Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Shattered Wormhole Backpacking Trip Day 5ish Final day



See that Sabre? Yea I do too, a little too often. I saw that Sabre named cleverly, “Scanner Probe”, just one too many times on my D-scan. The interesting thing is he would appear each time I logged in my Confessor pilot, for two day straight. 





My time in W-space has taught me many lessons, one of them is to notice patterns in player behaviors that I might interact with.  “But Spear, you’re just being paranoid.” My paranoia keeps me alive and keeps others dead. Seeing the same ship, named the same way two days in a row exactly after I log on my character means that guy has me watch listed.

For those of you who may not know what a watch list is or what “watch listing” is. Its where you’re hunting a player and add them as a contact, adding the little check mark to notify you when that player logs in. This is commonly used by player hunters to map a targets play times.

What our Sabre friend did was simply add my character to his watch list on an alt. Each time my character logged in, he would log off his main and jump on his Sabre pilot. The thing is, he was sloppy about it. He didn’t wait or change his ships name each time he logged in. Two Sabres in the hole can be coincidence, two Sabres in the hole named the exact same thing long after all connections have cycled…. Well that’s a pattern.

Sure it could be someone lost, without a cloak, without probes… that just so happens to play at the exact same time as me. Nope. I’m not that mark.

I suspect I picked up a dedicated screen sniper from one of my broad casts. Its not like I made a huge effort to hide my character’s name or location. It could be found when I moused over the planet list when I right click and go to my book marks.

Now my opinions on screen sniping. The one hand I’m happy for any use of intel to murder another player, even outside of game tools. Anything that brings players together for the sake of shots being fired makes me happy. On the other hand, he was so very lazy in hiding his intentions and honestly that can’t be rewarded.

Its hard to describe to someone that hasn’t ever hunted another player. That extreme tense buildup of making all the right choices while the fate of another players’ hard work rests in your fingertips. Knowing that the prey could flee the second you fuck up. That level of commitment needs to be rewarded. Even while I assume the role of prey and you hunter I can respect a good game.

Well Sabre pilot you dun fked up. Work harder next time.

Since the outcome of most pvp engagements is determined before shots are fired. This is how the battle would have gone down.

Sabre pilot would have turned on my twitch stream and waited till the moment I refit for salvagers. Without salvagers loaded I couldn’t fight back. I would have warped onto grid to salvage my wrecks, he would have appeared bubbled and I would  be forced to refit on the spot or die to him. I might have had a chance if I could refit and tanked him, but that’s iffy. Good chance that he wasn’t alone.

I decided to evac all scouts and all loots from the frig hole. Git while the gitten’s good.


Summary:

Total backpacking isk gains: 1,423,000,000

Not a bad total for logging in every few days and running sites for a few hours.(2-3 hours every 2 or 3 days, wasn't keeping track. No clue what my isk per hour was, I just know how much money I have now. )


What I would have done differently:

Instead of using cans to hold my sleeper loot, I should have brought in an alt in a cloaky hauler destroyer. Think a destroyer with all cargo expanders and small cargo rigs. You can get them fairly high, not sure how high but I would have slept better at night knowing my loot wasn’t floating in space waiting for Wingspan to come and fly to it.

I would have brought more crystals, just Aurora and Gleam. I wasn’t sure which crystals to use the first time but Gleam at under 10k in a Wolf Rayte is like crack… Its sooooo good. People on my stream were telling me that pulse lasers with conflag was better, meh, I don’t know enough about lasers to counter it. I just know I was dishing way more damage than I should.


IF I was serious about doing this as a longer lasting PVE thing, I sure as hell wouldn’t blog about it, or stream it. There are just too many snipers out there.


That’s about it, everything else was flawless IMO. The fit was amazing, it buffered quite well when I screwed up the timers, it was flexible enough to swap out stuff fairly easy. Honestly the confessor is amazing in that hole.


For those of you waiting to see my confessor explode, well it happened, in a truly hilarious way.

