The new technology of gas harvesting

Less than three days left  before I could get into a Rorqual, it's time to seriously think about  how can I organize the process of harvesting. The main problem is the lack of a normal hangar for ships. Mining ships can be put there, others - no.

The old technology

• Cyno-vigil flies in the vanguard and sets the beacons.
• Then followed by Carrier, which brings full hangar of ships - mining, industrial, combat, repair, scout.
• Finally, my fighting hard workers fly on Slashers. They can harvest gas on Venture, and if necessary, take the strategic cruiser / bomber / BS and wallop red crosses, and even white squares.
• When they arrive - they change slasher on the suitable at this moment ship, shoot / mine. Carrier transports result to the POS which is not too far away, in low or NPC-nulls.
• Cut down in reverse order - will ship all in car and, fly out on minmatar frigates.

The only drawback of such a scheme - a small cargo hold of Carrier. Even if i use containers, it transports a total of about 1,300 units of gas. Fuel is a real problem: it's not expensive, it is simply absent in the claim nulls, when Carrier need three jumps to reach the Empire.

Rorqual

Rorqual solves the problem of frequent jumps - 250,000 m3 ore cargo hold  + 30.000 usual cargo + 40.000 fleet hangar - total is 320,000 m3 = 32.000 units of gas.

But there is a new problem - where change ship?. I can't use Rorqual and Carrier at the same time - the character is only one. So in any case I must first arrive by carrier, unload the ships, and come back, to take Rorqual and then fly already for harvesting.

Of course, I can set a small POS and keep and fit ships there, but it's not suitable. The gas is extracted in claim nulls, and to attract too much attention is undesirable. Install POS - this is like a slap in the face of the local alliance. Simply put - do not need to become impudent.

So I can unload ships exclusively to the hands of the characters who will fly on them. After some meditation, I've list of my alts and twinks:

• damager on BS (Raven)
• explorer 
• support (logistics) 
• 2 miners (Venture) – twinks of explorer and support
• 1-2 others – for cyno
• trader/POS manager

Previously, damager could fly on bomber and venture, explorer could fly on mael (most recently - vargur), bomber, and also venture. And support too… But not now. Now, they are attached to their ships

POS

Since is no more reasons to carry it from one place to another, a large Caldari tower was installed, in a place that has already established itself as a quiet, one jump from high-sec.

Mission of Mercy

I'm not too interested in doing mission first level, so I improved social skills and begin to the second level.

Here available secutity agents.

• acceleration gate
• one pocket
• frigs and cruisers – just kill them all

Sansha on the Horizon

Well, here I got to the fifth level missions. Specially 2 days I run missions from the second level to the fourth, standings were growing, and finally fifth ...

The job description

Sansha forces recently start an offensive into new territories. So far we have been able to hold them back, but every day it's harder. Recently, we found a new base Sansha on our side of the border. Now we have no free way to deal with this problem. I want you to figure it out. Destroy the station and all the ships of Sansha, which will protect it.

Task

Destroy the outpost Sansha and all enemy ships guarding it.

Reward

After completing this task, you will receive the following awards:
83488 LP (!) Eighty! Three! THOUSANDS!

And isks a bit, to support the pants: 3.7KK + more 3.6KK bonus, if you have finished in time.

On the fourth level missions such is not even close. But the complexity of... full shit

What you need to know about POS kill

Best of all, if your corporation has active players with different time online. At any time, should be a person who, at least can get a message about the attack and will be able to call for help. If not - you will enter and find the POS in reinforced mode. All that you can do now is to collect his associates for defense. Call your corporation, call your alliance, friends, volunteers ... anyone. You need to ward off enemies and restore POS shield. While the shield is not restored up to the level of 50% and above - you will not be able to get absolutely nothing from hangar, from lab, reactors, etc.

Update: you still can use modules that don’t use CPU. So, you can get ships from ship maintenance array.

This means that if you're not sure that you can promptly detect the attack or to organize a defense, it should be borne in mind the following:

• Use industrial ships for for valuable stuff. You can’t get stuffs from hangar because it use CPU, but if you keep it in ships, it helps you a lot.
• Protection of alliance or large corporation - some guarantee that you can download the materials for the week ahead and go offline. Otherwise - refine and produce in small batches, with the materials for a day or so.

Naturally, than bigger POS, than more it has guns, scramblers, jammers etc., the less attractive target it is and there are less enemies, who can aggress it. Of course a large fleet of dreadnoughts and carriers will destroy any "death star". But it'll take a time.

