sexta-feira, 8 de abril de 2016

PVP and Trading – March 2016 Report




PVP Report

This focus into my “Alone PVP” endeavours, using usually 2 tons. I might eventually team up with the occasional friend during my “Alone PVP” roams, but any kills/losses I achieve in a proper fleet are not posted or analysed here.

I’m not even going to lie about my goals as an ”Alone PVPer”. I want to find people, deceive them and kill them. I’m a brawler at heart, so dying is inevitable, but I want to make sure I manage to kill more than I lose. While not trying to be an Isk Efficiency fanatic, I do prefer to use cheaper affordable ships to kill more expensive ones. 

This month I actually did A LOT of fleets. More than last year combined probably! I hardly remembered EVE could be this easy! There’s a Vindicator messing with you, surrounded by intel toons? No worries, let’s get some folks and hotdrop him. There’s a kiting Baalghorn messing with you? We’ll bring a Pilgrim, Falcon, Fast Tackle and DPS. A hostile fleet with what?! We’ll top that with some extra logi… On the downside, I had to abandon my fleets several times to attend to my family and I had my wife coming downstairs from the bed to “SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH” me up while on fleet coms. Yeah… my W-Aggro-O-Meter went up a few notches. I might need to seclude myself back to Thera again to avoid ganging up with other fellas…

COMBINATIONS FLOW
Next graph shows how many ships I killed and lost, using my most usual combinations. 
 

After 3 month I still love the Dual Hull Brutix and it’s still my main go to combination. Killed 80 ships while losing 21.

Solo Hull Brutix engagements are had when one of my toons is truly alone and has no backup nearby (probably because backup got killed). I prefer to use 2 toons, but will not completely avoid fighting just because I only have 1 toon left… Still managed to kill 4 ships while losing 1 in true solo combat.

I brought back the old Gnosis/Augoror combination because of the recent module tiericide. I had 40 Brutix packed that I could not fit due to lack of Fleeting Compact Webs and Faint Epsilon Scoped Warp Scramblers in both my hangar and local Curse market… This was actually a good opportunity to make a comparison on the Dual Hull Brutix. Main differences:
1- 1600mm Gnosis is WAAAAAAAAAAY slower. 1300m/s against the 1900m/s from the Brutix (MWD Overloaded). I actually missed killing a Rapier and a Vexor Navy because the Gnosis was so slow.
2- The 1600mm Gnosis has a real light tank… Those 64k EHP against the 105k EHP from the Tank Brutix really make a BIG difference.
3- Fighting gangs with more than 3 guys or so is really hard because my Augoror gets primaried. With Dual Hull Brutix I can go balls deep and still take a decent beating.

I used a Taranis/Hull Brutix combination for the 1st time. It’s a long story really that I won’t tell here, but here’s the main advantages and disadvantages towards the Dual Hull Brutix:
1- The Taranis allowed me to catch the occasional unaware miner/ratter. While funny, it’s not the sort of gameplay I’m looking for (but I’ll take it if I stumble upon the opportunity), so not a major upside.
2- The Taranis allowed me to scout my Brutix, but truth being told, I rarely die to gatecamps. I die mostly because I tend to stay around too long in a particular area and the locals bring too much. Again, although helpful, the Taranis is not indispensable at this role.
3 – The Taranis allowed me to catch a kitter WAY WAY easier. This was the true advantage of using a Taranis… Scram a kitting target and hope for cavalry to arrive before dying. In this particular case was easy, because the target was an Arty Fleet Stabber. Just got under his guns and it was game over for him. Taranis would not have helped against an Orthrus or Cerberus or Ishtar or Gila or a lot other different kiters.
4 – Finally the best reason is because I had to chance to play “Frig Fights” when the opportunity arises. Several times I cloaked the Brutix to just have fun doing some old school Dual Prop Taranis griefing.
5 – As for the worse downside… I had to  let go several engagements because a Single Brutix would not cut it and a 2nd Brutix would have made a huge difference. Right now my personal objectives steers me away from Frig Fights, so it’s a combination I probably won’t use again soon.
I bought and shipped to Curse 40 Hull Brutix this month…. If I keep dying like a boss, they won’t be enough for the next month…

HOSTILES KILLED
Let’s take a better look on the hostiles I killed. Next graph shows what ships I killed and how many.


