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
