Ultra Deep Safes

Well another report has been made available by Goonswarm (RIP) that outlines what you need to do to creating ultra deep safes .  You can get a copy of it from here ... Poseidon Manual.


I have played around with this and looked into how effective it is at making deep safes and now have a couple in different systems that are around 660 AU to the nearest celestial body in the system.  I put together the following notes on creating these safe spots:

• When you log back in after the Control Q you can make a bookmark as soon as possible. Waiting till your speed has reduced to less than 10km/s (you are still in warp) will only give you a distance of 100k km. Which is not huge when you are looking at getting at least 7AU with each step.
• A cov ops (I used my cheetah with an aux power core, 400mm steel and 50mm steel plates) will get you 45-55AU roughly with each step.
• To get the most out of each step you should try and ensure your run up prior to quitting is as long as possible that way there is adequate distance to each top warp speed and be able to quite at a good time (just before you decelerate).
• Some battle reports talk of deep safes of up to 600AU and I now have a couple at this range though it will take you a couple of hours to make one.

A basic step by step process is as follows:

• Find two safe locations that are on either side of the system that give you the longest possible warp distance possible. Would suggest you use safes that are not directly on planets or moon warps. Your going to need the map open and on system display to help you here and as long as you are at a safe you should be able to keep this open.
• Declutter the window and make sure you can see you movement across the map.
• Warp to the location on the other side of the system.
• Hover your mouse over your speed and when you have reached your maximum speed (in smaller systems you may not reach max warp speed), prior to decelerating press control Q. Note that if you do this too late you will create a BM that is very close to the one you warped to so do not leave it too late. Also if you do too early you will end up near the point you were warping to anyway.
• The client will have quite so you will need to start it up again an log in as soon as possible. If you take too long you will back at your original location before you get a chance to make the bookmark. So restart EVE, login and BM asap.
• Once you have logged in create a bookmark as soon as possible. If you are looking at the map you will see that you have now bookmarked a location that is way beyond the point you were warping to.
• You will now have to wait as your ships finishes this warp away. Your ship will then warp back to the point at which you quite and will then warp to the point you originally warped to.
• Go back to your original warp from location and warp to your new deep safe and repeat the process as many times as you can cope with before dying of boredom. Remember that combat probes have a radius 128AU and deep space probes have a range of 256AU. It may take you a few steps to start to get a good distance each step (especially if you are in a small system. However once the steps are good you should be able to go from your end point to the new point and create the next step each time.

Covert Operations

Introduction
What do we mean by covert operations (cov ops for short)?  In summary it is the ability to move around New Eden without detection, or without being detected easily.  This however means different things to different people and hopefully I will try and pull together a good overview here of the various aspects of covert operations and dispel any myths and clear up those things that people ask (well I did at least).

Ok throughout this article when I talk about covert operations I am talking about ships and activities that rely on the use of the "covert ops cloaking device" module.  There are other modules available, but being elitist about this, who wants a cloaking device that means you cannot move, or at a vastly reduced speed and cannot warp whilst cloaked?

Firstly the ship types that can fit this module are:

• Blockade Runner
• Covert Ops
• Force Recon
• Stealth Bomber

What about Black Ops?  Well it is not included in this list as it cannot fit the covert ops cloaking device.  It is worth noting here however that it does get a "Black Ops" skill bonus of +125% of cloaked speed per level.  This would be an increase in cloaked speed of 625% when at level V.  So for example if you fit an "improved cloaking device" your cloaked speed would be 356.45 m/s with all skills at V.  The basic speed for the Panther is 228.13 when no cloaking module is fitted.  Remember however you still will not be able to warp whilst cloaked in this ship and so it is advisable to use the jump to get into the best location possible.  For the purposes of further discussion the Black Ops class of vessel will be included.

So what can these ships be used for?  Well there is a level of overlap between them, but the common tasks that these ships are used for is:

• Alpha Strike
• Exploration
• Fleet Logistics
• High Value Cargo Transport
• Scouting
• Sniper

This list is not meant to be exhaustive and is based on the details I give for each below, however you might well have other definitions or thoughts that I have not covered here.  Let me know and I will update as necessary, but in general this covers the basics.  Each one of these activities has a different set of secondary skills required in order to fulfill the roll being discussed.

Alpha Strike
This is what the stealth bombers where made for.  I have not included them as snipers as they do not have the tank capacity to remain in place once they have decloaked.  The aim here is to get within a sensible distance of a target; say 40km whilst cloaked.  Then to revel oneself, fire a high damage payload and either cloak again or warp away.  This can be useful in a fleet senario as the lead to a bigger assault where by the Stealth Bomber gets a good amount of the targets shields down prior to the remaining fleet warping in and finishing him off.  The use of torpedos here is vital and for nu,, sec bombs are also recommended.

Exploration
This career path is primarily involved in finding anomalies and signatures like worm holes or RADAR sites.  This is usually undertaken with a covert ops frigate and requires you to have salvaging, code breaker and analyzer modules on board.  Also the ability to scan using the astrometric skill sets.

Fleet Logistics
By this I am referring to the use of the cynosural field generators that allow for other ships out of the system to jump into the system you are in without the use of existing jump gates.  You are more likely to use a covert version working with some of the other ships we talked about above.  This is usually undertaken from a covert ops frigate, stealth bomber of force recon ship.  Secondary skill depend on the type of ship you are flying but will be primarily propulsion skills, why?  Well when deploying a cyno you cannot cloak and so need to be able to protect yourself somehow.  Fr the frigates especially there is little power left to use any shield or armor boosters and so speed is your better chance.  For the force recon ships you are more likely to have a more reasonable combat set up fitted.  I will also add the Black Ops ship in here as it is used to create a ump bridge for other cov ops ships to be deployed into a system.