Most kills were Caracal, Vexor Navy Issues and Crows. Just a bit behind are Gila, Raptor and Svipul.
Caracals are just popular and show up in every fleet so no bit surprise there, but the Vexor Navy were a bit odd. This happened because I roamed mostly a lot in areas that resort to ratting Vexor Navy and this ship seems to be the “poor man Gila”. 

The reason I killed so many Crows is because I flew the Taranis quite some times, and while the Crow is a ship hard to kill with a couple Brutix, is a ship stupidly easy to kill if you bring a proper combat interceptor like a Taranis. Raptor are a bit of an odd appearance, but people seem to be favouring the Raptor for a scrambler role over the Malediction. Not quite sure why…

During this month I killed 55 different ship types, even though mostly only 1 or 2 of each, so people like to bring some variety to the field. Nevertheless, Caracal, Gila and Svipul are dominating for 3 month in a row. 

Following graph shows the Isk value per ship type.


Top kills isk wise were Gila, again, by far! This damn ship was hit with the nerf bat and is still hugely popular and many times even bling fit.

Next spikes are a faction ratting Rattlesnake that I caught and Pilgrim. The Pilgrim is really weird. It’s a ship I hardly saw some months ago, quite like the Ashimmu, but recently they’ve grown in popularity. The new Energy Neutralizers/Nosferatus mechanics are probably the underlying cause for this popularity allied to the fact that Brutix are cap dependant ships. Surprisingly, I found the Pilgrim an easy ship to kill, unlike the Curse! I think it’s because the Pilgrim is faced more as a brawl ship (so it comes willingly into my blaster range) and has usually less Neuts than a Curse.

Even though many ship types killed might attest for a good variety on the field, I created some Categories in order to understand better the different ship classes I managed to kill.



My 3 top preys were Interceptors, Combat Battlecruisers and Faction Cruisers. Slightly behind are T1 DPS Cruisers and T3 Dessys.

I killed “so many” Interceptors because the Taranis is a great “Anti-interceptor” Wingman. Crow coming at you? Dead...

This month I killed more Combat Battlecruisers than ever and I’m just going to say it: People love a good Combat Battlecruiser brawl. Be it the Brutix, the Hurricane, the Myrmidon, the Harbinger, the Drake or even the Ferox. People mostly like to brawl with them. Kiting Combat Battlecruisers are pretty much dead though… Even though people don’t like to roam in BCs because they are too slow, when their intel channels report a couple Brutix in their space, many people take on the opportunity to bring out their favourite BC for a test drive.

Faction Cruisers, T1 Dps Cruisers and T3 Dessys maintain, as always, a strong presence.
How about isk wise, in what categories I’m able to inflict more economic pain?


HELLLLLLLOOOOOOO FACTION CRUISERS! Yet again… By a long shot, way way over any other category, yet again! I maintain what I said my previous months about Faction Cruisers.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see HACs as a second spike. I hate HACs… This whole class is a nasty thorn and a pain in my rear. They are better at everything over a BC, with exception to the capacitor. Even though on paper ehp and dps wise they might seem similar or weaker, they can avoid most damage due to smaller sig radius and can usually apply DPS very well. One of the 1st things I noticed when flying the Hull Brutix is that I need to be very careful against HACs (no matter which one), so it’s with great joy that I see so many HACs, isk wise, destroyed.

HOSTILES KILLING ME
Equally important is the notion on what ships are being used to kill me. Solo players always complain about being “blobbed” all the time. Well… I WANT for my foes to try to “blob” me, I WANT to fight outnumbered, I WANT for them to bring their best, so that I can outsmart them and kill them, just before I bail out teasing them!!... or die trying… Of course, once my foes bring too much it’s time to safe up and let them vent in local on how I’m a coward because I’m not throwing myself at their 15/20 men fleets for their leisure. This is my main source of daily adrenaline.

