Cracking the $240M nut, Is WH life worth it?

Heating a POS in the cold of space is a very expensive endeavour.  To the tune of $240M  per month.  So the question becomes how much do you have to do to justify not sitting in a nice .5 systems, mining scordite in an Orca fleet, and having to only fear gankers?

Well let us count the ways.

1) Mine.  Looking at the facts. Scordite returns are at  record levels, and zydrine and megacyte prices are as low as I have seen.  You lose 25% refining in the WH, and right now we don't have the fleet sizes to justify breaking out the orca, at the expense of losing a Hulk.  Even so, I figure I get about 150% the isk per hour in my two Hulk fleet, then I got High Sec using 2 Hulks and a Retriever in a almost maxed out Orca Boosted Fleet.  In fact, it looks like I get about $250k isk per minute more.  So first way to crack into that $240M nut is to mine 1000 minutes, or about 17 hours.  Again, this assumes I am taking on the entire $240M burden.

2) Run anomolies/Radar/Mag sites.  So variable here, since the majority of the isk running anomolies is from the Melted Nano's.  Again using a base number of $24M/hour as my High Sec Scrodite mining, and figuring I can clear and salvage about 1.5 anomolies per hour solo, it really is a wash here.   Some hours I have cleared 11-13 meleted nanos, while others I have only gotten 3.  I know there are tags and other salvage, radar site stuff and mag site stuff, but in the end it is really all about the Melted Nano's in a Class 2.

3) Ladar.  Just starting to get into this area.  Spent the night last night clearing some ladar sites and gathering gas.  Looks like I spent about 3 hours clearing 4 sites and from what I can see I will make about $40M once I can "react" it.  Not really a great return, but better then doing nothing.

4) Other reactions.  The real wildcard here.  Since reactors are limited to .4 security or less, and the Amarr tower has plenty of power and cpu, why not look to run simple reactions when the refinery or polymer reaction is not needed.  Looking at the numbers, it looks like there are reactions that can net $250k to $500k per hour, every hour.

And of course the best way to crack the nut, is to split it (among corpmates). 

So bottom line, after about a month in w-space, when comparing it to high sec.

1) Be prepared to spend more time doing non isk generating stuff.  Sure in high sec you still have to make market runs, but they are not usually 20 jumps.  Overall, I think I spend about twice the time doing non-isk producing stuff in w-space (a lot more recently with a POS setup/teardown/setup).

2) Be prepared to do whatever is available.  Our order right now is as follows:
        Mine a grav site in our system of ABC ores
        Mine a neighbor system of ABC ores
        Mine our system for Dark Ochre or Gneiss
        Combat sites (either in our or neighbor system)
        Ladar (either in ours or neighbors)
        Market runs

3) Think of ways to make money off POS when not needing the w-space equipment.


Overall, I do not envision struggling to justify the $240M it will take to keep a W-space Large POS running.  Alone, I am fairly certain I would at least get the 17-20 hour of mining in that is needed to justify the w-space existance.  As I also look to grow the corp (visit "Life In The Hole" channel ingame for our public recuitment channel), this nut will get even easier to handle.  So after about a month in w-space I am confident that there is plenty of Isk to be made, plenty of ways to lose a crap load of Isk, and a lot of fun to be had.

So as we work to establish our Class 2 presence, I continue to look towards getting the corp into a Class 4 hole within the next 45 days.

Fly Safe,
Mick 

Eve POS Refining Yields

Well after spending way too much time trying to figure the POS refining yields and searching all over I have concluded one thing.

No one can agree on the yield.

I read one post where someone insists that the Intese Refining Array is a 50% base with a CAP at 75%.  If this is the case a total noob with no skills would easily get the 75% as with zero skills you get 87.5% at a 50% station.  Can easily check that off the list of possible ways this works.

Well I thought that it was your refining rate in a 50% station TIMES 75%, but early refining cycles come out to not match this formula either.

So I just about gave up the I came accross a reference to this formula in one of the EO forums posts.

Refining yields in a 75% POS refinery = 56.25%*Skills

where Skills = (1+(Refining Skill Lvl * .02))*(1+(Refining Eff Skill Lvl*.04))*(1+(Ore Proc Skill Lvl*.05))

That would yield the following chart for yield by skills.  Rememeber it is Capped at 75% so all values greater then 75% = 75%.

So far I have been able to test this only on my skills of Refining V and Refining Eff III, and it matches the yield I got, whereas the 50% station Yield * 75% did not.

Can anyone else mining in W-Space and using a POS refinery help to confirm this formula/table?

Thanks.

Fly Safe,
Mick

Finally Back in Business

Well it took way too long, but tonight I might actually get back to W-Space business as usual.