I had dropped off my loot and I was cruising around in High sec and saw a Covert Research Anom. Oooo I can do that, I warped to it hacked 3 cans, the rats showed up, I flipped into tank mode because I have resistances right?  NOPE.

KAAABoooOOM. 







Living in a C13 for about 2 weeks, running sites without scanning out the chain, doing massive salvaging in a combat ship, totally alone... I lived! Then I out wit a scene sniper and his friends… only to have the 275 million isk confessor explode to this bull shit, I had to laugh. 

This is Bobs way of showing I should have stayed in his bountiful domain.


I have been telling people this for years, high sec is the most dangerous sec in the game. Shit is crazy out there!


Thank you for everyone who read this series, asked questions and is having more fun in wormholes because of it. 

Bob Bless. o7






13 comments:

  1. Excellent adventure! Thanks for the stories!

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  2. I liked this. You took me on an adventure :)

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    Replies
    1. Then he took a missile to the hull.

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  3. Thanks for the lesson man. I do know that a catalyst fit for holding a lot of stuff can get up to 1km3. Just food for thought for you and the rest of the fine folks that follow you.

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  4. Hi
    When you were running the sites with the confessor, did the confessor have issues with any of them ?

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    1. Once. In a relic site when I screwed up the triggers.

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  5. Expanded cargo hold Probe gets to 1k m3 too.

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  6. Hey, I'm relatively new to this whole game (1.9m SP) but I've been relatively focused on support skills and gunnery as opposed to rushing into a BS and being at 1/4 the spank and tank anyone else would have.

    That being said I was looking into doing something similar to your backpacking trip. But then the Mosaic changes hit the t3 dessies pretty hard.


    So my first question would be: Do you still think this sort of trip is possible?

    Fitting is a bit tighter and dps took a small hit but I feel like it may still work. I've currently been soloing C1s in a BC (cane) with no problems and taking about 10 minutes per site. C2s are still a little much for me to solo as I don't have t2 medium guns yet.


    I'm currently in a svip which already puts me at a bit of disadvantage for a trip as I would have to pack a TON of ammo. But we can ignore that for now as its just a logistics problem that can be sorted by having a friend trail me when I set up my camp with a cargo hold full of ammo.


    My second question is this: Close range brawling or long range sniping?

    In an arty svipul fit I see two advantages: the obvious one being range. In a c13 I can on paper put out 500 dps @ 50km while having 11.8k EHP (at that range I can also afford to drop a bit of tank for more gank as I see fit) The second advantage would be ammo consumption. With the lower dps comes higher alpha and higher damage per ammo spent. As long as I was still killing things in a decent time my ammo consumption would be much much lower.

    The alternative is a close range 200mm AC fit. Which on paper gives me a cool 1100 DPS @ 4k range (and better tracking) with 14.7k EHP (higher resists and a bit more buffer make my small armor rep give me more EHP per tick so my reps are a tad higher as well) The disadvantages being obviously: I'm going to take way more damage and I'm in range for neuts/scrams/webs.


    So I guess what It all boils down to are two things; Do you still think something like what you did is still possible in a post-mosaic Eve? And if so do you think that things are dying so fast that higher gank is going to outweigh the disadvantages of getting in close?

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    1. To answer your first question. Yes. Totally possible, how I know? I was in a C13 just last night in my identically fit confessor.

      Yes the Mosaic changes removed 2 guns, it also boosted the remaining gun’s effectiveness. So instead of having a 1160 dps, in a wolfrayte, its now 1063, so yes it hit them.. just not that hard.

      The defensive modules I used are identical and I was able to tank the sleepers in the exact same way. Sig tank.. which is where you use your speed and size to avoid most dps. When smaller sleepers are shooting at you, you still have the ability to remove them from the field quick enough to not be an issue.

      To your second question. Close range.

      I found that a confessor with T2 beams with Gleam ammo in sniper mode does more damage than a t2 pulse ammo and conflag. The tracking goes to hell, but who cares, you’re in snipping anyway.