1st thing I checked was how large were the fleets that actually killed me, or in other words, how many people are in my losses killmails.

Generally speaking, if I died to a gang of more than 10 people I was probably simply ganked.

If I died to a gang with 5-10 people, I was probably surprised by unexpected backup.

My preferred targets are mostly gangs with less than 5 people, and if I died, it probably means that I made serious mistakes and/or assessed the situation very badly and that there is a lesson to be learned around on how to make better next time.



Looking at the graph, I was ganked by large fleets 6 times… This is more than It should happen.
I died 8 times to gangs with 6-10 people. This is definitely too much and it tells me that I simply don’t know when to quit and call it off XD. Usually 5-10 man fleets do take some time to form, so I’m pretty sure I’d have ample opportunities to get safe. I should be more careful and not be caught by fleets this size at all!…

I did died 11 times to 1-5 man Fleets… These are my intended targets and I seem to find these a lot, so I still believe there are good opportunities to a solo player/small gang out there.
Let’s take a look to the ships that actually managed to kill me.


Largest spike are Thrasher, mostly because I got caught by a fleet of 20 of those. It was a fast death…
Same reasons explains the popularity of the Scythe Fleet Issue. I got caught by a fleet of those and puff. Unlike the Thrasher fleet, it was a slow painful death, where I almost reached the gate to jump out.

Next more relevant ships are Svipul, Gila and Crow. People will use their PVE Gila on PVP situations as well, and I can understand why. As long as someone else keeps me scrammed/pointed, they apply DPS pretty nicely. The difference of a PVP Gila and PVE one is usually pretty small, residing mostly on having equipped a Warp Scramble or Warp Disruptor.

There are also many many ships that show up in my Killmails once or twice only. A total of 72 different ship types were used to kill me. I pretty much think this shows that EVE is healthy when it comes to variety and small gang PVP. Let’s look at the Categories used to kill me.


This month it’s Faction Cruisers and Interceptors that killed me the most, followed by T1 Dessys (explained above why) and HACs. HACs showing again as a big source of trouble for me… Did I said I hate HACs? I hate HACs… Need to be more careful with those around.

Ships that completely dominate solo wannabe PVPers, like ECM Cruisers and Logistics, aren’t really used all THAT much. I find that extremely good news for me and other solo guys out there.
That’s all I remembered to take a look at in a PVP Report. Send me out a mail if you think I overlooked something, and make sure to undock and go out there!

TRADING REPORT

MARKET PROFITS
This month profit was around 10.8 billion. As long as profits maintain themselves more than 10 billion, I’m happy for time being.

Also a recent, but discrete, patch allowed a huge, HUGE, HUUUUUUUGE change to my google docs spreadsheet, as well as improvement of my market life style (read it as “allows me to be even more lazy”).

So, the new Multibuy window allows us to buy several items at once. Whenever I needed to restock, I’d look at my spreadsheet for potential profitable items and would drag those items from EVE’s Market Quickbar into the Multibuy window. Assuming no “socket closed” happened, after 1 hour of picking potentially profitable items from my list, I’d buy them all at once.

Recently CCP added the option to “Import list from Clipboard”. A small discrete icon at top left corner of the Multibuy window. Now, one can just copy paste a list of items and respective quantities! 10 Seconds after I understood how it worked, I wet my pants! My Google Docs Spreadsheet told me what items were profitable, but did not told me how many to buy. I decided on how many items to buy using “instinct” and some general guidelines.

But now…. Now I could change my Spreadsheet to tell me how much to buy from what, and save 1 or 2 weekly hours of market stuff. That’s all fine, but my real problem was writing down the criteria for the Spreadsheet to use. “Instinct” doesn’t really works on Excel and I was having a hard time getting my head sorted out properly in order to achieve the results I wanted.

