The race is on!
22nd August 2008 – 11.15 amI need a few million ISK to insure and fit my Drake before trying to complete my first level three mission, which will default to failure within a day. It's lucky there are rats all over the region, as my agent is keen to give me as much work as I can take. It is not so lucky that the galaxy goes offline every day, some kind of high-tech enforced sleep ritual, I don't quite understand what goes on. The question is: can I complete Pirate Intrusion in just over thirty minutes?
I warp to the first deadspace pocket and light up my launchers. As the hostile ships become passive wrecks I point my Salvager module towards them and rip out any useful electronics I can get. My drones help out with some firepower, and the reheat helps to close distances more quickly. A second gate awaits my instruction to boost me to the second deadspace pocket, where I repeat my destructive passage, cleaning up everything behind me.
Then I see it, a message floating in space an unfathomable distance away from me: cluster shutdown in fifteen minutes. Speed between wrecks, Red Panda! Salvage like you've never salvaged before! Time counts down, salvage piles up in my hold. Two wrecks to go, two minutes until cluster shutdown. I am getting salvaging successes more frequently than ever before, which is lucky as my blood pressure probably couldn't take 'your salvaging attempt failed this time' from my on-board computer right now.
Less than one minute until the cluster shuts down, and the deadspace pocket is clear of everything but Red Panda, my Caracal, and some Veldspar asteroids. My mission is in the same system as my agent, so I don't need to jump anywhere, otherwise the salvage would have rusted away for all I cared. I warp back to the station, request docking permission, and... crap. I am left floating metres outside the station.
My mission reward and time bonus is waiting for me, as obstinately out of my grasp as piloting my new Drake. Soon, soon.
3 Responses to “The race is on!”
Today's lunch in town cost me a mission bonus reward of 164,000 ISK. NOM NOM NOM TASTY
I find it quicker to do missions in two parts:
1. Pure combat ship, kill everything you need to as quickly as possible. Make sure you bookmark each pocket. Return to agent, complete mission.
Completing the mission removes the deadspace and mission scenery, but all wrecks and cans remain in space, so you can return to them using the bookmarks. This also means you can use a Microwarp drive (MWD) when salvaging which is much faster than Afterburner.
2. Salvager ship. I use a destroyer, for the 8 high slots for 4 Salvagers and 4 Small Tractor Beams (which let you grab wrecks from 20km away, very handy). My preference is the Thrasher, it has the largest cargo hold of the 4 destroyers (after filling the low slots with Expanded Cargohold modules). Put a MWD and Capacitor Recharger in the mids.
Using a specialised salvage ship with multiple salvagers, Tractor Beams, and MWD means you'll salvage much faster. The extra cargo space is handy too, especially as you do level 3 and eventually level 4 missions. BS loot can be bulky.
If you're feeling very rich and need more speed you can add Salvage Tackle Rigs.
Also, to squeeze out extra cargo space, you can put a Large Container in cargo. Containers have the interesting property of being able to store more volume than they use. Eg: Large Container volume is 650m3, but it can hold 780 m3.
Finally, this site has all the info you need on missions: http://www.eve-survival.org/
It works with the in-game browser too, if you use it.
Have fun!
That all looks like good advice, thanks!
I've trained the skills to work a tractor beam, but not got around to buying and fitting one yet. I'll give it a go.
I imagine multiple Salvager modules could also be used on obstinate wrecks that keep on failing to be salvaged, to improve the chances of subsequent success.
MWDs are equipment that I have planned to investigate and train to use, and I'm sure I'll get around to that soon. So much to do!