So to recap my adventure in breaking ties with old corp. Formed new corp with a sub-toon, anchored medium POS, took down large POS and stored at medium POS, waited 24 for removal of roles, reanchored Large POS in new corps name, took down the medium POS. All told about 14 hours of game time to accomplish. Not horrible, but certainly not something I want to do very often.

Shout out to Star Defender for the evemaps tool in his recent post. Love it.

So have a couple more defenses to setup and will be back to where I was prior to deciding to make the change.

Have to get a few things together and we will be ready to start to try to grow the corp by a few more dedicated members.

Fly Safe,
Mick

The Two Sides of Core Scanning

For W-Space life there really are two sides to scanning down a system.

The first is the one more familar to us all and the one that CCP has put out a decent video on. That is finding a single signature and scanning it down to 100% to bookmark it and fly to it. That scanning seems simple enough and I am confident enough in my skills now to be able to do this for a single signature in a few minutes.

The other side of scanning and the one I have seen no good methods described, is the one where you fly into a system and want to find the unknown connections as quickly as possible (or grave site for raiding, or what ever you are trying to find.)

To simply transfer the skils from the first way and start with 8AU probes and work your way down taking a single site at a time does not seem best. Maybe it is but in my mind that invloves a lot of individual probe moving that takes time. I have also read about using a single probe to try to gain a "relative stength" of the signal and then start with the strongest. This too seem to take more record keeping then I care to use in situations where I am simply trying to find what exits the system has quickly.

So I will try to describe my method. My eventual goal is to develop a short guide (with pics) eventually to help in this area. Also as a note, this is almost exclusively based on my experience in Class 3 and below systems. It may or may not be at all effective in higher w-space if signal strengths are significantly lower in higher w-space.

To start I will define just 2 terms I will use. First is "overhead view" this is the view on the map where the "camera" is all the way above and is a "top down" look at the system. I use this for the X and Y placement of probes. (for record I use the 5 probe system in teh video now with a center "target" probe). The other term is "Probe Height" which I use as a reference to how far above or below the "Inner Planet Orbital Plane" the probe formation is.

So you warp into a system, Bookmark your way out (you did BM the way out didn't you), and drop the first probe(s) to see the number of signatures in the system. Lo and behold there are like 10-15 and you need to find the exits. How do you do it? Well I will describe how I do and see if anyone else can tell me if it makes sense.

First, drop a .25 probe at your entry spot. Scan and the ignore that signatures as the one you just came in on. Next launch 5 probes and at 1AU make sure the edge of the outter 4 probes just touch in the center at the "target probe". Now change to 2AU and you should have a very nice clover pattern.

Move the target probe to either the Sun or Planet 1 depending on how compact the inner system is. Scan. Ignore all signatures over 25% that are not unknowns. Now move the probe formations "height" so that the bottom of the probes is just touching the orbital plane. Scan and ignore again. If you get an unknown "hit", write down the Signature ID. I can not tell you the number of times I have "lost" the 25% strength on the next scan and forgotten the ID. Now move the height to all the way below the orbital plane so that the top is just touching the orbital plane. Scan and ignore. With decent probing skills you should be getting rid of the inner Ladar and Grav sites and possiblly be hitting the larger Unknowns (like high sec exits).

In addition to these "base" scans, if at any time I get a signle red dot "hit" I will move the formation and change to 1AU, WITHOUT MOVING ANY INDIVIDUAL PROBES IN THE FORMATION. This will get the sig type a lot of times. If I don't get an ID at 1AU but still have single or dual red dot, I will center the formation and go to .5AU, WITHOUT MOVING ANY INDIVIDUAL PROBES IN THE FORMATION. If at .5AU I still dont have an Sig Type, I note the sig ID and move on (I do not ignore it). The reasoning here is that it is probably a Mag or Radar site and I do not want to move the individual probes in the early stages of a search.

If the inner system is very packed, I will repeat this On, Above, Below to the top left, top right, bottom right and bottom left of the sun. Again just making sure that the probe formation is consistant. With any luck you will have found an unknown.

If you still don't know the way out, then lauch a 6th probe, deactivate the main formation, and determine where the remaining signatures are. I place the 6th probe at 8AU on teh sun and call that "inner system", from there I search every planet at 8AU that the "inner system" does not cover completely.

From there, I will either use the 2AU formation for any areas with multiple sigs, or I will start to use a more traditional "single sig" scanning method.

This is quick and obviously might be hard to "envision". If people think there is value in this "method" I will strive to make a more detailed guide and add screen shots.

I think this method has several advantages, but the biggest is that it eliminates the need to move individual probes within the formation, while allowing you to scan effectively at 2AU and 1AU, which are levels that most signatures will show an ID. With the 2AU probes and the On, Above, Below method you get decent coverage over the 4AU sphere where 95% of signatues will be.