I won’t get into big details, but here’s the criteria I came to use:
1- I had to define that items missing from the market in Hek are a priority to buy. Having no competition means I can set items ridiculously overpriced, even if for a limited period;
2 – I had to define what % of profit makes an item viable to invest in. Harder said than done. I don’t mind investing in a 400mil item with 16% profit, but for a 5mil item I’ll want 50% profit.
3 – Defined a relation between the % profit of an item and the quantity I want to buy. The more % an item nets, the more items I’ll want to buy.
4 – Defined a maximum quantity of items to buy, depending on its cost. I really don’t want to buy five 400+mil something something item because it makes a theorical profit of 50%, when I’m probably lucky if I sell one of those in a month or two.

Anyway, after I got the numbers tuned up I took it for a test drive. Sorted my spreadsheet by “Best potential profit”, copy pasted into EVE’s new import option, and saw it getting filled in less than 10 seconds, with pretty good results. I wet my pants again… EVE has never been so comfortable for spreadsheet lovers and I hope it improves even more!

Anyway, as usual, all market profits were made resorting to Regional trade, buying in Jita Sell Orders, and selling in Hek Sell Orders. Supplies were brought from Jita once per week and orders were updated once per day or once per 2 days, depending on my patience.

I use a Google Spreadsheet with Steve Ronuken Script in order to pull prices from the items I trade. Currently, my Google Spreadsheet tracks about 600 items that I’m interested in trading.   I also use the free site EVE PROFIT to keep track on my profits, and EVERNUS to update orders fast. I trade mostly Faction Mods, Implants, Capital Mods, Large Rigs, POS Structures and T3 Subsystems.
 

HAULING EXPENSES
I use only public contracts to haul stuff from Jita to other Hubs, giving 30 Million reward for a 2 Billion collateral, putting 1,8 Billion worth of stuff in each contract. I spent a total of 1,5 Billion but this includes 2 contracts of 380mil each, to Black Frog, to take 40 Brutix to Curse.

PLEX EXPENSES
Payed my 2 accounts with 1 PLEX each, costing me a total 2,35 Billion. Plex is lowering and I hope it lowers more.

BLUEPRINTS
This month I had 3 billion profit, by selling 98 contracts with an average of 32,5 million profit each contract. 350 million were BPC profits and rest are BPO profits. This was the month I earned the most in BPOs, ever!

I currently research around 300 different BPOS… this means that when I finish up a “research cycle” I won’t have much stock lying around, as stuff already probably sold. As an example, I see no advantage in researching 10 “Neutron Blasters” at once they sell very slow, so I prefer to research one of each gun from all races.

...Nevertheless, I been tracking profit from BPO research for almost one year now, and I’ll probably make a small change. I’m thinking about defining a “Priority BPO to Research” list to try focus on most profitable BPOs. More on this in the future.

I’m also thinking about finally training my PVP toons to research BPOs in Curse, but I want them to be medium tier BPOS, instead of those low tier BPOs I already research in Hi-Sec. I have no idea what… Maybe those new Citadel service thingies?....

MISCELANEOUS INVESTMENTS
Did not bought any Capital BPOs in order to resell them… Didn’t had the patience to look for good deals.

Also Citadels are coming. What are my plans for them? For one, to add all those new mods to my Sell Items List (this includes new capital mods too), and then we’ll see. In the Blueprint department, I might want to buy some popular services BPOs and sell copies, kind of like I do with Sov Upgrades and such. I think some will be cheap enough to be researched in hi-sec. More on this topic when I’ve figured out what to do.

I’m also thinking about to stop training my PVP toons, and instead, train toons to extract SP and sell on market, in order to pay for PLEX. Do I really need this? Not if Plex prices and if my profits remain stable, but then again, I also won’t need “Irrelevant skill lvl 5” either. Right now I’m going to aim for a 1 year skill plan and next year I’ll think about it.
Finally, my Overall Graph


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