What is Low Sec?

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdg5iNzAAtjFccIM7wPLGawlKLh8ecilOKG5PNtbMIth6wl2g/viewform?usp=sf_link ~Insidious Sainthood


To you personally, what is the purpose of low sec?

nowadays it's where i'm planning to send my tertiary alts off to steal russian r64/32 moon ore in my local low sec.
That and send my mains in occasionally to munch on low sec ice using cloaky vessels.

fun fact: did you know i have a decade's old rorqual gathering dust because she's never been used for anything other than a glorified jump freighter? before citadels she also doubled as a clone service.

in the past, before citadels, i was in despair about mining in low sec as a cost efficient method of mining...oh sure it was fun and exciting...until one realizes how much more rich high sec carebears in their level 4 missions & ice mining were compared.

but, to sum up: what is the PURPOSE of low sec? in the past it's been those transients who have plied the low sec spaceways, including flash in the pan wannabe pirates whose collective IQ drops as they gatecamp highsec entrances...those fools have tried their hand at POS management, and now athanor snoozefests. It's always been home of the marauding dreadnaughts, and hotdroppers. the blops addicts, dropping on corvettes and fledgling n00bs not aware of how ridiculously low reward it is in low sec compared to high.

ccp isn't interested in low sec, never has been. never will. they look at shiny news articles in gaming magazine websites talking about massive battles in null sec (where alot of their player base is playing for free) vs griefers ripping off folks in high sec (where alot of new players start off, and how ccp pads their shareholder briefings with those numbers.)

i'm actually disgusted with lowering myself to cowtow to CCP's politicizing the pandemic and crowing about how their new player numbers are ever rising. it's like trump bragging about ratings, as though it means anything.

To you personally, what is the purpose of FW?

To feed the maw of bored stupid wannabe amateur "pirates"

never actually played it and i thank the gods it never spawned as a mechanic in my neck of the woods *knocks on wood*

it's a place where you notice who's in local. where they've always been folks you could honest to god interact with. well, except for the losers who just camp NPC station 24/7 and roleplay they own the place.
T.E. Lawrence: "There may be honor among thieves, but there's none in politicians"


How should low sec shape player interactions and habits? Should it be lawless? Safe-ish? Home to big alliances? Free of supers?
how SHOULD it be? the same, but where it attracts SMART players instead of the foolish n00bs. why the hell should a smart player venture into low sec to sustain themselves?
i think anyone who seriously wants to know what sustaining themselves in low sec is about should check out "low sec challenge" videos.
i personally haven't seen those videos, myself, knowing first hand how ridiculous the concept is currently.

what is the purpose of low sec in my fevered dreams? nocxium. increasing the demand of it for ship building or something...jeezuz ccp has those bloody metrics, or do they? do they even have - to this very day - the ability to figure out how much minerals of a certain type are use in the most volume in certain ships? sure their economic reports are shiny but they certainly don't tell even a thousandth of what's going on.
Low sec should be a place where miners fear to tread, but where jaspet (nocxium) is valuable enough that mining that is more lucrative per day than sitting fat and happy in a high sec ice field once every 4 hours for a few hours amidst the deaf dumb and blind bots..
it respawns ice every 4 hours like clockwork with the belt full and fresh, whereas an actual old school belt takes 20 FREAKING DAYS to fully recharge...and nothing for the first 3 days.

Regardless, the point is raise the demand for nocxium. here's a fantasy situation where i tweak the price of it to be double that of megacyte currently:  1000 isk/pu
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p1NTdQnXEDMooJshi1pndcneXHcKY9rOFsr_JzlWlPI/edit?usp=sharing
Obviously one would need to tweak the numbers for nocxium in crokite & pyroxeres...and that would entail being careful not to unbalance the compression/refining ratios so carefully tuned by CCP to be a factor of 27 respectively. (eg. lowering nocxium in crokite by half but raising something else so that compression/refining stay at x27...not good in math, so maybe one could just do that easily enough and not worry about it)

new look

Belter 49th Edition, Eve-O 5.0.0 & UI iteration

Red Letter Day

Since October, when i resubbed after 2 years hiatus, i've still been a part of that group i talked about last post.
I really lucked out with them...they've brought stability to low sec, specifically the areas i tend to call 'home' (albeit not fua constellation; i doubt we'll expand into there much...it's pretty garbage as far as moon goo)


So...the new look. Well, first off i have "eve-o preview" to thank for that, otherwise i'd still be 1024* resolution and cascading windows - which forced me to have certain windows in certain spots on my UI which really played havoc with pretty much everything aesthetic and efficiency was shitty.

It's taken me this long to get rid of bad habits, visa vis the UI layout.

now the overview and local chat are huge compared - something i long envied the pvpers for, with my crappy resolution and cascading constraints.

now my customized overview settings have grown by leaps and bounds, with a dedicated chat channel ingame for my patchnotes, "lowsec overview"

eve-o preview, once mastered, is a boon for multiboxers like myself, who rely on one monitor (and a laptop. yay...if i could only teach my wife how to mine asteroids)...as you can see in that screenshot i have 6 paid accounts munching away at a huge spodumain field.

i have a youtube channel with uploaded playlists. it's interesting how my window UI layout has improved dramatically over the mk1, mk2 & mk3 versions i have uploaded by now.

