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Monday, August 1, 2011

Destitution in time of War

Entry: four hundred fifty-eight.

Contrary to popular belief, my life in null-sec, ie. Catch/Querious/Delve, isn't all glamour, bullets, explosions, and epic proportions.

Two to three days ago, I had received two Guardians via contract. Pricetag: three hundred and seventy million plus two insurance policies, putting me well over four hundred million. It should be noted that that is technically my final cost on those ships for as long as Cascade Imminent uses Armor fleets because of the reimbursement policy.

Having been shot down to two hundred and thirty million ISK from six-sixty, I decided that I would finally have to break down and get a ratting battleship. Because of my lack of skills in the tech three area, and to avoid further ISK expenditures in ship purchases, I clone-jumped to Balginia, podded to Rens, and got my Tempest Fleet Issue.

Yes, I do have one. No, I have no real idea how to fit it for ratting. For combat, I have awesome ideas in quite a few niches.

Since I really only develop combat fits for ships I fly, I had to pick a middle ground. I had a choice of a close-up nano shield autocannon brawler, which is pretty awesome, almost as good as a Machariel actually, or I had the choice of an armor sniper. Experience with the Blood Raiders and Sansha tells me that close range with shields is a disaster waiting to happen between the tracking disruption and energy destabilizers, so I fitted out an armor sniper. With Tremor, I've got an optimal range of one hundred forty-five kilometers. If I forgo the microwarp on my TFI, I can lock to about that far.

To create that fit dropped me to one hundred million after insurance, and I wasn't pleased. I was running low on funds. One hundred million is pretty poor for null-sec. 

I jumped through forty or fifty gates to get it into Querious for ratting.

I'll say it straight out: I suck at carebearing. I'm really bad at it. Designing carebear fits makes me cringe, fitting them makes me itch, and flying them makes me nervous.

Once in Catch, I found a quiet system with mid-level true-sec, and began ratting away. Professional bears make twenty to thirty million a tick, ie. every twenty minutes. I was able to make seven million, on average. Suffice it to say that Sanctum and Haven running is probably not the most profitable thing in a sniper Tempest. That said, thirty million an hour isn't horrible, but it pales in comparison to one hundred million an hour. As my wallet will reflect, I spent approximately four hours smashing through the four Blood Sanctums on scan, as well as two Blood Havens and the odd Hub in hopes of a Dark Blood appearing for a showdown. Sadly, only one Dark Blood lieutenant dared show his face, and that was after the first Blood Hub I'd run at the start of the day. The loot he dropped for me on death was sub-optimal, one particular piece being only as good as the tech two variant.
 

When I next get the chance, I'll try scanning down some some juicer spots, and we'll see where that leads.

In more relevant news, the war with the DRF has finally hit our doorstep. Cascade Imminent has redeployed twice in the last week to move closer to the front lines of war. For now, we've deployed to GE-8 in Catch in an effort to keep Against All Authorities alive. If they fall, it's going to be much harder for us to resist, much less push back, the DRF. It's the Deklein Coalition pushing them back in the North, and the Fatlas Stainwagon pushing them back from the South. It is, quite literally, the left side of the map against the right side of the map. 
 

"Open up the influence map. If there was ever going to be a great war in EVE, this is it." -Archiebald Hornby
 

"The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther!" -Jean Luc Picard
 

Computer: terminate recording.

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