A Rock In A Cold Place

Not much new in the last few days. The wars are still going on, but we’re still in ‘engagement denial’ mode. Eventually the agressors should get tired of spending ISK to CONCORD just to float outside of our station.

On the mining front, things are going extremely well. I can’t say too much, both for war security and to protect my claim, but right now I’m mining ore that has almost no sellers in the area and buyers paying 15-20% above market value. Needless to say, the ISK is flowing well. Much of it, however, has gone to rigging for Davios’ hauler, but that has been a plan of ours for a while.

I’m probably going to stay where I am now for a while, depending on how things go with the war.  If it ends this week, I’ll stay out here for an extra week just until the wallet gets a little fatter. If the war goes on, however, I should have plenty of time to save up some funds. We’ll have to see how the market goes as well. There’s enough buyers to support me for a while, but if others get wise the market could be saturated with ore overnight and I’ll have no reason to stay after the war is over.

On a side note, I spent some of the funds to help an upstart trader get his career going. He’s a pretty slick Achira named Li Draconis. He seems to know what he’s doing and has already increased his net worth, although it’s not liquid yet. He’s slipper, though, so I’m not sure just how far I trust him.

Presenting “Sticky Of The Week 2″, with bonus features since I missed last week!

Found an exploratin fit online that was tuned for losec (cloak, plate, etc).  I decided to tone it down a little for highsec and add another tractor and some cargo space.  Hopefully i’ll find enough stuff to fill the cargo.  If not I’ll swap it for tank.   If anybody has insight on this in relation to highsec exploration (will I need cargo space?) please feel free to comment!

Abaddor here, taking my log back from Marko now that we’re back in peacetime. Funny how things work out. Last war we tried to wait it out and it took weeks. This one, we fight back, and it lasts two days. Granted, last time the opposition was a bit out of our league, but it’s a bit ironic. The really funny thing is that some (read: most) of us were actually disappointed when they recalled, admidst the victorious cheers.

Marko was probably one of the most dissapointed. Back to mercenary work for him now. He just got into his first battlecruiser a few hours after the war officially ended, so that was a bit of a blow. He did manage to get some quick work raiding a Gallente camp, however, so all was not lost. He tells me to thank Gillen for helping him design the loadout on the Drake, as well.

I got the Golden II out for a short trip mining yesterday, but didn’t stay out long, mostly because my access to the Corp hanger was needed to secure some modules for Marko’s Drake. He’s tapped out on funds so he’s going to send some extra equipment over for me to put into the hanger and I dumped a small load of ore and minerals in as well.

I’m hoping to get back on the stick today and get some serious mining done, especially since I bankrolled the Drake. Davios is going to lay out the containers I had to pull in for the war so that next time they’ll still have CONCORD protection since he is not a member of the Corp. If he gets that set up and brings his Retriever, the PlanB, out with me and the Golden II, we should be able to get about half the cost of the Drake and equipment back in a couple hours. Of course, this means Marko has to hand his pilot’s license back over to Davios, and I know Markos is itching to get some more time in that bartlecruiser. As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men…

It’s actually been a little bit of a vacation for Davios and I all-around. Marko has, of course, been busy with the war and his training took priority over Davios. I think that they agreed that Davios will get the skill pass back for about ten hours this week to finish qualifying for the Badger MkII, then he will defer that to Markos for the foreseeable future. As far as my pass goes, Hargatay is pretty much up to speed on scanning and is working on some basic engineering and navigation. He has yet to qualify for the Analyzer or Codebreaker modules, but that’s a pretty long road, so I think I’m going to ask him to hold off until I finish training for the Hulk, which should be about six weeks from now. After that he can finish up those goals, and he mentioned something about a Myrmidon. I guess that’s some Gallente drone-lover boat he wants to do his exploration in. Whatever he wants. Once I’m in a Hulk he can get that set up, I won’t be in a hurry to do anything else. It better not be too long, though, because I want to refine my refining skills (pun intended).

Well, back to the old grindstone, anyways. The ISK must flow!

After finishing the trip home yesterday morning, things have been very busy!  Davios and I got settled into my apartment and didn’t even think about going back to the hanger after doing the trip from Agil, especially with the war still technically in effect. So we just crashed and let the crews sort out what belonged to whom out of the two haulers.

