New Bro Exploration Tip of the Week - Suspect Timers

Johnny Pew recently posted a very nice video on his YouTube channel which went over the process of mining untold amounts of ISK that have been littered all across New Eden in the form of abandoned Mobile Tractor Units.

However, there is one unique consequence of hunting for these abandoned units and putting them out of their misery.  You acquire a suspect timer for shooting the mobile tractor unit.  Once you engage with an offensive weapon on the unit, in the upper left corner of your User Interface you will see this:

This means that for 15 minutes, other pilots are allowed to shoot you without intervention on your behalf from Concord.  Here is an explanation of the suspect time.

In the past, I have informed our corporation members of the ability to go hunting for these units and the fact that there is ISK just waiting to be appropriated.  Unfortunately, not everyone in the corporation heard me speak on Teamspeak about the need to either dock up or activate your cloak once you get the suspect timer.

All of this is a result of a recent loss on our killboard which piqued my curiosity:

The first thing that jumped out to me was a loss which occurred in high security space.  The only way that can happen is a derp by our pilot, unless ganked.  With a single hostile on the kill, gank is not possible.  So, derp it is.  The second thing I noted on the kill was the use of a very shiny ship for what appeared to be high security exploration.  The Orthrus does not receive any bonuses to hacking, scanning or anything related to exploration.  This also made me wonder what occurred.

So, early morning today I chatted with the corporation member who had this occur to find out what occurred.  It took some time, but eventually he mentioned that he had an aggression timer, which prevents you from jumping gates or from docking.  This is where that cloak would have come in handy.  So, I told him that he needed to bounce safe spots.  He stated that the Proteus found him at his safe spot and committed space violence on the Orthrus.

So, our lesson here is that you might get a suspect timer even for actions in high security space.  Other pilots are free to engage you if this occurs.  You need to either dock up or activate your cloak if cannot dock.  And finally, do not use a 400 million ISK ship to go hunting abandoned mobile tractor units.

Mistakes Were Made

Sunday morning we encountered some hostiles in our wormhole and unfortunately a series of mistakes were made which lead to an unfortunate level of red on the killboard.

As I awoke and logged into EVE, there was report of some possible hostile activity in our wormhole.  The initial report from corp members was of a Proteus on our High Sec static hole, shooting at the Mobile Large Warp Dispruptor II bubble.  I jumped into standing fleet, and pinged everyone to join Fleet comms on TS.

One of the members had an alt in the hole who could warp over and sit cloaked at a perch on the hole.  He logged in that character, and as he did one of the corp members piped up in Fleet chat that he had engaged a Sabre on the relatively new C4 hole we also had.  I attempted to initiate warp to his position, but we received the error message that the pilot was not in our system.  Fail, evidently by the time he elected to say anything he was podded back to high sec.  Now, never during this time did he say anything to us on TS, as he was not on TS.  Mistake #1

Loss #1 Manticore
Loss #2 Pod

I warped the fleet over to the C4 hole at 100, and the Sabre was there.  I bounced us off a celestial and back to the hole at 20.  We engaged the Sabre and he decided to jump back to the C4.  Now, bear in mind no single corp member had elected to scout out the C4.  This may have been important as we shall see soon.

Our cloaky scout was at the perch over the high sec hole and reported that the Proteus was indeed in the bubble shooting at the bubble.  He also was joined by an Ishtar.  I was still trying to organize the fleet and get a relatively decent composition for engaging the Proteus.  It was about this time that we had a 2nd member of the corp decide to poke around at the C4 hole.  SMH.  At least he was on comms and immediately verbalized that he was being shot at by the Sabre.  Again, I warped the fleet over to the C4 hole and immediately the Sabre jumped back.  There were two mistakes in this engagement.  Mistake number one was to fit faction torpedo launchers to a PVP ship with a tank slightly better than an Ibis.  Mistake number two was the independent corp member electing to go to that hostile hole where the Sabre was.  Mistake #2 & #3

Loss #3 Nemesis
Loss #4 Pod

We now had 5 members in the fleet with us, and with 4 of us in BC/HAC hulls I felt reasonably sure that we had enough DPS to kill the Ishtar and the Proteus, especially as my alt was in a Pilgrim, and the neut pressure from her would shut down any active tank of the Proteus.  So, I warped her over to the high sec hole and started to get her positioned cloaked off of the Proteus.  Unfortunately, I alt-tabbed between the two accounts and when I did it appears that she was decloaked by "something".  The mistake here was attempting to dual box without the necessary precautions.  Mistake #4

Loss #5 Pilgrim
Loss #6 Pod

We still had 3 battlecruisers and my Ishtar, so I elected to proceed into the engagement.  I had the fleet warp to the bubble and we began to engage.  His tank was decent, but we slowly began to chip away at his armor.  As he dipped below 50% armor, our Brutix pilot mentioned that he was breaking.  We had no logis, so I ordered him to begin aligning out of the bubble, but he went down and the Proteus jumped back into high sec.  The mistake here was not getting into optimal range for our weapons.  The Brutix would certainly have done better damage projection if he were up close and personal.  Mistake #5

Loss # 7 Brutix

Then, as his pod was beginning to slowly trek out of the bubble, an Astero uncloaks and pods him.  Afterwards, the pilot mentioned that he was closer to the high sec hole than the edge of the bubble.  Mistake #6 was not having him jump to high sec.