All comments desired. Please feel free to add to this discussion, as this skill is vital to W-space and yet I have found almost no material on how to do it well.

Thanks and Fly Safe,
Mick

Making the Changes

Man is it tough to do Corporate stuff in EVE.

To take down a Large POS, Form a Corporation, have everyone relinquish their roles, wait, get out of the hole to a station, to quit the corp, get to an office to apply and finally find a new hole for the POS.

Looks like a week long process.

So far I have the new corporation formed, Great White North Exploration (yes in reference to Bob and Doug), and tonight will have my first major toon into that corporation. Then I will be able to launch the Medium POS in our current base system and move all the Large POS stuff to its hanger.

So if all goes well tonight, I will be able to start the 24 hour clock on my other two characters to get them into the new corp, as well as the toons of my new partner in W-Space Adventures.

Once we have that done and the Large POS staged to settle a new system we will start looking at our static class 2 systems to find a suitable new home.

Overall I am liking the dual POS setup as it allows a lot of flexibility in terms of setting up and tearing down in systems. Looks like the plan long term will be to settle a system with lots of signatures with the Large POS. Once the system gets runned down, especially of Grav sigs, we will unanchor the refinery (by far the hardest at 2 hours) and trim down the POS of any modules we can and prepare to move. At that point if a good system presents itself we would be mobile enough to exploit it by anchoring the Medium POS in the new system and then moving the Large POS before the hole closed.

So onward and upward and hopefully back to killing Sleepers by next week.

Fly Safe,
Mick

Introductions

Well now that I am in full control of my future, I think it is time for some introductions.

First up is my main toon, Hundo Kay. Born in a shuttle stop in Jita, Melvin Kay was a runt growing up and always insisted to his tormentors that one day he would become a great capsuleer and kill "at least a hundred ships". They quickly started calling him "Hundo" for his ridiculous dreams. Well fortune smiled on Hundo and he did become a capsuleer. He has killed hundreds of ships in vital missions for Poksu Mineral Group, but has currently taken his fight to a Class 2 wormhole and the Sleepers there.

Second in my crew is Capitaine Evident. As a boy growing up in Gallente, Jacques Pasteur had a knack for stating the obvious. It soon began to drive his school mates crazy that Jacques would always point out the most obvious of facts. During his initial capsuleer traing, Jacques stated "gee my pulse lasers change colour to match the crystal I am using", to which his instructor stated, "non feces, Capitaine Evident". Needless to say the name stuck.

Last in my lineup of main toons is Ian Stormcloud. His parents spent a lot of time worrying about Ian Keller as a boy and spent a lot of Isk trying to figure out what was behind his dark moods. In his early days of his career, his peers took to calling him Stormcloud, for the mood he often brought to the room. His friends always knew a night at the Pleasure Hub with Ian was sure to lead to serious time in the Brig. It took Ian 8 years to get through the 3 year program, and he set school records for penalty minutes in every major sport he played.

At this point I am also maintaining several scanning toons, but the only one of imporatnce is Monna Sei. She is the Founder and CEO of Great White North Exploration, until such time as Hundo can get to a station and assume control of the company.

So please feel free to drop a line to any of my toons in game and I would love to chat about W-Space and share knowledge. And please, if you see anyone from Great White North Exploration roaming through W-Space please don't shoot.

Fly Safe,
Mick

Goodbyes

Well, my W-Space adventure took an unexpected turn last night.

Logged on to find our corps other main scanner knee deep in our Class 2 neighbor. System had over 20 anom's and 15 sigs. He had already scanned down 5 grav sites.

While our corp's plan was to keep the Large POS in our main base for everyone, I still maintain my own Medium POS with refinery for my personal use and as a forward base before we set up the Large POS.

Well I decided that since the new hole obviously offered a better short term future then our hole with its 3 anoms and 3 mag/radar sites, that I was going to set up my Medium POS and "ride this new hole" for a few days to a week while our main wormhole recovered and spawned some new sites. This conversation led to a decision from one of the corp's directors in the main wormhole that w-space life is not for him. Granted he is a Miner/Industrialist and it was hard enough to get him to even try W-Space. Well long story short, we did not move into the new hole as we spent the night "evacuating" him back to empire. This also served as enough stimulus to decide that my goals and the corp's were not even remotely headed in same direction.

So it is with some sorrow, but way more excitment, that I have branched out on my own and formed a new corp solely dedicated to W-Space Exploration and Exploitation.

So now I am back controlling my own destiny and able to recruit a few more like minded soles to join my adventure.

So its on to tearing down the old corp's Large POS and getting it back to Empire, as I look for the opportunity to get the Medium POS established for the new corp and then get back to making ISK.

Fly Safe,
Mick