Yesterday afternoon was a different story. The Corp had it’s first mining op about an hour after the CONCORD sanction of the war expired. I joined, of course, in a system near home where Flip found a nice pocket of Omber while doingmsome agent jobs. The barge has the new modulated strips installed and I can’t use the Omber crystals yet, so I pulled up to a small spread of Scordite and worked on that. Davios helped with some hauling and got to meet some of the mates, which was nice.

Meanwhile, while I was taking a break from training, Hargatay borrowed my “library card” and got started on some basics so that he can fit an e-war frigate and an astronetrics frigate, sparsely. He also worked on some learning courses. I’ll be taking that back tonight so that I can finish my refining course and get certified on the Omber and Kernite crystals.

Thismorning saw me returning to Otela, in The Forge, to pick up the Bad Mothertrucker II and anything else I left behind after the Golden went down in flames. Meanwhile Davios ran to Amsen and picked up a package of basic fitting and missile skills. I gave him my old Condor, the Swiftsure, and after he gets the secure containers anchored in one of the Rauss belts he’s going to start pirate hunting in the belts for me while I fill them up. The drones do allright, but it’ll be nice to have a little more firepower with me for when the Guristas show up.

Speaking of firepower, heard from a loose cannon friend of mine who might be joining us soon. Seems he and Davios are aquainted and Davios has been using his training and pilot’s licenses for a week! Well, they need to work something out like Hargatay and I have.

 Well, that’s us getting settled in. Sold a bunch of junk, too, but the cash flow is slim. We did some mining thismorning after the errands, so with that and some work tonight we might be recovered from the loss of the Golden and all of the war/relocation expenses. In that particular profit/risk situation, risk won. Anyway, should be caught up soon and back on track. Have a hulk to save up for after all, and Davios will be qualified for an Iteron V befor that and will need some rigging done.

I just rambled. I’m done! Fly safe!

I’ve been working on a training plan using EveMon for Davios.  I’m starting with learning skills and some basic ship command.  The most immediate goals other than learning are getting him into an Iteron V so that he can do the heavy hauling, and then a Retriever so that he can do some effective mining.  I’ll have the necessary fitting skills interspersed, including mining skills before I seek the retriever.  After that, focusing on trade skills for the most part. 

Down the road we’ll be looking into research and production.  I’ve remapped his skills accordingly, pretty much dumping into Memory with the points left over going to Charisma and Perception, with Charisma getting the lion’s share.  The perception is only really for the spaceship command.  Maybe once he’s in the Retriever and Iteron I’ll remap again, or I might work on Transports and Freighters before I do that.  I’m in good shape for now, so we’ll see where we go after the immediate goals are met.

Okay, so here’s one of the alter egos that I mentioned before.  Meet Davios Steiner.  Just started with him yesterday and am focusing on hauling skills at the moment, with a heavy learning skills program interspersed to speed things along.  Trying to get him into an Iteron V as soon as possible to aid in the moving of ore.  Will also work on some mining skills after these first goals are met.  Basically will be a second industrial character, but while Abaddor’s goals will aim more towards maximum harvesting and refining and piloting along the Hulk/Orca path, Davios will be training more for transport efficiency, Production, and piloting along the T2 transport/freighter path.  I will naturally also get him into at least a Retriever so that he can be useful in mining.  I’m hoping that their skills will be a good foil for each other and that the specialization will enable me to do more with the two of them in a shorter period of time than I would be able to do with just Abaddor.

So, here’s the audacious goal:  Get these two harvesting/refining/producing/selling, in some combination thereof, to really maximize their profits.  Get that ISK saved up to buy a small bundle of plex cards (at least three to start) or have a steady enough cash flow to be able to predict being able to buy one Plex per month without it draining the coffers.  Will this cover Davios’ account costs?  Nope!  This will cover the cost of adding a third partner!  This, of course, will lead to more cash flow after the first month or so of training, and then?  Enough ISK to fund a fourth character?

I’m sure this is possible, as people are making enough isk to buy Plex cards…I’m just looking at it in the sense of spending money to make money and then rinse and repeat.  The long term goal is to have 10 characters, but only be paying for two.  If I don’t have to pay for any, that’s nice too.  We’ll see what happens.  I might be off my rocker, and if anybody is actually reading this please feel free to let me know in no uncertain terms that I’m nuts.  I only ask that you consider the feasability of this first and support your comments with some reasoning so that I might consider the options. 

But, there you have it folks.  What started a few hours ago as another aimless pod blog now has a goal.  So I’ll be posting regular updates as to training progress, cash flow, etc.  I hope that somebody out there will be interested to see how things go.  Who knows, it just might be crazy enough to work!