Separating Sleepers from dey Stuffs…

or~  Quiet and Profitable Days in da Hole…

After setting up camp in the Temp C2, I decided to take a break from scouting and run some sites to refresh the wallet after the initial outlay for fuels etc. We already had all the mods except a CHA (Corp Hangar Array). We dint have one as we had used the far larger storage available in Sm, Med and Lrg Ship Assembly Arrays, but in a Sm POS I dunt need, nor can I afford in PWR and CPU, to online even a Sm Ship Assy. So I had to buy a CHA, a load of Minnie Fuel Blocks and a load of Stront.

As I have said I am being very careful running Sleeper sites as the only DPS ship I have in this hole is my Loki and it is max Cloaky fit which greatly reduces the available DPS.

With my skills my max Cloaky fit runs:

 x5 425mm AC IIs w/ Rep Flt PPlas = 303 DPS (864 volley).

In comparison my max DPS fit, a HAM (Heavy Assault Missile) Loki runs:

X4 425mm AC IIs w/ Rep Flt PPlas

X3 Arbalest HAMs w/ Cal Nav Scourge

x5 Fed Nav Hobgoblins = 507 DPS (1185 volley)

This is a diff of 205 DPS (321 volley)… which would make a significant difference in the time required to complete a site and in the tactics I use for running sites… but… I am living in here solo… with no support at all. The cloaky fit has some real advantages in this situation by running a CovOps cloak and the Interdiction Nullifier. I can warp cloaked and I can warp past and THROUGH warp disruption bubbles… so anchored bubbles and Heavy Interdictors dunt effect me.

Now so far I have not ‘seen’ one visitor yet and I have had no signs of any while I have been asleep… As I am running sites in a casual manner, IE not ‘grinding’ but running them carefully and taking my time and I have been running only the Perimeter Hangars, the easiest of C2 Combat Sites, and the overall number of sites has slowly increased instead of decreased which would be the case if I was raided. This of course is only true IF I had visitors who were raiding for sites… if I have had people just scouting I’ll never know or if I have people raiding the Mag, Grav & Ladar sites I would not know as I am not actively scanning them down.

Even though I have so far had no known visitors I still run sites very carefully, by this I mean differently from the usual tactics for site running when in corp. When in fleet with corpmates, the tactic is usually to simply warp the fleet in on a site, land at whatever distance the Dscan warpin puts you at… and just go to it. Going solo and keeping personal security highest in mind, my solo tactic is to cloak up, warp to the site, BM the dscan warpin, then warp out to the closest celestial and warp back to the first BM at 100km. Then I run a series of warp out and backs each time to 100km from the last BM making a new BM until I have a BM a minimum of 350km from the nearest Sleeper ship. I clean these up and keeping only two of them, the farthest one out and the first one moar than 150km from the group of Sleepers. I want to be far enough out to be able to warp to either BM from the site and to be able to tactically warp between the two BMs also.

This gives me two instawarps from the Sleeper group allowing me to disengage, break aggro, cloak up and yet stay on grid. If I start to get overwhelmed or raider(s) uncloak or warp in on me, I can break off and cloak up while warping to one of the instawarps while still remaining on grid. I can take the time to let my CAP and shields regen. If it is just the Sleepers getting the upper hand I can simply warp back in and reengage… or, if it was a raider or raiders, I can decide whether to engage, safe up or initiate some other response.

But… all quiet in the hole so far. I wake to the baleful yet soul warming light of the Red Giant sun… my crews and I are at ease once again in our daily duties. We prep carefully, we fly carefully and we have had some very good luck with the statics in this C2 since we moved in. Of the last three A239’s, two have been within one hop of Hisec and so far no moar than nine hops from one of the major hubs so no issues with the few Empire runs I have had to make. Of the D382s, while both have had live POSes, neither had anyone awake when I scouted them and I have seen no evidence of visitors from them. I have also had a couple of K162s but both were to NPC null, and both systems were deserts.

Taking our time and with the usual summer RL>EVE, we have run only five sites in the last few days. As some of you know, the only ISK you make in W-space is from Loot & Salvage, as I am solo in here I am running a Salvage Thrasher instead of risking a Noctis. Salvage rates seem to be approximately the same… or mebbe just slightly lower… than I am used to in the old C2. I pulled nine MNRs for five sites, an avg of 1.8 per site. As the Perimeter Hangar spawns x2 BS’s, x7 Cruisers and x2 Frigates, the smallest number of Sleepers in a C2 combat site, I did not expect a high rate so I am so far satisfied. I want to build a HAM Loki to bring in to run sleepers keeping my CloakyLoki for scouting and see if that makes any difference, plus start running some of the harder sites.

Understand I am not complaining about the ISK in here, I did ALL quick sells for the L&S for the five sites and pulled in just over 100M ISK… I have no problem with that as if I decided to really grind for just a few hours I could easily pull down several M ISK solo and if I play the market a bit I can push that income level up significantly.

So… where else in EVE (or ‘near’ EVE as W-space is not technically ‘in’ the New Eden cluster…) can you play a solo game, live in your own station, and make 100M ISK lazily running just five of the easiest… ‘missions/sites’ available?   By The Gods I Love the Wormhole Life…   =]

Fly Safe and see you in the Sky  =/|)=