War Record: Routine patrol

Today I completed a routine patrol of the Crusade conquest zones.

Why? Well, whilst I hardly think of myself as a mercenary, there were a few items in the loyalty store I wanted for my projects, and needed to endear myself to the armorer. I also felt a little guilty about leaving the front lines so abruptly.

In any case, I planned my patrol as usual, hitting Minmatar held complexes, as usual, flying my favorite frigate, the Kontos Executioner. It's upgraded a little now, since my fitting skills allow a bit more power, but the idea is the same.

Nothing much of importance happened. A few ships dropped in on me as I was capturing, but wisely thought better of tackling a Khanid fighter! My fellow crusaders have been doing well in my absence, so there were few systems for me to capture in.

On the way back I noticed a friendly complex whose cloak had failed, and went to provide cover until they repaired it.

Another Executioner appeared on scans.

After a quick comment to the complex crew not to panic, I readied my weapons, and the capsuleer working for the Minmatar entered.

The fight was short, and altogether uneventful. I was a little rusty, allowing the other ship to graze my armor, but he was defeated in good order.

I sent him a quick courtesy, which was ignored. No matter.

After the complex was restored, I flew back to my staging area, and repaired my ship, and went to smile sweetly at the loyalty store vendor.

Review

My piloting was sloppy. I failed to maintain my orbit of him, and lost warp disruption twice, and over compensated my orbit allowing him to get close. Foolish.

It was not a display of my skill, but more accurately his pilot errors. Even when I was close enough to his scrambler range, he failed to shut down my Micro Warp Drive. I was lucky.

I must maintain better discipline when it comes to orbiting. I think perhaps my early tent-pegging exercises are no longer enough.

I will begin working on my manual piloting skills.

Choosing to be prey

Honestly, the prospect of exploring low sec and wormholes has me nervous. And I've just worked out why.

Before in the crusade, I'd head out to the wildlands to ferret out Minmatar dogs without batting an eye. The security status didn't phase me, and I whilst I wasn't reckless, I didn't avoid combat.

Not so with exploration. Flying in an unarmed, lightly tanked ship as I am, my only saftey lies in speed and stealth. I am no longer a hunter, but the hunted. The worst thing about this is that I put myself in that position.

I have invited predatory capsuleers to strike me and confound my plans. Despite flying a black ship, I'm a highly visible, and easy target.

It puts me in an odd position. Technically I'm doing a safer activity, but it puts me at more risk.

There's not much you can do to avoid this. But I wouldn't be me unless I conjoured up some solutions!

• Patrol planning
• Deployment of material

The same as with the Crusade, your best friend is a map. See my post on patrol planning for an in-depth examination. The principles are the same here. Map out your route to encounter the fewest pilots. This is slightly easier than in the Crusade, as relic and hacking sites aren't tied to any specific system... and backwater systems far from traffic are more likely to be unexploited anyway!

The deployment of material is fairly similar too. Only one or two exploration ships are required, and then bring a small stack of combat ready vessels. It'll depend on the sites you're hunting down, and I'm going to have to explore possibilities later. I'm undecided whether the ships should be fit for anti-rat or capsuleer combat. I think it will depend on the operating region.

However, a slight difference would be to include a mining vessel or two in the redeployment. Whilst exploring you will find many brightly coloured and interesting rocks to exploit. It would be a waste to ignore these opportunities!

The deployment then gives us back a rapid re-shipping option, weakening the impact of ship loss. Even if we are destroyed, we can fit out a new ship, and head back out into space in a short window.

I must think more on how to lessen the fear of being prey. 

Trade Log: Hauling (Regional Trading)

The graceful art of moving stuff.

Here's the secret. Look at your stuff. Put stuff in ship. Undock. Fly to destination. Dock. Take stuff out of your ship.

And that's it.

There are some tips though.

I rarely use industrial ships for this. Now that there are speedy industrials, it's not a terrible idea to use them, and can give you a good deal of tank.

What you deal in is usually quite mall, so the cargo capacity of a hauler isn't necessary. Gankers, pirates who prey on the humble hauler, used to be able to pop open most industrial ships without breaking a sweat. Not quite so true now, but gankers will still target you, since you're most likely to have cargo.

A fast frigate requires someone to have a ship designed for speedy locking, since they warp quite quickly, and they will also have to cargo scan you. No sense in wasting a destroyer or battle cruiser on a rookie's mission ship.

A Vigil, the Minmatar E-War ship, is usually the hauler of choice. However, gankers know this too, and will target those first. Any frigate will do though. I know of some traders that used to haul in destroyers too... no one ganks destroyers.

The speediest ship for moving around valuables is an interceptor. With this ship you'll zip across the space lanes, and outrun all but the most determined ganker.

It goes without saying that you shouldn't be asleep at the pod when you haul something valuable. Auto-piloting gives gankers an awful lot of time to peruse your ship. They'll scan you to see if you have cargo, and then blast you at their leisure. Manual piloting limits this time, and makes it less likely for you to be a target.

Also, avoid low and null security space. CONCORD won't help you out there. If you absolutely must, get a cloaked ship. Covert Ops vessels are good for this.

If, on the other hand, you find hauling too stressful (and boring), I recommend using either Push X or Red Frog on Courier contracts. I mostly deal with Push X. They are reliable, and have have a good insurance network.

When setting collateral for the contract, you might want to consider putting a small mark-up on your goods being hauled. Certainly do this for public contracts. I'm disinclined to do it for Push X though, as they're very professional about what they do. Good relationships are the foundation of any business.

The reason for the small mark up is lessening the damage to your business cycle. If you lose your valuables to a pirate, then you will have lost all that time spent buying and setting up the Courier contract. The small mark-up gives you a little bit of profit, to make up for the lost time. Don't be greedy, though. Just a little bit to pay for your time. Too much is simply unfair for your courier, and will damage your reputation.

So there you go. Get moving stuff. I've got things to do... 

Expanding project

I'm not sure why I thought exploration would be easier to jump into than capsuleer combat.

After a week of scanning across Khanid, I've realised that space is big. Rather obvious, but in my defense, fighting in the crusade focuses all your attention on maybe two or three points in any system, which can be easily ignored depending on what you want to do.

Not so with exploration.

What it boils down to is that mapping the Khanid region is taking a lot longer than I thought it would... and to be honest, I'm not finding a great deal worthwhile.

I'll be posting my findings shortly.

Back to the markets

Good grief...

My master takes me away from the markets for a month or two, and the Hek volumes plummet. Prices are all over the place! Well, at least in what I used to trade in.

Ah well, lots of room for profit now. Perhaps there's something to be learned from this: leave your ISK fields fallow for a few weeks, and then harvest.

Station trading is order of the day. With 2 billion liquid ISK my master doesn't need, and profit margins the way they are, all I need to do is set up some Buy orders. Region trading can wait for a bit, whilst my wife gets herself set up again.

Business will be slow for a bit, but my master isn't so hell bent on blowing up what he buys anymore, so we'll be able to see some growth.