend I noticed my skillpoints tick over the 100 million mark. Awesomeness. Just a few days earlier, on September 30th, Red Neckromonger turned 5 years old in Eve Online. The breakdown of my skills go like this:

Armor: 3,203,260
Corporation Management: 1,086,699
Drones: 7,618,552
Electronic Systems: 1,377,645
Engineering: 4,723,010
Gunnery: 14,508,159
Leadership: 2,060,486
Missiles: 12,230,936
Navigation: 1,608,310
Neural Enhancement: 1,040,750
Planet Management: 2,418,044
Production: 1,043,500
Resource Processing: 5,511,311
Rigging: 474,002
Scanning: 6,957,255
Science: 4,135,172
Shields: 5,210,510
Social: 350,535
Spaceship Command: 20,474,206
Subsystems: 2,560,000
Targeting: 1,410,040
Trade: 254,852

I’ve had my attributes geared toward Perception/Willpower for nearly two years because I decided I was dedicated to maximizing gunnery and missile skills, as well as get into some ships that are really cool; which led to Gallente and Caldari Battleship 5, Logistics 5, Heavy Assault Cruisers 5, Marauders 5, and a bunch of other prerequisites for other ships. I also maxed my shield and armor skills because I was thinking I’d get into wormhole operations again, but that still hasn’t come to fruition. I’ve enjoyed flying the Rattlesnake and Golem. I can’t afford a Kronos, but eventually I’ll splurge.

At least at this point, I will be an asset to just about any Corp that has my common interests in Eve. Since my last post, I have been in two different Corps. One was a nullsec Corp, which was part of a big alliance in Providence. I had some friends from a successful Corp I was in a few years ago talk me into joining by the riches in the anomalys and belt rats. Indeed there were riches to be had…providing the afk campers would ever go away. I spent more time in POSs and stations for hours on end waiting for the campers to go away so I could get to my content than I spent actually playing. I clone jumped back to hisec and pretty much stayed there doing things I like to do until I found my current Corp, Avalon Project. So far so good. I feel like I can be a part of this Corp, and be a part of its ling-term growth and goals. As of now I haven’t been able to play much because real life has been busy, but I plan to be a big part of this Corp.

I haven’t posted anything in a while, obviously, and I don’t know how regular I’ll be in the near future. A few things that have kept me up to date, interested and on the edge of my seat are some of my favorite Eve blogs. Epigene and Evehermit never seize to amaze.

Thanks for reading.

A Comp Newbies should be aware of

Evehermit, as usual, finding and putting out information for the greater good of Eve Online. New-ish capsuleers, check it out!

Evehermit

Sindel’s Angel Project (which supports new players in various ways) has turned two, and is giving away some great prizes to new players between 30 days and 12 months old.

http://www.sindelsuniverse.com/happyhappybirthday/

Worth a look into if you have recently joined us in New Eden.

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Opportunistic; entrepreneurial; idiot

As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve fallen for a scam that cost me 340 million ISK. There’s a site you may be familiar with called Eve-Bazaar.com. I came across it in local somewhere (red flag, anyone?), and after looking at it and looking at prices on the Jita market, I thought I may be able to make some nice profit. After all, the site seems pretty legit. The catalyst for me to throw my hard-earned ISK away at this site was the dev-blog for the summer expansion which talks about how faction battleships are getting a buff; the Rattlesnake in particular. I figured that the prices of these faction battleships would go up in price as the summer expansion gets closer, so I pulled the trigger and sent ISK to the contact as directed in the instructions. My profile updated accordingly, so far so good. After about an hour my status changed from “pending” to “in progress”…and there it has stayed for more than two weeks. I’ve sent a couple emails to the contact, but to no avail. They were nice emails, mostly asking for a followup on my order.

I can’t say that I’m surprised, but I can say that I’m disappointed in myself. I see something that’s too good to be true, and think to myself, “It’s probably legit; let’s do it!” When I came to the realization that I was scammed, it was then (and only then) that I decided to do some research on the scammers. I found a wealth of information (facepalm) on the topic, including some information on a blog that I already follow (double facepalm) called MarketsforISK. <—This guy’s blog is awesome for market stuff. I bet he’s never fallen for a scam like this.

So, no excuses. I messed up; and now I’m telling my readers about it. Why? I could say, “well because I don’t want the same to happen to you.”, but that’s not the reason. The real reason is because when Eve-bazaar comes clean, when their scam is all over and they come out with the numbers and the victims (me), just remember you heard it here first (/me hangs his head in shame).

A chicken made of ice

 

In other, less embarrassing news, I’ve been mining some ice lately, and I happened across this Ice Chicken. Yes, it’s a chicken made of ice. A frozen chicken, if you will. This is in no way an attempt to try to make you forget my noobishness scam I fell for. It’s simply a giant chicken-shaped chunk of ice.

