Coming Back

Bit by bit, piece by piece, I'm coming back. I successfully negotiated 1 hour per week of "downtime" from my wife which means I get one hour of guaranteed Eve time which will allow me to actually get playing. Its not much, but coupled with my stolen moments in the evenings and mornings and lunch breaks to setup orders and manufacturing/lab jobs, it should be enough to get things going.

So last night I got my first free hour of Eve.

I've been trying to do defensive factional warfare in deep Minmatar warzone space by seeking out complexes captured by Amarr militia and retaking them for Minmatar. The problem I'm having is that in the time I have to play I have not had huge success (or any for that matter) in finding Amarr controlled complexes. Systems are contested, but the 30 second scan from every planet is coming up empty.

A little forum investigation shows that complexes move around the constellations but with so many planets in these systems I fear that my entire playtime can be sucked up in warping and scanning and no actual activity. And since the situation changes so frequently, the efforts of one session are wasted by the time the next comes around. I need a faster way to fond complexes.

A trip to my base to retrieve the Buzzard covert ops frig with Scan Probe launcher. I have two of these specialized ships; one geared up for probing out enemy ships in safe spots with a Recon Probe Launcher and one for exploration type activities with a Scan Probe Launcher. (Recon launcher is faster but can't hold the larger exploration probes.)

Back in the warzone I throw out a Multifrequency probe which will tell me if there are any complexes to find at all. I figure it will run for 2-3 minutes and in a system with 10 or more planets save me some time compared to warping everywhere and scanning for 30 seconds with the on-board scanner. Of course I would still need to find it if there is one is there but I can use regular Quest class probes to nail it down.

I figured all of this savings based on the scan probe launcher running for about 180 seconds or less per attempt. I kicked it off and saw 288 seconds instead. DOH! Now I remember why I abandoned exploration, the almost 5 minutes per scan try put me off.

This morning I did some configuring and with a short 5 days or so of training and a couple of cheap rigs I can get that time down to about 175 seconds, more like what I was expecting. So I will do that once Advanced Space Command V is done in a week.

Frustrated last night, I jumped back into the Vexor and tried to find some action. I spent some time at a friendly gate camp, but time was running out and I decided to work on some industrial activities instead.

* * * * *
I logged in Derranna and completed the last of the manufacturing jobs for the 70 Invulnerability Fields, 10 Improved Cloaks, and 10 Covert Ops Cloaks. I also made a list of required materials to build a Widow Black Ops battleship and then was off to Rens where the new items went on market and the shopping was completed.

A complete Widow costs about 428 million ISK in current Rens prices to build. I calculate the invention effort from last year to cost an additional 32 million so that a Widow for me to build costs 460 million ISK. I saw one for sale at 600 million in Rens but I really need to check Jita's prices to be sure of the retail pricetag. Regardless, there appears to be some profit to be made.

In other news, I plopped down the 20 million ISK for Derranna to finally train up some levels of Advanced Manufactiring as I finally got tired of only being able to operate 6 factories. For ship tech II manufacture where I build my own components from advanced moon materials, 6 is never enough. I took a short break from Minmatar Frigate V to get three levels to get up to 9 factories.