20070516 Mission Running Update

I'm all of ~4 days off of Minatar Frigate V.

Bank account is up 13.4% since the start of this little debacle.

Watched DNightmare's video on probing. Not great, but a bit of a help.

200070514

Yet more missions. Nothing to report except that the bank account continues to grow.

20070513c

Yet more missions. I cannot express how profitable salvaging can be.

Net Change in Bank Account to Date

+9.27% since start. Back in (the) black.

Learn Salvaging and take the time to use it. It pays.

2007512b New Salvager

I traded in the Scythe for a new Thrasher to better compliment my lucrative salvaging career. It put a small dent in the available funds, but not too bad.

Later the same day I traded it in for a Stabber. The Thrasher's limited targeting range was too much of a gimp. The Stabber isn't great in that respect, but it's faster than either the Scythe or the Rupture I was considering using.

20070512 A Foolish Idea?

Moving slowly through Frigate V. More than a week until it’s ready.

Foolish Idea

Thought of something the other day but haven’t figured out if it’s feasible or not: A cloaked salvager. Very few people it seems ever bother to fully salvage wrecks in low/no sec, and it’s those wrecks that can prove pretty lucrative. With a T2 cloaked ship equipped with a pair of salvagers one could roam about the low sec systems and simply wait for fights to end and parties to move along. It’s dangerous for sure, but could also be a nice way to make some monies on the side while waiting to find that next great location.

Net Change in Bank Account to Date

-12.5% (+.1%)

The Blockade – Pre-Mission Sit Rep

Running another crap mission for my level 2 agent (Quality 6, Effective Quality 13). I’ve never been sure what’s a good deal from an agent and what’s not – perhaps I’ll hear from someone reading this – but what is of more interest to me is to get a handle on how profitable salvaging these operations can be.

This mission offered has a reward/time bonus of 290K/339K ISK and 417 loyalty points.

The Blockade – Post-Mission

The mission and salvage operation took just under an hour.

Mission Gains:

Reward: 290K
Time Bonus: 339K
Salvage: 3511K
Bounties: 870K
---------------------------------
Total: 4,382K

Salvaged materials made up 80% of the profits from the mission.

20070511

Ran yet another mission last night, but also made some major purchases including Cloaking, a Prototype Cloak I, Signal Acquisition, and the Cheetah.

Net Change in Bank Account to Date

-12.6% from 20070506. What’s that mean? Since starting tracking this little endeavor I’ve blown almost thirteen percent of the monies I had stocked up, even with having made a decent sum from missions.

20070507b

Ran another mission waiting for the training to end. Salvaging the wrecks accounted for over half the monies made, and it wasn't that extensive of a mission.

Net Change in Bank Account to Date

+9.6% from 20070506. Profitable so far.

20070507

I was thinking of founding a corp to more legitimize my possible new business adventure. I haven’t looked into corp management at all, but I’ve come up with a name, which should be worth something.

In an ideal world I would come up with a clever name that would spell something filthy when abbreviated, but after drawing blanks for quite a while I’m leaning towards The Republic Expeditionary Company [REC]. Of course REC could already be taken, at which point I guess I would go for –Force or –Industries. I had toyed with the idea of Mapping and Interstellar Legends Foundation, but somehow I think [MILF] is either already taken or one of those they won’t let you get.

20070506 A Mission Example

I just ran a level 2 internal security mission that netted 290K in pay and time bonuses. Not exactly the fast route to riches, is it? But, take into account the 4,727,500 in salvaged parts and the trip seems a bit more worthwhile. 5.1 million ISK for a little over a half hours work isn’t bad.

The infusion of cash is welcomed given that I just shelled out 405K for Astrometrics and 3.6M for Covert Ops. I’m thinking I’m going to break with the aforementioned schedule and sneak in Astrometrics I before going onto the Cov-Op hunt so I can start screwing around with my probe launcher and start learning what to expect.

Manufacturing

I’ve started cranking out Multispectral probes every time I find myself with a little Megacyte. It’s the hardest to come by mineral required for the probe, but I have been able to bang out eight of them since the other day. I could buy the Mega in-system, but the differential between what I can purchase for v. what I could buy the probes pre-made isn’t convincing enough I need to make a buy.

Net Change in Bank Account to Date

+3.3% since start.

20070506

What and Why

I’ve been in and out of the Eve universe since the days of the beta and have played a few different styles of characters, never one hundred percent happy with the results. There’s been the carebear miner me, the corp security me, the manufacturing me, the solo mission runner me, the pirate corp me, and now – or at least at some point in the next few months – comes the next iteration of me.

I had been toying with the idea of trying out exploration for a while, but the article in the last issue of EON through me over the edge. The character I’ve committed to the path was born in September of 2005, but only had around six million skill points when I started heading towards exploration. He had been dormant for a while, tucked in a tube somewhere while I skilled up and got frustrated with my pirate alt. Now I’m back to training and aside from catching up with skills that prove useful (Salvaging, for one), I’ve chucked probably a half a million points towards Exploration.

I was going to track my bank account along this journey to give whatever readers I may have some idea as to the costs involved and profits reaped, but in hindsight that’s incredibly stupid. Giving hard numbers along the way could find me in some backwater system happening across someone who may have read this and think, “damn, that guy claimed to have x in his bank account. Maybe I can ransom him for a third of it …”. I still think there's value in tracking and providing some of the information, so whenever I mention my account it will be based in a percentage off of the balance when I started this little diary. Consider all mentions based off of 100% of today’s balance.

Skills

I’m currently working on Electronic Upgrades, which is the long haul skill out of all those required. Astrometrics V will take a long time, too, coming in currently at ~19.5 days, but that one is last on the list. I took the time to boost the secondary learning skills a bit on the advice of EVEMon (a highly recommended wonderful little program) and so far it looks like the skills won't be 100% complete until 15 July, 2007.

By scattering the higher train-time skills I can at least get out in the field and start getting a feel for the system and (hopefully) the rewards.

In the Meantime

I’m running missions and salvaging wrecks to keep the cash flow positive. What with the skill book purchases and all I’ve still got my nest egg, but I’m sure that will start being dinged when I start purchasing things like the Cheetah and the more specialized skill books.

As a relatively diverse character (read: Jack of All Trades, Master of None) I’ve got options. From my mining days I’ve still got my barge with it’s strip miners, so I can take an afternoon rock raping for some easy cash and materiel or I can run missions. The latter is profitable to a certain extent. The level twos I’ve been running typically net three quarters of a million in pay, time bonuses, and bounties, but the real money is found when I take the time to go back and salvage the wrecks. Undocking Freddy Sanford with his two tractor beams and four salvagers makes quick work of even the largest of debris fields, and the recent change involving wrecks holding loot makes everything so much easier. If you hadn’t noticed, under the old system you had to loot first, salvage later (the salvager wouldn’t engage on a wreck holding items). Now wrecks just kick a jet can if you salvage them while they’ve still got contents. It’s a massive improvement.