Additionally, I’ve been keeping up with The Incompitent Capsuleer, a newer pilot in New Eden and his blog. Please go give it a read, as it’s good stuff. Again, not an attempt to distract.

Thanks for reading.

The W-Space Itch is Calling me

–

I’ve been doing a lot of scanning down of wormholes lately; I’ve fitted up a nice Tengu and Nemesis for potential ganks of poor, unsuspecting souls traveling through the great void, oblivious to my presence.

 

I had my Nemesis orbiting the inside of a w-space system after I witnessed a Retriever jumping in. I tried to follow it in, literally jumping through when I heard his hole fire. Unfortunately he was just entering warp when I loaded on grid, so my cover was already blown. I figured I’d wait around while I dabbled in homework at my desk, hoping he would think I had left. After a short time, I heard hole fire, and when I looked up I saw a hauler jumping out of the hole. “What goes out must come back in”, or so they say (actually they don’t say that at all). I hoped he might be making a supply run, and would be on his way back through with expensive stuff. My cloaky alt orbiting on the outside saw the hauler coming back; we were all set for an ambush. Just as my heart rate was elevating, I get a private chat request…from someone I do not recognize. It turns out to be an alt of the hauler pilot. He politely states that he saw my Nemesis, and was wondering if he could get safe passage through the hole and beyond. I told him that I am a man of my word, and that if I granted him safe passage that I’d be guaranteed no kill, and that was exactly opposite of what I was trying to achieve. After a bit of chatting (no ransom request, I’m not a pirate), I agreed to jump out of the hole with my Stealth Bomber and let him get through, hauler intact. 

 

This is how I know I cannot be a pirate in Eve; once dialogue begins with a mature, polite human being, the bloodlust subsides. I would be the worst pirate EVAR! When he opened chat with me and asked politely for safe passage, he became human. He even offered to let me test my good Torpedo skills on an expendable ship, which I respectfully declined. I wanted to make my first real kill…real, and he respected that. 

 

After a lengthily chat while I scanned for more wormholes, we added each other as good standing and agreed that we’d have to pursue a wormhole endeavor sometime in the future.

 

A couple things learned: 

1. I am not a pirate. I am not in it just for the kill. That’s not to say that I would spare anyone who opens a chat with me. If there’s a punk flying that hauler, demanding safe passage or he will kill my ship, kill my family and rape my dogs, then I’d be less inclined to spare his ship. E-honor is my “pirate code”. 

2. I will not generally ransom people. However, if they offer ISK for safe passage, I would probably not turn it down. Also, I would keep my word and allow safe passage. 

3. Getting podded in w-space is a HUGE inconvenience. Therefore, I would not pod anyone in w-space, even if given the opportunity. There is the exception for dirt bags though. Otherwise, I don’t want to make my fights personal. 

4. Did I mention that I would make a terrible pirate?

 

Thanks for reading.

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,500 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 42 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

New Corp, New Ships, New Motivation

It’s been a while. I hope everyone had a great Labor Day, Nevada Day (if you live in Nevada like me), Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Family Day, Christmas and a happy New Year. There, I think I covered all the holidays since my last post. A lot has been happening; both in real life, and in Eve. First off, I am still a full-time husband and father. I still have a full-time job (thankful for that). I also started college back in August. That’s not a big deal to most people, but it is to me since it is my first time back in school since high school back in 1999. I’m happy to report that I did very well in the two classes I took, which also contributed to my lack of Eve playtime, and therefore my lack of posts. I never realized how much time and effort it would take to do well in school. I have gained a new found respect for anyone who takes on college and gives it their all.

Since my last post, I had to leave my new friends in Z3RO Return Mining Corp because school was taking up too much of my Eve time, and when you’re in a wormhole Corp, the only way you make ISK is run sites. So I said my goodbyes to my friends and moved back into empire. I was able to juggle homework with ice mining in my Mackinaw for a while. There came a point when Eve was becoming a distraction to my schoolwork, at that time I decided that when I have time for Eve, I’m going to do something that I enjoy, like run a mission or go exploring. However, the ISK wasn’t rolling in like I needed it to so that I may buy PLEX on a regular basis as needed. I went to have another look at Pro Synergy, the Corp that takes salvaging and makes it cool. After giving it some thought, I joined up and now I’m rolling in my 5.0:

These guys have done an amazing job at harnessing hard-core mission runners. I feel like kind of a leach just making ISK off of what they have built, but I have a clean conscience knowing that I do my part to throw up some of our recruitment ads in local channels wherever I go. I can also use this blog as a means of recruitment. See?

It may sound a bit boring, but when the contracts start to pile up like they always do in some of our busiest mission areas, it becomes pretty fun knocking out those contracts and watching the ISK value for my weekly paycheck skyrocket. There’s also a very lively Pro Synergy public chat where missioneers, salvagers and others chat it up.