Return

about a month ago i resubscribed. why? *scratches head* it had been 2 years, and i had extra cash on hand. Cost about $200 CDN for 3 months for 4 accounts. That seems like alot but the motivation to go home to play over say going out drinking beer and scotch is saving me ALOT more than what i spent on the game. lol. that's like preventing me spending $25-50 an outing, so if it prevents me from spending $25 eight times in 3 months it's paid for itself. lol

i call eve online "a screen saver with a built in chat function"...i recently read a dev's comment about eve "welcome to eve. here's a rubix cube. go fuck yourself"

on that note, here are the new things since my hiatus that i'm pleasantly surprised by:

• interesting recruiting videos in the stations. love it.
• not sure about the silly plex breakdown.
• definitely like the estimated price column in Assets window
• ouch! almost a million isk jump clone fee? (might be an old thing)
• no skill clones? (i think i remember that changing before i went on hiatus)
• i wonder how many new items?  there's the porpoise new ship, other than that?
• ammo loading now does the cooldown after loading the next round
• omg new type of sound notification for full ore hold?!?!
• moon mining sounds effing sweet for low sec mining
• i love the new "balance" popup for wallet during any transaction
• the new 'higgs anchor' rig is YUMMY
• omg the fittings simulator!?!?!
• drones on the endurance!?!? yes please!!!
• new upwell structures allows one to circumvent jump clone cooldowns*
• there's a new button next to 'dock' that opens up your items bay while in space
• market ticker customizable
• there's actually a new tab for mining ledger on the eve hud. wow
• instead of captain's quarters it's now view outside station (not for npc tho. boo)

i think the first thing when i got back was get R&D cores from my research agents for my mains. traded them to alliance members for quite a pretty penny.
I kept an activity log of the major things i was doing on a daily basis, mostly housekeeping duties and gearing up teams of transports and mining ships across my usual stomping grounds...plus removing assets from places i really didn't go at all.

september 10th.  

grabbed my blockade runners from omam and went to ahala to pick up my ore mackinaws. 

sent senes to amarr to grab missing federation navy AB (cheap compared) and to find the best courier frigate (probably still amarr std frig)

september 11th.

went and got not only 3 endurances and kit but also 3 prospects, which seem to be better at ore mining 

sent everyone to grab stuff from arera back to bash

bumped an IAC "DD" crew in bash and scared them off...even spotted janus1 and 2, plus iac botting alt

preparing to send everyone to grab carthum database RP loot (looks like 2 years = 100k points each char * agent number)

sold all the datacores to alliance for 1billion

went to jita and grabbed prospect gear for low sec then everyone headed up the omam pipe to menri

between then and there looks like i concentrated on porpoises and expedition frigates

sept 24th

bought alot of expensive skillbooks at ney for minorfreak+seneschai, fueled by selling isotopes and fuel blocks

oct 4th

bought an occator plus gear (ended up having a DST for everyone at amod SOE)

oct 5th

reprocessed all my POS crap

sold all 4th tier PI crap

moved any capital construction stuff and minerals to amod SOE

geared up my deep space transports for low sec gate burns

sold mega surplus gear from amod that had become lucrative

sold some dysprosium from past siphon activity

bought a bhaalgorn, legionx2, scimitar, and a deacon

oct 7th

trying to figure out why, on oct5th, i bought some stuff that majorfreak now has in keri (by mistake obviously)

 -- ah, that must be for the occator! actually, senes' gasavak occator needs gear switch too

i might as well get the last siphon thief alt's dysprosium as well to afford that stuff, at jita

...

ended up doing more housekeeping after i got home - basically getting gear onto stuff i missed for 3 hours. lol

*old style gear on the expedition frigates in menri

My biggest changes were to leave Bashakru's ice field, cut my ties with ihavetenfingers, and join a low sec pvp alliance that i'd made friends with two of the members - mostly interacting with the carebear side.

eve-o preview (how to hotbox right)

okay, so without too much preamble, here is my most current eve-o preview desktop layout vs my cascade technique. In my cascade version, i'm forced to use 1072 resolution (the smallest eve offers) whereas the eve-o layout gives me latitude to enlarge my resolution and play with zero cascading.