Loss #8 Pod

The proteus would now continue to play games jumping into and out of our hole, so we decided to leave him alone for now.  With the remainder of our fleet in the POS, the cloaky scout reported a Prophecy on scan and landing at the high sec hole.  He was a member of the C4 residents and this should have told us more about their intentions.  I had our fleet warp to the high sec hole, but from our POS we were on the opposite edge of the bubble from the Prophecy.  He warped back to his hole when he saw us.  I warped the fleet to the C4 at range, and the Prophecy jumped into his hole.  I left our scout on the C4 hole to hear if anything came through.  A corp member in high sec reported that the proteus pilot was back, but he was now in an Armageddon, and he jumped.  I warped out fleet to the high sec hole and we began to engage the geddon.  He was heavy neut fit and rapidly depleted the cap of many of the fleet members.  Within 10-15 seconds, the C4 hole exploded with hostiles.  I gave the command to disengage and get out of the bubble.  Luckily the Oracle and Hurricane escaped.  Sadly, my Ishtar did not.  Mistake #7 was the failure to properly scout out the C4 hole.

Loss #9 Ishtar
Loss #10 Pod

Some very expensive lessons to be learned, but if the corporation members learn only one thing it is that it is never sufficient to simply scout a hole and bookmark it after adding it to tripwire.  Some holes are empty, but many are not, and the bad scary many may come to inflict space violence upon your ship and pod.

Summarized Battle Report

Fit of the Week

One of the first type of fits that new bros joining our corporation frequently seek and use are for T1 Exploration frigates.  These are the Heron, Magnate, Imicus and Probe.

These hulls are immediately available for any pilot based on their racial choice when rolling their character.  However, there are benefits to certain hulls which we will discuss here in this post.

Heron - My personal choice for a new pilot looking to get into exploration and avoid refitting with a Mobile Depot.  5 mid slots allow you to go with MWD and the remaining slots for hacking modules and scanning upgrades.

Imicus - Tied with the Probe for 2nd best exploration frigate.  However, due to the Astero requiring Gallente Frigate III and the T2 variant Helios having a drone bay, I give a slight nod to the Imicus over the Probe.

Probe - Gets 3rd place in the listing of exploration frigates, but that is only due to the Astero requirements for the Gallente hull and the T2 variant of the Imicus.  A probe is a very solid choice if you are not going the Caldari or Gallente route.

Magnate - Ewww.  4th place.  I wish I could place this in 10th place.  Only 3 mid slots, so you will constantly find a need to refit with a Mobile Depot, especially if you are low skilled which many new bros are.  The scanning upgrades will almost be a necessity to scan down certain sites in an efficient manner.  The only benefit of the Amarr route is getting Amarr Frigate III which also is necessary for the Astero.

All of the fits have a Sisters Core Probe Launcher.  It is the only bling on the ship and may be a bit on the expensive side.  But, the benefit to scanning with use of the launcher and the core probes will help you to scan faster, get to sites faster, and get back to cloaking faster.

Each of the 4 fits here can be completely fit in 11 days (excluding the drones).  By the time you get to day 11 you should be able to dive into wormholes and null sec systems and explore very well.

High Sec New Bros Need Some Love

So, while watching a twitch stream earlier today, I hopped into a stream with a few dudes who were mining.  The title of their stream was Noob Hype - Give me good advice please!!

I like to jump into streams like this, as these type of pilots frequently are coming back to this game that I have learner to love.

I gave them some advice regarding exploration.  Informed them of some of the types of ISK that were available via exploration, but I also tried to make sure to paint a realistic picture for them in regards to surviving.  Basically, I stated that you are going to die in EVE.  You need to face the fact that you will lose your ship.  However, there are measures you can take in trying to minimize your potential loss and attempting to remain alive.

I gave them the link to our corporation information and told them that I thought they were a good fit for exploration and they should talk to us.

Unfortunately, the guys on the stream were very apprehensive about the prospects of joining our corporation.  Seems that they have been burned or ganked by one too many individuals previously (totally sounds like Goons), and they stated that I most likely was only interested in having them join us, getting them to bring their gear and ships out to our wormhole, and then we will kill them, pod them and steal all their stuff.  :ohdear:

I can only surmise that they have been burned one or more times by some of the nastier sides of EVE.  At this time, I hope that they at least take the opportunity to chat with us and get some advice on exploration and increasing their survival odds.

Fly safe new bros!

Trial Accounts

Yesterday upon returning home, I logged into the game and found a brand new pilot in our public channel.  I asked him if he needed assistance, and he stated no.  He stated that he was aware of the corp's issue with trial accounts and he would soon be deciding on whether to pay for the game and dedicate to it fully.  I asked if he had spoken to a member of the corp, and he stated yes, but before I could inquire who he spoke to I had a small emergency with one of the dogs which required me to go AFK.  When I returned, he had logged off.