I’m also excited about my new shiny:

A Golem! that’s right. between my hard work with Pro Synergy, and a couple unexpected (but very appreciated) Christmas gifts in the form of ISK from a couple of my longest-known Eve buddies, I’ve been able to buy this awesome Marauder and fit it out with some sexy mods. I never know how powerful these ships could be.

I’ve been actively training missile and spaceship command skills for the entire year. I’ve made a lot of progress in both areas, and have become quite proficient in a few Caldari ships. Namely the Tengu and Golem. I have Marauders 4 nearly complete, then it’ll be right on to level 5. I remapped to Perception/Willpower last January, and I don’t really see any reason to remap to anything different anytime soon. I’m considering maxing all missile and turret skills over 2014. Also, I’d like to be able to have all four race’s battleships to level 5 so I may fly different Marauders. I’d also like to fly all four T3’s. Currently I can fly Proteus and Tengu.

I haven’t delved into any wormholes since leaving Z3RO. I haven’t even taken down my PI out of Z3RO’s wormhole yet. Hisec PI just isn’t worth the effort. I have also not destroyed any control towers, which would make Epi proud. 

School will start up again in late January, but for now I’ll keep at the salvaging and running missions. Then it’ll be back to stimulating my brain and trying to better myself. I hope everyone has a great year ahead.

Thanks for reading.

Help me get a degree!

Help this man out with his schoolin’. Take the short survey.

New Digs!

I after a long time of flying solo, trying to recruit and failing miserably, I’ve finally taken the plunge, sold out and joined an awesome new Corp. Z3ro Return Mining Inc. are my new family. On day one of me moving into our C4 wormhole, I was welcomed into a Tengu fleet killing Sleepless bastards in an adjacent C4 (aka C4b). It looked a little bit something like this:

In just a few days after joining, and only being able to participate in a few fleet ops, I’ve nearly made enough ISK to purchase a PLEX \o/. My new Corp mates are extremely helpful and patient with my noob questions on how to live and work in a C4. The highest class of w-space I’ve ever occupied previously was a C3. I knew C4 and up were pretty much fleet-type classes, and I’d read many blogs about it, but to experience it first-hand was completely unlike anything I’d expected. What a helpless feeling when Sleepers start to shoot at you and you have to rely on fleet members to rep your shields. 

Feeling pretty darn good about myself, I decided it was time to head to hisec to buy some stuff. Reading our intel reports for routes to our static C3 (aka C3a) which had a static hisec, I jumped into my trusty Nemesis Stealth Bomber to move harmlessly, quietly and undetected through C3a to the safety of hisec. I made it. Not quite the route I had planned, and I wouldn’t be bringing my poor Nemesis back. What happened is when I jumped to C3a, there was a Sabre on grid, right next to the wormhole…and then a bubble went up. I weighed my options during my session change cloak. I could try the afterburner/cloak method, or run back home and hope that he is just making a “show of force”. When I jumped back into our home system, and by the time my home system loaded up on my screen, he was already there waiting for me…a new bubble and all. Now my Nemesis is polarized (meaning I cannot jump through the same wormhole again until an absurdly long timer expires). I have no choice but to try the afterburner/cloak method as I align in a direction that’s closest to the edge of the bubble. I’m not sure if he targets me before my ship cloaks or if he burned in my direction and decloaked me, but he made short work of my Nemesis and pod. Like any good sport who sucks at PVP, I sent him a “good fight” evemail after I updated my medical clone. He responded in a good sport fashion as well. It’s nice to think that the pilot who podded me was probably not a snot-nosed, zit-faced kid sitting naked on a bean bag chair eating Cheetos with my floating corpse on one screen and alt-tabbing between WoW and porn on another screen. He was probably mid to late 20’s or early 30’s. At least that’s what I’d imagined from his evemail. 

The PI has been great in our home system as well. I can pretty much fill up a launchpad with P2’s in just a couple days. I have five P1>P2 planets and one P2>P3 factory planet in our home system. If I can be arsed to log in after I get home from work and before I go to sleep everyday, I can pretty much keep everything running seamlessly and without interruption. 

The only issue thus far has been Corp activity during my particular “sit at the PC without wife/kid aggro” time. I’ve only been able to participate in a handful of fleets. Without much for a single pilot to do in a C4, after about a week I developed a bad case of wormhole cabin fever. Since then I’ve been spending most of my time in hisec running missions and mining like I did before I joined. I keep the planetary extractors running, and when the launchpads get full I will get the route into our home system (if the route is not too hostile) and service all my PI, move materials around and sell the finished product to my Corp. My CEO made a fantastic website for selling and purchasing goods from the Corp. I’ve used a few in my Eve career, but this one is by far the best. Well done Oreamnos. I’m confident I will find a rhythm with my new Corp and their playing times, but until I do I still cannot afford to replace ships I lose. Not even my cheap-ish Nemesis. God forbid I lose my Tengu! That’d be really bad. It’s the curse of the PLEX, which are rising in price again. 

Thanks for reading.