Building Things
So as we all know, Industry is in for a huge shake up. To briefly summarize some of my findings:
- Tech1 Battlecruisers and below will be fairly cheap to build, using only Tritanium, Mexallon, Pyerite, and Isogen. These materials are found primarily in HiSec and R4 moonrocks. Isogen is found in LowSec belts. Gneiss is a good source of Mex, Pye, and Iso.
- These Tech1 ships are going to be slightly cheaper for the time being, but will not see their prices really drop until the market stabilizes. I am not at all worried about Tech1 production in the long-term. Even with 'Scarcity' and an unstable market, in-house, at-source production will be so easy it won't be a problem.
- New reactions and uses for R4 moon materials and PI.
- Battleships will cost about the same to build - trading Tritanium for moongoo and PI. They will most likely go up in market value due to the increased complexity and value added steps involved in their production (the new battleship components and reactions).
- Industrial ships - barges, haulers, Orcas, freighters - are going to become more expensive. Covetors going from 55m to 75m build cost and Epithals going from 2m to 3.5m. The exception is the Venture - we will see the cost to produce mining frigates drop to that of any other Tech1 frigate. Orcas will cost about 3b to make.
- All faction ships are going to become a lot more expensive to produce. For example, Dramiels are going from 1m in materials to 53m in materials. This does not include the cost of the BPC. Faction battleships will see the least increase percentage wise, but the largest raw increase.
- Caps are going to skyrocket in build cost. Revelations will go from 4b in materials to 9.8b in materials.
- My predictions: Life will get easier for newbros - unless they want to mine, in which case, they will be stuck in Ventures for a bit longer. Caps will be harder to replace and as a result less prolific (good). Expect to see a lot of conflict throughout New Eden start to look like HiSec wars; lots of Leshaks or other assortments of battleship/battlecruisers with logi support. More Tech1 stuff being used. LowSec ~elitePvPers~ will continue shelling out the ass for their fancy pirate hulls.
The last week or so has been very busy for me as far as mining and production is concerned. I've been hitting the LowSec moons pretty hard and selling the goo to buy Nocxium for my current projects. With the current state of industry Nocxium is a constant bottleneck. I've harvested perhaps 2 billion ISK worth of moongoo out of LowSec Solitude and some lucky NullSec WH connections and most of it has been spent on Nocxium alone. I've burned through perhaps 1 million +/- Nocxium producing faction ships. Most of this was from my own stockpile but eventually I had to start buying it off the market. I've been doing a lot of mining, setting up PI, and burning through some old faction BPCs that I've had sitting around since I left FW (back in... 2013).
I have research jobs running on all 6 of my mining/industry alts. The plan is to research every Tech1 hull from frigate to battlecruiser + all the assorted fittings. SW-TC will definitely be ready to provide new members with free fully fit T1 frigates/destroyers in the coming weeks, though there will be some gaps. The plan is to advance that to cruisers by the summer and by the end of summer to be researching the last of the battlecruisers. Ultimately I don't want any member under a year old to have to pay for anything (unless they want to fly Tech2 in which case: get fukt).
So that's really all I have to report on for the indy side of the game. Just lots of logistics and building. I plan to continue building battleships and faction ships until the patch goes live. I'd build more caps, but I don't feel safe enough - would really suck to have a half built carrier and suddenly the patch goes live and it's dead in the water.
Farming Content
A lot has been happening in northern Solitude for the past week. Relationships are coming into clearer focus - such as who will be friends, and who will be enemies content.
One of the first things I did when I moved out to Solitude was map all the Athanors and Tataras. Moongoo makes for some of the most lucrative mining in the game, even with unboosted Ventures. But more than that, ninja moon mining is just fun and a great source of content. There's something about sneaking into someone's backyard garden to eat all their cucumbers that just fills me with a bubbly euphoria. And when they finally figure it out and try to gank you it can become a wonderful game of cat and mouse.
But people in Solitude really don't like when you mine their moons I guess. People take that personal. They don't mind shooting you on a gate, of course, but don't you dare touch that moon! There's rules and stuff! One group in particular, the I Will End Your Whole... <STFU> alliance, is not only mad, but they're holding a grudge. Over this:
I don't know about you, but 500mil in moonrocks doesn't seem worth getting worked up over. I didn't complain about my Stratios they killed shortly after I moved out to Solitude. That's the game: NBSI. It's nothing personal. Am I supposed to say "yes MASSAH, you can blow me up, no MASSAH, I won't touch your moons"? Heck no, I'm gonna mine that shit and buy a new Stratios. NBMI. No gods, no massahs. If we're neutral, I'm not beholden to you or your rules.
The geopolitical landscape in Solitude is a bit like a bowl of spaghetti: it's a complicated tangle of relationships. Some alliances are hostile to each other, but individual corporations within those alliances are blue to each other. We tried to reach out to <STFU> and open diplomatic channels, but they were really buttsore about the fact that I had, while we were neutral, engaged in ninja mining. They never offered reparations for my Stratios which they had, while we were neutral, blown up. Interesting, isnt it?
SW-TC decided that joining the Greater Solitude Commonwealth <GSC> alliance would be the best way to sort out the spaghetti bowl of diplomacy in Solitude. We've been building a pretty positive relationship, and their members are starting to show up on our Discord server. Joining would set a lot of hostile groups blue to us, and make working with GSC easier. But <STFU> and Murderers Inc. take their moonpixels so seriously that when SW-TC entered the alliance, literally within hours, <STFU> and Murderers Inc. threatened the entire GSC alliance with hostilities because of it. So, not wanting to cause problems for <GSC> (who are actually a really cool group of folks - I mean, really, who else is going to give a fleet of Ventures dank ass Rorqual boosts?), we left. Which works out fine for me, because I'm once again free to mine moons taxfree and to blow people up when I feel like it. In other words, it's a smorgasbord of free content for me.
And content there has been. While mining one of Murderers Inc.'s LowSec moons - which I had done for a couple of days without incident or interdiction - few neutrals showed up and began mining their moon as well. I hadn't seen these folks before. They hailed from the "Brown Supplies" and "Galaxy Lords Newbies" corps. Everything was peaceful; they were mining their side of the field, I was sticking to my side of the field.
That is, until 3 Murderers Inc. pilots jumped into system, and landed on the very rock I was mining a few seconds later, as my Ventures were entering warp to a ping. I know it wasn't combat probes; they were in system and landed on grid much too fast for that, and I'm an obsessive Dscanner. The only way they'd have been able to pull this off that I can think of would be shared bookmarks. I wonder who? Oh yes, the neutrals that Murderers Inc. didn't seem to be shooting at - these guys:
A shame. Turnabout is fair play, though, right? To add insult to injury, a few days later SW-TC deployed a 12 man mining fleet to their HiSec moon, and devoured over half of the field. Murderers Inc. has been pretty mad about all this. I wonder if these were their mining alts? Murderers Inc. has tried at least half a dozen times to bait me into an engagement while having 6 or so dudes on a gate ready to jump in, and then talking smack that I won't take the fight, while themselves refusing to engage with less than 3 on grid. You know, the same old boring predictable chest-beating frat boy stuff. Really, since they're so good at staying docked and not engaging, most of the content from Murderers Inc. has been in the form of Local rage:
The TL;DR of all this is that there is ISK to be made with the upcoming industry changes. Start stockpiling dreadnaughts and carriers. There probably isn't enough time to build them before the update, but you might get away with a few faction hulls. Also, Solitude is an active area of space full of hilariously dopey people who are eager to provide free content. Come out to Solitude and say hello!
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