Update: Politics, PvP, Skills, Markets

So, back before I went on my two week vacation I talked about how we were in the process of joining a new alliance. Well, our CEO decided the fit wasn't perfect for us and we have been relaxing back in Tash Murkon region while we review options and explore other alliances. However, we have remained NBSI which means hunting in low sec in the meantime for anything that moves.

Which segues nicely into this pathetic little kill. Allow me to explain.

I logged on Sunday night finally free from distraction to go roaming looking for action, but since the corp was quiet I was on my own. I decided to try to dual-client myself with Kirith in his trusty gank Falcon and Derranna in a Covert Ops for scanning down targets. I wanted to see if two characters would be more efficient than one using the directional scanner.

I tried first entering into a system with a lot of pilots in it and using scan probes to encompass the system and find possible targets. This did not work out well as it takes a fair amount of time to isolate each hit in return to actually determine what it is and if its at a location I can fight, i.e. belt or planet or safe spot.

Then I tried the trusty directional scanner method and once I had a target that was fairly well placed (i.e. within 1 AU of my position and not at a belt) I used the scan probes at short range to find it. In this case, I located a Slasher and the scan probes found it sitting empty at a POS. Normally this would be the end of the story except it was outside the POS shields for some odd reason.

Well, I was nearing the end of my time and I was curious if I could set myself up for a run at the frigate while not getting smoked by the POS sentries or uncloaked too soon by the nearby structures and forcefield. I took three tries at it. First I came within the shields too soon and had to warp, then I got close enough to engage with Null ammo but the tracking penalty meant I couldn't hit it as I was moving aligned to a planet, and then I decided ot just drive straight at the Slasher with antimatter flying as it seemed the guns had trouble tracking me well enough to blow through the shields. The third time's a charm and the frig blew up and I warped away with most shields gone but some insight into POS drive by's learned.

And another segue into Derranna!

My industrial alt has not been training too much industrial skills lately. For one thing she is very skilled in that regard already and can build every Caldari ship with only a couple exceptions. Shield can reverse engineer and buiold Tech III components and hulls for the Tengu. The only industry related activity she can't do is serious mining and I have Grumhold the miner for that. So she's be training for the Scimitar and then I realized she was qualified for Recons so I bought that skill along with Propulsion Jamming for warp disruptors and stasis webifiers. I'm considering trying a duo of Kirith in Falcon and Deranna in Rapier for when I'm "solo", the Rapier for the hunt and tackle while the Falcon provides jamming and DPS. Could be fun.

As she becomes more and more of a combat pilot, the question arises: what next? She has no gunnery or missile skills so should I train those up and make her a full blown combat alt? Get a Vagabond? Or should I go more down the road of more capital ships?

Right now I'm leaning towards the carrier and Rorqual route despite their expense. I really don't want to spend months training weapon skills for a second character, and having another logistic tool in my belt would be a boon to the corporation and any furture alliance. I've got time to mull my options though as the Scimitar training is finishing in 4 days and I'll need a couple weeks to my my tackle Rapier well trained.

Speaking of industrial activities (see what I did there?)...

I haven't done much the past few weeks to be honest. I did build 9 Manticores and sell eight of them, but no invention or other building has occurred. The main reason being that I've used my free time for my trading activities which continues to bring in ISK at a decent pace. My initial 791 million investment is untouched and the proceeds from that investment have bought: numerous skill books; the Scimitar, Rapier, Crow, Raptor, and fittings for them including rigs. And I still have a couple hundred million extra ISK.

I'm seriously considering not bothering with tech II production as it seems more of a hassle especially when you are doing multiple inventions and having to set each one up individually time after time after time... and same with building the resulting BPCs... its just a pain in the ass. Trading on the other hand is quick and relatively painless 3 or 4 times a day to make easy isk off of other pilot's laziness and impatientance. And the amount of profit is equal too or greater than invention nowadays.

So we'll see if I get more time later on to spend on production.

* * * * *
Ok, I think that gets everything of import in my world up to date. Back to our regularly scheduled blogging!