Comfortable research

I’ve rejoined New Eden Research after building up Mundilfari Station in Vorsk, so if anyone needs highly-available research facilities of any sort, we can help. Corporations can join NER (including subsidiary corporations) and use the material research labs for 15k ISK/hour, or production efficiency labs for free. Copying and invention will require other arrangements. Send me a message and we can work them out.

Putting up a large tower, lots of labs, and requisite defense in case of war took a good bit of time and ISK. Fortunately, my trading efforts keep paying off well, and I have a good system in Heimatar so that I don’t have to spend too much time on it. Once NER gets going, I expect that the tower will at least pay for its own fuel costs. As an added benefit, I have copy slots available for my own use at all times, and all the research (including invention) goes a lot faster. Dedicated facilities really make a difference.

I also did a bit more exploration, primarily clearing out a few facilities hidden in cosmic anomalies near Vorsk as well as poking at some Angel Cartel datacenters and such. That actually reminds me, I need to jump back down to Curse so that I can visit with my research staff in the Cartel labs and keep our arrangements down there going. I know I have something of an inconsistent arrangement, so I’ll need to address that soon. Maybe.

Exploratory screenshots

I added several new images today, primarily of Sansha facilities in the Derelik region but also a plasma planet and a gorgeous Angel research site in Curse. As always, you can see all my images on my Screenshots page.

Maspah I, composed of plasma.

Angel research facility in the Curse region.

From a Sansha watch site I found in Derelik. Transports docking to offload people for "processing" in the human containment facility? Or maybe picking up newly-converted True Slaves? Ugh.

From a Sansha watch site I found in Derelik

A lookout tower assists with facility security.

The bright red sun and the haze around the facility give it a foreboding glare.

There's a docked Bestower and a couple of towers to overlook the thing.

Shattered planet

While traveling out to the Curse region on business, I passed through SL-YBS in the Great Wildlands region. My overview registered a planet with some odd readings, so I flew over in my Claw interceptor to check it out.

What I saw frightened and fascinated me at the same time. The first planet in the system had evidently run into a spontaneously-formed wormhole like the one that tore up Seyllin almost a year ago. Here’s some of the imagery.

A shattered planet, SL-YBS I in the Great Wildlands region. This happened during the original spontaneous formation of wormholes at the time of the Seyllin incident. I found this one while on a trip out to Curse.

Another view of the ugly wound on the planet surface.

Undocking in Amamake

I hate undocking in low-sec. Actually, I just hate not getting any updates from the traffic controllers about conditions on the grid around the station. That leads to losing a blockade runner and lots of ISK.

Props to the pirates, though, who evidently had a pretty decent operation given the number of wrecks I saw once I did undock (and before I got my pod out of there). My wallet didn’t like the experience, but that’s how low-sec trading goes.

Hull Upgrades completed

So I finished Hull Upgrades V a few hours ago. Not that I normally note every skill I train, but in this case, I got several certificates out of it, including Core Integrity (Elite) and Armor Tanking (Improved). In fact, this means I have all three Improved-level Defence certs.

But the best part came when I noticed I had finished Hull Tanking (Elite). The description reads:

This certificate represents an elite level of competence in the infamous practice of “hull tanking”. It certifies that the holder can fully use all modules relating to hull tanking. The holder is aware that “real men hull tank”, and also that hull tanking is really dumb. With this certificate, you’ve maximised your ability to rely on your structural systems to absorb damage, although hopefully you’re smart enough to know what a daft idea that is.

I don’t actually intend to do this, of course, since I belong to the “They Can’t Shoot What They Never See” school of thought on tanking, but it still tickled me.

Doing well by doing good?

I finally put some of my, erm, more esoteric skills to use. I’d spent some time doing delivery work and such for Core Complexion out of Eram, when the agent contacted me with this:

The government says we’re prepared for war. You wouldn’t know it by looking at our wounded. Space makes everything worse. Just look through the medical bay. Second-degree burns and frostbite are both alarmingly common, and are usually in conjunction with other serious injuries.

I need pain medications badly. I can’t just wait for the next delivery. I need to produce my own drugs. For that I’m going to need Gamboge Cytoserocin. I heard a smuggler say there was a pocket at Eram. Go there, and bring back everything you can. I’ll try to make it worth your while.

My Neocom gave me some additional background info:

Medicinal Drugs

Although the compounds that are popularly called “boosters” are illegal in empire space, other legal derivatives of gas cloud materials are used in the medical community. These medicinal drugs are highly controlled, but are often the difference between life and death for many citizens.

So what did I do? What could I do? I had my engineering crew warm up my gas harvesting ship Whirlwind, a properly-fitted Cyclone battlecruiser.

When I got there, I found an old abandoned station of Caldari design.

The smuggler’s data proved correct: a nice-sized cloud of Gamboge Cytoserocin hung gingerly in space, right at the site of a ship which had wrecked into a medium-sized asteroid.

The agent paid decently well and I feel like maybe I did some good after all. Dad would have been proud, if he were still around.

Lost my Typhoon already

Tanker Explosion Test by SiamEye

While finishing up a mission in Frarn in my new Typhoon, I saw a salvager show up on my overview. No worries, I don’t mind. He does his thing, I do mine, and neither of us can complain. He flew a Malediction and seemed to know his business. We didn’t talk much, but I suppose that particular relationship doesn’t require a lot of communication.

As I got close to finishing the mission, another salvager showed up in a Vexor. Except he also looted my stuff and went flashy. Figuring I could handle a cruiser with my own drones, I opened fire upon him.