• It is necessary to collect all at one time
• They need to think about support, scouts and escape routes

In general, it is the whole military operation with questionable benefit. And they have other worries enough.

If the POS was killed, but for some reason they did not finish structures, you still can't get anything from the lab / hangars, etc. While there are not a control tower near - they are locked. They can not be removed from the anchor and pick up, you can not access to their content.

In this case, you  can't install new tower, anchored structures prevent this. So in order to install a new POS you will have to destroy them yourself. Perhaps they was left just for this. Even pilot of industrial ship can run POS in empty place. To run POS in place with structures - you need a fleet of battleships, which will shoot it some hours. Or Dred / Carrier

Where to get the BPC for standard boosters?

They are distributed by agents in space. Only once per character.

They give BPC to everyone, even if you on trial accounts (small problev – you can’t harvest gas on trial), regardless of the standings. For some reason I thought there are only two agents in the constellation, but in reality it turned out that they are at each entry point of the constellation - where it connects with others. In some systems there are even two agents in the same system. Although there are one exception, in GRHS-B I have not found an agent. CCP forgot to put it?

Booster	Agents	What you need for exchange
Standard Blue Pill Booster	Ocho Shusiian / Y5J-EU Ozomi Obanen  / B-E3KQ Vena Saapialen  / UL-4ZW Fetosa Kanim / BR-6XP	20 m3 Amber Cytoserocin
Standard Drop Booster	Binnie Nigolier / PPG-XC Mabvrion Atlete / 6RCQ-V Grisier Challier / XG-D1L	20 m3 Viridian Cytoserocin
Standard Exile Booster	Juvoire Sche / IR-WT1 Oguet Aene / YZS5-4 Goligere Debanelis / 9-VO0Q Gomosabin Zerdanne / 9-VO0Q Ravacesel Roque / XF-TQL	20 m3 Celadon Cytoserocin
Standard Crash Booster	Heiraitah Siakkano / ZXA-V6 Tehjus Otsini / I1-BE8 Kara Morato / 1QH-0K	20 m3 Golden Cytoserocin
Standard Frentix Booster	Galhar Lahara / GE-8JV Rahli Saronu  Division / AX-DOT Enna Ahruneh / MY-W1V Desra Nekri / 3GD6-8	20 m3 Lime Cytoserocin
Standard Sooth Sayer Booster	Riluko Hik  / J-RXYN Uiswin Aurtur / 07-SLO Zwod Aden / GPD5-0	20 m3 Azure Cytoserocin
Standard Mindflood Booster	Marera Arghun / 1-2J4P Yoti Haraisha / 9GNS-2 Rasa Jaswelu / C3N-3S Nemphad Azbias / LWX-93	20 m3 Malachite Cytoserocin
Standard X-Instict Booster	Horir Firvoon / 3L-Y9M Baftot Asluzof / DUU1-K Vianes Ounid / O9V-R7 Golarad Hjom / TSG-NO Bollen Odridur / BJD4-E	20 m3 Vermillion Cytoserocin

As a result, I got 31 one-time agents. I was tired while visiting all of them on the test server, though flew mostly on autopilot. Also you can get them in combat ladar signatures.

Do not be amiss to remind you that visit all these agents is not an easy job as it may seem at first. You are not welcome in these areas.

You can be easily killed, on the way there, or when you are flying back. It takes a lot of time - you need to refit new ship and fly again ... And apparently already with another fleet, because this you can not overtake when you alone. Particularly hurt when, you were killed on the way back with the collected BPC.

Patience, accuracy and caution are the three virtues of the ninja gas harvesting.

A little more about boosters

The most popular is the Blue Pill - booster that allows you to more effectively use shield booster. A major component for it is a gas Amber Cytoserocin.

This gas is produced in a group of systems, 8-TFDX, B-E3KQ, BR-6XP, G5ED-Y, O-LR1H, UL-4ZW, Y5J-EU. In the same place in space, dangle agents who in exchange for gas to give boosters BPC (Standard). These are sold only through the contracts and cost up to 10KK. Gas needed for the exchange, worth about 2KK. BPC for more powerful boosters (Improved) mined in battle and cost from 15KK, and Strong from 140KK. But they still need to get, and this is not simple.

Idea: a couple of rookie on Ventures will dig the gas and exchange it to BPC

Bad news: agent give BPC only once to one character :(. The second point – in nulls gas sites are usually protected by NPC, sometimes very seriously. So before you harvest gas you need to clear site from the enemies.

