Looking for missiles
18th March 2011 – 5.07 pmDespite only just getting home from being stranded, Fin's back out in high-sec empire space. We got the Orca home safely, and Fin transferred the hauled fuel from the industrial command ship to our tower, with overflow being stored in a hangar, giving us over a month's worth of breathing room. Now she's out buying ammunition, as we realised that perhaps we are not optimising the damage our new Legion strategic cruisers can achieve. But the exit we have doesn't appear to be terribly convenient for the market, not being near a hub and thirteen hops from Jita. Fin can't find the ammunition we want and is instead picking up bits and bobs, including some more of the bombs that we find so useful.
Thirteen jumps is a fair distance, but sounds like a good excuse to go on a trip in my Crane transport ship. The time should pass quickly enough and I think the correct ammunition is worth taking time to get, particularly as we have no control over where exits from w-space could take us. Just as we could find ourselves one hop from Jita tomorrow, making me feel like I wasted my time, we could get a string of exits to null-sec and be effectively isolated for days longer. I board my Crane, travel through our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, and jump out to high-sec empire space.
I set my destination to Jita and start my stargate-hopping journey. I have the market window open, browsing for what other fittings we may need, and marvelling at the complete lack of the missiles we're looking for. But the first stargate jump changes everything, and I now see a few dozen sell orders for the desired ammunition. I also notice that the orders are in Dodixie, which sounds like a familiar enough system to me to be at least a minor market hub, and it is really close. In fact, Dodixie is only three hops away from the exit wormhole, it just happens to be across a region boundary and opaque to the market interface.
My journey is much shorter now, perhaps causing me to go a little wild. I buy a quarter of a million advanced missiles and stuff them in to my Crane's hold, returning home much sooner than expected and regretting a little my unrestrained spending on the corporation account. I don't think we'll need to restock these again, ever. And now that we're both home, and have all the fittings we think we need, it's time to collapse our static wormhole. With a hostile fleet seen roaming the C3 next door, coming from class 5 w-space and headed by a heavy interdictor, it is probably best that we don't make targets of ourselves.
The Orca has already made a one-way jump, coming back from being stranded in empire space, which should make collapsing the wormhole simpler. Fin even has a Scorpion battleship parked in empire space near today's exit, abandoned during one of our system moves, which she thinks will be a good finishing blow to the wormhole if it is brought in. I can go out to pick that up. Completely ignoring my good advice of not making ourselves targets to the HIC, I stow my ship and warp my naked pod across the C3 to the exit wormhole, thankfully not seeing any hostile ships, and jump out to collect the Scorpion.
As I dock Fin informs me that our static connection became critically unstable on her final trip out, and that her return will be enough to collapse it. More than that, the Scorpion will do the same, stranding her in the Orca once more. I return home still in my pod, having to leave the Scorpion behind, but at least our wormhole collapses with us both on the right side. Fin lets me get my pod home and in to a Buzzard covert operations boat before returning herself, and I scan and ignore all signatures at home, making it trivial to find the new static wormhole when the old one collapses. But I leave the connection inactive, as it is getting late and I would quite like an isolated system for a now.
It's time for a second test of my Legion. I have tinkered with the fitting, compromising its tank a little for a boost to other systems, which I consider unfortunate but necessary for its success and, paradoxically, its survival. Fin uses her Tengu to put the Legion through its paces again, and we run a couple of simple exercises out in a safe spot in our home system. The changes made to the Legion's configuration look positive, giving my strategic cruiser the upper-hand, if only just. But more skill training can help with that now, improving armour resistances a little, negating rig drawbacks, and finishing the last subsystem skill. At least the ship is looking good in theory and trials, even if combat will be a bit different in practice.
4 Responses to “Looking for missiles”
I'd be very interested in that Legion fit, have been struggling with one for a while (and lost my Legion when I took it fit for class 3 anoms into a class 4 :()
Hmm never though a crane could actually carry that much ammo. Never had my trader use his for that to quite know either but good to know. I can only imagine those missiles must you were looking for must have been T2 missiles.
Oh, you wouldn't want to see my Legion's fit, it wouldn't last long against Sleepers either. But, then, it's not designed for...
Oops, I nearly said too much.
Going from memory, the Crane with two T2 expanded cargo holds has a volume of about 7,110 cubic metres, which can fit around 474,000 missiles with a volume each of 0·015 cubic metres.
You can cram even more in to the hold by carrying two giant secure containers, adding a further 1,800 cubic metres to the Crane's capacity, to carry almost 600,000 of the same missiles.