      The key to doing these sites (not the c5/c6 gas sites because; Nuets) is to avoid taking direct damage from the battleships and destroying the cruisers quickly. Direct damage from battleships comes when you don’t have transversal on the battle ship. AKA going right at it.. or going directly away from it.

      Your ability to tank ships is entirely dependent on your piloting skill and manually piloting. If you click “Approach” right off the bat.. or “Orbit” right off the bat, you are going to get smoked. Your actual EHP doesn’t really mean much. You want high resistance and the ability rep constantly. Manual piloting is really the key here.

      Its best to ‘spiral in’ with your afterburner on. Your speed deals with the missiles they fire, and your transversal removes the beam threat. Once you get within 9 k. Simply orbit the battleship at around 3k and you won’t take any damage.

      If you are worried that you won’t have time to warp out, if you do it wrong… just try and align to planets while you are doing it. Be wary of where you are.. and where you are pointed. The second something gets sketchy, select the thing you are pointing at and click warp. Since you were already pointed to that thing, you will warp almost instantly.

      Good luck on the svipul idea, tell me how it works, post some fits. I personally haven’t had the pleasure of even flying one yet.

      -- Spear

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    2. [Svipul, AC C13?]

      Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
      Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizer
      Damage Control II
      Corpii A-Type Small Armor Repairer

      Stasis Webifier II
      Cap Recharger II
      Cap Recharger II
      Coreli C-Type 1MN Microwarpdrive

      200mm AutoCannon II, Hail S
      200mm AutoCannon II, Hail S
      200mm AutoCannon II, Hail S
      200mm AutoCannon II, Hail S
      Sisters Core Probe Launcher, Sisters Core Scanner Probe
      Prototype Cloaking Device I

      Small Anti-Explosive Pump II
      Small Anti-Kinetic Pump II
      Small Trimark Armor Pump II


      Is looking to be my current fit. MWD to take advantage of the bonus in defensive mode? Or should I just get an AB and stay in prop to tank?

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    3. Blowing up your sig is not the best way to stay alive in this ship. I would seriously want to rethink the MWD. Faction/deadspace AB all the way.

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    4. The reason I ask is because with mid grade halos (which I can pick up easily enough) and in a c13. My sig in defensive mode with MWD on is only 53m (3m more than a standard svipul and 28m more than AB in the same c13).

      I guess it depends on how to actually engage the fight. If I am burning in using prop mode then my sig is huge, but with MWD and defensive mode I have slightly more sig but over double the speed of an AB. (1444ms in defensive mode with MWD vs 632 in defensive with AB)

      What it seems to boil down to, to me, is: Is the 28m signature size increase (25 -> 53) too much of an increase to to justify the huge increase in speed (632 -> 1444). So like I said, guess it depends how to actually engage the fight? Up till now I was assuming I would land @ 0 in sniper, lock targets and swap to defensive w/ mwd on to get on the largest target and just orbit it at 10k while I took out everything else?

      I understand the principle of signature tanking when applied to one target, but the details are a little fuzzy when I'm approached with multiples.


      If I keep transversal high on my primary so that it can't hit me (or at least at any real damage) does my speed from orbiting that target work as a way to keep damage down on secondary targets?

      For example, I saw a confessor doing a c2 site by just dropping a MTU and orbiting it at 10k. He seemed to be doing okay but I have to get in closer to my targets with an AC build. (5k range). Alternately I could drop about 200 dps in exchange for 15k more range and just keep AB on and orbit a can till things get far enough away to justify going after them.


      Lots of things to think about, probably because as I've mentioned, I understand the concepts but have very little practical experience. And as much as I am so down to just dive right into a c13 and start this adventure I would be a little bummed if I got dunked on the first site by sleepers lol.


      :\

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  7. Hey, so were you able to take on the C3 combat anoms (Fortification Frontier Stronghold, Outpost Frontier Stronghold) that sometimes appear in c13's?

    I've struggled with those in a similarly fit Hecate. The mix of neuts, a battleship, and webs just spells disaster for me. I'm curious how you a handled that situation.

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