This got me to thinking about trial accounts in general, and what CCP as well as NJED are trying to do.  CCP with the release of the "This is EVE" video was looking to increase exposure to non-EVE players in the hope of getting them to try the game, and most importantly getting them to commit to not just a single month of the game, but beyond that.

NJED is looking to help out in that second part by trying to fill an area that is sort of lacking in the game today.

There are corporations that take on brand new players to game and provide training.  Eve University is the most famous and Brand Newbies is a newer version.  These two corporations are very good for the roles that the play in the game, but they are much different than what we are attempting to do in New Jovian Exploration Department (NJED).  Eve University is great for members looking to learn about the game, but it is a large organization which is not necessarily focused on exploration.  They do have classes on exploration, but they literally cover all aspects of the game.  Brand Newbies is more inline with combat and null sec warfare now that they have decided to take part in those activities.

There are exploration corporations in the game, but these corps do not generally accept brand new pilots in game, or ones who would require some level of  "hand holding" or assistance with general aspects of the game.

We are trying to fill both of those roles.

NJED is focused on trying to be an exploration based corporation, but also to be strong in relation to providing assistance, tips, advice to new pilots starting to learn the game or veterans returning to EVE who are interested in learning the exploration side of the game.

Having said that, I wanted to clarify our corporations stance on trial accounts.  We welcome trial accounts.  These are the exact type of pilots who are just starting the game and who are looking for a particular niche to latch onto.  People have spoken of the learning curve in EVE, and I have to admit that it is very steep and dangerous.

But, I love this game and the learning curve is part of that love.

Our corporation really does not face very much risk at all from trial accounts.  If a pilot starts an account, and tries the game but gives up after 14 days, the only thing our corporation has lost is about 50 million ISK in the skillbooks, ship and implants that we have given to the member.  However, if we can get one pilot to commit to the game even through the trial process, I chalk that up as a win for NJED and a win for CCP.

Reading is Hard

So, over the past few days in our public channel, we have a few inquiries regarding our situation and wormholes.

Initially, the concept behind the corporation was to eventually get a presence in wormhole space, but this would be best case about 30 days after the corporation opened.  More likely it would be about 3-4 months from inception.  However, after chatting with corporation members and seeing how frequently they were going exploring in wormhole space, I thought that we could accelerate that plan.

So, we spent a fair amount of time on New Years Day exploring for empty wormholes where we potentially plant a POS.  After a few hours of looking, we found one.  J143202

Now, I had plans with my wives family, and I headed out for most of the day.  I asked the corporation members online to watch over the hole, and get a good feel for the hole (number of pilots coming through, levels of sites appearing, etc).

I returned home in the early evening and got the intel report from our member.  I was located in a High Security trade hub, so I purchased a tower and fuel, and headed out the 9 jumps to the entrance hole.  I jumped into J143202 and warped to a moon.  I decloaked, launched the tower and told the tower to anchor.

"You cannot anchor control tower as your corporation is not 7 days old."

Grrrr.  I then remembered that I had read about this change in patch notes, but that was like 6 months ago.

So, I guess we need to wait now for another 48 hours for the 7 day limit to expire.

In retrospect, this was a good thing, as this particular hole is not the original type we were looking for.  This gives us some additional time to scout out a hole and potentially find one which will work for us.

New Jovian Exploration Department

Recently I came back to the game on my main character after a sabbatical of almost one year.  This is the third time in the game where I have taken a pause like this, but it was the longest by far.  Back in October 2013 I was burned out, tired of the game in general and mostly was not sure what I wanted to do.

When I came back to the game in October of 2014 I immediately started to chat with some of my friends who were still in the game and joined their corporation/alliance/coalition with nearly all of my characters, including the space coffin.

This has worked well so far, as I have joined fleets when the opportunity presents itself, but I have not lived or died based on a timer or a fleet notice.  I have let the game opportunities come to me when I was ready.

In addition, I have an alt corporation in empire space that is reaction farming in low sec and also now is handling the Tech II production of frigates, interdictors and recons.

As my null sec and low sec security pilots have sort of been on autopilot for a good 3-4 weeks, I recently was looking for something fun to do which would not necessarily involve them.  This lead to exploration.  So, I grabbed one of my alt characters who had Covert Ops trained and who could use a Covert Ops cloak and had her start to explore.  This truly became a very fun endeavor and something that I wanted to grow upon.

I decided in the past 2 weeks to open a new alt corp for the purposes of exploration.  However, I also wanted to give assistance and advice to new pilots in New Eden as I know how challenging it can be trying to start this game that I have grown to love.

So, on Sunday, December 28, 2014 New Jovian Exploration Department was born.  We have grown to 6 members as of last night and look to add more new members who are excited to learn the Exploration side of the game.

Information on the corporation can be found here.