Eve-O frees up my actual gameplay layout in that i'm not forced to keep critical info panels all jammed up into the small area visible in cascade mode (like the overview, and local), plus a larger resolution means i can enjoy the aesthetics of the game more.

besides the ability to avoid overlap (cascading) the corollary to that is i find the ability to spot my flashy chat rooms very cool indeed.
The other thing i noticed was the lack of worry of clicking on the wrong thing while switching active window.

step by step planetary interaction setup

1. First i fly to a safe spot and cloak up. You can do multiple planets from one location while cloaked.
2. Second i plunk down my command center and upgrade to maximum (it'll only cost more if you upgrade by degrees)...I do this right away without moving the planet around - Just zoom in and plunk down. Hit submit
3. Third i place the rarer commodity's extractor first, whilst making sure i'm not too far away from the more abundant commodity's hot spots...I place them smack in the middle of the hotspot, assuming i need two commodity types that will combine to make a tier 3 item. Say like oxides (the one in the above picture example on a gas planet.) Hit submit
4. Fourth, starting from right next to the rarest commodity extractor, i place 2 basic, 1 storage facility, then 2 basic angled away then 2 advanced and 1 spaceport forming a "Y" with the second set of basics pointing towards the other extractor...I then create links between them in a chain (this saves pwr by using the diameter of the industry to save on link lengths, plus gives a visual guide to everything.) Hit submit
5. Fifth, i balance the output of the two extractors...Set the duration/size of the extractor heads to 5 days...Don't bother adjusting the head locations much beyond their default...Just make a simple pattern like the one in the picture.
6. Sixth, i begin the reaction sequence by routing the extractors' 'products' to the storage facility...Then the schematics for the advanced facilities with the route to the spaceport...Then the basic schematics routed to the storage facility. Hit submit.
7. Seventh, click on the 'routes' icon of the storage facility and adjust the 'quantity' column to sort high to low...Start routing the tier 1 items to their respective basic industry facilities...Then adjust the column to sort low to high...Route the tier 2 items to the advanced facilities. Hit submit.

stick a fork in it, it's done
sometimes i switch between routing the extractors' products and the schematics, in the sequence, but it still works just fine. let me know how you do your setup if you like.

EDIT (dec23rd'14) - i decided a week's duration is much better than 5 days

CEO 101

fresh recruits can:

1. see combat loss mails (even ones to npcs), 
2. send and read corp evemails, 
3. copy and create corporate bookmarks, 
4. see corporate fitting management, 
5. see corporate contacts (standings), 
6. view corp mates locations on map (if in space only), 
7. see locations of all offices, 
8. ability to put items/ships into any corporate hangar, 
9. view a member list showing last known logins (how many hours ago), 
10. shoot any corp member without any repurcussions from CONCORD (and even be remotely repaired by a third party outside of corp without said pilot being flagged), 
11. be able to view and engage in corporate chat window without moderation.

quite powerful as you can see.

An experiment in planetary interaction

So i got a few mobile cyno jammer structure BPCs i want to take to production.
Broadcast Nodes (biocells, silicate glass, supertensile plastics, microfiber shielding, polyamarids, transmitters)
Organic Mortar Applicators (Oxides, Coolant, mech.parts, consumer elect., micro organisms)
Self-Harmonizing Power Core (Silicate Glass, Rocket Fuel, microfiber shielding, enriched uranium, polyaramids, gen.enhanced livestock)
Sterile Conduits (Water, Construction Blocks, Miniature elect., livestock, viral agent)
Wetware Mainframe (watercooled cpu, coolant, consumer elect., nanites, livestock, construction blocks, test cultures, synthetic oil, fertilizer)
...plus guidance systems (watercooled cpu, transmitter)

so that's biocells, silicate glass*, supertensile plastics, microfiber shielding*, polyamarids*, transmitters*, oxides, coolant*, mech.parts, consumer elect.*, rocket fuel, enriched uranium,  gen. enhanced livestock, construction blocks*, miniature elect., livestock*, viral agents, watercooled cpu*, nanites, test cultures, synthetic oil, fertilizer. [23 unique tier 2 items, plus water and bacteria (tier1)]
biocells = barren*
silicate glass = lava+gas
supertensile plastics = ice*
microfiber shielding = terrestrial + lava
polyamarids = terrestrial+gas
transmitters = lava/plasma*
oxides = gas*
coolant = storm*
mech.parts = barren*/plasma
consumer elect.= lava/plasma*
rocket fuel = storm*
enriched uranium = plasma*
gen.enhanced livestock = oceanic*
construction blocks = lava/plasma*
miniature elect.= lava*
livestock = oceanic*/terrestrial
viral agents = ice/oceanic*
watercooled cpu = barren*/storm
nanites = barren*
test cultures = barren/oceanic*/terrestrial
synthetic oil = storm*
fertilizer = oceanic*/terrestrial


compare that to making fuel blocks [4 unique tier 2 items, plus water (tier1)] using barren, storm, plasma planets

So how am i going to start? well, i figure since all but one of the tier 2 planetary materials are being used as ingredients...why not make ALL?
ice supertensile plastics
gas oxides, polyamarids, silicate glass
barren  mech.parts, watercooled cpu, biocells, nanites
plasma.  transmitter", consumer elect", construction blocks", enriched uranium
oceanic gen.enh.livestock, livestock, viral agents, fertilizer
terrestrial  microfiber shielding, polyamarids
storm  rocket fuel, coolant, synthetic oil, test cultures
lava silicate glass,  miniature electronics, microfiber shielding

So it boils down to having 5 characters each with 5 of the big producing planets? honestly, i'm going to need lvl5 consolidation?