Another problem - you can't harvest gas on trial account (I hope it's not a problem for you). And sell the resulting BPC too. But trial chars can exchange the gas to BPC.

But if you want to try ...

So, if you want to gain experience of low and nulls fly and make a bit isks, a sin not to take advantage.

First of all, there are ladar sites w/o rats even in nulls. As example: Pale Nebula (Assilot, gas Viridian Cytoserocin). There are such signatures for other types of gas.

You need scout with minimal skills:

• Mechanics 3
• Jury Rigging 3
• Afterburner 3
• Warp Drive Operation 1
• Astronautics Rigging 1
• High Speed Maneuvering 1

Actually the first three needs only to learn last 2. We need them for fiting microwarp drive and rigs for ship velocity. Fourth will give us the ability to set warpstabs.

And miner:

• Gas harvesting skills
• skills from shield branches – you need fit shields extensder, booster, hardener
• Mechanics 3
• Jury Rigging 3
• Shield Rigging 1
• Hull Upgrades 1

Fly to the nearest constellation booster and back of Jita - about an hour. To the other can be a bit longer, well, two hours. The route goes through nulls, the locals do not like guests, but they are few.

Full ore cargohold has 500 units of gas it cost about 5KK isk. Also you can exchange first portion of gas to BPC, it cost up to 10KK. Actually agents gives you the BPC with 10 runs, it cost less 2-2.5KK, but it’s easy to mix up ;). This is kind of scam but it is allowed. Usually there are 4 agents. You, and your alt-scout – you will have 8 BPC, up to 80KK, so 85KK per one little trip. Is it not good enough for rookie?

The factional war

The network has quite a popular guide on "how newby can make PLEX on the factional wars". Guide is quite old, and therefore the question arises - how much it is  actual. Well, I do have doubts about its feasibility. But I'll try and I will periodically throw up different little thoughts on this.

While it is possible to note two things.

The first - the factional wars is a huge number of PVP playes, who pvp from morning to evening. In nulls compared to low sec regions of faction wars - just so quiet grace, there are empty systems in which people show up not every day, to shoot a little to red crosses.

The only plus point compared to nulls - there aren't mobiles. The truth is - this has no sense, because they do not really even need. In the sense that you can certainly push bunch of warp stabs into frigate  and fly almost calm. But if you make agent run, then you can forget about warp stabs. And banal mission becomes like a circus with horses - you have to fly through several systems of continuous fighting.

Scout help you a lot, he  flies in front of a white horse on the frigate with warp stabs, jump to gates first  and puts the bookmarks. But scout can only detect an ambush, disperse foes who are camping the gate he can not do.

By the way, this is the first difference of the above-mentioned guidelines i’ve already found. Scouts on the shuttle - this is kind os suicide. Much better suited appropriate frigate. I use minmatar ones: Slasher, Vigil, Probe

• It has 2-3 low slots in which you can fit warp stabs. This is reason why any frigate preferable than the shuttle. Even rookie ship
• Frigate can be fitted with cloack device . It isn't a stealth bomber, you can't sneak up on enemies, but you can safely throw it anywhere, turn on the cloack and not worry that he will be killed.
• Frigate can be modified with rigs Small Hyperspatial Velocity Optimizer I. As a result of warp speed to increase up to 10 AU/s and more, depends of your skills. Not bad when you have to go around the crowd of agents.
• MWD - a very necessary thing for making bookmarks on station undock and near gates. At least, it's much faster. If you need to fly 150 km, what is preferable - frigate with microwarp drive flies at 3 km/s, and the shuttle only 0.6. Is there a difference?

The second point is:

How to convert LP to isks?

In guide as a basis for the calculation is taken conversion rate 1 LP = 2000 isk. But most of goods in LP-shop, when you properly calculate it, will be unrealistic expensive. To put it simply for the money they are not wanted.

Example

Tempest Fleet Issue is about 360KK in Jita, and we are offered a BPC for 250.000 LP + 20KK isk. About implants I even don't want to say anything, prices have fallen and it is just a garbage . The same applies to the guns and missile launchers.

Of course, you can find goods for which the convert ratio is 2000:1 and even more. At least in theory. In practice, when you sell a lot of expensive factional modules, there aren't enought byers and prices crumble. And, someone has to sit in Jita and correct price constantly. It takes a lot more time than you might expect.