Bad move. The Vexor wasn’t too much trouble by himself, but with endless Amarrian battleships trying to tear large chunks out of my armor, he eventually wore me down. I couldn’t get away and I couldn’t work through his own armor. He had a Myrmidon friend there who also looted, but I chose not to fire upon him, figuring that would not lead to good things. (Not that this worked out a lot better, heh.)

Eh, live and learn. Check for possible backup and don’t engage another pod pilot when you’re already under heavy fire from NPCs.

(I’ll update with a killmail later.)

On the addiction of missions

First, I just wanted standings for perfect refines. This made sense given my playstyle and skills. Then I realized that I already had decent standings with a R&D corp, so I could also get research agent access. So I pushed on and got my standings nearly to 7 with Core Complexion Inc.

After that, I decided to get sufficient standings with the Brutor tribe to talk to the agent that starts the epic arc. Easy enough, I told myself. Well, that  certainly proved true.

Then I decided to get another jump clone without using EACS (which requires changing corps). The next thing I know, I’ve started to ask alliance mates if they want to run level 5 missions…

The next thing I know, I’ve descended back into the ease of my old lifestyle and missioning like crazy. Agent work generally doesn’t require too much energy given an appropriately built ship. And it keeps the ISK flowing when the markets don’t behave or manufacturing and research jobs haven’t completed.

But I don’t think this really fulfills my goals as a pilot. The arc here matches a drug or other addiction pretty closely. Now to figure out what I should really do next…

Preparing for an industrial roam

As I finally got some good time in-pod, I’ve put together a plan of action for the next few weeks. Mostly, it revolves around specific goals I want to achieve, some of which nest within each other. I have written this post as much to elucidate all this for myself as much as to generate conversation with pilots who have similar interests.

(more…)

Insurance musings

For whatever reason, I’ve had trouble turning an ISK in trading lately. Maybe I’ve lost my touch, maybe regional differences matter more than I really thought, or maybe the New Eden economy has fundamentally changed lately.

I’d thought to get back into tech II ship production. However, that hasn’t really worked due to intensely volatile moon resource prices causing shortages of key components. Supply and demand: not just a good idea, it’s the law. Never expected so much trouble getting quantum microprocessors at a decent rate!

So for now, I’ve refocused on tech I ship production and some limited tech II activity, at least where the numbers work out. Drones still make really great margins, so I’ve churned out those advanced Hobgoblins and Hammerheads as fast as my staff and labs can work. I intend to get some Ogres moving soon as well, but that might take another week or so before I see real results. Barrage ammo might work as well since projectile ammo has come back into vogue. Sometimes the simplest things still work the best, as an old Brutor boyfriend used to tell me…

Anyway, I have to say that the SCC might qualify as the worst-managed organization in the history of for-profit human endeavor (which is to say, our entire history). Everyone knows that their premiums can’t possibly cover their settlement payouts, so that business line must really hemorrhage ISK into the greater capsuleer economy. Maybe their market management works, because they get a piece of nearly every market transaction and contract out there to manage the data flows and maintain some semblance of order and regulation, but the insurance does not even approach something reasonable.

One case in point: evidently, they base their settlements on a mineral basket price from years ago. As we all know, mineral prices vary wildly (and I should really spend more time talking about the factors influencing those another time). Here lately, those prices have plummeted. This does great things for production costs, of course, but that also means that the supply-demand equilibrium point has fallen, since we can sell our products more cheaply and still turn a profit. In a competitive marketplace (without collusion or other external factors), that means prices drop as well.

That ends up meaning that ship production costs have fallen below SCC insurance payouts.

Said another way, the SCC will actually pay you more than the cost of the ship.

But it gets better. Their contract lawyers must have let their kids write the documents because they will pay you under any circumstances. That includes intentional self-destruction of the insured asset. Yes, the SCC specifically covers scuttling.

When my senior staff brought this to my attention, I thought that they had to have made a mistake. Even as poorly as the SCC economists have done their jobs, I assumed the lawyers would have done theirs. I mean, we’re talking about the human equivalent of slaver hounds, right?

So I built some Drakes in Oursulaert for about 24.4m ISK. The net payout on a Drake at Platinum insurance for 26.6m. (In fact, for a bit, Drake market rates in that system dropped below the insurance payout). I took on just the barest minimum of crew, enough to get us out of the docking bay, and as soon as we were clear, I shut down the engines and had them evacuate the ship back into station.

Then I engaged the self-destruct timer, waited a couple of minutes… and made about 10% margin. (I let other folks grab the salvage, but certainly you could do this at a safe spot and go back for the salvage yourself.)

Now, I could keep doing this all day long and suck money right out of the SCC’s pockets. Even though the market rate for a Drake usually exceeds that 26.6m ISK, you have to wait a little longer for somebody to come along and fill the sell order, so an immediate 10% compounds more quickly than 15% that takes a day or two, at least in raw return.

Really, this kind of feels like insurance fraud. But since the contract explicitly allows this, I don’t think that it actually defrauds anybody. They just made an incredibly bad business decision.

I still don’t like it, though. I mean, I’ll take advantage of somebody else’s mistake, sure, but it seems like an even bigger waste never to let the ship do its thing. Not every ship looks nice, but these vessels represent something approximating the pinnacle of our species’ technical achievements. They should at least get the chance to do their jobs. Maybe pilot error loses them sooner than anticipated, of course, but that seems like a separate problem.

I know this sounds a little irrational. Anthropomorphizing a podder ship? Yeah, my implant probably needs a service visit. But I’d rather see the SCC get its act together, implement some sort of dynamic settlement payouts (and hey, while they’re at it, take a look at payouts for tech II and tech III ships).

Until then, I’ll keep building ships and making them available to pod pilots for slightly better return. No promises when market rates drop completely below insurance payouts, though…

Image credit Boogies with Fish