High Value Cargo Transport
Blockade runners are a type of transport ship and are used for moving high value cargos around.  These ships are usually based on industrial class I ships and though not able to hold huge amounts of cargo can still move enough around to help fuel a pos or move minerals around in low sec between stations.  Speed and cargo expansion modules skills are the order of the day for these ships.  With changes made in Apocrypha 1.5 Back Ops ships were also given the potential for POS refueling operations.  All the other ships can be used for this but have very limited cargo hold spaces so can only take very small items, e.g. special cargo delivery for a npc mission.

Scouting
This skill set is focussed around obtaining intel in hostile areas and relies on you being able to slip into occupied territory and collate information on opposing fleet sizes and composition, location of gate camps.  It can also include scanning down hostile ships that are hiding at a safe spot.  the smaller frigate class ships or Force Recons are used for this activity and primarily require good propulsion skills.

Sniper
This skill is very much aimed at the Black Ops ships, though can include the Force Recon (see above for Stealth Bomber).  The aim here is to be able to provide a high level of damage from a reasonable range; sitting outside of the targets own range.  This is especially true when setting up an ambush on a gate.   This is very much a combat based skill and needs large gun related skills.

Common Mistakes, Questions and Key Points

• Your presence can always be seen in local, whether or not you are cloaked.
• You cannot be scanned down with probes if you are cloaked.
• You cannot use any other module whilst cloak is activated.
• If you have already launched probes you can be cloaked and scan at the same time.
• Your cloak will deactivate if you are within 2000 metres of almost any another item.  There are some items that will not decloak you if they are nearby, one of these is corpses.  In general though you should act as if anything too close with deactivate your cloak.  Probes returning to your hold will not cause you to decloak.
• Once you are targeted you will not be able to cloak.
• After jumping through a gate you will be naturally cloaked for 30 seconds (please note that you cannot jump whilst cloaked).  In order to activate your cloak you will have to start moving.  Be ready to activate your cloak as soon as you align or warp to something.  This is the main time at which your presence can be located.
• When in a fleet always warp to no less than 5km as the person you are warping to may be cloaked and you do not want to annoy him by deactivating his cloak.

If there is anything else that I have missed you you have any comments let me know.

Getting ready

Well, it is around 20 days to getting the Orca out and about so need to start planning the fitting and also look in detail at my exploration skill base.

Fitting
As I said before there is a layout in Battleclinic for an exploration Orca that got a lot of good ratings.  I have been working with this as a starter and am looking at the following:


   [Orca, Orca: Exploration Mobile Base]


   Siege Warfare Link - Shield Harmonizing or Improved Cloaking Device II
   Small Tractor Beam I
   Salvager I


   Ballistic Deflection Field II
   Explosion Dampening Field II
   Heat Dissipation Field II
   Photon Scattering Field II


   Damage Control II
   Overdrive Injector System II


   5x Hammerhead II

   Hurricane  

   Cheetah     

   Retriever   

The only question here is could I fit a better set up in the mid slots?  If I take this in to a w/hole I would drop the link module and fit a cloak in there which fits fine  I have not fitted any rigs in here yet as I will use this to mine as well, though if it works I might eventually get a separate Orca for mining.

I will cover the skills in a separate posting.  There are some good guides now on exploration and scanning on the official wiki site which I will link in so that I am not regurgitating already well written articles.

Which grain of sand are you?

Rightly or wrongly I have bought an Orca ... after six months of playing I decided that it was time for a little more direction in my training and activity.  There is reasoning behind this but I guess it is worth giving a little more background as this is the first post I have made.

It has been six months since my clone made is first tentative steps in to New Eden I have managed to build a reasonable skill base in most things.  I can handle myself well in most basic situations but now I need to do something a little more specific.  For those of you who have ventured into New Eden you will know how big it is and how complex life can be as a capsuleer; there is no way of mastering everything in a sensible timescale and so I am going to start one of my main careers; exploration.  I have a good base for probing, salvaging and hacking.  My core skills (yes those ones the certificates tend to direct you too) are ok, but far from perfect.

So with a basic understanding of most things, I have got an Orca and intend on using it for two things ... the first is to mine with and the second is to go exploring.  I am not going to talk to much about the mining aspect as this is well understood.  The exploration side is not so well used (that I know of and I am sure you are gonna tell me) and it was a friend in my alliance who opened this one up to me. There is at least one setup for an Orca that I have seen that is quoted as being an exploration setup so I can not be that mad.

Why do I want to do this?  Well ... you know how it is, you have gone through 12 systems and found nothing but LADAR and Wormhole sites when you come across and great RADAR site.   Only this site has more than it's fair share of rats and your cov ops ship is just not ready to handle that kind of DPS (any DPS for that matter).  So if I roam around using the Orca to ferry around a exploration ship, as well as a DPS ship and maybe a mining barge for all those Gravimetric sites then I should cover all aspects of exploration without having to stay close to home where all my ships are.

I will find out if this works and keep you posted.  I guess the one thing that make me a little worried is the ninja who scans around the system and finds an Orca just floating around that they can fly.

So for me it looks like a bit more exploration training once this Orca is ready to fly.