Relaxing by making ISK
15th April 2014 – 5.51 pmI've calmed down a little about yesterday's Epithal encounter. A little. Okay, not really, because nothing's changed. It's just best not to dwell too much on it. An evening spent blowing the crap out of Sleepers would probably offer some light relief, though, so with glorious leader Fin available and no incoming wormholes, we prepare a small fleet to fend off the indigenous population.
Once again I board a Golem marauder, but screw torpedoes. I'm switching to cruise missiles this time. Don't get me wrong, I much prefer the involvement in maintaining range on Sleepers that naturally engage us from further out than torpedoes hit, it's just that there are other circumstances to take in to account. Mostly, the vulnerability of the marauder, particularly when in bastion mode.
Nothing much changes between a torpedo Golem in bastion mode and a cruise missile Golem in bastion mode, apart from the stupidly long, order-of-magnitude greater range of the cruise missiles. It is this increased range that I want to exploit, naturally, but not for the range itself. Rather, the range lets me keep the Golem in a less risky location within the anomalies.
The torpedo Golem has to be close to the Sleepers, which puts it close to either structures within the anomaly or wrecks of other Sleepers. This makes it easy for an ambushing tackler to get close to the marauder, prior to a fleet warping in for the kill. Warping the Golem in to the anomaly from an arbitrary direction and keeping it sat well over a hundred kilometres from any wreck or structure, on the other hand, significantly mitigates the risk from proximity.
Mitigates, not militates against. Bastion mode still immobilises the ship for a minute at a time, which keeps the marauder an attractive target, as one that can't immediately move when threatened. But we do what we can, and early detection of new signatures combined with an awkward positioning of the Golem should go some way in to keeping it safe from hostile intruders. That, at least, is my reasoning.
So off with the torpedo launchers, on with the cruise missile launchers. We apparently don't have a decent stock of expensive cruise missiles, standard ones will have to do, but the damage should be consistently applied between waves, with no intra-site positioning required. My main concern is with how slow they'll cycle, but I think that is more a reaction to using low-quality launchers previously. Now that I can use the Tech II variants I am hoping I won't be frustrated. Let's see.
In to the first anomaly, with Fin besides me in a Tengu strategic cruiser, and in to bastion mode. Probably. I've managed to warp us in to a blinding gas cloud. Still, activate the launchers and hope the missiles can find their way to the target. The Sleepers won't know what's hitting them. Yeah, they're not quite as satisfying or devastating as torpedoes, but the damage is decent, the range projection is stupidly good, and not having to gauge micro jumps certainly saves some aggravation. One wave goes down, just select a new battleship as a target from the new wave and continue shooting.
It's almost relaxing, like fishing in space. Simple target selection, my picking off the battleships as Fin's Tengu works on the smaller ships, and checking the discovery and directional scanners. No moving required, no following, just sitting and shooting. The lack of messing around gives me time to once again ponder on the relative squishiness of the first wave of battleships. Whether there is a reduction in mutual remote repairs between the Sleepers, or they are a kind of bait to lure us in to the stronger second wave, I can't say. Either way, it's an easy pair of kills.
Three anomalies cleared already. This is going smoothly and efficiently, I have to say. I'm glad I've experienced the torpedo Golem too, but sticking the marauder in bastion mode far out of the site does seem a more sensible option, one that requires the range of cruise missiles. Four, five, and we even have time for a sixth, pretty much clearing our system of profit. Well, nearly.
Swapping the combat ships for Noctis salvagers does the clearing up, leaving behind them a much tidier system to bring back a healthy collection of loot and salvage. Once we get all of this out to empire space to sell it will all pad our wallet with another half-a-billion ISK. That's a good result of a quiet evening, and should help fund some future foolish adventures.
18 Responses to “Relaxing by making ISK”
I executed a perfect logon trap on you two in the third anom of the night, warping into you without you even noticing me in a blinding display of brilliant piloting, but despite the hilarious overpoweredness of my Epithal, the sleepers somehow destroyed me before I managed to lock you two. Somehow a stray missile came over and destroyed the wreck; and still, my presence in the site seemed to remain unnoticed. I think one of you may have gotten up to make tea? I warped my pod off to relative safety, out of dscan range; and plotted my next move. I would strike back against the vile Epithal haters; somehow; somewhen; but first, I had to acquire another Epithal, despite my lack of a connection back to kspace, and the absence of a scanner on my lowly pod.
Join us next week on "The adventures of the overpowered Epithal and its hapless pilot", to see how 2 extra lowslots get me out of this predicament.
Ooh, a cup of tea would hit the spot.
In an addendum to today's devblog, it turns out that the fabled T2 epithal-- since the T1 epithal is so strong, manly, and filled with battle-prowess--will cost 100 times as much and possess only one additional attribute: the ability to automatically brew tea for two, made from nanite repair paste and aqueous liquids. The T2 'teatwo', as it will surely be known, will also be distinguishable by its golden paint job, in a proprietary shade denoted by CCP as 'hundred year tea'. Surely many will quail in their boots as they see an incoming fleet of 200 teatwos warping into their anomaly in an attempt to rescue the hapless and lovable sleepers; but these sleeper-murderers will know that their imminent demise comes at the hands of those with impeccable taste.
In-ship tea brewing, just like British tanks!
Are you really able to keep wrecks far away? Certainly battleships die far off since they are slow and mostly don't want to be near. It might work on cruisers with adequate outgoing DPS, but at least in my experience, not frigates. Most of them make it right up to you.
Also, I should think you'd want to make the salvaging safer and faster by using a mobile tractor. These are warpable.
@VonKeigai: So, place the MTU 100km from you, which aids in keeping any stray frigate wrecks away from you...is there a problem with this scenario that I'm not seeing? If so, it's because I can't see very well out of this Challenger 2 British Main Battle Tank.
The Tengu can pop the frigates really quickly, and can intercept them soon enough to keep them away from the Golem most of the time, at least in our favoured site.
I think MTUs are poor design, because they are definitely a far safer way to loot sites. It would be an obvious beacon to warp to, but using one is probably a good idea.
Drop the MTU, micro-jump away from it? Not a bad idea. If the MTU is next to the Golem, though, the marauder can also salvage as it fights.
I like having smart bombs fitted to my golem. They make quick work of the frigates, but it does put you in a bad spot for getting ganked with all the little frigate wrecks surrounding you. I mitigate that risk by having someone doing overwatch but if no one is available, it puts you in a bit of a pickle.
I did some WH PVE last night. IKR?
The fact that I enjoyed it makes me feel dirty. However, in my defence it was conducted in a vain attempt at getting probed (we ran data sites - why make it easy?) and dropped on. We were probed no less than three times, all in T1 BCs with 2 characters less than 2 months old and nobody bit.
Who can resist a Drake sat at zero on an MTU? Three people at least, that's who.
I had quite a large sad.
More empirical evidence that everyone knows the Drake is bait, Mort.
place the MTU 100km from you, which aids in keeping any stray frigate wrecks away from you...is there a problem with this scenario that I'm not seeing?
Yes. The tractor's range is 120 km, so any sleepers larger than frigates that end up on the wrong side of you won't get their wrecks tractored into the neat ball that makes it so pleasant, fast, and easy to salvage in a super-cheap destroyer.
As far as I've seen sleepers will not use MWD to pull range, only to get closer, which makes this most likely a non-issue.
Also, how slow are you doing those sites if you see sleepers get on any other side of you than the side they spawned at ;P
I can never resist a Drake. People are cooky.
Well, I'm about to get a vargur and try running c4 anoms with vargur/tengu dualbox, so I suppose I can see for myself how the MTU at range works out.
(Just kidding, I'll self-destruct the vargur/tengu in seconds and go back to only epithals. 4lyfe.)
Damn, Epi. You had me worried for a moment there.
Also, DLT, I'm sure I read in my feed recently about someone saying the faction smartbomb fit to their marauder was a good purchase because of the way it took care of frigates, but I just can't find it now. Maybe it was you.
---> In-ship tea brewing, just like British tanks!
I think we should have coffee brewing in italian tanks. "What else?"
Good German beer on tap in an armor tanked space Panzer, perhaps?